According to the data, MCU market share will grow from 52% in 2021 to 65% in 2026 in the potential market represented by production automation (AI-based predictive maintenance, etc.), building and home control, home appliances (energy efficiency and cloudification, etc.), medical, security monitoring and other industrial products. Among them, from 2021 to 2026, the compound annual growth rate of MCU applications in home appliances, production automation, construction and home control markets is 26%, 9% and 9%, respectively.
As a result, to continue to support capacity expansion, ST expects capital expenditures to increase to $4 billion in 2023 from $3.5 billion in 2022. On the other hand, the company will also increase 90nm and 40nm node capacity through external foundry guarantees, using process technology for most products in the STM32 series.
This means that ST's wafer capacity will increase significantly between now and 2025, and the company will expand its global wafer test and back-end packaging capacity accordingly in line with the plan. "To meet the growing demand for ST's full product line, we are significantly expanding our 12-inch wafer fabrication to achieve our goal of doubling our capacity between 2022 and 2025," said Ricardo DE-SA-EARP, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the General Microcontroller Sub-Products Division, STMicroelectronics, at the 2023 STM32 China Summit. Ricardo pointed out that ST is committed to building a flexible and resilient STM32 manufacturing network for customers to ensure security of supply and shorten lead times.
Ricardo DE-SA-EAR, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER OF THE GENERAL PURPOSE MICROCONTROLLER SUB-PRODUCT DIVISION OF STMicroelectronics
In addition, according to Omdia/WSTS statistics, in the general microcontroller MCU (excluding automotive and smart card security applications) market, ST product shipments have risen from 3rd in 2018 to 2nd in 2019-2020, and will become No. 1 in the market in 2021. ST's brand STM32 general-purpose microcontroller products have shipped more than 11 billion units since their release.
STM32 innovative products and technologies enable a wide range of applications
At the STM32 China Summit, STMicroelectronics Microcontrollers and DigitalICRemi EL-OUAZZANE, President of Product Group (MDG), said, "We believe that three areas, embedded AI, connectivity, and information security, are critical to realizing the vision of an intelligent edge based on cloud connectivity. To this end, during the summit, ST highlighted various applications enabled by STM32's innovative product technology.
Remi EL-OUAZZANE, President of MDG, STMicroelectronics
Edge artificial intelligence exhibition areaFocus on edge AI solutions based on ST products, covering edge artificial intelligence washing machines, intelligent sweeping robots, pump anomaly detection, AFCI (arc pulling detection), and predictive maintenance of equipment.
For example, during the STM32 China Summit, ST exhibited a prototype washing machine running machine learning algorithms, which was also its Asian debut. It is reported that the washing machine uses current sensing technology and a model library generated by NanoEdge AI to accurately determine the weight of the laundry, with an accuracy error of between ± 100 grams (the error of similar systems is about ± 500 grams). In this way, the washing machine not only adjusts the motor washing cycle according to the actual weight of the laundry, optimizing energy efficiency, but also adjusts the water intake according to the weight data of the laundry, so as to achieve the goal of water conservation.
Because NanoEdge AI uses existing current-sensing sensors and can run algorithms on mixed-signal MCUs such as the STM32G4, device vendors can train and deploy new features through machine learning without having to adjust PCB designs and modify bill of materials costs.
Connect the exhibition areaIt brings together various wireless connectivity solutions developed with ST wireless connection technology, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, LoRa, NFC, suitable for smart industry, smart home, wearable devices, Internet of Things, etc. By simulating the actual application scenario of factory automation, a wonderful demonstration of a complete production line with integrated robotic arm was shown. This is a seemingly simple task, but all operations require high connectivity and intelligence.
Information Security ZoneVarious information security solutions based on STM32 MCU, STM32Trust, STSAFE-A and other software and hardware were exhibited, and customers can use the hardware characteristics of STM32MCU and its ecosystem resources to achieve security design and strengthen the security of new products in new product design. For example, the STM32H5 debug verification feature uses the Nucleo-H563ZI development board to demonstrate the STM32H5's pre-debug authentication feature.
In addition to solution demonstrations, the summit also has a dedicated new product exhibition area, displaying the latest STM32 MCU and MPU products such as STM32H5, STM32U5, STM32C0, STM32WBA, STM32MP13x, as well as various innovative solutions and related development boards based on these products.
Ecosystem and Developer First Program
STM32 innovation and services go beyond "core", ST not only provides customers with a broad product portfolio, but also a complete development ecosystem including hardware and software development tools, covering the entire product range. In this way, ST provides a one-stop development platform for configuration, development, programming, and traceability, helping developers build a seamless development process.
As the MCUs themselves become more powerful, and as their customers' applications become more complex, ST needs not only to support MCU performance, but also software to enable virtually innovative applications. "For STM32, we invested a lot of resources early on in developing software based on embedded PCs to make development faster for our engineers and customers," said Remi El-Ouazzane, President, Microcontroller and Digital ICs Group, STMicroelectronics. The second and more important part is the development of embedded software, including some mobile protocol stacks, such as those such as USB. This part includes graphic, which makes it easier for customers to develop their applications, implement graphic, and enable low-power communication. â€
Remi emphasized that AI, connectivity, and security are some of the most important normal drivers for ST to improve security applications for users. ST is also releasing modules based on ST hardware with partners. Because in order to provide users with more convenient development support, STM32 alone is not enough, but more partners and a wider ecosystem are needed to provide board-level, module-level, and system-level solutions to users.
Arnaud Julienne, Vice President, Digital Marketing, Microcontroller & Digital IC Product Group, (MDG) IoT/AI Technology Innovation Center and Digital Marketing, STMicroelectronics Asia Pacific, said: "For ST, we want to be as local and local as possible to better adapt to the actual needs of each country. That's why we've also made a lot of efforts in localization, and we're able to work with local partners as much as possible. â€
Vice President, Microcontroller and Digital ICs Group, (MDG) IoT/AI Technology Innovation Center and Digital Marketing, STMicroelectronics Asia Pacific
Arnaud Julienne
In addition, to showcase the STM32 MCUs and MPUs to their one-stop resource library, STMicroelectronics' official website (st.com) has dedicated an STM32 developer community. The STM32 developer community is primarily aimed at three groups of people: engineers using other MCUs/MPUs, new STM32 users, and STM32 repeat users. In addition, the STM32 developer community can also provide industry information for decision makers, industry opinion leaders, etc.
In addition, in order to provide skills training and cultivate talents for local users and related industries in China, ST has also launched a university program. ST University's program covers high-quality courses, teacher training, national competitions, open source platforms, embedded system technology certification and other talent training programs.
It is reported that ST's China University Program has established its first laboratory with Shanghai Jiaotong University since 2007, and has cooperated with more than 500 schools and 2,000 teachers in China, cultivating more than 2 million engineers for society and helping the company's customers to do innovative development. "In order to further strengthen our strategic cooperation, we developed a talent development program with the Chinese Institute of Electronics in 2020. In this program, we have clear learning standards, study syllabus, examination platform, certification platform. We hope to provide more qualified talents for enterprises through such a platform, so this is our policy for China's ecological development. â€
It will not be dominated or controlled by individual regulations, and will still serve customers well
Since the second half of 2022, the demand for consumer electronics has declined rapidly, but the demand for automotive and industrial electronics markets has continued to grow steadily. The gap between the performance and supply of MCU products in the consumer and industrial markets is also very obvious.
According to Henry Cao, Executive Vice President and President of STMicroelectronics China, "If you compare the momentum of consumer business with industrial customers, the MCU segment is relatively stronger in the field of industrial units. Including industrial customers related to energy, power management, and new energy, their demand is still very strong, even stronger than last year. This is a general trend in the entire market. â€
At the same time, Cao Zhiping pointed out that from the perspective of supplying industrial customers, STMicroelectronics should be better than last year. Except for a few product models, most of the products should be stronger than last year's supply capacity, especially those customers who have a full range of cooperation with ST, their supply is basically ST's priority.
Henry Cao, Executive Vice President and President, China, STMicroelectronics
Regarding the market performance of consumer electronics MCUs, Cao Zhiping said: "For consumer electronics, we have also done a lot of design-in (one of the alternatives for customers), and there are also a lot of design-win (one of the alternatives for customers). But overall, it may take some time for the consumer electronics market to recover significantly.
Over the past few years of the pandemic, we have witnessed the supply chain go from initial supply disruption and straining to now returning to normal. However, in the past two years, because of Sino-US trade frictions, global economies have begun to legislate, basically for key semiconductor devices, or downstream processing and production links have made some restrictions, all of which require local production to a certain extent.
In this regard, Henry pointed out that governments are introducing so-called policies and regulations, and they are constantly evolving. Generally, some outline policies will be issued first, and then there will be some new implementation details slowly. ST has been keeping an eye on these regulations. So far, ST has not developed some countermeasures in accordance with these regulatory requirements.
In addition, Henry further said: "For ST, we always focus on the market itself - how to find the regions with rapid business and the types of customers with fast business growth, and how to better serve customers through technology research and development and the layout of the industrial chain, so as to determine our production and manufacturing strategy." Our decisions are not only dominated or controlled by the regulations of individual governments, but mainly for the purpose of serving customers.