With the rise of self-driving cars, the automotive semiconductor market is expected to grow to 130 trillion won ($98.25 billion) by 2027, according to an estimate from an industry leader in the sector.

“Last year, the automotive semiconductor market came to 87 trillion won in sales, up 27.4 percent from a year ago and this market is expected to continue grow at an annual rate of over 10 percent, reaching 132 trillion won in 2027,” said Choi Jae-hong, vice president of Infineon Technologies Korea during a press conference held on Tuesday.

The event was organized to introduce the company’s new Low Power Double Data Rate (LPDDR) flash memory for vehicles.

Germany-headquartered Infineon is one of the top three automotive semiconductor companies in the world, along with NXP of the Netherlands and STMicroelectronics of Switzerland. Infineon ranked first in the market last year with a 12.4 percent share.

The recent emergence of autonomous vehicles is driving demand for advanced chips capable of dealing with safety-critical applications more effectively.

“The market of automotive chips for software-defined vehicles is expected to grow rapidly and our sales in this area continues to rise,” said Choi. Last year, automotive semiconductor business accounted for 45 percent of Infineon’s total revenue.

To address the growing market demand, Infineon unveiled SEMPER X1, the industry’s first automotive LPDDR flash memory. While conventional LPDDR is mainly used for smartphones and other mobile devices, this new product is a pure automotive flash memory that delivers on the performance needs of advanced automotive electrical/electronic architectures.

LPDDR, with its strengths of low power consumption and high performance, has recently been expanding beyond the mobile market to servers and car electronics.

By Lee Sae-ha and Minu Kim

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