Automotive Electronics Market Evolves to More Silicon
29 July 1998
Automotive Electronics Market Evolves to More Silicon
PHOENIX--July 28, 1998--Semico Research Corp. announced the results of a comprehensive study on electronics in the automotive industry this week.
The study entitled Auto-tronics: More Silicon, Less Gas, reports that semiconductor content is projected to increase from $177 per car in 1998 to $438 per car in 2008.
The general trend in car electronics is to integrate more functions per system by fully utilizing existing processing components. New functionality usually requires additional input components and sometimes supplementary output components.
Therefore, the share of the processing components (microcontrollers/microcomputers, discrete memories, ASICs, linear) will decrease as a percent of total semiconductors, from 52.5% in 1998 to 37.0% in 2008.
The share of the output components (power, display drivers, displays) will decrease only marginally from 36.2% in 1998 to 35.7% in 2008. The share of the input components (sensors) will increase significantly from 11.3% in 1998 to 27.3% in 2008.
Over the next decade, automotive applications like car navigation systems are expected to mature, while others - car personal computers - will be introduced.
Navigation systems are another featured growth area. The navigation system represents the on-vehicle component of the Intelligent Vehicle and Highway System (IVHS) which is expected to allow computer-assisted traffic coordination in densely populated urban areas. Off-vehicle components - road communications infrastructure - will be needed to fully implement the ITS vision.
GPS (Global Positioning System) based navigation systems are already commercially available. They will show a remarkable penetration in cars over the next decade. This segment will see a compound annual growth rate of over 32% through 2008.
At the same time, improving the road infrastructure in some areas around the globe - North America, Europe, Japan - will permit improved navigation conditions and traffic management, thus creating a more intelligent transportation system.
According to Semico Research, micro logic revenue increases slowly, despite high unit growth, as improved technology and smaller die lowers the cost per unit. Memory functions are integrated into other ICs causing revenue to decline.
Hybrid disappears and display declines steadily. Linear, power and sensors are the revenue growth markets. As more sophisticated features are added to automobiles, these are the semiconductors which will be required to accomplish the additional tasks.
The study examines the use of computers in cars. The car PC is intended to keep the driver productive while driving. The maturity of speech recognition technology is the key enabling factor for the migration of PCs into vehicles. Car PCs are also aimed at improving safety and offering entertainment to commuters and travelers.
Further information about the study, and other products and services is available at the Semico Research Corp. website WWW.SEMICO.COM, or by contacting Semico Research, at 602/997-0337.
Semico Research Corp. is a leader in providing semiconductor market analysis, research and custom consulting. Its headquarters are in Phoenix, with offices in San Jose, Calif. and Boston, as well as Europe and Japan.