MCU - The Center of the Electronic Component Shortage Storm

Around 70 pieces?semiconductors needed by Conventional cars, and more than 300 pieces for emobility. When a wave of electronic component shortages sweeps the world.The price of some materials have increased of more than dozen times,such as from 8 to 640. It, the #MCU.

By reading this article, you will know

1. what is an MCU?

2. where are MCUs used in cars?

3. Who are the players in MCUs? What are their strengths?

MCU full name is Microcontroller Unit.Which is like a basic computer system moved to a single chip, containing a reduced version of the #CPU, #RAM, #ROM, #I/O, #counters, #serial ports, etc. Although its performance is certainly not as well as a computer in a broad sense, however it is low-power, programmable and flexible. so it has a very wide range of applications in the area of #consumer electronics, #medical, #industrial, #communications, and #automotive.

It was born in 1971, #Intel designed the world's first microprocessor - a four-bit chip named 4004, which integrated more than 2,000 transistors, while Intel also designed the 4001, 4002, 4003 chips, respectively, RAM, ROM and registers.

When these four products were launched, Intel wrote in the advertisement "Announcing a new era of integrated circuits: microcomputers condensed on a single chip." At that time, 8-bit and 16-bit processors were mainly used in small and large computers, so Intel soon launched the 8-bit microprocessor 8008 in 1972 to quickly win the market, which opened the era of single-chip computers.

In 1976, Intel launched the world's first #programmable microcomputer controller 8748, which integrated 8-bit CPU, 8-bit parallel I/O, 8-bit counter, RAM, ROM, etc. internally to meet the needs of general industrial control and instrumentation, etc. With 8748 as the representative, it opened the exploration of microcontroller in the industrial field.

By the 1980s, 8-bit microcontrollers began to become more and more mature, RAM, ROM capacity increased, generally with a serial interface, but also a multi-level interrupt processing system, multiple 16-bit counters, etc.. In 1983, Intel launched the MCS-96 series of 16-bit high-performance microcontrollers, with 120,000 internal integrated transistors.

Since the 1990s, MCU has entered the stage of a hundred of competitions, blossoming in all aspects of performance, speed, reliability, and integration. Depending on the number of bits in the bus or data registers, there are 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, and 64-bit microcontrollers from the initial 4-bit gradual development.

Currently, the instruction set of MCU is mainly divided into CISC and RISC, and the core architecture is dominated by ARM Cortex, Intel 8051 and RISC-V. According to the 2020 China general-purpose microcontroller (MCU) market brief, 32-bit MCU products account for 55% of the market, followed by 8-bit products with 43%, 4-bit products with 2%, and 16-bit products with 1%, which shows that the mainstream products are 32-bit and 8-bit MCUs, and the market space of 16-bit MCUs is seriously squeezed. The market space of 16-bit MCU products is seriously squeezed.

CISC instruction set products accounted for 24% of the market, RISC instruction set products accounted for 76% of the market mainstream products; Intel 8051 core products accounted for 22% of the market, followed by ARM Cortex-M0 products, accounting for 20%, ARM Cortex-M3 products accounted for 14%, ARM Cortex-M4 products accounted for 12% ARM Cortex-M0+ products accounted for 5%, ARM Cortex-M23 products accounted for 1%, RISC-V core products accounted for 1%, and others accounted for 24%.

In a comprehensive view, ARM Cortex series cores account for 52% of the market mainstream. The MCU market has been facing a significant price decline over the past 20 years, but its average selling price (ASP) decline has been slowing down over the past five years. After the automotive industry downturn, the global economic weakness, and the epidemic crisis, the MCU market started to recover from 2020.

According to IC Insights data, MCU shipments grew 8% in 2020 and total MCU shipments grew to 12% in 2021, a record high of 30.9 billion units, while ASPs also rose 10%, the highest increase in 25 years.

With automotive electronics being the largest application scenario for #MCUs, IC Insights expects worldwide MCU sales to grow by 10% to a record $21.5 billion in 2022, with automotive MCU growth outpacing most other end markets. Over 40% of MCU sales come from automotive electronics, and automotive MCU sales are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.7% over the next five years, outpacing general-purpose MCUs (7.3%).

At present, automotive MCUs are mainly 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit, and different bits of MCUs play different jobs. Specifically: 8-bit MCU is mainly used for more basic control functions, such as #seat, #air conditioning, fan, windows, #door control module, etc. 16-bit MCU is mainly used for lower body, such as #engine, electronic #brake, #suspension system and other power and transmission system. 32-bit MCU fits the car intelligence, mainly used for cockpit entertainment, #ADAS, #body control and other high-end intelligent and safe application scenarios.

At this stage, 8-bit MCUs are growing in performance and memory capacity, and with their own cost effectiveness, they can replace some 16-bit MCU applications and are also backward compatible with 4-bit MCU applications. The 32-bit MCU will play an increasingly important master control role in the entire automotive E/E architecture, and can manage four scattered low-end and mid-range ECU units, and the number of uses will continue to increase.

The above situation makes the 16-bit MCU in a relatively awkward position, not high but low, but in some application scenarios, it still has a use, such as some key applications of the powertrain. Automotive intelligence has significantly boosted demand for 32-bit MCUs.

According to the McClean report, in 2021, more than three-quarters of automotive MCU sales will come from 32-bit MCUs, which are expected to reach about $5.83 billion; 16-bit MCUs will generate about $1.34 billion in revenue; and 8-bit MCUs will generate about $441 million in revenue.

And from the application level, # infotainment is the application scenario with the highest year-on-year increase in automotive MCU sales, with a 59% increase in 2021 compared to 2020, and a 20% increase in revenue for the rest of the scenarios. Now all the electronic control of the car to use ECU (electronic control unit), and MCU is the core control chip of the ECU, each ECU has at least one MCU, so the current stage of the transformation and upgrading of intelligent electrification prompted the demand for MCU single vehicle usage to increase.

According to the data from the Research Department of the Automotive Marketing Expert Committee of the China Marketing Institute, the average number of ECUs carried by ordinary traditional fuel cars is 70, and the number of ECUs carried by luxury traditional fuel cars can reach 150 because of the higher performance requirements for #seats, #central control entertainment, #body stability and safety, etc., while the average number of ECUs carried by smart cars can reach 300 because of the new software and hardware requirements for autonomous driving and assisted driving. The average number of ECUs installed in a single vehicle can reach 300, which corresponds to a single vehicle usage of more than 300 MCUs.

The strong demand for MCUs from automakers will be especially evident in 2021 when there is a shortage of cores due to the epidemic. That year, many car companies had to briefly #shutdown some production lines due to the lack of cores, but sales of automotive MCUs soared 23% to a record high of $7.6 billion. Most automotive chips are produced on #8-inch wafers, with some manufacturers such as #TI shifting to 12-inch lines, and #IDM also outsourcing some of its production capacity to foundries, which is dominated by MCU, with about 70 percent of the capacity covered by TSMC.

But the automotive business itself accounts for a very small proportion of TSMC, and TSMC heavy in the field of advanced process technology for consumer electronics, thus making the automotive MCU market is particularly tight.

Automotive chips led by the shortage of goods also let the entire semiconductor industry ushered in a wave of expansion, the major foundries and IDM plants to actively expand production, but the focus varies.

#TSMC's plant in Kumamoto is expected to be put into operation by the end of 2024. In addition to the 22/28nm process, it will further provide 12 and 16nm processes, and the Nanjing plant will expand its production by 28nm, increasing its monthly capacity by 40,000 pieces.

#SMIC plans to expand production by at least 45,000 8-inch wafers and at least 10,000 12-inch wafers in 2021, and build a 12-inch production line with a monthly capacity of 120,000 wafers in Lingang, focusing on 28nm and above nodes.

#Huahong expects to accelerate its 12-inch capacity expansion to 94,500 wafers in 2022.

#Renesas announced its stake in TSMC's Kumamoto plant, intends to expand outsourcing, and aims to increase automotive MCU supply by 50% by 2023, with high-end MCU capacity expected to increase by 50% and low-end MCU capacity by about 70% from the end of 2021.

#STMicro electronics 2022 will invest $1.4 billion in production expansion, plans to double the capacity of European plants by 2025, mainly to increase 12-inch capacity, for 8-inch capacity, STMicroelectronics will be selective for products that do not require 12-inch technology to enhance.

#TI will add four new plants, the first plant is expected to be put into operation in 2025, and the third and fourth plants will be built between 2026 and 2030.

#ON Semiconductor will increase capital investment to 12%, mainly for 12-inch wafer capacity expansion.

IC insights has an interesting data that the ASP of all 32-bit MCUs is declining at a CAGR of -4.4% year-on-year between 2015 and 2020, but rises about 13% to about $0.72 in 2021. Reflected in the spot market, the price fluctuations of automotive MCUs are more pronounced: the standing price of $22 for the NXP 32-bit MCU?

#FS32K144HAT0MLH shot up to $550, a range of more than 20 times, and was one of the most scarce automotive chips at the time.

Infineon 32-bit automotive MCU #SAK-TC277TP-64F200N DC had once risen to 4,500 yuan, an increase of nearly 100 times, the same series of #SAK-TC275T-64F200N DC also surged to more than 2,000 yuan.

On the other side, the original hot consumer electronics began to cool down, the demand is weak, as well as the acceleration of domestic substitution, making general-purpose, consumer MCU prices back down, some ST chip models such as F0/F1/F3 series prices to the norm near the price, and even the market rumors that some MCU prices have fallen through the agency price. While Renesas, NXP, Infineon, ST and other #automotive MCU is still in a relatively shortage of state.

such as ST high-performance 32-bit #MCU #STM32H743VIT6 at the end of last year, the offer climbed to 600 yuan, while two years ago its offer was only 48 yuan, an increase of 10 times;.

Infineon automotive #MCU #SAK-TC237LP-32F200N AC market price in October last year at about $1200, December offer up to $3800, and even on third-party websites offer more than $5000.

Other information will be updated in the next article.