Not only did automotive market take a downward turn starting in 2018, but the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 also led to noticeably insufficient procurement activities from major automotive module suppliers, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. However, as the automotive market is currently set to make a recovery, TrendForce expects yearly vehicle sales to increase from 77 million units in 2020 to 84 million units in 2021.

At the same time, the rising popularity of autonomous, connected, and electric vehicles is likely to lead to a massive consumption of various semiconductor components. Even so, since most manufacturers in the automotive supply chain currently possess a relatively low inventory, due to their sluggish procurement activities last year in light of weak demand, the discrepancies in the inventory levels of various automotive components, along with the resultant manufacturing bottleneck, have substantially impaired automakers’ capacity utilization rates and, subsequently, vehicle shipments.

The recent shortage situation in the IC supply chain has gradually extended from consumer electronics and ICT products to the industrial and automotive markets. In the past, manufacturers in the automotive semiconductor industry were primarily based on IDM or fab-lite business models, such as NXP, Infineon, STMicroelectronics, Renesas, ON Semiconductor, Broadcom, TI, etc. As automotive ICs generally operate in wide temperature and high voltage circumstances, have relatively long product lifecycle, and place a heavy demand on reliability as well as longevity support, it is more difficult for the industry to alternatively transition its production lines and supply chains elsewhere.

Automotive semiconductor remains in shortage as production capacities remain fully loaded across the global foundry industry

Nevertheless, given the current shortage of production capacities across the foundry industry, wafer capacities allocated to automotive semiconductor components have been noticeably crowded out by other products. Some of these examples include automotive MCU and CIS manufactured in 12-inch fabs, as well as MEMS, Discrete, PMIC, and DDI products manufactured in 8-inch fabs. TrendForce indicates that automotive semiconductor products manufactured at the 28nm, 45nm, and 65nm nodes in 12-inch fabs are suffering the most severe shortage at the moment, while production capacities at 0.18µm and above nodes in 8-inch fabs have also been in long queue by other products.

As in-house IDM fabrications have relatively high CAPEX, R&D expense, and operating overhead, automotive IC vendors have in recent years outsourced some of their products to TSMC, GlobalFoundries, UMC, Samsung, VIS, Win Semiconductor and so on. In particular, TSMC specifically indicated during its 4Q20 earnings conference that wafer starts for automotive semiconductors reached rock bottom in 3Q20, while additional orders began arriving in 4Q20. As such, the company is currently considering allocating some of its production capacities from logic ICs to specialty foundry, in order to meet sudden demand from its long-term customer relationship.

For more information on reports and market data from TrendForce’s Department of Semiconductor Research, please click here, or email Ms. Latte Chung from the Sales Department at lattechung@trendforce.com

The LiDAR market encompasses such applications as ADAS, autonomous vehicles, industries, deliveries, and smart cities; while these applications are estimated to have driven the LiDAR market to reach US$682 million in revenue in 2020, total LiDAR revenue is projected to further expand to $2.932 billion in 2025, a 34% CAGR, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations.

TrendForce indicates that, with regards to automotive LiDAR applications (ADAS and autonomous vehicles), automakers have continued to release NEVs in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic’s negative impact on the global automotive industry in 2020. Furthermore, these automakers are also equipping ADAS on high-end conventional gasoline vehicles and NEVs alike. As an essential component in SAE levels 4-5 autonomous vehicles, LiDAR systems are used by automakers to both build their databases and increase vehicle location accuracy. In addition to the aforementioned vehicles, automotive LiDARs are also featured in autonomous buses, robo-taxis, and self-driving trucks. Total automotive LiDAR revenue is expected to reach $2.434 billion in 2025. At the moment, major automotive LiDAR suppliers include Velodyne, Valeo, Quanergy Systems, Inc., ibeo, Continental, LeddarTech, INNOVIZ, HESAI, LeiShen, and Luminar, while major LiDAR laser suppliers include OSRAM, Laser Components, Excelitas, and Hamamatsu.

With regards to delivery and logistics, the rising popularity of e-commerce has prompted online vendors and delivery companies to lower their last-mile delivery costs by performing deliveries with autonomous delivery robots, bicycle couriers, and self-driving trucks, thereby leading to an increased demand for delivery robots with self-navigation and autonomous decision-making capabilities. Major e-commerce companies that have been promoting these delivery methods include Alibaba, Amazon, FedEx, and Jingdong (also known as JD.com).

Likewise, the growth of the industrial automation market has been lackluster due to the pandemic, with most companies having deferred their previous expansion plans in consideration of budgets, although certain companies wary of potential future shortages in human labor are investing additional capital into industrial automation development against the market downtrend. Having undergone various deferred developments throughout 2020, the European and North American markets are expected to see surging demand for industrial automation applications starting in 3Q21. On the whole, TrendForce forecasts a $469 million revenue for the industry and delivery LiDAR markets in 2025. Major LiDAR suppliers in these markets currently include SICK, Hokuyo, OMRON, and Velodyne. With increasing market demand on ADAS, autonomous vehicles and industrial automation, LiDAR market value will be encouraged by rising LiDAR usage volume.

For more information on reports and market data from TrendForce’s Department of Optoelectronics Research, please click here, or email Ms. Grace Li from the Sales Department at graceli@trendforce.com