Demand is rising for electronic systems in new cars with increasing attention focused on self-driving (autonomous) vehicles, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications, as well as on-board safety, convenience, and environmental features, and growing interest in electric vehicles.

Automotive electronics is growing as technology becomes more widely available on mid-range and entry-level cars and as consumers purchase technology-based aftermarket products. For semiconductor suppliers, this is good news as analog ICs, MCUs, and a great number of sensors are required for many of these automotive systems.

The automotive segment is expected to account for an estimated 9.1% of the $1.49 trillion total worldwide electronic systems market in 2017 (Figure 2), a slight increase from 8.9% in 2015, and 9.0% in 2016. Automotive’s share of global electronic system production has increased only incrementally through the years, and is forecast to show only marginal gains as a percent of total electronic systems market through 2021, when automotive electronics are forecast to account for 9.8% of global electronic systems sales.

Though many electronics systems are being added in new vehicles, IC Insights believes pricing pressures on both ICs and electronic systems will keep the automotive end-use application from accounting for much more than its current share of total electronic systems through the forecast period.