MCU market changes: it is possible to attack and retreat because it is difficult to defend

The MCU market is making waves again. The domestic flash memory supplier Komi recently released the GD32F103 series of 32-bit general-purpose MCU products based on the ARM CortexTM-M3 core. At the same time, Fujitsu Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Fujitsu, announced its withdrawal from the MCU business and sold its inventory to another flash memory chip supplier Spansion for approximately US$110 million and US$65 million. The MCU market changes between one advance and one retreat point to two "surreal" questions: First, what are the advantages of flash memory manufacturers in entering the MCU market? Second, how much room does domestic manufacturers have in the 32-bit MCU market?

Advance to attack

Embedded flash memory has become the most important differentiated product in the MCU market. Flash memory manufacturers have changed from supporting roles to protagonists, which will have an impact on the MCU market.

Flash memory vendors have become the "winners" of these events, which shows that embedded flash memory has become the most important differentiated product in the MCU market. Flash memory vendors have changed from a supporting role to a protagonist, which will have an impact on the MCU market. The second MCU can also become the control unit of the memory, which is very important for any storage medium, and it is difficult to eliminate the "butterfly effect" in the memory controller market in the future.

Research organization IHS iSuppli said that the Chinese MCU market is expected to reach US$4.7 billion in 2015. Although 8-bit MCUs still occupy the largest market share, 32-bit MCUs are also growing rapidly, with a compound annual growth rate of 9.4% from 2011 to 2016. MCU suppliers are a hundred flowers blooming, European, American, and Japanese manufacturers have outstanding performance, occupying high-tech, high-value-added markets, mainstream manufacturers include Renesas, Freescale, Texas Instruments (TI), ST, NXP, ADI, etc.; and China Taiwanese manufacturers such as Hetai, Elan, Nuvoton, and Novatek are also accumulating, starting from consumer electronics to attack high value-added fields; mainland Chinese manufacturers are also doing something in low value-added fields such as consumer and home appliances. This time the secretarial enters, can we add more "colors"?

We have seen that Komi has entered the MCU market with the GD32F103 series, and has made thorough preparations: The GD32F103 product line with a main frequency of 108MHz provides Flash capacities from 16KB to 128KB, and has a variety of packaging options. The series products are packaged in software and pins. All aspects are compatible. It integrates rich peripherals, has USB2.0 full-speed, CAN, LIN, LCD and other general interfaces and can be connected to external memory such as NOR-Flash, SRAM, and is also equipped with two 12-bit high-speed sampling rates of 1MSPS up to 16 channels ADC, 3 USART, 2 SPI, etc. Three power-saving modes are available, and the working current under the same main frequency is 20%-30% lower than similar products in the market. It is worth mentioning that, thanks to the high-speed CPU core and GigaDevice gFlash patented technology, zero wait for the core to access Flash is realized. According to tests, its code execution efficiency is 30%-40% higher than similar products in the market.

"The GD32 series of MCUs further expand our platform advantages based on advanced storage technology, mainly for industrial and consumer embedded applications." said Deng Yu, general manager of the GigaDevice MCU business unit. The series of peripheral products further expand the application fields and advantages of GD32."

Tang Xiaoquan, chief engineer of Suzhou Wanlong Electric Group Co., Ltd., said that this series of chips is compatible with ST's mainstream chip STM32F10X in packaging, and the speed is 1.5 times that of STM32F10X. Technically speaking, it should be different from ST, NXP and other manufacturers' MCU products. Not big. Since ARM's own development tools are universal, there is no problem with development tools. "If the quality of GD32F103 is no problem, the price is lower than ST products, plus a suitable business model, GD32F103 will become a breakthrough point for MCUs in mainland China." Tang Xiaoquan said.

In the general-purpose MCU market, foreign manufacturers have been cultivating for many years. They control platforms, tools, and influential application areas, and there are still a lot of homework to be done by the secretaries. He Xiaoqing, deputy secretary-general of the Embedded Systems Branch of the China Software Industry Association, pointed out that the secretaries need to let users understand themselves, let themselves learn the market, and finally let the market accept their own time.

Retreat

Fujitsu Semiconductor missed the best opportunity for the development of the ARM M series. As competition in the MCU market continues to intensify, this time it has to "stop".

The acquisition of Fujitsu Semiconductor's MCU business by Zipline this time has inevitably been embarrassing. Fujitsu Semiconductor has a large number of MCU product lines, mainly targeting automotive and industrial applications, and there are also a number of loyal users. Tang Xiaoquan analyzed its MCU business and pointed out that in the past ten years, it used its own 32-bit core like other MCU manufacturers. Later, its own 32-bit core and ARM7 core coexisted. Later, it adopted ARM as a representative of ST. After the M3 MCU got up, it also launched products based on the ARM M3, and maintained its own unique technical characteristics, but it missed the best opportunity for the development of the ARM M series, and the market has long been occupied by ST and NXP. Due to its small share in the Fujitsu system and low contribution rate, as competition in the MCU market continues to intensify, Fujitsu believes that it is difficult to maintain the MCU business, which has drastically changed demand and expensive equipment investment costs. already.

Zipline is a semiconductor company established by Fujitsu and AMD in 2003 as a joint venture. Although it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009, it has been on the right track in recent years and has taken a leading position in the NOR flash memory market. It was in May 2010. Get out of bankruptcy protection. Flysot claims that flash memory has become an important differentiated product for MCUs, which can meet customers' needs for faster and smarter devices. Flysot's own flash memory technology and the acquired MCU products can promote the development of high-performance system-on-chip solutions. Come out to meet the needs of automotive, industrial and consumer applications. In addition, Zipline is planning to strengthen its automotive electronics market business. Last year, it developed a dedicated voice recognition processor for in-vehicle equipment. This time, it can further strengthen its product lineup by acquiring Fujitsu Semiconductor's MCU business. And this is just the beginning of the change. Fujitsu Semiconductor mainly takes SystemLSI and MCU as its two pillars. Fujitsu announced in February that it plans to establish a joint venture with Panasonic to establish a new company responsible for the design/development of SystemLSI. Therefore, after Fujitsu sells its MCU business to Flying Cable, it is equivalent to Fujitsu’s complete Exit the semiconductor market.

Market changes

Flash memory manufacturers have already entered the MCU market. Will DSP and FPGA manufacturers also borrow ARM cores to get a share of the pie? It can only be said that "everything is possible."

Manufacturers that follow a similar route to Fujitsu Semiconductor include ATMEL in the United States, while Japanese MCU manufacturers Renesas and Toshiba have performed well, but due to their "closed" operating system, their future is directly tied to Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers and automobile manufacturers. Performance. According to another source, Renesas, Fujitsu, and Panasonic originally planned to merge their semiconductor chip businesses to consolidate the dominant position of Japanese suppliers in the MCU market. However, now Fujitsu Semiconductor has divested its MCU business to Ziplink. It is worth paying attention to the future trend.

And this is just the beginning of changes in the MCU market. Although the ARM core is currently sweeping the 32-bit MCU market, the complexity and diversity of the MCU market makes the ecosystem advantages of the ARM core not as obvious as in the application processor market, and relatively weak manufacturers can also take advantage of the ARM ecosystem. The system to impact the original leading manufacturers, for example, my country's MCU manufacturers have used this to open a "gap" in the market. On the one hand, the two major MCU manufacturers, Renesas and Microchip, do not use ARM cores. Whether they can win the support of these two major manufacturers is the key to whether ARM-based MCUs can form a domination of the MCU market. On the other hand, several major manufacturers such as Freescale, TI, STMicroelectronics, and Infineon are all pushing ARM core MCUs. They also have their own cores. Can they make more competitive products to replace the original ones? Structured products are the key to whether ARM can gain an advantage in this market. "The 32-bit MCU market is developing rapidly. Analysis agencies predict that sales will exceed 10 billion U.S. dollars in 2017. This market is different from PCs and mobile phones, and the market share is scattered, so there is room for imagination." He Xiaoqing analyzed.

Although the use of ARM architecture to develop 32-bit MCU products has become a trend, the diversified MCU architecture will still be the mainstream of market development in the future. For example, the homogeneous integration of ARM cores, or the heterogeneous integration of MCU+DSP, MCU+FPGA, etc. Flash memory vendors have already entered the MCU market. Will DSP and FPGA vendors also borrow ARM cores to get a share of the pie? It can only be said that "everything is possible."

expert's point

He Xiaoqing, Deputy Secretary-General of Embedded System Branch of China Software Industry Association

Service should be used to promote development

This chip is a general-purpose 32-bit MCU based on ARM M3, which is aimed at the low-end industrial and consumer markets with the current configuration. In the market competition, we should promote development by service, guarantee by quality, and seize opportunities with characteristics. In the development tools and software, it is necessary to support the tool chain and OS (such as IAR, KEIL, uc/OS and FreeRTOS) used by foreign manufacturers of ARM MCUs such as Freescale and ST, and to develop unique solutions for industry applications. From a long-term development perspective, the secretaries should also cooperate with universities, joint laboratories and university competitions, and jointly cultivate basic talents and explore innovative embedded design solutions.

Tang Xiaoquan, Chief Engineer of Suzhou Wanlong Electric Group Co., Ltd.

It’s hard to survive on your own command system alone

Whenever the market of an industry matures, there will be industrial division of labor, and there will definitely be problems with relying mainly on one's own model. When the MCU market has high profits, it is very important to have an excellent command system. But with the reduction of MCU profits, it is very difficult to raise a R&D command team. The mode of MCU manufacturers has changed, and ARM cores are the mainstay. If you rely on your own command system alone, it is difficult to survive, so it doesn't matter who buys it.

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