The common-or-garden microcontroller (MCU) is roaring again into the limelight within the post-Covid world whereas persevering with to be pervasive in embedded management and computing features. Its progress is now primarily pushed by embedded automation and the unfold of sensors. Right here, automotive is the elephant within the room, with MCU consumption in automobile designs spanning from infotainment methods to energy home windows and powertrain to engine controls.
In 2019, MCUs fell 7% as a consequence of a weak world economic system, after which dropped 2% in 2020 due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus pandemic. Nevertheless, the worst of the coronavirus-driven downturn was over in the summertime of 2020. That’s when automotive and different end-use markets started to stabilize, and MCU suppliers began to lag behind the rebound-driven upturn.
Nevertheless, in line with IC Insights’ mid-year replace to The McClean Report 2021, MCU suppliers started to ramp up manufacturing within the second half of 2021. As an example, in July 2021, TSMC introduced it has elevated its third-quarter wafer fab capability for automotive MCUs by 60%, which was 30% greater than pre-pandemic ranges.
Determine 1 The highest 5 microcontroller suppliers accounted for 82.1% of MCU gross sales in 2021.
Now IC Insights’ second-quarter replace of its 2022 McClean Report reveals extra particulars of MCU’s staggering progress cycle within the post-coronavirus occasions. For instance, the 2021 surge was the very best proportion progress within the MCU market since 2000. Furthermore, the typical promoting worth (ASP) for MCUs climbed 12% in 2021, the very best annual enhance because the mid-Nineties.
It’s price noting right here that ASPs for 32-bit MCUs have been the very best, and greater than three-fourths of automotive MCU gross sales come from 32-bit microcontrollers. One other notable development: all 5 high MCU suppliers—NXP, Microchip, Renesas, ST, and Infineon—develop and promote ARM-based MCUs. Lastly, MCU suppliers that made MCU-centric acquisitions have fared a lot better.
On reflection, mergers and acquisitions have paid handsomely within the MCU area. Take the case of Renesas, which had the highest spot in MCU rankings again within the first half of the 2010s. Then, whereas Renesas was busy buying analog corporations like Intersil, NXP purchased one other main MCU provider, Freescale. And that’s how NXP pushed Renesas to the runner-up place within the MCU world.
Quick ahead to 2022, even the runner-up place has been taken over by Microchip, an organization recognized for making acquisitions, together with the acquisition of MCU powerhouse Atmel in 2016. Infineon marks one other acquisition success story with its Cypress Semiconductor deal. The acquisition made in 2020 helped Infineon broaden into automotive MCUs and different embedded methods functions and seize the fifth spot in MCU rankings.
Determine 2 The 32-bit microcontrollers rose by 13% in 2021.
The above information from IC Insights demonstrates that the microcontroller phase is alive and effectively and exhibits no indicators of stagnation. On the top of chip shortages and manufacturing constraints in 2021, its shipments grew by 13% to 31.2 billion items. The information additionally exhibits that scale is turning into essential, and the phase is falling into the palms of enormous MCU makers.
In 2021, MCU suppliers outdoors the top-10 record had simply 6.5% of the market share.
Majeed Ahmad, editor-in-chief of EDN and Planet Analog, has coated the electronics design business for greater than twenty years.
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