jms_embedded
Well-known member
Cool, thanks for the reference; I'll check it out. I've been keeping my eye out for any public statements I can find
I have some clues here, and a possible answer but not a definite answer.
The MCU market has constraints and optimizations for process size.
The constraint is the availability of embedded flash memory -- my understanding is that it goes down to 28nm (see linked article) but even that is relatively new, and 40nm or larger applies to the majority of MCUs. NXP has a 16nm automotive MCU but it relies on external NOR flash.
Optimizations are for cost-effectiveness. I don't have access to the kind of data that would point to which technology nodes are most cost-effective for various mixes of MCU complexity (if we say "cost modeling" three times, perhaps Scotten Jones will appear and shed some light on the situation) but I suspect that on the low end, if you have a relatively low-end electronic feature X in a car that requires an MCU which needs to cost, say, Y cents or less in 10M quantity, then depending on what Y is, you'll get different optimal technology nodes that are larger than 40nm. I'm just going to throw out some made up numbers: maybe at Y = 50 cents, the optimal node size in 2022 is 110nm, and maybe at Y = $1.00 the optimal node size is 55nm. The 16nm NXP parts look like they're in the $40 range in low quantities so maybe $15-20 at very large quantities.
One problem with cars (unlike phones) is that the electronics needs to be distributed; you can't have one big application processor to do everything, so the level of integration has its limits, and with these little cheap MCUs you're stuck on whatever process is lowest-cost / lowest-risk at the time of IC development.
As for the "why didn't they see this coming" question -- that is MUCH harder to answer, and my only guess is that it is a game of chicken, kind of an anti-Moore's Law where the auto manufacturers and their Tier 1-2 suppliers said "well we can just rely on the MCU companies for JIT, we don't have to pre-order" and the MCU companies said "well, we're just going to handle it quarter by quarter, and the foundries are going to have some more capacity by the time we need it" and the foundries said "well, we're just going to focus our capex on the more advanced nodes and the MCU companies will shift away from mature nodes when they need to" and now we have our train wreck. It would have happened without COVID but with the supply/demand shocks of COVID it just happened faster.
That last paragraph is a supposition on my part; I can't back it up.
I have some clues here, and a possible answer but not a definite answer.
The MCU market has constraints and optimizations for process size.
The constraint is the availability of embedded flash memory -- my understanding is that it goes down to 28nm (see linked article) but even that is relatively new, and 40nm or larger applies to the majority of MCUs. NXP has a 16nm automotive MCU but it relies on external NOR flash.
Optimizations are for cost-effectiveness. I don't have access to the kind of data that would point to which technology nodes are most cost-effective for various mixes of MCU complexity (if we say "cost modeling" three times, perhaps Scotten Jones will appear and shed some light on the situation) but I suspect that on the low end, if you have a relatively low-end electronic feature X in a car that requires an MCU which needs to cost, say, Y cents or less in 10M quantity, then depending on what Y is, you'll get different optimal technology nodes that are larger than 40nm. I'm just going to throw out some made up numbers: maybe at Y = 50 cents, the optimal node size in 2022 is 110nm, and maybe at Y = $1.00 the optimal node size is 55nm. The 16nm NXP parts look like they're in the $40 range in low quantities so maybe $15-20 at very large quantities.
One problem with cars (unlike phones) is that the electronics needs to be distributed; you can't have one big application processor to do everything, so the level of integration has its limits, and with these little cheap MCUs you're stuck on whatever process is lowest-cost / lowest-risk at the time of IC development.
As for the "why didn't they see this coming" question -- that is MUCH harder to answer, and my only guess is that it is a game of chicken, kind of an anti-Moore's Law where the auto manufacturers and their Tier 1-2 suppliers said "well we can just rely on the MCU companies for JIT, we don't have to pre-order" and the MCU companies said "well, we're just going to handle it quarter by quarter, and the foundries are going to have some more capacity by the time we need it" and the foundries said "well, we're just going to focus our capex on the more advanced nodes and the MCU companies will shift away from mature nodes when they need to" and now we have our train wreck. It would have happened without COVID but with the supply/demand shocks of COVID it just happened faster.
That last paragraph is a supposition on my part; I can't back it up.
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