As the core of the information technology industry, the semiconductor industry has always been the focus of global technological competition. With the continuous emergence of emerging technologies and the continuous growth of market demand, the semiconductor industry shows great growth potential. Based on the current industry analysis, this paper will discuss the future development opportunities and challenges facing the semiconductor industry.
- Automotive semiconductor
Automotive semiconductors are key components used in various electronic systems in automobiles. With the rapid development of electrification, intelligence, and Internet connectivity (collectively known as the "Three Harmonization") in the automotive industry, they are mainly used in body control modules, in-vehicle infotainment systems, powertrain integrated control systems, active safety systems, and advanced assisted driving systems, etc. The demand and market size of automotive semiconductors is increasing. The demand and market size of automotive semiconductors is growing rapidly. According to the forecasts of several organizations, the global automotive semiconductor market size will continue to grow and is expected to reach USD 73.52 billion by 2025. In the next decade, the development of automation, electrification, digital connectivity and security systems will drive the growing number of semiconductor components in automotive electronics and subsystems. At the same time, domestic manufacturers are accelerating the realization of domestic substitution in areas such as silicon manufacturing, semiconductor equipment, power semiconductors, etc. Domestic brands such as Horizon and Huawei are developing rapidly in the field of automotive-grade AI chips.
Second, artificial intelligence semiconductor market
Thanks to the rapid development and wide application of AI technology, the artificial intelligence market has experienced significant growth in recent years, and it is predicted that the global AI chip market size is expected to reach $67.1 billion by 2024, with a CAGR as high as 15.0%. Artificial Intelligence chips can be categorized into CPU, GPU, FPGA, ASIC, brain chips, etc. based on technical architecture. The AI chip industry chain includes upstream materials and equipment, midstream product manufacturing, and downstream application market. The downstream application market includes cloud computing, automatic driving, smartphones, drones, smart speakers, smart security, etc.
Currently, NVIDIA occupies a leading position in the global AI chip market, especially in the cloud training and inference market. China's AI chip market is dominated by international vendors, but domestic companies such as Hesse Semiconductor, Bitmain, and Longxin Semiconductor are also actively laying out. The AI semiconductor market is growing rapidly, with technological innovation and the expansion of application scenarios being the main drivers. At the same time, China's development in the field of AI chips is particularly rapid, and government support and market demand have jointly driven the expansion of the market. In the future, with the further development of AI technology, it is expected that this market will continue to maintain a high-speed development trend.
However, despite the broad prospects for development, there are still some difficulties to overcome. Automotive chips involve multiple links, including vehicle manufacturers, parts suppliers, chip manufacturers, etc. It is necessary to strengthen cooperation between the upstream and downstream of the industry chain to achieve technological breakthroughs and product optimization. The global automotive chip market is highly competitive, with international giants occupying a major market share, and Chinese enterprises with a low overall market share, facing the dual challenges of technology and market.
AI chips need to handle a large number of parallel computations, which puts high demands on the chip's arithmetic power and bandwidth. As the complexity of AI algorithms increases, chip performance needs to be continuously improved to meet the demand. The domestic AI chip industry has problems in terms of independent innovation capability, key core technology dependence on foreign countries, and lack of talents, and needs to strengthen independent innovation and technology research and development.
