Abstract:The growth of China's image sensor industry is due to the development of domestic consumer electronics, smart phones, security monitoring, industrial vision and other fields. The continued growth of China's economy and the development of the technology industry are also driving the demand for image sensors. China's image sensor industry started late, but in recent years, China's image sensor manufacturers have made important progress in independent technological innovation, and continuously improve the resolution, performance, low power consumption and other characteristics of image sensors, so that China-made image sensors have gradually gained a competitive advantage in the domestic market. According to the data, the market size of China's image sensor industry in 2022 will be about 79.796 billion yuan.
1. Definitions and Classification
The image sensor industry is mainly involved in the "manufacturing of electronic components and semiconductor devices" in the field of electronic information, which belongs to a subcategory in the manufacturing industry. An image sensor is an electronic device that converts an optical image into an electrical signal. It is a core component of many modern electronic devices such as digital cameras, smartphone cameras, surveillance cameras, industrial vision systems, and more. The function of an image sensor is to capture information from an optical image and convert it into a digital signal for subsequent image processing, storage, and display.
Image sensors can be divided into CCD sensors, CMOS sensors, CIS sensors, EMCCD sensors, InGaAs sensors, BSI sensors, TOF sensors, HDR sensors, among which the mainstream image sensors in the market are CMOS sensors, CMOS sensors have obvious advantages in low power consumption, high integration, low cost, fast reading, high resolution, low noise and back-illuminated technology. It is mainly used in smart phones, digital cameras, cameras, security monitoring, face recognition and other fields.
Second, the development process
China's image sensor industry has gone through four stages of development and is currently in the stage of technological innovation and research and development: the image sensor industry has made significant progress in the past few years, especially in the fields of mobile devices, security monitoring, industrial vision and vehicle cameras. Through technological innovation, capital investment and market expansion, China's image sensor manufacturers have gradually gained a competitive advantage in the international market and occupied a certain position in the global image sensor industry.
3. Industry policy
The semiconductor and integrated circuit industry is characterized by global division of labor and cooperation. At present, the continuous development and escalation of Sino-US trade frictions have laid hidden dangers for the efficient operation of the global integrated circuit industry chain, and the development of Sino-US trade has been hindered under the constraints of policies such as tariffs and technology bans. In February 2024, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Industrial Structure Adjustment Guidance Catalogue (2024 Edition)", which pointed out that image sensors will be added to the encouraged projects.
Fourth, industry barriers
1. Technical barriers
The image sensor industry spans two major fields of optical and electrical design, including semiconductor characteristic process, optical path design, pixel design, analog circuits, digital circuits, digital-analog mixing, image processing algorithms, and high-speed interface circuit design and integration, and the technical threshold is relatively higher. At the same time, due to the continuous update and iteration of semiconductor-related technologies and products, enterprises and R&D personnel are required to have strong continuous innovation capabilities, follow up technology development trends, and meet the needs of end customers.
2. Talent barriers
In the image sensor industry, where technical level and innovation are the main driving forces, experienced and experienced technical and management talents will help enterprises maintain technological leadership in the industry and improve operation and management efficiency, which is the premise for companies in the industry to continuously break through technical barriers. At present, in the field of CMOS image sensors and display driver chips, technical and management talents are still scarce resources, and a strong talent team will become a strong guarantee for the sustainable development of enterprises. At the same time, with the continuous iteration of industry needs and the rapid development of technology trends, practitioners need to continue to learn and accumulate in the process of practice in order to maintain their technical status in the industry and become real high-end talents.
3. Financial strength barriers
The image sensor industry is capital-intensive, and requires a large amount of resource investment in the process of core technology accumulation and new product development, including a large and long-term investment in human capital, and several times of high process tape-out costs. Therefore, for new entrants to the industry, it is difficult to maintain a continuous high R&D expenditure until the product line is completed without sufficient financial support.
Fifth, the industrial chain
The image sensor industry chain is mainly composed of upstream semiconductor materials and semiconductor equipment, midstream wafer foundries, packaging enterprises and downstream module manufacturers and end customers. The downstream application fields of the image sensor industry are mainly mobile phones, security, automobiles and other fields, of which the mobile phone camera is mainly used in the field of mobile phones, accounting for 85.30%, accounting for most of the market share, the security field accounts for 2.60%, and the automotive field accounts for 12.10%.
Note: This article is transferred from the Zhiyan Industry Encyclopedia platform, if you need to get more industry information and customized services, you can enter the official website of Zhiyan Consulting to search and view.
Zhiyan Industry Encyclopedia is a production and research tool platform launched by Zhiyan Consulting, which is committed to providing you with a full range of encyclopedic industry information query services. Zhiyan Consulting practices the corporate mission of driving industrial development with information, improves and enriches enterprise methodology, relies on the industry encyclopedia platform to enhance the value of information, and continues to empower industry development and enterprise investment decision-making. As a one-stop systematic research tool for the image sensor industry, the image sensor industry encyclopedia comprehensively summarizes the knowledge and information of the image sensor industry, covering the definition, classification, policy, industrial chain, competition pattern, development trend of the image sensor industry, etc., and relies on information technology to establish an industry knowledge graph of intelligent interchain, providing in-depth insight and comprehensive information for industry research practitioners and relevant investors.
Zhiyan Consulting takes "using information to drive industrial development and empower enterprise investment decision-making" as its brand concept. Provide professional industrial consulting services for enterprises, including high-quality industry research reports, special customization, monthly topics, feasibility study reports, business plans, industrial planning, etc. It also provides weekly/monthly/quarterly/annual reports and customized data such as regular reports, covering policy monitoring, corporate dynamics, industry data, product price changes, investment and financing overview, market opportunities and risk analysis, etc.