Half of Top Automakers to R&D Their Own Chips by 2025: Gartner

Persistent semiconductor shortages will induce half the world’s top 10 automotive OEMs to design their own chips for vehicle electrification and autonomy by 2025, giving them better control over their product road maps and supply chains, reported Gartner Tuesday. Ford foreshadowed the trend last month when it struck a nonbinding agreement with GlobalFoundries to collaborate on R&D for future “feature-rich” chips (see 2111180016). Automotive semiconductor supply chains “are complex,” said Gartner Vice President-Research Gaurav Gupta. “In most cases, chip makers are traditionally Tier 3 or Tier 4 suppliers to automakers, which means it usually takes a while until they adapt to the changes affecting automotive market demand. This lack of visibility in the supply chain has increased automotive OEMs' desire to have greater control over their semiconductor supply.” The chip crunch is especially acute among mature semiconductor technology nodes where capacity expansion is difficult, said Gupta. “That the automotive industry has been conservative in qualifying older devices on larger wafer sizes has also hurt them and will likely motivate them to take chip design in-house.” NXP Semiconductors CEO Kurt Sievers described the “enormous depth and complexity” of the automotive supply chain when he told analysts on a quarterly call last month that it takes coordinated timing and delivery “of up to 30,000 parts and up to 1,500 different semiconductors from hundreds of suppliers to build just one single car” (see 2111020032).