According to the region where MEMS and sensor companies are produced, the TOP1 in 2018 is in Japan, followed by China Taiwan, North America, Europe/Middle East. China is now in sixth place and is expected to rise to third place by 2023.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Semiconductor Industry Watch” (ID: Icbank).
According to a report released by the Global Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Materials Association (SEMI), the production capacity of MEMS/Sensor Fabs will increase by 25% between 2018 and 2023, and monthly capacity will increase to 4.7 million. Sheet (converted in 200nm wafer). This is driven by the needs of other applications such as communications, automotive, medical, mobile, industrial and Internet of Things (IoT).
SEMI also surveyed more than 230 companies and more than 400 production lines, of which MEMS Fab accounted for 46%, followed by image sensor (Image Sensor) Fab accounted for 40%, the remaining 14% for simultaneous production of MEMS and image maps The Fab of the sensor.
The monthly capacity of MEMS and sensors (left axis, converted to 200mm wafers, in units of wafers), and the number of Fabs (right axis). (This statistic does not include research and development, trial production, EPI production line. For the predicted number of Fabs after 2019, only Fabs with a probability of more than 50% are counted.) (Photo: SEMI)
The maximum capacity of MEMS and sensors is in Japan
According to the area where MEMS and sensor companies are produced, the TOP1 in 2018 is in Japan, followed by China Taiwan, North America, Europe/Middle East. China is now in sixth place and is expected to rise to third place by 2023.
According to SEMI’s forecast, Japan and China Taiwan will not be surpassed by mainland China until at least 2023, and they can temporarily sit TOP1 and TOP2.
About Fab’s equipment investment forecast, SEMI also pointed out that between 2018 and 2023, it is estimated that there will be about 4 billion US dollars (about 28 billion yuan) of investment every year. Almost all (about 70%) used to make 300Mm wafer size image sensor factory. It is predicted that Japan’s Fab investment in 2020 will be close to 2 billion US dollars (about 14 billion yuan), more than half of which comes from SONY Semiconductor Solutions. The amount of investment in Taiwan is expected to reach 1.6 billion US dollars (about 11.2 billion yuan) in 2023.
Between 2018 and 2023, 14 new Fabs of 200mm and 300mm wafers will be added, most of which are in mainland China, and others in Japan, Taiwan, and Europe.
Sensor, Sony has an absolute presence
Sony (in fact, manufactured by SONY Semiconductor Manufacturing, a subsidiary of its subsidiary SONY Semiconductor Solutions), CMOS image sensor (CIS) accounts for approximately 50% of the world (calculated by sales amount), and TOP2 is Samsung Electronics (The global ratio is about 20%), the gap between Sony and Samsung is so great, it can be seen that Sony’s presence in the sensor industry is very outstanding.
According to Sony’s latest data, sales of their semiconductor division increased 22% from the same period last year to 310.7 billion yen (about RMB 18.6 billion), from July to September 2019. Profits increased by 28.5 billion yen (about 1.7 billion yuan) year-on-year to 76.4 billion yen (about 4.6 billion yuan).
At the same time, Sony also raised its forecast for FY 2019, with sales up 50 billion yen (about 3 billion yuan), up to 1 trillion yen (about 62.4 billion yuan), operating profit. It is raised by 55 billion yen (about RMB 3.3 billion) and raised to 200 billion yen (about RMB 12 billion).
In addition, according to Sony’s prediction, the demand for image sensors will continue to increase due to the multi-functionality of smartphone cameras and the popularity of 5G, a new generation of communication technology. To this end, Sony said that in response to the increasing demand, the company will invest 120 billion yen (about 7.2 billion yuan) to build a new factory next to the Nagasaki Technology Center in Sasaki, Nagasaki. Construction began at the end of this year at the earliest, and began to move in 2021.
In addition, Sony originally planned to increase its current production capacity (100,000 pieces per month, existing production lines and factories) to 130,000 pieces per month by March 2021, but in order to further expand production capacity, it is planned to 2021. The production capacity in March increased to 138,000 pieces/month (Figure 1). After the expansion of production capacity, it will coincide with the time when the new plant will start to move, and the monthly production capacity will increase by tens of thousands.
Unit: (thousands/month)* Calculated on a 300mm wafer, including production commissioned to an external factory.
The Sony Group’s monthly CMOS image sensor capacity (300mm wafer) is shifted. (Picture from: Sony’s final account information, 2019.10.30)
IC Insights data shows that the share of Japanese semiconductors was as high as 49% in 1990, but under the influence of corporate offensives in South Korea and Taiwan, the global share of Japanese semiconductors has shrunk to 7% in 2018, while Sony is seen It is a banner in the field of Japanese semiconductors.
The reason why I invested heavily in this time. According to Sony’s plan, they hope to increase the market share to 60% by 2025 in order to open Samsung.
Japanese forces are not inferior in MEMS field
As a semiconductor MEMS market trend research company, France Yole Développement has announced the TOP30 ranking of MEMS manufacturers’ sales, among which Broadcom and Bosch are among the top two.
According to Yole, the factor that keeps Broadcom in the first place is their RF MEMS. They pointed out that as the frequency of smartphones increases, the demand for RF frequency bandwidth filters and front-end modules is gradually increasing. With the further development of 5G in the future, the demand in this area will be even higher.
In the second place, according to Yole’s technology and market analyst Dimitrios Damianos, almost all new cars are equipped with Bosch’s five MEMS, and about 50% of the world’s smartphones are equipped with at least Bosch. 1 MEMS. Yole believes that the “fight” between Bosch and Broadcom will intensify in the future.
But in fact, if we carefully count this data, you will find that Japanese manufacturers are not inferior in these two areas.
From the list of Yole, we can see that the Japanese company TDK Group ranked ninth, the tenth is Panasonic, the 14th is Denso, the 16th is Canon, and the 17th is AKM (Asahi Kasei Micro Electronics) The 18th is Murata Manufacturing, the 21st is ALPS Electric, the 27th is Epson, the 29th is Omron, and the 30th is SONY Semicon.Ductor Solutions, a total of 10 companies. Since Sony’s MEMS are produced at the Technology Center in Kagoshima, CMOS image sensors are not included.
Statistics show that, in other words, the total sales of 10 Japanese companies are much higher than TOP1 (Broadcom in the US) and TOP2 (Robert Bosch in Germany), if compared with the size of the top companies, Japanese companies The scale of the business is extremely small and the growth rate is low (some companies even have negative growth). Like the power semiconductor market, Japanese companies are unable to expand their business with economies of scale, but there are not many Japanese companies that can take advantage of the sensor industry like Sony.
2018 MEMS vendor sales ranking, TOP30.
(Image by: Yole Développement)
How is the Chinese MEMS/sensor market?
After having a general understanding of the entire MEMS/sensor market, I believe that there is also a strong interest in the representation of domestic manufacturers in this field. Let’s first look at the CMOS image sensor market.
According to IHS data, there is a Chinese manufacturer in the top six CMOS image sensor list, which is the recent acquisition of Howe Technology by Weir. According to the data, the company was founded in 1995, mainly engaged in the design, production and sales of CMOS image sensors. The products are widely used in mobile phones, automobiles, security, medical, Internet of Things applications and other fields. Later, after China’s capital acquisition and multiple bidding, Haowei Technology was finally included in the company.
Global image sensor market share (source: IHS)
I learned from the company’s previous introductionIn addition to FSI and BSI products, Howe Technology also has CameraMate ASIC processor and LCOS chip. These products make them the third largest CMOS image sensor supplier after Sony and Samsung.
And last month, Vail announced that it plans to increase its capital of 27 million US dollars. Assist the latter in building wafer test and wafer rebuild production line projects. Help Haowei Technology further enhance the competitiveness of CMOS image sensors.
In addition to Howe, there are also companies such as BYD, Gekewei, Sibike and Stevia, as well as the newly emerging cores.
Looking at the MEMS market, the country is also doing well.
First of all, in terms of MEMS devices, two manufacturers in China were selected for the list of Yole, namely TOP11’s Goer shares and TOP23’s AAC. The two companies have not changed their rankings for 17 years. But Goertek’s performance is weak, and global mobile phone sales may be weak. AAC is growing. Yole pointed out. In addition, Minxin Technology, which recently planned to launch the board, is also a star of MEMS sensor chips.
According to the CCID report, Minxin is the only company to be selected as one of the leading companies in the domestic MEMS segment in the field of pressure sensors and MEMS microphones. According to statistics from HIS Markit, in the field of MEMS microphones, the market share of sensitive cores has been among the highest in the world.
In the field of MEMS, it is worth mentioning that Neiwei Technology is leading in the field of MEMS foundry. All of this stems from their acquisition of the Swedish company Silex Microsystems in 2015, which led to the latter’s technology for manufacturing accelerometers, gyroscopes and other miniature sensors. It is understood that they have 6-inch and 8-inch fabs in Sweden, they use their own through-silicon via (TSV) technology, Silex also uses lead zirconate titanate as a piezoelectric material for new applications such as energy harvesting.
Comparatively, the gap between China and Japan in these two areas is still obvious, but the future is expected!