March_Automotive MCU｜Worldwide MCU Market Trend Analysis (Next)

Published On: 2023/03/02|Categories: 科技(Technology)|

MCUTrends in the development of

According to a report released by market research firm IC Insights, the top five MCU vendors in terms of sales in 2021 will be, in order, NXP, Microchip, Renesas, STMicroelectronics, and Infineon, with market shares of 18.8%, 17.8%, 17.0%, 16.7%, 11.8%, and 11.8%, respectively, 16.7% and 11.8% respectively, with STMicroelectronics having the highest annual growth rate of 35%. The 6th to 10th vendors are TI, Nuvoton, Rohm, Samsung, and Toshiba, with a combined market share of 11.4%. The market share of the top 10 vendors is only 6.5%, indicating that the market is highly concentrated.

Due to the limited computing power requirements and the difficulty of integrating embedded memory processes, the most powerful MCUs are currently produced on 16nm processes. The world's leading manufacturers are all Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs) with 8-inch wafer fabs and packaging and testing factories with 90nm or higher process, so about 79% of MCUs are produced in 8-inch wafer fabs. Considering the large amount of investment in high-end chip manufacturing process and the high difficulty in technical research and development, coupled with the characteristics of a small number of MCU products, it is difficult to achieve better production efficiency, therefore, the processes including those below 90nm are outsourced to foundries, of which about 70% of automotive MCUs are manufactured by TSMC. Considering driving and occupant safety, automotive MCUs require a 3~5 year certification period before mass production, and the high threshold and time-consuming certification specifications have resulted in automotive manufacturers not changing suppliers easily, which has led to the market being monopolized by a handful of large foreign benchmark manufacturers.

由於終端應用領域不斷擴大，故目前全球MCU市場仍處於成長階段，並具有高性能、低功耗、異質整合、智慧化與更安全等發展趨勢，說明如下 :

高性能:面對不斷出現更複雜且資料量更龐大的應用場景，MCU勢必要持續提升資訊處理能力，使得32位元成為市場主流產品，根據市場研究機構Yole Développement發布資料，2021年32位元 MCU市場占比為57%，預估2026年將增長至66%，另一家市場研究機構IC Insights指出32位元產品具備最大成長動能，預估2021至2026年全球市場的年複合成長率將高達4%，16位元產品約為1.6%，4及8位元產品則幾無成長率。
低功耗:物聯網系統擁有數量龐大的終端無線感測器，通常需要全天處於連接狀態，故續航時間成為其產品開發重點，特別是隧道或橋樑中的檢測用感測器的續航能力常常要求長達十年以上。然而體積小限制物聯網產品的電池容量，故必須採用低功耗MCU來提升續航力，因此成為廠商的新產品發展重點。
異質整合: 物聯網終端需要通過感測器收集資訊，並利用無線通訊模組發送與接收資料。因此透過先進封裝技術將感測器、MCU與無線射頻模組整合成單一元件已成為產品重要發展趨勢，藉以降低製造成本與功耗。
智慧化:AI應用日趨普及讓更多MCU搭載AI加速器以提升運算效能。2020年ARM發佈Cortex-M55和Ethos-U55等兩款具備Edge AI晶片。相較前代產品，Cortex-M55的信號處理性能提高5倍與器學習性能提高15倍。Ethos-U55是Cortex-M配套的類神經網路處理器，能和Cortex-M55、Cortex-M33、Cortex-M7、Cortex-M4等MCU產品搭配使用，它配備32至256個計算單元，較Cortex-M55的機器學習能力最多可提升32倍。Cortex-M55和Ethos-U55搭配使用能為MCU提高至480倍的機器學習性能。
更安全:物聯網設備常處於連網狀態，其運行的作業系統、應用程式若存在資安漏洞，可讓駭客籍此對MCU展開攻擊、篡改或竊取用戶重要資料。採取的防禦措施除了提高破解難度外，還應該在MCU內部對使用者的關鍵資料進行嚴格保護，目前ARM和Intel分別推出名為ARM TrustZone、Intel SGX的資安防護技術，未來隨著應用範圍擴大，預期將出現更多MCU用資安技術。