Perspectives on the Development of China's Domestic Chips from "China C2000" and Its Counterparts

How difficult is it for local Chinese chip manufacturers to challenge international brands? The TI University Program launched in 1996 answers this question from a side perspective. Through the university program, TI brought DSPs into university laboratories and classrooms, so many engineers naturally choose TI products they were exposed to during their school years, using familiar development tools and environments.

This long-term cultivation that ignores short-term returns has built an ecological environment, a moat that now troubles many latecomers eyeing TI's C2000 market share. In addition to chip performance, and years of accumulated technologies such as architecture and methodology, C2000 has long been used in fields like digital power supply and motor control, and TI has accumulated a large number of development resources around these applications.

Yet cracks are still widening little by little. Since customer demands vary, some value real-time performance, some focus on cost and power consumption, and others pay more attention to development convenience, supply capacity and technical support. The products of one manufacturer cannot take all these factors into account, so batches of domestic manufacturers have rushed into the market one after another.

"Looking at the development of domestic chips from C2000, the most noteworthy change is that the market finally has more choices. In the past, TI built deep advantages in the field of real-time control relying on product performance and development ecology. Today, domestic manufacturers are entering from different directions, trying to find breakthroughs in compatibility, cost, architecture and application adaptation," a senior chip industry expert told EEWorld.

The "Chinese C2000" Players

"Local Chinese chip manufacturers still have a tough battle to fight before they can truly gain a firm foothold," the expert shared earnestly with EEWorld. The term "Chinese C2000" itself has illustrated the status of TI C2000. When domestic manufacturers enter the C2000 market, there are roughly three ideas that can be observed:

The first type: Compatibility route. Manufacturers such as Hunan Jinxin and Guliangwei start with TI's existing products to minimize customers' migration costs. For customers who are already using C2000, if the new chip is compatible with the original software development process and part of the code can even be reused, the replacement work will be much easier.

The appeal of this route is not difficult to understand. Customers do not have to start all over again, and domestic chips also get the chance to open up the market with the help of existing applications. Of course, compatibility does not mean direct replacement. The instruction set, peripherals, real-time performance and software behavior all need to be verified. When it comes to the reuse of code or binary files, intellectual property rights and licensing issues must also be considered.

The second type: RISC-V route. Zhongke Haixin entered this field relatively early, manufacturers including Gejian and Jiangxinchuang are also looking for opportunities in the relevant market, and new participants have joined later.

The appeal of RISC-V lies in openness. Manufacturers can design cores according to the needs of real-time control, and have more space to adjust the instruction set and processor configuration. However, the core is only the first step. Whether the compiler, peripherals, algorithm libraries and development tools can keep up determines whether customers can actually use them. From the current situation, some manufacturers have made progress in specific customers and applications, but there is still a long way to go before full-scale rollout.

The third type: Arm route. Manufacturers including Novosense, Yichuangwei, Nations Technologies and GigaDevice are all on this route. The Arm ecology is relatively mature, with high developer familiarity and rich software resources. For customers who want to lower the development threshold, this is a practical choice.

Although the Arm ecology is mature, making good use of Arm MCUs does not mean directly obtaining the control capability of C2000. The real-time response speed, peripheral configuration and algorithm execution efficiency still depend on specific products.

"Most domestic manufacturers are currently in the stage of growing from 0 to 1. Some have opened the door to customers, and some have gained a firm foothold in specific fields," he said. The three routes have their own considerations: the compatibility route hopes to shorten the customer switching cycle, the RISC-V route emphasizes independent architecture and flexibility, and the Arm route can leverage the existing ecology.

In his view, the market is large enough and customer demands are diverse enough. Different manufacturers can fully find their own development space. At present, photovoltaic, energy storage and some equipment for overseas markets have become the key directions that domestic manufacturers focus on. These markets are relatively cost-sensitive, and some customers are also willing to try new chip solutions.

Domestic manufacturers do not have to copy all the products and ecology of foreign manufacturers at the very beginning, nor do they have to compete head-on with foreign manufacturers in all applications. Finding a market that suits themselves, gaining a firm foothold first, and then gradually expanding the scope of products and customers is also a feasible path.

Opportunities Brought by Customers

A mature industrial ecology does not require all manufacturers to squeeze into the same track, nor should there be only a few players.

If there are too few manufacturers, customers have limited choices and the market tends to lack vitality. If there are too many manufacturers and their products are mostly similar without continuous investment, it will be difficult for them to survive in the end. A healthy market requires the participation of manufacturers with different technical routes and different product positioning.

"For engineers, choosing a chip is not just about looking at the main frequency, storage capacity and number of peripherals, but also about whether they can complete development, debugging and mass production quickly. These resources seem inconspicuous, but they can save a lot of effort when actually used."

The technical expert emphasized to EEWorld that especially in power control, engineers are not facing a simple programming problem. Sampling timing, control algorithms, power devices, PCB layout and electromagnetic interference may all affect the final performance. Meeting chip parameters does not mean that the entire system can run smoothly.

For local Chinese chips, the problem is whether they can find a more suitable chip architecture and implementation method while meeting performance requirements. Customers do not only look at prices. Whether the chip can run stably for a long time, whether the supplier can continue to supply goods, and whether timely technical support can be provided when problems occur are all important factors in procurement decisions. Even if a chip passes the initial test, it needs to go through long-term verification in practical applications.

Experience is the Best Teacher

If domestic manufacturers are already able to design chips that meet the demand, why is it still not easy to achieve market breakthroughs? The development experience of C2000 provides a good reference for Chinese chip manufacturers.

In addition to technology and ecology, there is an unavoidable factor: whether the enterprise can make continuous investment. Chip R&D itself requires a large amount of capital. Not to mention luxuries like the university program, after the product is launched, it is also necessary to maintain software tools, improve reference designs, support customer development, and assume the responsibility of long-term supply. All these tasks cost money.

However, according to the current market situation, although some domestic manufacturers have made customer breakthroughs, the scale of their related businesses is still limited. For enterprises that need continuous R&D investment, tens of millions of yuan in sales can hardly support the independent operation of the entire business.

To get more customers, products require continuous investment in R&D and technical support. But R&D and services in turn need revenue to support. For domestic manufacturers that have not yet achieved scale, this is not an easy account to balance. In such competition, capital strength and operational capability are equally important. If an enterprise only focuses on short-term orders without establishing a stable R&D process, product management mechanism and customer service capability, it will be difficult to maintain competitiveness in the long run.

At the same time, China's domestic semiconductor industry is also facing fierce competition. More and more manufacturers are entering the MCU and real-time control market, the differences between products may gradually narrow, and price competition will intensify accordingly.

Looking back at TI, its advantages are not just that a certain chip is well made. It is years of accumulated capabilities from product planning to development tools, from customer support to long-term supply that have formed its current market position.

Domestic manufacturers still have a long way to go. Some enterprises choose to accelerate expansion with the help of capital, while others develop gradually around specific customers and applications. Different models have their own advantages and disadvantages. The key is to find an operation mode suitable for themselves and keep moving forward.

The good news is that the market has opened up some new opportunities for domestic chip enterprises. Different architectures can coexist, and products with different positioning can also find their customers. Customer onboarding is the beginning, and long-term stable operation is the real test. In the next few years, gaps may gradually widen among domestic manufacturers. Those who can continuously gain customer recognition and have fewer problems in product quality and supply capacity will have more chances to survive.

"The next step is to hold on, everyone is waiting for an opportunity."

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "EEWORLD" (ID: EEworldbbs), written by EEWorld, and authorized for release by 36Kr.