Market Trends of Japan Optoelectronics Industry
Automotive is Expected to Hold Significant Market Share
- The automotive industry is going through a transition phase, moving from the traditional internal combustion engine to electrification and towards alternate/clean energy technology. Among the emerging technologies, electric vehicles are gaining the highest traction.
- With the race to electrify automotive fleets, accelerating and more vehicles are arriving from more manufacturers every year. This increase in the number and type of electric vehicles has created opportunities for electronic device/component suppliers to grow their footprint in the vehicle's power electronics systems.
- These drive systems' high voltages and noisy environments require high performance and robust galvanic isolation to ensure safe and reliable operation. Additionally, the ever-increasing power densities from shrinking the sizes of electric vehicle subsystems and raising the wattages also create demanding thermal and electrical noise conditions, which in turn is driving the demand for advanced and highly effective isolation solutions.
- Considering the growth prospects, most optocoupler providers offer products targeted at the automotive sector. For Instance, Toshiba Electronic's analog output IC optocoupler TLX9309 consists of a high-output GaAlAs LED optically coupled to a high-speed detector. The detector also includes a photodiode, a transistor, and a Faraday shield integrated into the photodetector chip to enhance levels of common-mode transient immunity.
- Further, to maintain their competitiveness in the market, vendors place a high priority on the introduction of new products. For instance, Vishay Intertechnology unveiled the first automotive-grade linear optocoupler (VOA300) that is AEC-Q102 qualified and offers a quicker response time and improved gain stability in November 2022.
Consumer Electronics is Expected to Drive the Market
- Image sensors are integral to consumer electronic products, such as smartphones, tablets, and wearables. The image sensors that are built in today's consumer electronic devices use either charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. With the growing adoption of such devices in the country, the demand for image sensors is expected to increase over the forecast period.
- Most CCD image sensors that have been developed for consumer applications possess built-in anti-blooming capability, in contrast to most of the CCDs that have been specifically designed for industrial and scientific applications.
- Moreover, recently, ON Semiconductor introduced a new 50-megapixel-resolution CCD image sensor. As the highest-resolution interline transfer CCD image sensor is commercially available, the KAI-50140 provides the critical imaging detail and high image uniformity needed not only for the inspection of smartphone displays but also for circuit board and mechanical assembly inspection, as well as aerial surveillance. The KAI-50140 is designed in a 2.18-to-1 aspect ratio to match the format of modern smartphones, reducing the number of images captured to inspect a full display.
- Further, in March 2022, STMicroelectronics announced a new family of high-resolution ToF sensors that bring advanced 3D depth imaging to smartphones and other devices. The 3D family debuts with the VD55H1, a sensor that maps three-dimensional surfaces by measuring the distance to over half a million points. Objects can be detected up to five meters from the sensor and even further with patterned illumination.
- Further, many start-ups also focus on product innovation for the studied market. For instance, in February 2022, Metalenz, a meta-optic lens technology start-up, unveiled a new polarization technology that will integrate polarization sensing into consumer and mobile devices and lead to better smartphone healthcare management features.