Zhitong Financial APP has learned that there are reports that Sony Group Corp will start mass production of car sensor LiDAR parts in 2023. Sony Group Corp said that after the car camera image sensor, will be committed to LiDAR parts, this will be the company's first mass production of vehicle lidar parts. Huaxin Securities said that sensors have become an important growth point in the auto parts industry chain, and lidar LiDAR is gradually being used in the field of assisted driving and self-driving technology. Based on the development of the core components of lidar and the expansion of the upper and lower reaches of the industrial chain, parts suppliers will usher in growth opportunities.

Sony Group Corp is going to mass-produce a light receiver called SPAD (single Photon Avalanche Diode). SPAD can produce avalanche effect on a single photon, so it has high detection sensitivity and detection distance. At the same time, SPAD requires low reflection intensity, excellent resolution, very weak light can be imaged, and the cost can be reduced by chip, so SPAD is the main development direction of LiDAR detector. SPAD works in the reform mode and has the ability of single-photon detection, which is about 100000 times higher than that of the traditional APD. It can achieve long-distance detection at low laser power, low power consumption and small size, so it has become a major innovation direction.

At present, there have been a number of start-ups in the domestic SPAD field, such as parity Electronics, Core Horizon, Lingming Photon, Xinhui Technology, Flying Electronics, Fushi Technology and so on. It is worth noting that these start-ups have completed varying degrees of financing, including Ningde era, BYD, Huawei Hubble and other well-known companies.

Huaxin Securities said that sensors have become an important growth point in the auto parts industry chain. Lidar LiDAR is gradually being used in the field of assisted driving and self-driving technology. Based on the development of the core components of lidar and the expansion of the upper and lower reaches of the industrial chain, parts suppliers will usher in growth opportunities.

The core components of lidar include transmitting module, receiving module, scanning system and information processing module. Transmitting module and receiving module are the core and key of lidar, which can be divided into three parts: laser transmitter, laser detector and corresponding optical components. At present, semiconductor lasers and photodetectors mainly rely on foreign imports, but domestic enterprises have great prospects and have achieved certain technological breakthroughs. In terms of optical components, lidar companies generally develop and design independently, and then select processing companies in the industry to complete the production and processing processes. The technical level of the domestic supply chain of optical components has completely reached or exceeded that of the foreign supply chain, and has obvious cost advantages, which can completely replace the foreign supply chain and meet the needs of product processing.Optical components account for at least 15% of the overall value of lidar, and Sunny Optical, Juguang Technology, Yongxin Optics, Lante Optics and so on are expected to benefit from their process maturity and scale advantages.

Among the key parts suppliers in China(1) Yongxin optical lidar business has achieved advanced development, and the customer base has expanded to rail transit and industrial fields, expanding products from components to lidar OEM. (2) Sunny Optical is a leading manufacturer of vehicle optics, with more than 30 years of optical development experience and more than 10 years of vehicle lens experience. In the vehicle camera lens market, Sunny Optical's lens shipment has ranked first in the world. (3) Ju Guang Technology can provide EEL line light source emission module, VCSEL surface light source emission module, product customers such as mainland China, Argo AI, etc., and its 22-year revenue is expected to exceed 100 million. (4) Changguang Huaxin is one of the leading domestic manufacturers of VCSEL chips, including EEL and VCSEL chips.

In terms of market scale, according to the current estimates of nearly 30 + on-board projects in Guanxuan, 50-600000 lidars are expected to get on board in 22 years, and the growth rate of 3-4 times next year is expected to reach 200-3 million. The first step of lidar boarding has been achieved. In the future, with the continuous landing of L3 autopilot, lidar will continue to penetrate in the passenger car market. Judging from the demand of lidar in the passenger car market, the global demand is expected to increase from 190000 in 2021 to 27.04 million in 2025, and the domestic demand is expected to increase from 100000 in 2021 to 13.99 million in 2025. It is estimated that the size of the lidar market in the global and Chinese vehicle markets in 2025 is about 12.7 billion US dollars and 6.6 billion US dollars respectively, and the CAGR of the two major markets from 2021 to 2025 is close to 150%.At present, the first step of getting on the bus has been achieved, and hundreds of billions of blue sea space can be expected in the long term, and the lidar industry chain will become a subdivision track with both certainty and flexibility in the current automotive electronics.

Founder Securities believes that the vehicle field leads the upgrading of the lidar industry, and various fields work together to move the vast blue ocean market. Foreign manufacturers temporarily take the lead and take advantage of the accelerated development of the capital market, showing an upsurge of SPAC listing; domestic manufacturers are catching up and rely on strong product strength and depth to regulate mass production. The transceiver module is the core of the lidar, which accounts for more than 60% of the cost and has a decisive impact on the key indicators of the product. The lidar industry presents a technological development route of surface array, chip and integration: planar laser devices are gradually used in the transmitter, VCSEL is expected to occupy more market share in the future, 905nm and 1550nm have their own advantages, and the receiver gradually adopts the low photon palmometer of CMOS technology. The development of SoC chips and other chips is expected to build a growth curve. Domestic manufacturers have successfully cut into the key links of Shanghai and Bohai, lens, prism and light source modules have been shipped smoothly, and fixed-point projects have been increasing.

Related concept stocks:

Torch Technology (688167.SH): the company designs and develops mid-stream emission modules based on upstream core semiconductor laser components and laser optical components, with comprehensive technical advantages and barriers, and is in a leading position in the industry.

Yongxin Optics (603297.SH): the company has successively established cooperation with domestic and foreign well-known companies in the field of lidar, such as Quanergy, Wesai, Innoviz, Magna, Innovusion, Beixing Photon, etc., and the lidar products developed and produced by the company will eventually be used in passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles and self-driving fields.

688127.SH: the glass aspheric lens products produced by the company have been partly supplied to downstream enterprises and used in lidar manufacturing.

Crystal Optoelectronics (002273.SZ): the company's laser radome products have been mass-produced, and have communicated with a number of leading lidar manufacturers in the industry, in addition to laser radome, prism and other optical components may also be mass-produced.

Optical Library Technology (300620.SZ): the lidar field is one of the important development directions of the company in the future. the company can provide integrated solutions for components and light source modules, and its lidar light source module is currently in the stage of small batch production.