Automakers Turn to Chipmakers to Solve Supply Chain Issues

The chip shortage has been hard on vehicle manufacturers. The figures quoted for the industry last year are pretty scary. For example, analyst Alix Partners has predicted that automakers will lose $210bn revenue through producing 7.7 million fewer vehicles. This drop in production has led to automakers stopping production in some plants and dropping shifts in others. The chip shortage is still ongoing and these figures will be much worse by the time it is over. So it is understandable that these automotive companies are doing all they can to try to protect themselves from future incidents of this kind and strengthen their supply chains.

There are different methods of doing this, but two companies in particular have decided that engaging chip companies directly is the best way to move into the future. Both Mercedes and GM have taken that approach for different reasons. GM’s move to partner with Wolfspeed will strengthen GM’s supply chain as it guarantees a supply of SiC products from a local manufacturer. Part of the agreement will see GM participate in the Wolfspeed Assurance of Supply Program (WS AoSP), which is intended to secure domestic, sustainable and scalable materials for EV production. The agreement will also allow GM and Wolfspeed to work closly together to develop future products. This will allow GM to install more efficient EV propulsion systems and extend the range of its EV portfolio. The silicon carbide will specifically be used in the integrated power electronics contained within GM’s Ultium Drive units in its next-generation EVs. These silicon carbide solutions will be produced at Wolfspeed’s 200mm-capable Mohawk Valley Fab in Marcy, New York. Launching in early 2022, the state-of-the-art facility will expand capacity for Wolfspeed’s silicon carbide technologies.

“Our agreement with GM further demonstrates the automotive industry’s commitment to delivering innovative EV solutions to the market and using the latest advances in power management to improve overall vehicle performance,” said Gregg Lowe, CEO of Wolfspeed. “This agreement ensures long-term supply of silicon carbide to GM to help them deliver on their promise of an all-electric future.”

In the case of the Nvidia/Mercedes partnership, NVIDIA will act as the new Tier 1 supplier for most of the vehicle’s electronics. There is a move in automobiles away from a domain based architecture to a zonal based one to cut down on the amount of electronics needed and incorporate the large amount of computing power required for advanced features, such as self driving. Mercedes and Nvidia will work together to develop an architecture based on NVIDIA’s DRIVE platform that will be the basis of the in-vehicle computing system and AI computing infrastructure. From 2024, Mercedes plans to roll out this architecture across all of its vehicles. The two companies claim that this will be the most sophisticated and advanced computing architecture ever deployed in an automobile. What that means is that the majority of ECUs found in current vehicle designs will no longer be needed as the zonal controllers takes up their workload.

www.wolfspeed.com