As the full-scale opening of the autonomous vehicle era is predicted, the semiconductor industry is expected to grow as well. This is because a general car has 200 to 300 semiconductor chips, but more than 2,000 semiconductors are required for autonomous vehicles of Level 3 (conditional autonomous driving requiring driver intervention) or higher. Global semiconductor companies Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are also targeting this market and are predicting large-scale investments.
◇ Self-driving car with storm growth… In it
According to the market research firm Statista on the 26th, the global automotive semiconductor market is expected to increase from 45 billion dollars (49.800 billion won) in 2020 to 175 billion dollars (193.700 billion won) in 2040.
Most global automakers including Hyundai Motor Company are releasing partially self-driving cars one after another, and governments around the world are also working to support such industries. Statista predicts that 12% of the world’s cars will be level 4-5 autonomous vehicles by 2030.
The Korean government also decided to invest 1.97 trillion won in the’autonomous driving technology development innovation project’ by 2027. The global electric vehicle fever is also expected to have a positive effect on the increase in demand for semiconductors for autonomous vehicles.
Automotive semiconductors are mostly included in the’system semiconductor’ area, which is evaluated as a high value-added industry and a high entry barrier compared to memory semiconductors. In addition, as the level of autonomous driving increases, the number of semiconductors required increases.
For example, in vehicle semiconductors, many semiconductors such as an application processor (AP) that acts as a brain, image and vision sensors, and radio frequency identification devices (RFID) are input to a degree that is difficult to compare with general vehicles.
The level of self-driving cars ranges from levels 1 to 5 based on human intervention. Level 4 is mostly driven in autonomous driving mode, but requires driver intervention or monitoring, and from Level 5, it is a fully autonomous vehicle that does not require human intervention in all environments. Currently, the autonomous driving performance of commercially available vehicles is at the level 3 level only.
◇ Samsung and SK likely to invest in large scale
It is expected that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which dominate the global market in the memory semiconductor field, will also make bold investments in such a high-growth market.
In particular, since 2018, Samsung Electronics has been making achievements after first launching automotive semiconductor brands such as automotive processor’Exynos Auto’ and image sensor brand’ISOCELL Auto’. In 2019, it also announced’Semiconductor Vision 2030′, a plan to invest 133 trillion won in order to take the world’s No. 1 ranking in the system semiconductor field by 2030.
That year, Samsung Electronics also supplied the’Exynos Auto V9′ processor to Audi, a global automobile company. An official from Samsung Electronics said, “We do not officially disclose additional automotive semiconductor customers,” but confirmed that the number of automakers that have supplied automotive semiconductors has continued to increase since then.
◇ Group-level support shooting is also expected
Currently, the global automotive semiconductor market is dominated by NXP in the Netherlands, Texas Instruments in the US, Infineon Technology in Germany, Renesas Electronics in Japan, and STMicroelectronics in Switzerland. However, as it is a large industry that is expected to grow, it is expected that Samsung and SK will also support group-level support to catch up with the leadership.
System semiconductors, including automotive semiconductors, are also the top priority of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong. He is directly taking care of the system semiconductor business when he announced the semiconductor vision 2030 two years ago. The field that Vice Chairman Lee picked as his first management move this year was semiconductors. On the 4th, the first working day of the new year, he visited a ceremony for bringing in foundry production facilities at Pyeongtaek Plant 2 and left a short and bold word, “Let’s make a myth in system semiconductors.”
SK Corp., the holding company of SK Group, recently announced its four core businesses, including advanced materials, green, bio, and digital, and announced that it will target the artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous driving markets through a digital investment center. An official from SK Corp. explained, “It means that we are proactively discovering and investing in promising technologies,” and “It means that we will engage in equity investments and mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in companies in related fields.”
An official from SK Hynix said, “The automotive semiconductor is in its infancy so far from the standpoint of SK Hynix, but we are responding with anticipation that the autonomous vehicle market will open.”