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ON Semiconductor's 20-year development path

출시일 : 2019. 9. 3.

Since the spin-off of Motorola's semiconductor division in 1999, by August of this year, ON Semiconductor has gone through a full 20 years, with annual sales increasing from $1.2 billion at the time to nearly 60 in 2018. One hundred million U.S. dollars.

At the time of its creation, ON Semiconductor's products were mainly standard semiconductors and discrete devices. In the past 20 years, the company has expanded its product lineup from traditional standard semiconductors and discrete devices to analog semiconductor and signal products and sensors. And complete system single chip (SoC) and so on.

ON Semiconductor focuses on automotive, industrial and cloud power applications such as data center servers, communications infrastructure and the Internet of Things.

David Somo, senior vice president of strategy, marketing and solutions engineering at ON Semiconductor, said that in 2018, nearly 60% of Anson's revenue came from the automotive and industrial sectors. In the automotive sector, we have leading-edge solutions for automotive electronic functions, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving and lighting. In the industrial sector, we are committed to achieving energy efficiency in industrial systems, machine vision, and robotics. In 2018, Ansonmei's revenue share in various fields, cloud power accounted for 6% of the share. However, in the first half of 2019, this part of the revenue increased by 65% ​​year-on-year. In communications, such as wireless communications and smartphones, they currently account for 14% of the company's revenue. Growth in consumer electronics and computing equipment is relatively stable, accounting for around 20% to 25%.

In terms of development, on the one hand, relying on the research and development of the company's products, on the other hand, relying on mergers and acquisitions to achieve exogenous growth. In the past 10 years, the semiconductor industry has experienced a large integration cycle.

ON Semiconductor's strategic acquisition

As shown in the above figure, after the establishment of ON Semiconductor, a total of 17 strategic acquisitions were made. The previous acquisitions have enabled them to acquire many different types of technologies, products and manufacturing capabilities. In this regard, David Somo highlighted two points: one is the acquisition of FAIRCHILD Semiconductor, this acquisition will combine FAIRCHILD's high-power products with the low-power products of ON Semiconductor to better serve the industry and In the automotive field; secondly, ON Semiconductor has made five acquisitions in sensor technology, such as Cypress's CMOS image sensing technology, TRUESENSE's CCD image sensing technology, Aptina's high-capacity CMOS and automotive image sensors. It is the highlight of the merger.

Recently, the company also carried out two sensor and technology acquisitions for automotive and industrial use. One is the acquisition of millimeter wave radar technology developed by the IBM Haifa research team. The other is SensL, which has acquired laser radar technology.

About one-third of ON Semiconductor's revenue comes from the automotive market, which has grown at an average annual rate of more than 10% over the past five years. The growth mainly comes from two aspects: one is the electronic function of the car and the new energy car, and the other is the growth of the sensor with the development of ADAS and autonomous driving technology. In the next 5 to 10 years, whether it is electronic or electronic driving platform, it can achieve a growth of 10% or even tens of percent.

The new material currently under discussion is silicon carbide. Silicon carbide can provide higher energy efficiency and power density for related products. At present, ON Semiconductor provides related silicon carbide devices, diodes, MOSFETs and modules to customers in the automotive industry. Although this market is still small in 2018, with the promotion of companies like Tesla, the company believes that there will be a long-term development in 2020 or even later.

Autopilot platforms require many different types of sensors to work with. With recent mergers and acquisitions, ON Semiconductor has become the only semiconductor company capable of providing all types of imaging required for autonomous driving systems, including imaging, radar, lidar and ultrasound. Providing multiple types of sensors on self-driving vehicles has two major benefits: First, each sensor can be used in different environments where different vehicles are driving and driving. Another benefit is the ability to provide redundancy and fault tolerance. If one sensor does not work well, the other sensor can be reinforced to ensure safe driving.

According to Techno's statistics in 2018, ON Semiconductor has a 62% market share in the automotive imaging field and 81% in ADAS-related sensory cameras.

Among autonomous vehicles, millimeter-wave radar has many functions. In current vehicles, most radars are used for remote detection, especially adaptive cruise systems. ON Semiconductor's new millimeter-wave radar technology allows the front-end radar to be seen farther and at the same time to achieve mid-range detection. At present, ON Semiconductor has issued the first batch of long-distance forward-looking, mid-range side-view radar products to some customers.

In addition, the company acquired Lidar technology from SensL based on silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) or single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) technology. The old technology, called avalanche photodiode (APD), does not reach the level of SPAD, both in terms of performance and sensitivity. Today's technology provides higher sensitivity, allowing the range of detection to cover long, medium, and near ranges, increasing the resolution of detection. These enable the car to achieve an accurate 3D modeling of the entire driving environment.

In the industrial market, Ansenmei mainly divides it into three categories: 1. Energy infrastructure, including solar inverters, electric vehicle charging piles, etc.; 2. Industrial power supplies and motors; 3. Industrial automation.

In terms of energy infrastructure, David Somo said that we see energy production shift from high-emission production methods to almost zero-emission power generation equipment such as solar and renewable energy. The semiconductor content of the equipment has increased from the traditional zero dollar to $650. As cars move from traditional diesel locomotives to new energy vehicles, the electrification process has also driven the development of new energy vehicles, including the demand for electric vehicle charging equipment.

In industrial power and motors, traditional AC induction drives are being replaced by more energy-efficient variable frequency drives, a trend that occurs in industrial motors and white goods. In terms of industrial power and motor solutions, ON Semiconductor can provide technologies for motor drives and inverters.

In terms of industrial automation, the company can also provide a full range of demand products, such as machine vision, radar and other devices that navigate in the production environment. Motor drive, power conversion and other equipment are also available. These technologies can support the already extensive work of robot manufacturing, while also meeting the needs of more powerful robot manufacturing in the future.

Cloud power market layout

The cloud power supply mainly includes two aspects; one is the 5G infrastructure, which is still in the early stage of commercial use; the other is the semiconductor device in the server used in the data center. David Somo said that we believe that semiconductors used in servers are only growing at a rate of more than 10%, but in the next five years, we believe that 5G can achieve a CAGR of nearly 250%. 4G and 5G network architecture is different, 5G through the millimeter wave and other technologies, the data transmission speed reaches 2Tb / s. Compared to other band technologies, millimeter-wave radar has a disadvantage, that is, it cannot penetrate the wall, nor can it pass through buildings and other obstacles. In order to enable high-speed data transmission, in the 5G environment, the base station configuration of the encryption set is also required, and the transmission level is maintained by increasing the number of base stations.

In addition, 5G multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and beamforming techniques require larger baseband bandwidth, which means more semiconductor devices need to be laid out in the system. ON Semiconductor offers a full line of power supply products for base stations, including AC-DC power supplies and medium voltage MOSFETs (80~150V).

As servers become more powerful, more accelerators are needed to meet the training of artificial intelligence, so servers need more power management equipment. At present, the VR13 generation used by the server has a semiconductor management content of $45. And the VR14 server to be launched in a few years will increase its semiconductor content to $75. With the acquisition of FAIRCHILD, ON Semiconductor entered the field of server power management and is now able to provide VR13 generation server power products. At the same time, with the introduction of VR14 digital controller, it will also provide the earliest VR14 power management products.

In terms of manufacturing capabilities, whether it is a front-end manufacturing plant or a back-end packaging test, ON Semiconductor has a global presence with three plants in China, with three back-end manufacturing facilities in Leshan, Suzhou and Shenzhen, which provide packaging. Support for testing and other aspects can meet the needs of customers in the automotive industry and consumer products. David Somo said that with such a global manufacturing network, we shipped 76 billion chips in 2018, which requires us to have strong supply chain management capabilities, mobilize global manufacturing networks and serve global customers. .

Recently, ON Semiconductor acquired a 300mm wafer fab from GLOBALFOUNDRIES in New York. The acquisition will help ON Semiconductor upgrade its wafer processing level from 200mm to 300mm and acquire CMOS capability, including 45 Nm and 65 nm technology nodes, as well as enhanced lineup and technical capabilities for medium and high voltage power MOSFETs, trench IGBTs, analog, bipolar-complementary metal oxide semiconductors - double diffused metal oxide semiconductors (BCD) to meet future automotive functions The demand for advanced, rugged power products for rapidly growing high-power applications such as electronic, autonomous vehicles, renewable energy, cloud computing, and industrial.

When talking about China's development strategy, Roy Chia, vice president of sales for ON Semiconductor China, said that ON Semiconductor's China strategy mainly includes three aspects: 1. Growing wider and faster in key market segments. Including cars, solar, 5G / cloud power. At the same time, we must support these markets in the global region; 2. Implement customer-oriented special programs; 3. Support China's environmental protection policies and strictly follow ethical standards and core values.

China is the main market for electric vehicles. In the first half of this year, the growth rate of electric vehicles in China reached 49%. The growth of electric vehicles has driven the growth of charging piles. The United States, Japan, and Europe are currently leading, but China's automotive semiconductors have been growing. At the same time, the Chinese automotive industry is increasingly focusing on the development of high-end cars.

In this regard, Roy said that we have several applications: electric powertrain, body, assisted driving and so on. These use a lot of semiconductor-related technologies. We can provide image sensors, power supplies, analog products, and more.

In the solar and photovoltaic industries, China accounted for 50% of the global market a few years ago. After the 531 PV New Deal, many of the future markets are overseas. However, after 531, because of the reduced cost, China's PV customers can also grab a lot of overseas shares, and Anson's module products can help Chinese PV customers.

In terms of industrial IoT, in addition to the main chip, ON Semiconductor's products include many devices, such as LDO regulators, Wi-Fi and so on. Roy said that we recently acquired a Wi-Fi company, Quantenna Communications, to provide customers with a complete solution. From the perspective of IoT, there are two concepts, one is consumer-grade IoT, and the other is industrial IoT. Our products are able to meet these needs.