The sentiment from ‘Memory’ just being “process drivers” is long gone. The application and technology of Memory since then have seen quantum transformations. That distinction is shared among memory, MPU, and ASIC devices. Intel, in the mid-1980s, made a strategic decision to abandon the memory market for economic reasons. Intel probably had a good notion that it could apply state-of-the-art processing techniques to microprocessors, thus making these devices process drivers as well.
Die Size Trends
In 1975, Intel Chairman Gordon Moore predicted that engineers could shrink semiconductor device dimensions by approximately 10 percent each year, creating a new generation of chips every three years with four times as many transistors. Twenty one years later, Moore’s prediction was impressively accurate. DRAM devices actually exceeded his expectations (Figure 1). Figure (1) shows how the die area of leading-edge memory devices has increased about 13 percent per year. The trend toward larger die sizes is forecast to continue. The die sizes of the 1Gbit DRAMs described at the 1995 and 1996 ISSCC conferences ranged from 901K sq. mils to 1,451K sq. mils (Figure 1). As shown, the NEC 1Gbit DRAM, if square, would be about 1.2 inches on a side.
Advancing from one wafer size to a new, larger size takes several years of development. In fact, development time increased substantially to transition to 200mm wafers and will be the same for the transition to 300mm wafers (Figure 6-9). Companies such as Samsung, Texas Instruments, and many other leading memory suppliers have indicated their willingness to build manufacturing facilities to support 300mm wafers. The big question is which company will be the one to take on the huge headaches and huge amount of capital needed to work out all the wrinkles associated with the transition to 300mm wafers.
Automotive Memory Shaping the New Demand
The global automotive memory market is estimated to generate revenues of around $11 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of approximately 24% during 2018-2024.
The increasing requirement of fast booting in modern vehicles through the use of infotainment systems and engine control is not leading to the popularity of NOR flash in the global market. The introduction of next-generation instrument clusters that enable the display HD content and stream music/video will contribute to the need for DRAM, NAND, and NOR memory in the market. The global automotive memory market is driven by the exponential growth of the APAC region specifically countries such as China, Japan, and India. The electrification of vehicles in the form of powertrain, infotainment, connected vehicles, safety systems, and electronics will drive revenues in the global market. The market research report provides in-depth market analysis and segmental analysis of the global automotive memory market by product, application, vehicle, and geography.
Increasing Demand And Volatility
Increasing demand from APAC and emerging economies has a positive impact on the growth of automotive industry. Stringent emission and safety norms adopted by governments globally are also playing a crucial role in the advancement of automotive technology. Advancements in automotive technology is expected to expand new horizons for automotive semiconductor applications.
The change in percent of total vehicles cost from electronics provides a clear image of its growth. For instance, over the past decade the cost from automotive electronics has increased from about 19%-21% to about 41%-46%. In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of handicapping and fatal injuries and deaths on roads. A road accident is defined as an event involving at least one automobile, resulting in injuries or even death to a living being. Accidents also result in damage and even loss of property or life. Road transport regulatory bodies or government agencies have started to mandate a number of security features and systems that should be implemented in automobiles in order to increase the safety of occupants as well as pedestrians and other vehicles on roads.
They incorporate several compute-heavy applications like Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) systems, infotainment systems, and in some cases, even the ultimate goal that everyone is working toward—autonomous driving. All these applications need very heavy computing. For instance, in the case of ADAS, the system will need to process several images in real time, analyze them and make crucial decisions accordingly. The vision sub-system of the ADAS will need to process images from a variety of sources—RADAR, LIDAR, or standard image sensors. These pictures could be of speed signs, obstacles on the road, etc. Depending on the decisions arrived at after processing these images, the ADAS will need to control the steering and braking in a timely manner in order to achieve safe driving.
All of these processes take teraflops of computing. In order to feed this level of performance, we need high performance SoCs in leading-edge process nodes. And we need high-performance memory attached to them. This is a very different dynamic from what we have seen historically.
So what are the memory requirements for the automotive market?
Consider a SoC going into an ADAS. In many ways, it looks very similar to a mobile SoC. It has a processor complex in it, with a Flash interfaces, a DRAM interface or an LPDRAM, interfaces to some external image sensors, etc. So at first blush, it would seem that a lot of the memory requirements are actually quite similar between the two applications. Typically, it’s one or two devices on a module, right next to the SoC. It’s not a large memory subsystem like in a server farm. It’s also very cost sensitive. LPDDR seems to naturally suggest itself, thanks to the high-value DRAMS that a mobile market drives.
Baseline Requirements
But the similarities end there. A slightly closer look will reveal a lot of a things very different between these two markets.
Operational Lifetime
Cell phones are notorious for needing to be replaced every 2-3 years for a variety of reasons, whether it be an unfortunate turn in a washer or an unfortunate drop onto a hard surface. As a result, a long operational lifetime of the device is not a very high priority in a mobile device. A car on the other hand typically lasts about 10 years. So the memory devices is a car definitely need a longer operational lifetime than those in a cell phone.
Long Lifetime Supply
Cell phone manufacturers usually replace phones every year or two with a new model and the market gravitates toward the latest model. This means that the requirement for availability of replacement parts for these cell phones is not very long. A car manufacturer, on the other hand, requires availability of replacement parts for almost 10 years, because even after they stop selling a particular model, if the electronics in the car breaks down, their customers still need to be able to fix them. So the automotive memories require a much longer lifetime supply.
