1. The original most terrible car electronic rival was him...
Gathering micro-messages (Reporter/Immortation) 'The road is correct. It is always only visible to the destination. ' This is Kafka's famous saying. In the face of choosing the road to represent future driverless cars, all kinds of old and new Forces of conflict and struggle are constantly being staged. We often see high-profile attitudes from Intel or Nvidia, but in fact, an insidious giant figure is approaching. Who is it?
Full mainstream layout
The answer is Samsung. Do you think the accident still feels reasonable? From the perspective of the timeline, in December 2015, Samsung Electronics established the Automotive Electronics Equipment Division to enter the clarion call. In March 2017, Samsung Electronics spent US$8 billion to complete the The acquisition of Harman International has become a successful assault. It should be noted that Samsung Electronics is the largest and most profitable subsidiary of Samsung Group. The establishment of the automotive electronics equipment division is an integration of the automotive electronics business of the Group. Covers four major businesses. : The first is the onboard infotainment system, the second is the driver assistance system, the third is the interconnected operation system, and the fourth is the electric vehicle drive system. After the acquisition of Harman, the four major divisions of Zhilian Automotive and Zhilian Service become the Samsung automotive electronics business. The important supplements will provide important support for the future layout of smart cars. At 2018 CES, the results of M&A have already emerged. Samsung and Harman teamed up to publish the DRVline platform designed for the Level 3-Level 5 autopilot system.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. In terms of autopilot-related technology, Samsung has intensively invested. From 2016 to the present, it has invested in US-based lidar startups Quanergy, TetraVue, and Innoviz in Israel. It also invested in the startup oculli in millimeter-wave radar. Also invested in the Austrian company TTTech layout car networking technology, Valens, which is known for in-vehicle communication, and Autotalks, which focuses on V2X, are also the targets of Samsung Investment, together with the autopilot algorithm companies Renovo and AImotive.
It can be said that Samsung's series of layouts is intended to be a step-by-step approach to the smart car platform. In addition to the above 'axis' business, Samsung's own battery business and OLED business is also a strong pillar of Samsung Automotive Electronics. Samsung SDI is specifically for electric vehicles. The batteries needed for R&D are planned to continue to add additional R&D expenses on the battery by 2020, and strive to occupy 30% to 40% of the market share of the world's electric car battery market. At the 2018 Detroit Motor Show, Samsung released the latest charge. Technology and high-energy-density batteries are claimed to require only 20 minutes of travel up to 600 kilometers. In the field of OLEDs, Samsung has a consensus on the power of mobile AMOLED panels. The car screen requires a wider perspective and requires new materials. Resisting high temperatures and sunlight, Samsung's focused flexible OLED business will be an important choice for the automotive industry, and will also bring great room for Samsung. Samsung continues to enhance OLED technology, and automotive display is the driving force for advancement.
It can thus be seen that Samsung has already involved all the mainstream 'genres' of automotive electronics in the layout of automotive electronics. Samsung's ambition in the automotive electronics field is by no means simple.
Unmanned 'Acceleration'
While winning the 'unmanned' to win the future, Samsung has also continued to sacrifice and has invested more than 500 million US dollars to develop the automatic driving platform DRVline, intended to become the leader in the automatic driving market.
Samsung is currently testing vehicles using the DRVline platform on roads in South Korea and the United States, up to Level 4. The first product equipped with the new system may be a front-mounted automatic brake lens, and is expected to be put into mass production in 2020. In order to provide a self-driving platform, there is of course an ecology, such as algorithms, radars and sensors. Samsung is investing 100 million pounds in early seed rounds to establish partnership ecosystems, focusing on strategic cooperation in sensors, software, and communications. And set up a £220 million automotive innovation fund for companies that develop autonomous driving technology. The first wave of investment has allowed TTTech, which provides software integration, a lot of profit.
It is reported that the DRVline platform can be customized on demand. Automobile manufacturers can customize or enhance certain functions according to their own needs. The platform function will also increase with the development of automatic driving. For example, the platform's hardware is built around the substrate, carrying 2 Samsung processors can support Level 2 levels; they can also add submodules of other partners to improve platform functionality and processing capabilities.
At the same time, under the sway of AI+ driverless cars, Samsung will unveil the first car-specific chip 'Exynos Auto', which will integrate independent NPU units, meaning that it will become Samsung's first integrated neural network. Processing unit processor. In addition, this chip will integrate LTE baseband.
Deep anxiety
According to industry-to-industry analysis, companies must have a mature cash flow industry and a large investment to incubate future industries. Automotive electronics is the most important transformation since Samsung Electronics was founded. Its success will also determine whether Samsung can continue to maintain its future. Leadership in the electronics field.
Looking at Samsung’s family history, we can see that Samsung is basically a multi-arms joint operation and independent research and development, gambling investment, and desperation, whether it is a memory, a panel or a mobile phone chip. After that, stood at the top of the industry.
Can auto electronics become the new peak of Samsung Electronics? Samsung has strong R&D funds and patents, and has accumulated deep expertise in the field of mobile phone chips and connectivity solutions. It has Hamann's infotainment system technology and channel advantages, but countless. The strength and ecology of the competitors in the shadows are also very strong. Samsung is undoubtedly a short board in terms of software and data. It also needs to be constantly improved. Otherwise, it may miss the opportunity. Last year, Samsung introduced an adapter to allow cars to obtain data, including Vehicle performance, driver habits and other data, and this information needs to wait for many years to work.
At the same time, Samsung Electronics is also facing a transformation itself. In FY 2017, although Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. enjoyed a good revenue, the revenue growth was mainly due to the increase in the prices of memory and panel. How long does this growth dividend last?
After the storage industry experienced a one-year increase in prices and iterations, the major manufacturers began to increase investment. Chinese large-scale manufacturers also participated in the 'killing'. The appearance of 32-layer NAND Flash chips stored in the Yangtze River in China Give China and Japan more confidence in the country and the industry chain. Coupled with the fact that China, Japan, and Taiwan are moving toward OLED, some analysts are not optimistic about Samsung's future. Andrew Norwood, vice president of research at Gartner, said: 'Samsung's strengths are not solid and it depends mainly on Memory. As China expands memory chip production capacity, memory prices will weaken in 2018, NAND flash memory will bear the brunt, and DRAM will also decline in 2019. It is expected that Samsung will lose a lot of revenue by then.'
Obviously, Samsung Electronics is in urgent need of new growth points, and automotive electronics will be 'self-inflicted'. The question is, can automotive electronics make up the 'gap' of memory and panels in time? (Proofreading/Fan Rong)
2. Is the Big Three of memory chips collaborating to manipulate the market?
On May 31, the Chinese anti-monopoly agencies sent a number of working groups to carry out 'surname investigations' and on-site forensics for the offices of Samsung, Hynix, and Micron in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, marking the official Three companies have launched investigations. At present, Samsung has publicly responded that 'is to assist in the investigation'. Samsung, Hynix, Micron are the world's three largest memory chip giants, occupying two major product lines in DRAM (dynamic storage) and NAND (flash memory). Most of the global market share. In 2016, due to the change of industry technology and the replacement of enterprise production lines, the global storage chip market experienced a rare shortage of supply in recent years. In the third quarter of 2016, a general wave of price increases began. The cost pressure came to consumer products such as mobile phones, SSDs, and memory sticks. According to research firm TrendForce, China consumes one-fifth of the world's DRAM memory chips and one-fourth of NAND flash memory chips. 2017 In December, after receiving continuous complaints from domestic machine companies, the National Development and Reform Commission noticed that 'the price of DRAM industry has soared.' The relevant department of the National Development and Reform Commission interviewed Samsung and stated that it will pay more attention to the monopoly problems caused by the industry's 'price manipulation' behavior. After the two national conferences in 2018, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce’s Anti-Monopoly Department merged into the newly established Anti-Monopoly Bureau of the General Administration of Market Supervision. In May, the anti-monopoly department interviewed another giant Micron on the issue of continued price increases. According to customs data, China’s imported memory in 2017 was US$88.821 billion, an increase from 2016’s US$63.714 billion. 39.56%. The continuous price increase of storage products has brought continuous high cost pressure to the whole machine industry in China. In 2017, the global DRAM and NAND markets increased by 74% and 46%, respectively, reaching US$72.2 billion, US$53.8 billion, respectively. , Hynix, Micron's three giants become the biggest beneficiaries.
According to data released by market research institutions, in the DRAM market, the market shares of Samsung, Hynix, and Micron were 44.5%, 27.9%, and 22.9%, respectively. The three companies together accounted for 95.3%, almost monopolizing the entire market; in the NAND market, Samsung The market shares of Hynix and Micron were 39%, 10.5%, and 11.3%, respectively. The three companies also had a total of 60.8%.
Due to the skyrocketing price of memory chips, the global semiconductor rankings have undergone major changes. In 2017, Samsung Semiconductor's revenue soared by 50%, surpassing Intel’s number one position in the world for the first time for over US$60 billion in revenue. At the same time, Hynix , Micron also rose, respectively from the fourth, sixth to third, fourth. According to Gartner data, Hynix, Micron's revenue in 2017 increased by 79%, 78%.
From the first quarter of 2016 to the first quarter of 2018, Samsung's storage chip business revenue increased from 79.4 trillion won to 173.3 trillion won, an increase of 118%; Hynix revenue increased from 3.65 trillion won to 8.72 trillion. Won, an increase of 139%; and Micron revenue increased from 2.93 billion US dollars to 7.35 billion US dollars, an increase of 151%.
Crazy price hikes in memory chips have attracted the attention of some organizations. A law firm in the United States began to investigate the phenomenon. In an interview with the Chinese antitrust authorities, during the investigation of the Big Three, the United States law firm Hagens Berman took 27 April 2018. Japan filed an anti-monopoly class action against Micron, Samsung, and Hynix in the Northern California District Court. The law firm said the investigation revealed that DRAM manufacturers agreed to increase DRAM prices by limiting DRAM supply. In 2017, DRAM Bit price rose by 47%, which is the biggest increase in 30 years, of which 4GB DRAM product prices rose by 130%. DRAM chip prices directly pushed up the price of smart phones. In 2017, all domestic flagship mobile phones generally increased by 200~300 yuan. The memory price increase in 2017 is as much as 300% to 400%.
As China is the world’s largest consumer electronics market, the prices of its components have increased dramatically, bringing huge financial resources to the three giants. The financial report shows that in fiscal 2017, Micron’s revenue in China was US$10.3 billion, accounting for 51% of its total revenue. Luxus earned 10 trillion won in China in 2017, which accounted for 33.5% of its total revenue. At the same time, Samsung earned 31.6 trillion won in China, accounting for 23.3% of its total revenue. Among them, Samsung China Semiconductor and Shanghai Samsung Semiconductor The total revenue in 2017 was 28.7 trillion won, which was approximately US$25.39 billion. In 2017, thanks to the increase in storage chip prices, the total export of electromechanical products from South Korea to the Chinese mainland reached 73.8 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 24.7% year-on-year. 2016, 2017 The revenues of the three companies in semiconductor-related businesses in China totaled 31.6 billion U.S. dollars and 44.68 billion U.S. dollars, respectively.
Does the Big Three have any conspiracy to conduct market price manipulation? This requires the supervision department to make an investigation and make a conclusion. However, according to China's "Anti-Monopoly Law" and "Anti-price Monopoly Regulation", if the operator has a monopolistic behavior, follow the "Anti-Monopoly Law." Forty-sixth, forty-seventh, and forty-ninth articles shall be punished with a fine of 1% to 10% of the sales for the preceding year, and the duration of the illegal act shall be considered. Based on this, if the regulatory agency finally determines There are price monopoly behaviors among the three giants, so the fines may be as high as hundreds of millions to billions of dollars.
The Big Three of memory chips were investigated by Chinese anti-monopoly agencies. The ultimate result is what people will wait and see. People's Posts and Telecommunications News
3. Storage boosted 2018 semiconductor sales or annual growth of 12.4%;
The Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA) issued a press release on the 5th that the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics Association (WSTS) will publish this year's (2018) global semiconductor market scale (sales) since 2017 Estimated monthly value of US$437.265 billion (a 7.0% increase year-on-year) was revised up to US$463.412 billion (a year-on-year increase of 12.4%), and sales will continue to hit record highs. Global semiconductor sales increased by 21.6% to US$412.221 billion in 2017 , for the first time exceeded the $400 billion mark.
WSTS pointed out that this year's semiconductor sales forecast will be upgraded mainly because the memory market continues to show a high degree of growth, coupled with the continued growth of the global economy, boosting the demand for semiconductors from electronic devices.
WSTS pointed out that in the world's four major semiconductor markets this year, US market sales are expected to increase 14.0% year-on-year to US$108.853 billion; Europe will grow 13.4% annually to US$43.43 billion; Asia-Pacific region will increase 12.3% year-on-year to US$279.975 billion; The Japanese market will increase by 8.6% year-on-year to US$ 39.753 billion (increased by 5.0% year-on-year to JPY 4 trillion 3,076 yen in Japanese yen).
In terms of product categories, discrete global sales this year are projected to increase 9.0% year-on-year to US$23.610 billion; Optoelectronics will increase 3.4% to US$35.98 billion annually; Sensors will increase by 5.9 percent annually. % to 13.306 billion US dollars; chip (IC) sales are expected to increase by 13.8% to US$ 390.509 billion.
In terms of IC details, Memory estimates will increase by 26.5% to US$156.786 billion, Logic will increase 7.1% to US$109.476 billion, Micro will increase 3.5% to US$66.152 billion, and Analog will increase 9.5% to 580.95. One hundred million U.S. dollars.
The WSTS also pointed out that next year (2019), although the global semiconductor market is expected to continue to show growth, but fear of stalling, the rate of increase will passivate rapidly, and is expected to increase by only 4.4% annually. This will be the first time in three years that the increase will be reduced to 'Bit of digits (less than 10%)', where Memory sales are expected to increase only 3.7% annually.
4. Jiang Bolong deepens the cooperation relationship between Taiwan's upstream and downstream manufacturers.
Bobo Electronics is a leading manufacturer of flash memory storage in mainland China. In addition to aggressively expanding its non-consumer product portfolio, it recently acquired Lexar, a brand-name maker, to expand its downstream outlets. Wang Bomin, deputy general manager of Jiang Bolong’s sales, pointed out that Bolong Jiang We continued to deepen the cooperation relationship with Taiwan's packaging and testing plants and customers, and exerted the effect of one plus one and more than two. With the continuous expansion of the memory market, the future growth of the business can be expected.
Founded in 1999, Jiang Bolong has been engaged in R&D and marketing services for storage products and peripheral applications. Its product lines include flash memory cards, U-disks, embedded eMMCs, eMCPs, and solid-state hard disk SSDs. It owns the industry storage brand FORESEE and high-end products. Lexar, a consumer brand, currently has business and cooperation relationships with thousands of customers around the world, and has gradually developed into a leader in the storage module market in mainland China. Currently, Jiang Bolong’s consumer products and commercial products share are 30% and 70%, respectively.
Jiang Bolong has a deep relationship with Taiwan Semiconductor. He set up a branch office in Taiwan 10 years ago to find local OEMs for production and then to control the production capacity and to invest in the upstream Huatai Electronics and Donglin Precision. In the local downstream customers, Jiang Bolong also served as a supplier of product solutions. Wang Weimin said that Taiwan is very international. Through these brand customers, Jiang Bolong can effectively expand the international market.
Previously, Jiang Bolong, Tai Jinbao, Qunlian and other Taiwanese upstream and downstream supply chains went to Brazil to invest in the establishment of a sealing and testing plant. Currently, production of eMMC products has begun. Wang Weimin said that partners are very important, and Jiang Bolong will gradually strengthen investment in Taiwan. There will be more and more cooperation among foundries. In the future, they will also strengthen production and manufacturing in other markets. This 'flocking' approach can share the risks and results, exerting one plus one more than two.
At present, the proportion of Jiang Bolong’s consumer products has dropped from over 90% in the early period to 30%. Commercial products that have grown rapidly in the past five years have been pushed up to 70%. Wang Weimin analyzes that although the market growth of the overall consumer products is limited, the market is still limited. Very large, for example, the global smartphone shipments reach 1.5 billion each year. Therefore, there is still a lot of room for growth in products for subdivided areas. This year's Computex exhibition, Lexar, which is owned by Jiang Bolong, exhibited a 512GB MicroSD card. Provides smart phones, drones and other consumer customers with expanded storage capacity. At the same time, Jiang Bolong has also brought single-chip SSD products, which can be offered to commercial customers to develop lighter and smaller size through small size and low power consumption. Currently, Jiangbo Long has already delivered PCIe BGA SSD samples to international manufacturers for verification testing. It is expected that there will be related products launched in the market this year. As for other commercial markets, such as AI products, new energy vehicles and other fields have great imagination. space.
Jiang Bolong took the form of a virtual factory and took particles from the upper reaches of Samsung, Micron, and Witten, and handed them to downstream manufacturers such as Huatai and Donglin. With the design of their own products, R&D of Firmware provided customers with products other than mainstream products. , More can provide customers with customized product design. Wang Weimin said that Jiang Bolong will focus on converting Flash wafers into products that can be used by customers to serve customers' needs for better storage products. This is enough for the company for the next 10 to 20 years. Growth needs.
Responding to the development of globalization, Jiang Bolong launched the new corporate logo 'longsys' in 2014 and accumulatively applied for more than 600 Flash-related patents. He also acquired the Lexar brand of Micron last year to expand its share of the retail market. Wang Weimin pointed out that Lexar brand does not want to compete with existing customers, but hopes to adopt the value-up business model to avoid falling into the red sea of price competition, and bring innovative, high-quality products to customers through the brand as soon as possible.
For the two fast-growing markets of artificial intelligence and data centers, in addition to the corresponding products, Jiang Bolong has to cooperate with the best vendors in order to provide customers with faster solutions. Wang Weimin said, Jiang Bolong has a “slogan” for 'Everything for Memory' and currently has less than 2% market share in the global Flash memory market. The overall market is still growing. As long as new products are continuously launched, market share will increase. There is still plenty of room for growth in 20 years.
5.Shanghai WorldCom Announces Cytronic of Macnica Technology Becomes New Distribution Partner
In order to increase the company's influence in Asia, Hyperion has announced that it has appointed Cytronic, a division of Macnica Technology, as its new distributor of NAND flash memory controller products in mainland China and Hong Kong. Macnica Technology is in the semiconductor industry It is known for its high quality product lineup and technical capabilities. This partnership will not only increase the influence of Haishang WorldCom, but also increase its support base for a series of industrial markets in the Asia Pacific region.
Kenichiro Tomomori, Vice President of Asia Pacific Sales at Hyperspace Communications, spoke about the partnership and said: “Haipai Shitong is proud to be part of the quality-driven product line defined by Macnica Technology. Expand our sales and support staff network and Achieving close contact with customers is critical to us and plays an important role in the partnership.
“Macnica Technology has been an important distributor of electronics and semiconductor components for the past two decades,” said Johnny Chan, CEO and President. 'The partnership with Transcident makes it possible for us to expand our products. The combination, including industrial-grade flash memory controllers, ultimately provides customers with a simple path to ensure a complete solution. We select partners based on core capabilities, technical support and unique differences. Haipaste focuses on excellence. Wear levels, data retention and power-off protection technologies make them a strong candidate for the semiconductor industry. We look forward to supporting a prosperous future for them.