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Last week, Phoenix, US, based semiconductor giant ON Semiconductor acquired SensL, an Irish startup that Yole Développement (Yole) has been following for a few years. After the release of our latest reports, “Sensors for robotic vehicles 2018” and “Lidar for automotive and industrial applications 2018”, Yole can clearly state that this is excellent news for ON Semiconductor. Its image sensor division’s automotive sales are growing, with Yole estimating that they accounted for 48% of the division’s $768M sales in 2017.

Infineon Technologies is to build a new factory for power semiconductors. The market and technology leader in this segment will thereby create the foundation for long-term, profitable growth. A fully automated chip factory for manufacturing 300-millimeter thin wafers will be constructed at the Villach location in Austria alongside the existing production facility. Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Dr. Reinhard Ploss, Chief Executive Officer of Infineon, and Dr. Sabine Herlitschka, Chief Executive Officer of Infineon Austria, presented the project in Vienna. Investments totaling around €1.6 billion are planned over six years. Some 400 new jobs, especially highly qualified ones, will be created by the new, highly efficient factory. Construction is scheduled to start in the first half of 2019 and production is expected to commence at the start of 2021. The additional sales potential of the new factory, given full capacity utilization, is put at around €1.8 billion a year.

An article written by Jonathan Shieber for Techcrunch - Vesper Technologies, a new microphone technology developer, has raised $23 million from some of the biggest names in audio technology to finance the commercialization of its piezoelectric microphones.

“The MEMS pressure sensor market will grow by 3.8% per year, reaching a value of US$2 billion in 2023”, announces Yole Développement (Yole) in its new MEMS & Sensors report: MEMS Pressure Sensor Market & Technologies. Pressure sensors are used in a wide variety of applications and the market growth is very variable depending on the application. According to Yole’s analysts, automotive, consumer and avionics are the most dynamic markets. In addition, market leaders are different for each market segment, except for some MEMS sensor manufacturers, Robert Bosch, who is leading both automotive and consumer and Honeywell, and NXP who are present in 3 of the following market: automotive, industrial, medical and avionics & high end.

According to Yole Développement (Yole), the global LiDAR systems’ market for automotive applications, is showing an impressive growth between 2017 and 2023. From US$726 million to US$5 billion, it should reach a huge 43% CAGR during this period. In addition, the growth should continue until 2032 with a US$ 28 billion market value, for the automotive market segment only. Today, LiDARs and new applications are developing simultaneously. Thus the LIDAR market is directly linked to the development of ADAS solutions and robotic vehicles. Both domains show high growth rates and tremendous enthusiasm.

Performance-driven applications like PCs and smartphones are giving way to functional applications that are helping mold the semiconductor industry’s future. In this context, advanced semiconductor packaging is seen as a way to increase a semiconductor product’s value by adding functionality, maintaining/increasing performance, and lowering cost – and to this end, the printed circuit board (PCB) is no longer just an interconnection, but also an integration solution. With substrate-like PCBs (SLP) appearing in Apple’s latest iPhones, PCB and substrate manufacturers have started producing SLP and investing in modified semi-additive processes (mSAP). More details are offered in Yole Développement’s recent report, Status of Advanced Substrates 2018: Embedded Dies & Interconnects, Substrate-like PCB Trends.