How do MCU manufacturers respond differently to the diversified development of technology application

When the general trend of 32-bit MCU replacing 8-bit has been determined, how to better extend to new application fields has become the main theme of MCU industry in 2014. What are the differences in the performance, specifications and power consumption of MCU required in different markets? How should MCU manufacturers respond? China electronics daily specially invites mainstream MCU manufacturers and distributors to express their views.
Yi Shenghai, marketing director of Freescale Asia Pacific Automotive microcontroller
Wang Zhihang, general manager and SOC product center of Renesas Electronics (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd
Zhao Kun, general manager of automotive business center of Renesas Electronics (China) Co., Ltd
Zhang Xiaoping, product technology and marketing manager of NXP semiconductor microcontroller
Du Xi, marketing director of automotive electronics division of Infineon Technology (China) Co., Ltd
Wang Yijing, senior manager of automotive electronics industry and diversified marketing department of Infineon Technology (China) Co., Ltd
Greg Hodgson, microcontroller product marketing director, silicon Labs
Cao Jindong, senior manager of MCU market in Italy France semiconductor China
Alan Lee, marketing manager, home appliance solutions, microchip Asia Pacific
Philip poulidis, vice president of Marvell and general manager of mobile and Internet of things Division
Technology director of Toshiba Electronics (China) Co., Ltd. Yixing Wei
Jin Guangyi, product manager of gigadevice MCU of Zhaoyi innovation
Zhong Jinhong, business development director of anfuli electronic components China
Tian Jiping, director of market and business development in Asia Pacific region of MAOZe Electronics
E. Liu Jiagong, general manager of Luomeng Greater China
Low power consumption is an inevitable trend
Wang Zhihang: using low-power MCU to realize environmental protection and energy saving is the development trend of the market. In the home appliance industry, Renesas focuses on promoting rl78 MCU series. Rl78 is based on 16 bit CISC architecture and has rich analog peripheral functions. It is specially designed for ultra-low power applications, so that users can build small and energy-efficient systems at a lower cost. On the premise that the operation efficiency reaches 1.39dmps/mhz, the operation power consumption of rl78 is very low; When the real-time clock and low voltage detection mode are turned on, the current consumed by rl78 is only 0.57 μ A。 In addition, rl78 has three low power consumption modes (stop, pause and sleepiness), which can maximize battery life by turning off some CPU functions.
Greg Hodgson: low power consumption is becoming more and more important for MCU. Silicon labs can provide the most energy-saving 8-bit and 32-bit MCU in the industry. It is an ideal choice for energy sensitive and battery powered equipment. All gecko MCU have peripheral reflection system (PRS), which can monitor complex system level events, allow autonomous communication between different MCU peripherals, and keep the CPU in energy-saving sleep mode as long as possible, so as to reduce the overall energy consumption of the system. The simplicity Studio development platform of silicon labs includes energy aware development tools, which are optimized by embedded developers for low energy consumption.
Zhang Xiaoping: NXP MCU has a wide range of applications. Customers are more concerned about the power consumption and volume of the chip, as well as the software support of sensors. NXP MCU provides Lpc1100 series and lpc800 series low-power products, which are based on Cortex-M0 and Cortex-M0 + cores respectively. In the future, we will launch a new low-power product series based on M4 kernel to provide the market with a low-power MCU product series with higher performance.
Jinguang I: gigadevice gd32 MCU has the application advantages of high performance, low power consumption and ease of use. Gd32 MCU adopts high-speed Cortex-M3 kernel and gflash patented technology with independent intellectual property rights to realize zero waiting for flash access by the kernel. Compared with the test results, the code execution efficiency of gd32 is 30% ~ 40% higher than that of similar products in the market, and the power consumption is optimized for the applications of energy conservation, environmental protection and battery power supply of household appliances. Gd32 MCU provides three power-saving modes. The working current at the same main frequency is 20% ~ 30% lower than that of similar products in the market. The power consumption at full speed at the highest main frequency is only 1.05mw/mhz. In addition, our MCU also provides a variety of packaging forms. The whole series of products are fully compatible in software and pin packaging, which is suitable for different project requirements from low-end to high-end.
Alan Lee: microchip has been committed to developing technologies that can reduce energy consumption and improve energy efficiency for many years. Our ultra-low power technology can provide the lowest operation and sleep current in the industry. Products with ultra-low power technology can enable designers to reduce the standby power consumption of the system. In household appliances, motor energy consumption accounts for a large proportion of the total energy consumption. By adopting advanced motor control technology in Brushless DC motor and permanent magnet synchronous motor, higher energy efficiency can be achieved. Microchip has a complete range of motor control IC, which can realize high-performance and accurate motor control system design, and make it more energy-saving and quiet. Recently, we have expanded the 16 bit dsPIC series and three-phase BLDC motor drivers to cover a wide range of motor control applications, including low-cost and advanced design.
Cao Jindong: in the era of intelligent lighting, MCU should have the functions of high accuracy, low cost, energy saving and emergency protection. The specific requirements for MCU are as follows: controlling the current accurately and prolonging the life of lamps and lanterns; Multiple protection functions to ensure the safety of lamps; High integration, saving space and cost; Flexible and accurate dimming, less energy consumption for the same brightness; Provide independent timer threshold output function for multi-channel; Diversified communication modes, supporting IR / wireless / Dali / DMX512 / PLC /; High working temperature, etc.
Wang Yijing: low power consumption in the field of household appliances includes running and standby power consumption. Compared with handheld devices, home appliances are not very demanding for low power consumption. They are more concerned about how to save energy in the whole system than the power consumption of the microcontroller itself. Infineon's microcontroller xmc1000 series is mainly used in motor control. It pays attention to the frequency conversion and energy saving of the whole system. It also has advantages in operating power consumption.
MCU + new favorite of wireless IOT Era
Philip poulidis: for the application of the Internet of things, Marvell's strategy is to develop a complete IOT platform. First of all, we have integrated wireless technology to integrate different peripheral devices into our platform. Recently, we launched three chips on the IOT platform solution. These three chips are all single chips. The first one is the integration of WiFi and MCU, the second one is the integration of Bluetooth and MCU, and the third one is the integration of EZ connect and ZigBee. From WiFi to Bluetooth to ZigBee, Marvell's integration of different wireless technologies is the most complete in the industry. Low power consumption is a very important element. Some home devices are equipped with batteries, so low power consumption and endurance are very important. At the same time, complete software and SDK technology are needed on this platform, so that users can develop products more easily and conveniently. In the IOT field, not only does the terminal have very good device functions, but also services on the cloud need to be integrated.
Long tail: in recent years, traditional white appliances have also begun to realize home appliance networking through wireless communication technology, and the idea of controlling all kinds of home appliances with mobile phones has gradually become a reality. This puts forward new requirements for MCU: link function improvement, high-speed data processing capacity, high-capacity flash and low power consumption.
In response to the above new requirements, Toshiba has developed various MCU to meet customer needs. For example, m369 + Toshiba Bluetooth or WiFi with built-in Ethernet, USB host, USB device and can bus can easily connect all kinds of household appliances to the Internet. Toshiba has developed Toshiba MCU m461 and m462 with floating-point operation, up to 1.5m bytes flash capacity and operation frequency of 120mhz, which can meet the needs of customers for high-speed data processing. We plan to develop a Bluetooth + M0 integrated chip, which can realize low-power wireless data transmission. M0 + etc integrated chip enables customers to develop etc products more conveniently and make the highway more smooth.
Alan Lee: with the continuous improvement of living standards, home appliances need to go beyond the most basic functions. Now, we have all the key technologies needed to transform traditional household appliances into intelligent devices. For example, there are a variety of sensing and connection technologies. Connection function, especially wireless connection, can connect home appliances to the Internet and smart grid, which is one of the key technologies required by the smart home market. Although there are many WiFi solutions in the market, there are few embedded control design solutions for power consumption. The microchip provides ultra-low power WiFi and sub GHz modules. In addition, our RF module is a standard module certified by an authoritative organization, which can reduce the time and workload of RF development.
Greg Hodgson: we regard the Internet of things (IOT) as a further evolution of computing. Adding intelligent sensing, processing and wireless connection to electrical devices in our lives will make them more practical. IOT has already had a significant impact on the home appliance, LED lighting and automotive markets. Silicon labs provides a wide range of 8-bit MCU based on 8051 kernel and 32-bit MCU based on ARM kernel for various IOT applications. At the same time, it also includes a complete development environment - simplicity studiotm, which is used to accelerate IOT system design. For the widely used LED lighting market, we provide the industry-leading ZigBee SoC Based on ARM core, which can provide intelligent wireless connection and mesh network for intelligent light control system.
SOC shall be bundled with application
Yi Shenghai: SOC is a good topic. The transfer of automotive electronic functions from board level to chip is indeed happening in some aspects. This includes many objective factors and requires many conditions. However, as far as the scale of China's local automotive electronics is concerned, it is generally not to this extent. The first determinant of SOC is ROI (return on investment). It is estimated that the scale of China's local automotive electronics market is about US $140 million, which is distributed in more than 10 applications. SOC is mainly bundled with applications, so what can be done is very limited.
Zhang Xiaoping: SOC integration is getting higher and higher, which is a development trend, and MCU is an indispensable part of it. From connecting wireless chips, GPS and sensors to information data acquisition and processing and human-computer interaction, MCU has stronger applicability and greater flexibility. Based on the future technology development trend, MCU will continue to integrate and integrate more functions, which is also the advantage of NXP. The design of SOC + MCU application mode is flexible, which can provide customers with MCU with different resource allocation, so as to provide products with the best cost performance. Combined with market demand, industry application, technology development trend and low power consumption requirements, NXP MCU has been committed to providing customers with MCU product series of single-chip solutions.
Long tail Yixing: Toshiba semiconductor has a very rich product line: MCU, simulator, communication products (Bluetooth, WiFi, NFC, etc.), sensors. Effectively integrating the above technologies and developing SOC suitable for the market is one of the development directions of Toshiba semiconductor. For example, Toshiba's tmpm342 has built-in functional modules such as 2-way 7-bit stepper motor drive, PSC and operational amplifier. It is widely used in digital cameras, lens control, security and household monitoring probes. The localization process of MCU market in China is accelerating, and the competition is becoming more and more intense. Toshiba's strategy is to make use of its own technological advantages and take the road of technological differentiation.
Jinguang I: facing the new specific application requirements, SOC chip has its own advantages, which can effectively integrate processing resources and improve the integration of system hardware. However, it is not as flexible and economical as general MCU in taking into account the communication requirements of peripheral modules and human-computer interaction. Therefore, SOC chip can play the core function of algorithm processing, but MCU, as the core device of system management, will also be more widely used in the digital home appliance market, including data stream transmission, man-machine interface, display and touch control, wireless control, etc. At present, many customers have used gigadevice gd32 series Cortex-M3 MCU in game consoles, cameras, routers, audio, remote control handles and other products, which is expected to continue to grow this year.
Cao Jindong: from the perspective of SOC trend, in view of the growth of connection demand, MCU needs to provide more peripherals to interact with the external analog and digital world; For intelligent, MCU needs to obtain information for efficient and intelligent information processing; According to the processing requirements, MCU needs to meet the requirements of real-time processing on the one hand, and exchange information with remote center on the other hand. These are the needs of MCU in the era of Internet of things.
Du Xi: as early as a few years ago, Infineon launched an 8-bit SOC chip based on 8051 core, which was successfully applied to the motor control system of low-power vehicles. Recently, we will launch 32-bit SOC chip based on arm, which integrates bridge drive or relay output respectively. The control system constructed with SOC has the advantages of small volume, easy integration with the controlled object, single function and fixed control object. However, it should be pointed out that for systems with harsh working environment, complex control objects and high driving power requirements, general-purpose MCU will be more suitable and more flexible. Factors to be considered in SoC integration include: application flexibility, such as whether to further expand its functions; Application environment and standards; The cost performance of the scheme and the realization of semiconductor technology. The difference of SOC scheme will be reflected in the difference of application control function.
The compound growth rate of the Chinese market is as high as double digits
Zhong Jinhong: in the past five to six years, China's semiconductor market has grown rapidly, from 30% of the world in the past to about 40% now. Among all kinds of components, MCU grows especially rapidly, and the compound growth rate has reached double digits. This is because Chinese electronic products have more and more functions, change faster and faster, and the development cycle is shorter and shorter. MCU uses software to realize the changes of various functions, so as to shorten the product development cycle and become an ideal solution.
Yi Shenghai: the average controller (MCU / MPU) per vehicle in China is about $45, while the average controller per vehicle in the United States is about $140 in the same period. It can be seen that the development of automotive electronics in China has great potential. The development trend of microcontroller follows the requirements of automotive electronic system. Different systems have different requirements for MCU.
Tian Jiping: China's MCU market is very rich, covering almost all kinds of applications. With the progress of MCU related development tools and the popularization of network platform technology exchange, China has a considerable number of high-level MCU application engineers. The deep understanding and mastery of MCU application technology makes them have more personalized MCU selection requirements. We believe that the characteristic of China's MCU market is MCU

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Keyword：Differentiation   Diversified Development of Technology Application   MCU Manufacturer   Freescale   Renesas Electronics   NXP Semiconductor   Infineon Technology   Silicon Labs   STMicroelectronics   Microchip   Marvell   Toshiba Electronics   GigaDevice   Avnet   Trade Ze Electronics   e Luomeng   Low Power   Wireless IoT   SoC Integration   Commax-Tech Electronic