[Special Stock] Telechips, Korea's First Independently Developed Vehicle MCU... Samsung Pushes, Hyundai Drives

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] Telechips' stock price is on the rise. The fabless semiconductor design specialist Telechips recently launched a self-developed automotive microcontroller unit (MCU), which appears to have influenced the stock price. Automotive MCUs are semiconductors for which 97-98% of the total domestic supply is imported.

As of 9:21 AM on the 6th, Telechips is trading at 19,000 KRW, up 21.02% compared to the previous trading day.

According to industry sources, Telechips has launched a self-developed automotive MCU. It was designed and developed using a 32-nanometer (nm, one billionth of a meter) process and has been pilot-produced since last month through Samsung Electronics' foundry manufacturing facilities.

MCUs require high reliability as they are used in key automotive components such as brakes and transmissions. They must pass rigorous reliability tests, including those simulating environments as cold as minus 40 degrees Celsius, yet the market supply price is generally below 50,000 KRW.

Globally, fewer than 10 companies, including the Netherlands' NXP, Germany's Infineon, and Japan's Renesas, supply these MCUs in an oligopolistic market. Samsung Electronics appears to have chosen to support small and medium fabless companies indirectly rather than directly developing automotive semiconductors, which have high entry barriers. Hyundai Mobis has also started considering the adoption of domestically produced MCUs.

Hyundai Motor and Samsung are expanding their cooperation in the automotive semiconductor sector. Expectations are growing not only for MCUs mediated through domestic fabless companies but also for the launch of a 10-nanometer-class automotive application processor (AP) jointly developed by the two companies. This AP would replace multiple MCUs required for individual components such as brakes and transmissions in the form of an 'integrated chip.' If an AP capable of centrally processing the operations of dozens of MCUs is actually developed, it could drastically reduce the number of semiconductors used in electric vehicles. It is known that automotive semiconductors used in electric vehicles are two to three times more numerous than those in conventional internal combustion engines.