Only by developing its own kernel can functional safety be ensured from the ground up.
For those encountering ChipON's KungFu series products for the first time, whether it's the KungFu8 or KungFu32, the significance of a self-developed core might be puzzling. Differentiation can be achieved by integrating different resources and peripherals internally, like many XX32 products. However, in automotive electronics applications, Lu Hengyang states that a self-developed core is an essential technical approach. The automotive electronics field has high requirements for chip functional safety, and only through a self-developed core can these functional safety features be implemented at the underlying level, ensuring a sufficient level of security. According to Lu Hengyang, the automotive-grade MCU developed using the KungFu32 core meets many specifications and requirements specific to the automotive electronics field, including ECC verification, which is a crucial aspect of memory security design in automotive electronics. Fault detection and dual watchdog timers ensure reliable operation, also safety requirements inherent in automotive electronics. A closer look reveals that self-developed IP for automotive-grade chips is a necessary practice. Industry examples include TI's Jacinto series, Renesas' R-Car series, and Infineon's TriCore AURIX series. Lu Hengyang stated that for true commercialization to be used in applications with higher and safer levels, ChipON still hopes to adopt its proprietary Kungfu processor core. Based on this, it aims to provide automotive electronics with MCU products that have higher functional safety levels and higher performance. This is an important idea behind ChipON's self-developed core products.
Currently, ChipON's main application in automotive electronics is body control, including in-vehicle systems, smart cockpits, TBOX, OBC on-board chargers, DCM, and other body control solutions, as well as solutions related to automotive power motor control. Besides safety, another major advantage of the Kungfu 32 core is its better compatibility between power consumption and performance. This is reflected in its products with very low dynamic power consumption; at a 120MHz clock speed, the overall chip power consumption is only 7.5mA.
MCUs still have significant growth potential in the automotive electronics market.
Currently, my country manufactures approximately 25 million vehicles annually, with each vehicle using around 50 MCUs. A C-segment sedan might use up to 100 MCUs. If a chip manufacturer can cover a sufficient number of applications in a single vehicle, then its sales revenue could see significant growth.
Furthermore, as the concept of domain control becomes more deeply ingrained, the importance and quantity of MCUs in each vehicle will continue to increase. According to Lu Hengyang, as the level of automotive intelligence improves, the security of domain control becomes a critical point. The overall system complexity increases, and the power domain becomes increasingly complex. Vehicles contain power supplies with different voltages, including 48V, 24V, 12V, 5V, and 3.3V. With subsequent changes in chip manufacturing processes, this voltage system will become even more complex. At this point, the characteristics of MCUs—real-time monitoring and real-time control—can effectively monitor and control different power domains, achieving real-time response.
When discussing the learning curve of developing a self-developed kernel MCU and the issue of migrating existing designs for developers, Lu Hengyang stated that this would not be a problem. ChipON provides standard peripheral library functions, and the underlying allocation is already complete, with support from the popular Eclipse. Users do not need to consider the underlying details during development, and many customers can complete the development of the entire prototype and product in a very short period of one or two months.
