Infineon: "chiplet" revolution

At the 2016 Munich Electronics Show, a robot loaded with precision chips successfully solved and restored the third-order Rubik's Cube in just 0.637 seconds, setting a new Guinness World Record. This extremely fast processing chip comes from Infineon's AURIX™ chip.

As a leading German semiconductor technology company, Infineon is the largest supplier of automotive electronic chips in Europe and the second largest in the world. In the approximately 80 million new cars produced globally every year, there are 67 devices in almost every car from Infineon.

Infineon, formerly the semiconductor division of Siemens, focuses on automotive electronics, industrial power control, power management and diversified markets, and smart cards and security. In 1995, Infineon established its first factory in Wuxi and officially entered the Chinese market; in 2003, it established its China headquarters in Shanghai; on October 1, 2016, Infineon Greater China (including mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan region) was formally established. In the 22 years of development in China, Infineon has made a lot of investment and layout: it has set up offices in 12 cities in China, has 3 back-end factories, 1 logistics center and more than 2,000 employees. In the generally sluggish manufacturing industry, Infineon China has always maintained a steady growth trend. According to Infineon's annual report, Infineon's sales in China exceeded 1.6 billion euros in fiscal year 2016, accounting for nearly 25% of Infineon's total sales, making it Infineon's market with the highest global sales.

"We are always committed to being a company with sustainable growth." Dr. Su Hua, President of Infineon Greater China and Executive Director of China, said in an interview with the "CEConline" reporter. Dr. Su Hua, who has more than 20 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, joined Infineon in February 2015 and is responsible for the company's overall business operations and strategic planning in the Chinese market. He has a deep insight into the industry and is leading Infineon to practice Transformation and upgrading in the Greater China regional market.

Automation upgrade, Industry 4.0 practitioners

As a founding member of the German Industry 4.0 Executive and Steering Committee, Infineon's Dresden fab has perfectly realized Automation and intelligence, providing leading semiconductor products and solutions to the global market

. With the hot development of China's semiconductor market, Infineon China has also accelerated the pace of automation upgrades.

In October 2015, Infineon invested nearly US$300 million to build a second smart factory in Wuxi, covering an area of 36,000 square meters, which will be completed and put into production in 2017. Since its establishment, the new Wuxi factory has been designed and implemented according to the needs of intelligent factories. All production equipment and processes are completely based on the existing experience of the most advanced factories in Europe and are committed to further intelligent innovation, using Internet of Things technology to achieve The intelligence of the production process. In an advanced intelligent and automated production environment, Infineon's Wuxi back-end factory has achieved 100% traceability of materials and product manufacturing, and the production cycle has been shortened by 50%.

For the standardized work mode of the Infineon factory, Dr. Su Hua summarized it as "4M Law", namely "Man, Machine, Material, Method. ". "People, that is, through automatic inspection, training and certification to ensure that qualified personnel operate and track the machine; machine, through automatic monitoring of equipment status and automatic adjustment of product-based parameters to ensure utilization and flexibility; material, 100% material usage tracking and Efficient utilization; method is the automatic download and parameter adjustment of product-based process programs to reduce human errors. Human-machine material method is the core element in the industrial production process, and the intelligent transformation of Infineon's Wuxi factory is based on them. ”

The essence of an intelligent factory lies in “big data”, Dr. Su Hua emphasized that big data can collect production data of all related products through intelligent management, and operators can analyze the data to guide production. Chen Xiaolong, general manager and executive director of Infineon Technologies (Wuxi) Co., Ltd., believes that the most critical performance of the application of big data lies in the traceability of products. "In the advanced intelligent production environment, the Wuxi back-end factory has one of the most prominent features - to achieve 100% traceability of products, that is to say, for each batch of products produced in the Wuxi factory, our customers will If you find any problems, for example, if you need to go back and modify, you can find the process parameters of these products in the production system of the Wuxi factory, and effectively trace the production process of these products.”

In an increasingly competitive environment, delivery time and quality are important indicators to measure the competitiveness of an enterprise. The intelligent manufacturing process not only effectively shortens the production cycle, but also greatly improves product quality. Chen Xiaolong said: "The implementation of intelligent production will increase the competitiveness of Infineon's products in the global market."

Sustainable development comes from innovation

The current era is at the starting point of great changes in automobile technology. Technology and advanced driver assistance systems play the most critical role. Infineon's AURIX™ chips are born out of this demand. One such application is that the chip could be deployed in the radar of a self-driving car, sensitively sensing obstacles around the body so that it can brake safely and reliably. "In autonomous driving, the radar system is the most critical sensing technology for autonomous vehicles, and the role of the chip is crucial. In addition to sensing everything that is going on around it, the chip also needs to sense everything that is happening around it. In a very short period of time, the perceived information is processed quickly, and then the corresponding correct judgment is made. Only when the processing speed is fast enough, when the obstacle is sensed, it can issue an order to make the car emergency in the shortest time. Brake." Dr. Su Hua explained. The chip was also nominated for the "German Future Award 2015" in September 2015 due to its ultra-fast processing rate and accurate computing power. With innovative solutions, Infineon's R&D team has significantly reduced the cost of radar systems, which will make radar systems, now limited to premium cars, common to all vehicles.

In addition to its early deployment in the field of autonomous driving, Infineon has also accelerated its attention and research on emerging industries. At present, Infineon will mainly focus on the development of robots, drones, smart cars (Internet of Vehicles), smart homes, smart cities, smart agriculture, wearable devices, charging piles and various electric vehicles. In order to grasp the latest trends and core technologies, Infineon has always insisted on strengthening its investment in innovative research and development.

As a technology-oriented enterprise, Infineon carries out technological innovation according to the market, and invests a relatively high proportion in R&D. In the 2016 fiscal year, Infineon's global investment in research and development reached 770 million euros, accounting for about 12% of global sales. At present, Infineon has obtained and is applying for 27,000 patents, of which about 3,300 are in China. In addition, Infineon has 3 R&D centers in China and more than 20 joint laboratories with partners.

In order to implement Infineon's long-standing concept of innovation, Infineon China has implemented this concept into the company's daily operations. Infineon China has a YIP project, Your Ideas Pay. The program evaluates and rewards ideas that bring value and benefits to the company in real time by collecting a wide range of employee ideas or improvements. Dr. Su Hua said: "In terms of innovation in talent training, I have always emphasized that people's thinking mode needs to be changed, because the Chinese team has always focused on the execution level. With the strengthening of China's business, Infineon China will need Consider more strategic work. Therefore, we will arrange a lot of training, and we also hope that our employees can step out of their 'comfort zone'."

In order to encourage innovation of all employees, Infineon China Innovation Week is held every year. "It has been held for three years. The innovation week is very lively every year, and more and more people participate. We divide innovation into two categories, one is technological innovation, and the other is non-technical innovation, such as channel management, business innovations in different aspects such as models, customer experience, etc.” said Dr. Su Hua.

Building an ecosystem to share value

In the automotive electronics ecosystem, China's automotive industry chain is complex and closed. Due to the broad geographical location of China, different geographical locations have created different layouts of car factories and different upstream and downstream supply chain layouts. Among them, the speed at which local technologies and designs can be recognized and promoted is correspondingly much slower.

Based on this situation, Infineon China has been building a local ecosystem for automotive electronics since 2010 in order to open up channels. In order to select more excellent software developers, Infineon China organizes the "Automotive Electronics Developers Conference" every year. "From dozens of companies at the beginning to the present, nearly a thousand companies have participated, and the conference has received more and more attention. Our selection criteria are mainly determined by the market. For example, everyone knows that new energy vehicles are relatively popular, and we will ask everyone to make a request. Provide some suitable solutions. In fact, there are quite a few companies in the Chinese auto ecosystem, but sometimes they may be too small. Although they have good ideas, they do not have enough funds to operate. For such companies , we will be very willing to provide them with financial support." At present, Infineon China has more than 100 contracted partners, more than 300 industrialization cooperation projects, and more than 1,000 R&D engineers for industrialization projects.

"We build this ecosystem to enable end customers, upstream and downstream of the industry chain, partners, governments, associations, scientific research institutions, etc. to communicate freely on the same platform, share new technologies with each other, and jointly promote This has become an inexhaustible driving force for Infineon’s sustainable development.” Dr. Su Hua said, “We hope to continue to strengthen cooperation with local companies by building a local ecosystem. , and work together with the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain to meet challenges and achieve a win-win situation.”

My Made in China Dream

CEConline: What is your understanding of Industry 4.0? What do you think is the essence of Industry 4.0?

Dr. Su Hua: I think Industry 4.0 itself has a development process. In Germany, Industry 4.0 is an overall and long-term strategy for a country. It is divided into 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, so some people say it is the fourth industrial revolution. Regarding the essence of 4.0, I think it may be intelligent manufacturing, which is the improvement and development of the manufacturing industry.

CEConline: What challenges and difficulties do you think Chinese manufacturing companies are facing now?

Dr. Su Hua: I think the manufacturing level of Chinese manufacturing enterprises is uneven. Like Germany's manufacturing industry, its development has been steadily improving in the past few decades, including the proposal of Industry 4.0, which was not born out of nowhere, but developed step by step, with a complete framework and guidelines. Therefore, I think China's manufacturing industry may still be at the stage of Industry 2.0 and 3.0, not tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, a year or two years can jump to Industry 4.0.

CEConline: Under the transformation and upgrading of China's manufacturing industry, what corresponding strategic measures will Infineon China take?

Dr. Su Hua: Our strategy is to promote "win-win with China". In the third month I joined Infineon, I met Chinese Vice Premier Ma Kai and Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei in Germany who attended the Hannover Consumer Electronics Show. Vice Premier Ma Kai hoped that Germany's largest semiconductor company could manufacture for China Do more things. This is what we are doing.

Infineon plays the role of the ground-level architect in the "Industry 4.0" concept. First, our innovative products, technologies and system solutions can help realize "Made in China 2025". Second, Infineon is a practitioner of Industry 4.0, and our factories around the world are already using "Industry 4.0" products and systems. Our wafer fabrication facility in Dresden, Germany is 100% robotic and is one of the most advanced automated fabs in the world. Our intelligent manufacturing factory in Wuxi can bring experience to Chinese enterprises, help China's manufacturing industry to accelerate the transformation and upgrading to intelligent, thus helping to realize "Made in China 2025".

Infineon's "Win-win with China" strategy focuses on four initiatives: 1. Helping "Made in China 2025"; 2. Helping local customers go global; 3. Continuing to pay attention to and support China's emerging industries 4. Build a local ecosystem.

Picture/ASKA