With the advancement of the internet and computing technology, the automotive industry is undergoing a digital transformation. The demand for cars empowered by advanced technologies is growing day by day According to Counterpoint's research, the data generated by Level 3 self-driving cars in one hour is at TB level. In the next ten years, the single-vehicle storage capacity of passenger cars will reach 2TB.
On December 12, MICRON Technology announced that its LPDDR5X mobile memory is continuing to be favored by the market and has been officially installed in mobile phone XAOMI 13, with a peak rate of 8.533 Gb per second. MICRON not only has excellent performance in the field of mobile phone storage, but also in the field of automobile storage, the international research institution Yole Development latest. According to the report, automobile storage products of MICRON rank first in the market share, reaching 45%.SAMSUNG Market share of KIOXIA, HYNIX and MICRON still have a considerable gap.
Robert Bielby, senior director of automotive system architecture of MICRON Technology, told reporters that from 2021 to 2025, the demand for storage of automobiles and the average storage capacity carried by each vehicle (calculated by the storage capacity shipped) are expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 49%, while the compound annual growth rate of mobile phone storage in the same period is 21%.
In December, Yole Development, a world-renowned research institution, released the latest report saying that in electrical, intelligence cockpit and AD driven by AS, cars are the fastest growing memory segment, with a compound annual growth rate of 20% from 2021 to 2027.
Figure1: 2021-2027 semiconductor market overview focus on automotive memory
In 2021, the global automotive memory market reached 4.3 billion US dollars, with NOR flash memory, DRAM and NAND dominate the market, accounting for about automobile Semiconductor 10% of the market. The agency predicts that by 2027, the automobile storage revenue will reach 17% of the automobile semiconductor market, showing a rapid growth momentum.
As the leading global supplier in the field of automotive storage, how does Micron Technology view the prospects of the automotive storage market in 2023? What are the key automotive storage products that support the rapid launch of smart vehicles? In the Chinese market, what local support and services does Micron Technology provide to facilitate the implementation of automotive storage demands? Robert Bielby, Senior Director of Automotive System Architecture of Micron Technology, revealed the latest product layout and cooperation progress.
There are three characteristics in the automobile storage market
Robert Bielby said, Smartphone shipped billions of cars every year, while less than 100 million cars were shipped every year. From 2021 to 2025, the growth rate of automobile storage is expected to reach more than twice that of smart phone storage. However, in terms of market size, in 2021, the overall market size of smart phone storage is 46 billion US dollars, while the overall market size of automobile storage in the same period is 4 billion US dollars. Considering the future of the world New energy Cars and Autopilot Driven by demand, the automobile storage market is promising for a long time.
In particular, Robert Bielby pointed out that with the continuous development of autonomous driving vehicles, higher-level Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are driving the growth of storage demand in the automotive sector. The initial applications include products such as black boxes (vehicle dashcams) that record events before accidents occur These applications are continuously driving the growth of communication data in automobiles. To support black boxes and similar applications, the storage density of high-end cars in the future may reach 1 TB to 4 TB. These applications have high requirements for local native storage capacity and durability.
Figure2: automotive car
It is known that part of the demand for automobile storage comes from intelligent cockpit. Intelligent cockpit has the main infotainment unit, dashboard and connectivity, and is currently the main storage user. For example, with the evolution of image technology processing, smart cars use 8-12 cameras, 8 million pixels resolution, 60 frame/second refresh rate and 16 bits depth, which makes the data flow rate reach nearly 10 GB/s.
LPDDR4 and LPDDR5, which were previously used in mobile phones, are also being used in automobiles to meet the requirements of higher automotive grade than mobile applications certification requirements, their functions are being strengthened. The LPDDR5 is especially suited for larger displays used in the latest vehicles, and can manage increasingly complex navigation images and control areas of cockpit units.
The explosive growth of China's new energy vehicles LPDDR5X shows strong competitiveness
On December 9, China Automobile Industry Vice President of the Association Engineer Xu Haidong said that the China Automobile Association predicted that the total domestic automobile sales in 2022 would be 26.8 million vehicles, up 2% year-on-year. The cumulative sales volume of new energy vehicles is expected to be 6.7 million, up 90.3% year-on-year.
As for the automobile trend in 2023, China Automobile Association predicts that the number of domestic new energy vehicles will reach 9 million in 2023, 35% year-on-year. Enthusiasts in the electronics community believe that as a promising platform for the automotive intelligence revolution, the changing market share of new energy vehicles will be positively correlated with the penetration rate of smart cockpits. It is reported that the market penetration rate of China's new energy vehicles exceeds 20% this year.
In 2022, MICRON roll out the industry's first LPDDR5X that has passed the ASIL D level certification of ISO 26262 standard. ISO 26262 is a functional safety standard for the automotive industry, which can reflect the key capabilities of deploying ADAS and in-vehicle infotainment system (IVI). Combining these two applications is a new trend in the automobile industry, so it is necessary to solve the corresponding safety problems.
Robert Bielby said that in the first half of 2022, MICRON has roll out the LPDDR5X solution. This scheme supports input/output of up to 8.5 Gb per second Signal-More than 1.3 times higher than the original LPDDR5 specification, while also improving performance to achieve higher-level ADAS memory bandwidth.
The specific feature is that LPDDR5X not only has significant improvement in performance compared with its previous generation LPDDR4X (input/output increased from 4.2 Gb per second to 8.5 Gb per second), but also achieves 45% lower power consumption than LPDDR4X by using lower input/output signal voltage and dynamic voltage scaling (DVS), while providing more than 2 times of input/output signal performance. With the ADAS system level Chip With the continuous improvement of computing performance, it is necessary to efficiently and continuously import data into complex Artificial intelligenc Engine, improve system performance and meet the needs of higher-level ADAS.
Micron provides functional safety for LPDDR5X through close cooperation. Our car memory has a specific set of functions to solve systemic failures. It has a number of significant advantages, including Detection Time interval (FDTI) to the best level in the industry. The realization of such functions are not be separated from our close cooperation with our partners in China and around the world.
Figure3: Micron LPDDR5X chip
Diversified on-board storage of MICRON combination meets the upgrade needs of smart cars
According to industry reports, the storage requirements of smart cars mainly come from four major fields: on-board infotainment system (IVI), advanced driving assistance system (ADAS), on-board information system and digital dashboard.
Automotive products of MICRON portfolio include LPDRAM, DRAM, NAND, MCP and NOR, and is the only one-stop automotive memory and storage solution provider in the industry. From the application field, UFS product of MICRON portfolio is widely used in ADAS and on-board infotainment system.
Because the overall performance of UFS is higher than that of the previous generation eMMC, UFS 3.1 product series can provide critical "instant start" performance to meet consumers' expectations for in-vehicle infotainment systems and ADAS applications. Moreover, consumers expect cars to be an extension of the digital lifestyle.
Why should pick vehicle UFS products? Robert Bielby answer is, due to eMMC is half-duplex Communication So it can read or write to memory, but it can’t do it in same time. UFS is a full duplex interface, which allows simultaneous reading and writing, resulting in significant improvement in startup and overall system performance. Specifically, compared with eMMC 5.1, the random read performance of UFS is improved by 6 times and the continuous read performance is improved by 8.5 times. Overall, UFS 3.0 has a peak data transfer rate of 23.2 Gb per second.
UFS 3.1 is a popular storage for smartphones today. Therefore, cars also need to use similar storage to achieve the same performance and experience as smart phones.
China's automotive storage market is growing rapidly. MICRON provides diversified products and services
According to MICRON statistics, the size of China's automobile storage market is about 700 million US dollars in 2021, and it is estimated that it will reach 1.5 billion US dollars by 2023. On the one hand, the growth momentum comes from the growth of automobile shipments in China, on the other hand, it also benefits from the expansion of on-board memory and storage.
MICRON company believes that from 2021 to 2025, the total number of bits in DRAM is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 40%, and the total number of bits in NAND will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 49%. In order to meet the long-term demand for memory and storage in all markets, including automobiles, MICRON will continue to develop advanced process technology and invest in building the most advanced wafer factory in the next two decades, which will be put into use before 2030.
Recently, MICRON announced that it is an industry leader in providing the most advanced DRAM and NAND process technology in the industry. First, MICRON announced the launch of LPDDR5X based on 1-beta process node. This product was recently applied to latest flagship smartphone XIAOMI 13.
In terms of NAND, MICRON recently announced the shipment of the world's first 232-layer NAND, further consolidating its leading position in technology. In terms of storage and memory based on industry-leading process nodes, MICRON provides products with the best power, performance and cost, which are the basic elements to continue to promote the development of all markets such as automobiles.
With regard to the customization needs of the Chinese market, MICRON works closely with OEM, tier 1 and tier 0.5 suppliers, hoping to understand the current and future product requirements in the automotive field. Working closely with our partners, we are able to identify specific requirements that can be applied in current products on the one hand and implemented in future products on the other.
Robert Bielby said that MICRON has special customer laboratories in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing (in addition to 10 locations around the world) to support automobile customers in the design, arrangement and development of automobile systems. By working closely with customers and partners, we have a deep understanding of their actual workloads, and can help them choose the right products to achieve the required durability and corresponding storage density.
We are confident in the Chinese automotive storage market. With China emerging as a leading market for new energy vehicles, the core advantage of Micron's automotive memory will be a key factor in expanding into the Chinese market Robert Bielby concluded.
Booming Autonomous Driving Market: How MICRON Technology Leads in Automotive Storage-China.exportsemi.com
