News briefing

 

The recent business performance of automotive chip makers such as NXP Semiconductors from the Netherlands, Infineon Technologies from Germany, Renesas Electronics from Japan, and Analog Devices Inc. and Texas Instruments from the US has greatly underpinned the sales growth of the automotive sector, with all of them releasing strong financial forecasts for the year.

 Impact analysis

 

Since the second half of 2021, the problem regarding the automotive chip supply and the shipping congestion that caused the suspension of global automotive production in the past has been gradually eased, with the production capacity recovering quarter by quarter. Therefore, car shipments worldwide have increased for two consecutive quarters, despite the tightening global economy and the bleakness of the consumer market. On the other hand, the need for EVs is expanding rapidly, driven by the global net-zero trend as well as the vigorous promotion of governments worldwide, being one of the factors for the growth of the auto market as well. Based on the statistics by LMC Automotive and EV-Volumes.com, a survey and research organization, the global sales of pure EVs will reach 7.8 million in 2022, a significant increase of 68% as compared with that of 2021, and it is optimistically predicted that the sales target of 11 million vehicles is likely to be achieved in 2023.

 

The vigorous growth of EVs has brought "CASE" innovation trends to the 100-year-old automobile industry, i.e., electronic products have concurrently increased the demand for automotive chips and automotive PCBs in terms of “Connectivity”, “Autonomous”, “Shared”, and “Electrified.” As pointed out by the chip industry, each car will use approx. 1,200 chips in 2021, double that of 2010, and this figure will only increase in the future. As observed, the scenario will be the same for automotive PCBs. Consequently, it is estimated that, by 2028, the number of automotive PCBs will increase by 50% compared to 2022. Among them, the single-sided, double-sided board, and the multi-layer board should still account for the largest volume, whereas the triggered increase of the HDI and flexible board used in products such as ADAS, smart cockpit, and battery flexible boards and other products, should display the strongest momentum.

 

Source of information: 富士キメラ総研 & CMK