Industrial Internet has become a new outlet
The goal of “Made in China 2025” is to achieve intelligent internalization through intelligent manufacturing and intelligent factories. The industrial Internet is at the core of smart manufacturing and is the key to implementing “Made in China 2025”. In recent years, with the advancement of the 'Made in China 2025' development plan, the role of the Industrial Internet has continued to become more prominent. More and more companies are beginning to realize the importance of the Industrial Internet and its development prospects. In particular, the State Council issued and issued in November last year. With regard to deepening the 'Internet + advanced manufacturing' guideline for the development of industrial Internet, from start-up companies to technology giants, more and more companies have begun to flood the industrial Internet.
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Alibaba Cloud launched 'ET Industry Brain', which combines AI technology, cloud computing, big data and vertical industry knowledge to help manufacturing companies increase yields and predict failure rates, and solve manufacturing problems. Confronted with the challenges. Recently, Ziguang Group integrated Ziguang Cloud Digital Technology Co., Ltd. and Xinhua Group, established Ziguang Cloud Engine Technology (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., and launched solutions for industrial Internet. Foxconn Industrial Internet Co., Ltd. also hopes to The smart sensor is connected with the production equipment to realize data collection and cloud computing technologies, and to improve the efficiency of the company, reduce costs and reduce deposits, and lay the technical foundation for the company's business expansion.
The core of the Industrial Internet is the collection and analysis of data, the integration of knowledge utilization and communication and sharing capabilities in the platform system, enabling flexible supply of manufacturing resources, efficient configuration, and significant increase in production efficiency. As it involves automated robots, Internet of Things, and big data analytics, etc. Technology, so when industrial manufacturing, warehousing, logistics, and even product design processes are reformed, semiconductor products need to be widely used, which also brings new opportunities to the industrial semiconductor industry. According to the forecast of the market research institute HIS, industrial semiconductors The market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8% from 2014 to 2019, and the market value will reach $59.5 billion in 2019.
Domestic chips are mostly in the low-end market
In the face of the opportunities of the industrial Internet, semiconductor companies have also joined the market for competition. According to research report from Semicast Research, Texas Instruments remains the world’s largest industrial semiconductor manufacturer. After the acquisition of National Semiconductor, Texas Instruments further consolidated its position in the industrial semiconductor field. Hegemonic status. Analog chip giant ADI acquired Linear in 14.8 billion US dollars in 2017. The market value of the two companies approached 30 billion U.S. dollars. By this, ADI has become the second largest industrial semi-conductor manufacturer after Texas Instruments. After the acquisition is completed, ADI can master one. A complete set of multi-protocol industrial Ethernet solutions, adding key supporting technologies to the ADI intelligent automation solution portfolio for industrial automation and industrial IoT.
Chinese IC manufacturers are also actively developing the industrial semiconductor market, but they have not yet formed a relatively strong group competitiveness. Semiconductor expert Tang Xiaoquan said in an interview that processors, sensors, microcontrollers, communications chips and power semiconductors can all be Industrial applications, the current Chinese IC companies can also develop and produce these products. However, most of the products are still concentrated in the low-end market.
In the Semicast Research report, analog ICs are one of the main product types of industrial semiconductors, and many or even dozens of analog ICs are used in each electronic motor product. However, due to Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Infineon, NXP, ADI and other giants monopoly, China's domestic analog IC manufacturers can say that only survive.
Convergence of Artificial Intelligence into Trends
However, with the rise of China’s industrial Internet, new opportunities have been brought to the development of the industrial semiconductor industry. Local companies can fully take advantage of proximity to customers, rapid response, and localization services. Yu Shaohua, vice president of the Wuhan Institute of Posts and Telecommunications, points out that Industrial Internet can be understood from three levels: 'One is to form a network integrating the production, supply and sales of factories; Second, the development of intelligent manufacturing industry has spawned new business models, new models, and new ecosystems; and third, global smart manufacturing.' Semiconductor products Should adapt to these trends and develop products that customers need for data perception, transmission, analysis, etc., will gain more market opportunities.
Tang Xiaoquan analyzed the development direction and characteristics of the Industrial Internet to reporters. The development of industrial semiconductors should also be carried out around these areas.
First, high-speed transmission, big data, and basic networks that ensure real-time security are critical to the deployment of industrial Internet services. However, different vendors support different industrial Ethernet standards. This requires the development of communication chips that support multiple protocols. The process needs to consider the implementation of the Ethernet protocol, application and hardware development, conformance testing, etc.
Secondly, with the development of artificial intelligence, the intelligentization of the industrial Internet is also constantly improving. Especially for high-level intelligent machine tools, robots, etc., the performance is particularly obvious. To adapt to the development trend of intelligent, how to make the operation of the industrial network more convenient and safe It will also test semiconductor manufacturers.
In addition, intelligent development also requires high-performance, low-power, and secure chip products. Energy efficiency and security are also key factors that determine the success of industrial Internet implementation. More and more semiconductor suppliers are starting to use MCUs. Sensors are integrated. Wireless sensor networks with low power consumption, low cost, ease of use and ubiquitous sensing are rapidly emerging.