CMOS image sensor market is booming.
As the "eye" of electronic equipment, image sensor has become the focus of market attention in recent years, and it is also one of the hottest fields in the semiconductor industry. At present, CCD image sensor and CMOS image sensor (CIS) are two widely used image sensors. CCD image sensor has the advantages of high quantum efficiency and low noise, and is used in radio and television, industrial monitoring and other fields. With the improvement of VLSI technology and CMOS manufacturing technology, CIS has gradually replaced the traditional CCD image sensor in the civil consumer electronics market with its advantages of small size, low cost, low power consumption and high integration, which has promoted the development of the image sensor market. According to relevant statistics, the global sales scale of image sensors of $201932 million reached $1932 million, of which CIS contributed $ 188 1 100 million, up 26.3% year-on-year, and CIS became one of the fastest growing products in the semiconductor industry.
Development Status of CMOS Image Sensors in China
Compared with foreign manufacturers, domestic CMOS image sensor manufacturers still have shortcomings in technology and scale. Their products are mainly used in the low-end consumer electronics field, while the high-end field has long been monopolized by foreign manufacturers. For this trend, domestic manufacturers have been actively seeking development. In recent years, some powerful CMOS sensor manufacturers have risen, and relying on their own core technologies, they are gradually accelerating their penetration into the middle and high-end market.
How do China manufacturers break through?
For a long time, the CMOS market has been dominated by Japanese and Korean manufacturers such as Sony and Samsung. According to relevant data, the global value of CMOS image sensor has reached $654.38+0.2 billion, with Sony's market share of 50.654.38+0% and Samsung's of 20.5%. These two head manufacturers occupy more than 70% market share. CIS is a special process, including lenses, color filters, optical modules, logic components, integrated packaging, and there is no general public development process. ARM provides universal IP, which can speed up the development time of wafer designers and simplify the process. However, CIS technology is in the hands of its own practitioners. IDM factory has a comparative advantage in technology development because of its speed and strategy in product development, which is why CIS market share is mostly divided by IDM manufacturers. Sony has many years of research and development experience in CMOS field, and continues to improve high-end technology development; In addition to its own semiconductor resources and R&D strength, Samsung's own terminals also provide a guarantee for its CIS sales.
Facing the strong performance of Samsung and Sony, how should China manufacturers seize this opportunity of increasing CMOS demand? Relevant professionals in the industry pointed out that CMOS image sensor is a technology and capital-intensive industry, and there are three barriers: technology and talents, scale and capital, and customer authentication. It is suggested that domestic manufacturers can seize the opportunity of the rise of CMOS from four aspects.
The first is to March from the low-end market to the high-end market. Domestic manufacturers need to use the low-end market, increase R&D investment and technological innovation, enter the high-end field, and gradually occupy the market.
Second, mergers and acquisitions, cooperation with foreign companies to upgrade technology, improve research and development efficiency.
The third is to seize the subdivision of CMOS sensor applications and gradually enter a larger market. New domestic manufacturers can enter the market from the segmentation field, seize a certain segment of the whole industrial chain, lead the market in the segmentation field, and then take the opportunity to develop a broader CMOS market.
The fourth is to strengthen cooperation with domestic small and medium-sized enterprises and obtain customer product certification. We can cooperate with domestic small and medium-sized enterprises as a breakthrough to certify and improve product quality.
To seize the opportunity of CMOS market, we must return to the improvement of technology development and mass production capacity. Domestic manufacturers still have room for improvement in design and wafer manufacturing, especially CIS, a special process technology, which is difficult to achieve technical use with other products. In addition, the cooperation between IC designers and wafer foundries is also the key point, and it is necessary to cooperate with each other to make product planning and development progress, so as to continuously create competitiveness under the favorable situation of CIS.