Since last year, when semiconductor demand increased rapidly, the global MCU market has recorded record shipment and sales growth. Single-chip MCUs for embedded control and computing functions are commonly found in our lives, and the growth of MCUs is largely driven by embedded automation and the proliferation of sensors.

The MCU market enjoyed its biggest boom ever last year, reaching $20.2 billion, up 27%. The average selling price of MCUs also jumped significantly, rising 10% to $0.64, recovering from the price decline caused by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic recession, and looking ahead, the average selling price is expected to increase by 3.5% annually through 2026.

Meanwhile, IC Insights announced the top five global MCU suppliers on the 14th, and all of them recorded sales growth rates of over 20%. 1st place went to NXP with $3.795 billion, followed by Microchip with $3.584 billion, Renesas with $3.42 billion, STMicroelectronics (hereinafter referred to as ST) with $3.374 billion, and Infineon with $2.378 billion.

There was no change in sales ranking in 2020, but ST's sales growth was noticeable. It increased by 35% from $2.56 billion in 2020, immediately catching up with third-place Renesas. The sales gap is $46 million, but Renesas was the largest MCU supplier until the first half of 2010. Renesas' MCU sales share, which was 33.1% in 2011, fell to 17% in 2021. Microchip, second in the MCU sector, is relatively widening the gap, widening the sales growth gap with Renesas by about $40 million compared to 2020.

NXP is in first place in the MCU sector with a market share of 18.8%. After the acquisition and merger of Freescale, NXP has become the leader in the MCU sector. In the fierce competition in the MCU market, NXP is doing well with the support of Freescale, which has strengths in automotive semiconductors and MCUs.

According to IC Insights, general embedded applications such as smartphones, computers and peripherals, industrial, and consumer products account for approximately 46% of MCU sales, while the corresponding automotive systems sector accounts for over 40%. Automotive MCU sales are expected to record an average annual growth rate of 7.7% over the next five years, making it the market with the highest growth potential.

Infineon, ranked fifth, maintained its ranking with sales of nearly $2.4 billion in the MCU market last year. Sales increased by 22% compared to the previous year. Infineon entered the top five in MCUs by acquiring Cypress Semiconductor in the U.S. in April 2020 and further expanding into automotive MCUs, power management, and other embedded system applications.

The top five MCU suppliers develop and sell Arm-based MCUs. The top five companies account for 82.1% of the total market in 2021, up from 72.2% in 2016, and are expanding their size in the MCU market every year. Companies ranked 6th to 10th are Texas Instruments, Nuvoton, Rohm, Samsung, and Toshiba, recording $2.3 billion in the total market, accounting for 11.4%. IC Insights noted that MCU suppliers outside the top 10 accounted for only 6.5% of the market share.

In the MCU market, the gap between the four companies in terms of market share, NXP, Microchip, Renesas, and ST, is not much greater than 1%. Therefore, fierce competition is expected between companies trying to expand their market share.