In the first three quarters of 2022, global auto sales will be about 58.2 million, a year-on-year decrease of 3.3%. It is estimated that the annual sales will be about 80.8 million, basically the same as last year.

The report predicts that auto sales in mainland China will reach 27 million in 2022, surpassing the pre-pandemic level. Data show that from January to October, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in my country completed 5.485 million and 5.28 million respectively, an average increase of 1.1 times year-on-year, and the market share reached 24%.

In terms of automotive MCUs, Sigma Consulting said that the market price of automotive MCUs will increase by about 5-10% in the third quarter of 2022. After entering 2023, the shortage of automotive MCUs will gradually ease, and the annual supply and demand will return to a relatively benign level. state. However, since new energy vehicles are in a period of rapid growth, the absolute demand for automotive MCUs is still rising sharply, and the price of MCUs is still difficult to decline in the short term, and is expected to fall by 2024.

In the long run, due to the accelerated process of automobile intelligence, automatic driving is gradually moving from L2 level to L3 or even L4 level, and the usage rate of its body controller will gradually decrease. Therefore, the demand for low-end MCU products will also decrease, and high-end control functions will be realized. Demand for 32-bit MCUs and integrated SOC chips will increase significantly.

The domestic car-grade MCU started late, and under the background of "core shortage", there is a good opportunity for domestic substitution. According to the data, manufacturers including GigaDevice, Fudan Microelectronics, Chipsea Technology, and Zhongying Electronics are currently developing automotive-grade MCU products and have successively passed AEC-Q100 certification. In addition, major domestic chip manufacturers have unveiled their own car-grade MCU product lines. In addition to the typical representatives of domestic MCUs such as National Technology, Lingdong Microelectronics, and Brite Semiconductor, there are also Xiaohua Semiconductor, which has just been spun off from Huada Semiconductor, and there are players such as Hangshun, Jihai, and Xinwangwei who have been in the limelight in recent years. There are also new MCU players such as Pengpai Microelectronics and Linkchip Microelectronics newly established in recent years.

Overall, Sigma Consulting predicts that global sales of new energy vehicles will reach 28.8 million by 2027. Compared with an increase of about 235% in 2021, the average loading capacity of functional chips such as MCU and storage will also double.

The wafers produced by GlobalFoundries are aimed at many types of terminals, including radio frequency chips for mobile phones, chips for 5G communication base stations, and MCU chips for automobiles. In terms of radio frequency front-end modules, inventory adjustments for mobile phones are underway, the automotive end market has been one of the brightest spots in the market, and the company is introducing new MCUs and security applications to the market, the company said.

As we all know, the role of the MCU in the car is mainly to control all known electronic systems in the car, such as multimedia, audio, navigation, suspension, etc. As the core of the automotive electronic control system, the automotive MCU must have better high temperature resistance and reliability than consumer electronics products, so that it can continue to operate in the complex internal environment of the car without being easily damaged.

According to statistics from TrendForce, GlobalFoundries ranks fourth among the top ten global foundry companies by revenue in Q2 2022, followed by TSMC, Samsung, and UMC in the top three. 90% of the company's revenue comes from wafer foundry. Due to the huge investment in advanced technology research and development, it announced in 2018 that it would abandon the 7nm advanced technology and fully invest in the manufacture of mature process chips.