The Electronic Times quoted a source as saying that due to the shortage of automotive chip supply, the delivery date has hardly improved, some international IDMS have increased the quotation of automotive MCU by an average of 20% at the beginning of the first quarter of 2022, or will continue to increase the price in the second quarter. Chip dealers predict that the price of automobile MCU will rise by another 15-20% in the second quarter of 2022.
▍ head IDM manufacturers are listed in
The source quoted foreign media reports that Infineon, NXP, Renesas, Texas Instruments and Italy France semiconductor are ready to further increase the quotation of automotive MCU or power devices to cope with the rising prices of raw materials such as copper, gold, silicon wafer and oil. They are assessing the timing and magnitude of price increases for different products.
The report also said that Renesas, Toshiba and NXP have decided to increase the price of auto chips by 10-20% in the second quarter, while it was also reported in mid February that Infineon has informed downstream distributors of the upcoming price increase [see article: online news that Infineon sent a letter to distributors to “cry” about cost pressure, market speculation or brewing price increase].
The above suppliers brewing price increases have a greater voice. It is understood that among the major auto chip manufacturers in 2020, there are three pillars among the manufacturers in the United States, Japan and Europe. The top five manufacturers include Infineon, NXP, Renesas, Texas Instruments and Italian French semiconductor.
IDM plants with lower voice seem to have no price increase plan. They said that subject to the long-term contract signed with the car factory, the quotation of their car MCU will remain unchanged.
▍ why MCU?
Tianfeng international recently released a research report that MCU is one of the main types of lack of core : main control chip MCU + power chip and drive chip, accounting for 74% of the lack of core, followed by communication chips such as signal chain can / Lin. Gao Qing, an investment analyst at Monita, said that the overall supply of automotive MCU chip market is insufficient, and the automotive MCU orders of Italian French semiconductor, Infineon, NXP and Renesas in 2022 are almost full.
The global automotive electronics market in 2021 is about 270 billion US dollars, and it is expected to be 400 billion US dollars in 2027. The automotive semiconductor market is about US $50.5 billion and is expected to be close to US $100 billion in 2027. Compared with traditional vehicles, it is predicted that the number of chips of new energy vehicles will increase significantly. Among them, the demand for MCU is expected to increase by 30% . It is estimated that 35 chips are required for each new energy vehicle, and the increase in demand is second only to CIS and ISP chips (expected to increase by 50%).
The vehicle specification MCU products have higher requirements in product performance, reliability and service life. At present, mainland manufacturers are less involved in , and almost only mass-produced products in body modules with low safety relevance, including Gigadevice Semiconductor (Beijing) Inc(603986) , Sino Wealth Electronic Ltd(300327) , Chipsea Technologies (Shenzhen) Corp.Ltd(688595) .
Mo Ziqing, an analyst at toubao Research Institute, further said that in recent years, many Chinese manufacturers have gradually begun to develop high-end MCU required for future automotive intelligence. At present, manufacturers in the industry that promote faster include Huada Beidou, Gigadevice Semiconductor (Beijing) Inc(603986) , Byd Company Limited(002594) semiconductor, jiefa technology, etc.
