The global semiconductor industry market situation in the second half of 2022 was badly affected by inflation, which resulted in a significant drop in growth rate. It's estimated that the semiconductor industry will experience negative growth for 2023 as a whole. However, automotive and storage applications are expected to become the main growth drivers in the coming years.
Sayumi Chung, an analyst at Taiwan's ISTI (Industry, Science and Technology International Strategy Center), stated that due to macroeconomic environmental factors like inflation, the growth speed of the semiconductor industry slowed down in the second half of 2022. Negative growth is almost certain for 2023. Despite that, automotive and storage applications are still expected to become the main source of growth momentum in the sector for the next few years.
Among them, the 2022-2027 compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of automotive semiconductors will reach 11.8%. Besides surpassing the US$100 billion threshold by 2025, it's also expected to surpass industrial/military/aerospace and consumer semiconductors and become the third-largest application field by 2027.
2022-2027 CAGR for each semiconductor application field
Source: ITRI, Gartner, compiled by DIGITIMES, June 2023
With the development of automotive technology and increasing demands for sensors, computing power, power management chips, battery control chips, V2X communication chips, multimedia chips, display driver chips, and more, the average number of chips per new car in 2022 is projected to be over 1,400 and over 3,000 for EVs. The cost of chips per vehicle is expected to grow at an annual rate of 13%, exceeding US$900 by 2025.
Regarding the fastest-growing self-driving applications, the number of automotive electronic products worldwide reached 720 million in 2022 and is projected to grow to 880 million by 2027. Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), automotive high-performance computing (HPC), and EV/HEV will also have high growth potential in the future.
In the field of electrification, the 2022-2027 CAGR of EV/HEV-related applications is expected to reach 20.2%. In the field of intellectualization, ADAS sensing and connectivity will reach 18.9% CAGR. ADAS ECU will reach 32.2% CAGR. As for automotive HPC, it will experience the highest growth rate of 86.1%. Chung explained that this is because automotive HPC integrates over a hundred ECUs, and a car usually requires about 4 to 5 HPCs.
2022-2027 CAGR for each automotive semiconductor application
Source: ITRI, Gartner, compiled by DIGITIMES, June 2023
As for ADAS/AD chips, they can be categorized into three major groups: central system processors, multi-lens processors, and single-lens processors. The representative chip for each group is Nvidia's Orin, Mobileeye's EyeQ5H, and Renesas's R-Car respectively.
Among them, central system processors for ADAS/AD account for 15% of the market, with Tesla and Nvidia as the main players. Furthermore, Qualcomm, which announced in the second half of 2022 that it has received orders from multiple automakers, has also made significant progress in the automotive market in recent years. It's expected to experience significant growth in market share in the future.
Mobileye was able to achieve a market share of around 50% in 2022 by providing complete solutions. However, the increased complexity of the automotive market as well as the customization demand from automakers meant that Mobileye's inflexible business model may face challenges.
Article translated by Jack Wu
