Software will become the core of intelligent vehicle differentiation, and the automotive software architecture will gradually evolve to SOA. Compared with traditional cars, smart cars can create rich and perceptible value and new driving experience for car owners, which is the key to the differentiation of different cars, and software is the core of car intelligence. The value of automotive software is expected to increase rapidly in the future. According to McKinsey’s prediction, the value of automotive software will account for 30% by 2030. At that time, the scale of the global automotive software market will reach 84 billion US dollars. “Hardware embedding and software upgrading” has become the mainstream strategy of current vehicle enterprises. In the next two years, it will become a key node for the development of L3 and higher-level automatic driving. Vehicle enterprises and software suppliers with leading software and algorithm capabilities are expected to obtain important opportunities. With the trend of intelligent and networked vehicles, the automotive electronic and electrical architecture has gradually changed to domain architecture and central computing architecture, which also brings the hardware foundation for the realization of software defined vehicles. In order to meet the rapid development of software and functions, service-oriented software architecture (SOA) has been recognized by the industry. Under the SOA architecture, all service component interfaces are standardized, and the deployment of software no longer depends on specific hardware platform and operating system. Its loose coupling, flexibility and easy expansion truly realize the “separation of software and hardware” of automobile. At present, SAIC, Xiaopeng, Weima and other OEMs have also begun to layout the development of SOA Software Architecture, and may usher in the peak of SOA mass production in the next few years.
Intelligent vehicle software architecture can be divided into system software layer, function software layer and application software layer. 1> The system software is the basis of the on-board operating system. It not only provides an efficient and stable environment support for the upper application and the realization of functions, but also a “bridge” for various applications to schedule the underlying hardware resources. It is in the core position in the overall software and hardware architecture of intelligent vehicles. The system software can be further divided: the hardware abstraction layer mainly includes hypervisor and BSP, in which hypervisor provides the flexibility of carrying heterogeneous operating systems on the same hardware platform, and BSP can support the operating system to run better on the hardware motherboard; OS kernel (belonging to OS in a narrow sense) is the most basic function of the operating system. It is responsible for managing the process, memory, device drivers, files and network system of the system. It determines the performance and stability of the system and is the core of the system software layer. At present, the mainstream OS kernel includes QNX, Linux and VxWorks; Middleware is an important basic software in automotive software architecture. AUTOSAR is the most widely used middleware scheme at present. 2> The function software mainly includes the core common function modules of automatic driving and related middleware. Using these common function modules, developers can carry out the research and development of automatic driving business more efficiently. 3> The application software layer mainly includes intelligent vehicle scene algorithm, cockpit function, data map and other contents, which is the core of the differentiation of automobile intelligent cockpit and automatic driving scheme.
In the era of software defined automobile, manufacturers with full stack capability of software and hardware will have advantages. For traditional Tier1, it is a general trend that some system function development rights are taken back by the main engine factory. In order to avoid becoming a hardware OEM, more and more Tier1 began to build a full stack technical capability of “hardware + underlying software + middleware + application software algorithm + system integration”. Typical representatives include Bosch, Huawei, etc., which is also the key for Tier1 to seize the next high point of market share system. For software suppliers, at present, the main engine factory begins to bypass the traditional Tier1 to seek direct cooperation with software suppliers. Therefore, if software suppliers can provide more software IP product portfolio, they may obtain higher value. In addition, software suppliers are also seeking to enter the hardware design and manufacturing links controlled by traditional Tier1, such as domain controller and Tbox, so as to provide diversified solutions. We believe that manufacturers with full stack capability of software and hardware will occupy an advantage in the wave of automotive intelligence. Relevant companies in the sector include Thunder Software Technology Co.Ltd(300496) , Guangting information, Neusoft Corporation(600718) , Jingwei Hengrun, etc
Investment proposal and investment object
Under the background of software defining automobile, software has become the core of automobile intelligence. Manufacturers with perfect product matrix and full stack capability of software and hardware will have advantages. It is recommended to pay attention to Thunder Software Technology Co.Ltd(300496) (300496, buy), Guangting information (301221, not rated), Neusoft Corporation(600718) (600718, not rated), Jingwei Hengrun (in the process of IPO, it is a target of the automotive industry).
Risk tips
The implementation of automobile intelligence is less than expected, and the shortage of chips continues.
