Two of Europe’s biggest chipmakers are targeting futuristic cars that drive themselves and have wireless connections as a new revenue growth opportunity.
Infineon Technologies AG, which makes sensors including those that enable autonomous driving, is predicting rising car-chip sales even if total vehicle purchases decline, chief executive officer Reinhard Ploss said on Wednesday in Barcelona.
As cars become more like robots — more automated, and connecting to each other and to their surroundings — STMicroelectronics NV (STMicro) expects “very strong growth” in demand, chief executive Carlo Bozotti said at the same event.
“The number of semiconductors in the car is growing and customers are willing to pay extra for some features,” Ploss told investors at a conference hosted by Morgan Stanley. “We are focused on everything that makes the car like a driving robot.”
Carmakers, including BMW AG, Tesla Motors Inc and Daimler AG are loading their luxury models with technology. The average car had US$333 worth of chip content as of last year, an increase of 11 percent in the past four years, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
Hybrid and electric cars have higher US dollar content per car, as do higher-end models such as the Mercedes S-Class compared with smaller budget models.
Infineon has been building out its business focused on what is known as power-management chips, which are used to handle the flow of power in electronics, from mobile phones to automobiles.
Betting that demand for these chips would keep rising, Infineon bought International Rectifier Corp for about US$3 billion in cash in a deal completed in January. It is developing a radar sensor chip with Google Inc that might go into car safety applications.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day