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Pixelplus Launches CIS for B4 Market-Only Vehicles for the First Time Early Next Year
10 Years of R&D Ambitious Work Fractured...Meet two requirements for B4 Market certification.
CIS Big 3 (Sony, OmniVision, Onsemi) for vehicles is a trump weapon.
Pixelplus, a fabless (semiconductor design) company, will introduce CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) for vehicles exclusively for B4 Market for the first time early next year. It has already completed product development and plans to introduce it to customers in the form of ES (engineer sample). Pixelplus has entered the non-fo-market market, but this is the first time that it has developed a CIS for vehicles exclusively for non-fo-market that meets certification requirements. As R&D has paid off for as long as 10 years, attention is being paid to whether it will be able to crack the CIS market for vehicles led by On Semiconductor, OmniVision, and Sony.
According to industries on the 21st, Pixelplus plans to introduce CIS exclusively for non-foreign markets to customers in the form of ES in the first quarter of next year.
"We plan to deliver samples to our customers from early next year," said Kim Do-hyung, executive director of Pixelplus's strategic planning office. "We will start mass-producing new products from the second half of next year and contribute to improving sales in earnest by 2024."
The automotive semiconductor market is also divided into Before Market and After Market. B4 Market is a form of supplying to finished car companies through primary partners. Aftermarket is traded at a relatively low price in the form of selling to partner companies that make electronic solutions.
In order to increase its global market share, Pixelplus has developed a chip exclusively for B4 markets that is difficult to develop by strengthening automotive safety functions compared to existing B4 market products.
The reason why the difficulty of developing chips exclusively for the B4 market is high is that they must meet two requirements. First of all, it is a physical standard. It must meet 'AEC-Q100', a standard for reliability testing of semiconductors for vehicles. Second, it is necessary to secure an ASIL (Automatic Safety Integrity Level) rating of ISO26262, an international standard for automotive functional safety. The ASIL grade is from A to D, and the more difficult it is to certify. Image sensors can be delivered only when they are rated B to C.
Pixelplus has developed a vehicle CIS chip called 'PK5130KA' that meets these two standards. It plans to receive ISO26262 certification early next year. Certification takes about three to six months. After completing the certification process, large-scale mass production will be possible from the end of next year.
There are many reasons why developing chips exclusively for the B4 market is important in the automotive semiconductor market. First of all, in the automotive semiconductor market, the Before market is larger than the Aftermarket. In addition, the B4 market can secure a stable supplier by entering the market. It also has a great influence on profitability, that is, operating profit ratio. Even if it is a product with similar performance, chips exclusively for Before Market are said to be several times more expensive than aftermarket products. However, it is difficult to enter the market itself because it is difficult to meet the certification requirements. Pixel Plus has been working on R&D for the past 10 years and is about to bear fruit.
There are several CIS companies for vehicles in the global market. On Semiconductor of the U.S., Sony of Japan, and OmniVision of China are forming the "Big Three." As of last year, the market share of Pixel Plus was about 5%, ranking fifth in the world. Along with the development of new products, attention is also being paid to whether Pixelplus will be able to crack the big three-led CIS market for vehicles.
An official from Pixelplus said, "The resolution, sensitivity, and pixel size of CIS for vehicles are important, but this part is already comparable to global companies."
Meanwhile, Pixelplus recorded 50.6 billion won in sales and 3.4 billion won in operating profit last year. In the first half of this year, sales were 33.6 billion won and operating profit was 1.6 billion won. Overall sales are expected to increase this year compared to the previous year.
Reporter Kang Seung-tae from The elec / https://www.thelec.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=18448
