Samsung Electronics, the world's second-largest manufacturing company of CMOS image sensors (CIS), succeeded in supplying CIS to Tesla, an American electric car company. It’s significant because this is the first case of Samsung Electronics supplying CIS to automobile companies.
According to industry sources on the 22nd, it was reported that the System LSI Business of Samsung Electronics Device Solution(DS) recently signed a supply contract with Tesla for CIS. It’s known that the development sample is being supplied now. Tesla plans to integrate Samsung Electronics' CIS with the advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) of its electric cars to enhance its convenience features and autonomous driving capability. Samsung Electronics’ Semiconductor Business Division has entered into a business relationship with Tesla in 2016 as it received production orders for design and consignment production of Tesla’s ASIC.
However, the sales effect of this contract is expected to be insignificant. Tesla has announced that it will mount 8 to 12 cameras on each vehicle for autonomous driving. However, the company produces about 100,000 electric cars a year.
An industry observer explained, "It is not an exclusive supply of Samsung Electronics, but a so-called low-pixel product of less than 10 million pixels is sold as mainstream," and "since the product holds a strong amount of reliability with AEC-Q certification, the average selling price is high. However, it is difficult to compare to the mobile sector quite yet.”
Samsung Electronics puts value in that it has started business with Tesla, which is called "Innovation Icon" in the automobile industry even if it does not have immediate sales effect. If the Tesla supply case is settled, it will be very helpful for the sales activities dealing with other competing product vehicle companies.
According to market researcher company, Techno System Research (TSR), the size of the automotive CIS sensor market is expected to reach $ 1.12 billion this year. Automotive products account for 8% of the total CIS market. This figure is expected to exceed 10% by 2021.
The automotive CIS market is dominated by ON Semiconductor, which took over Aptina and grew the size of the company, and OmniVision Technologies, which was bought into Chinese capital. The first and second largest companies in the CIS market, Sony and Samsung Electronics, have been expanding their territories in the mobile market, but now they’re preparing to initiate to get involved with the automobile market. Sony has started supplying CIS to Toyota and Nissan in Japan from this year.
