Introduction of Daikin's in-house designed semiconductors to air conditioning equipment
🟦 Daikin introduces its own semiconductors
Daikin Industries, Ltd. will introduce custom semiconductors with its own specifications for semiconductors installed in air conditioning equipment. Until now, we have used general-purpose products from semiconductor manufacturers. From 2025, we will use semiconductors developed in-house in some products. In the future, half of all air conditioners will be equipped with custom products.
In-house developed semiconductors utilize design houses and foundries. By having proprietary semiconductors, it seems that they also aim to diversify their procurement channels when demand is tight.
🟦 Development of custom microcontrollers
We develop a custom microcomputer that controls inverters that are directly linked to the energy-saving performance of air conditioning equipment. It seems that there has never been an ASSP (application specific semiconductor) for air conditioning equipment. The procurement price is higher than that of general-purpose microcontrollers. However, we plan to reduce the cost of the entire air conditioning equipment by reviewing the control.
We will invest in microcomputer development costs in stages on the scale of several billion yen and promote the recruitment and development of specialized human resources. In terms of development scale, it is assumed to be a legacy process microcontroller of about 45 nm.
🟦Summary
Introduction of Daikin’s in-house designed semiconductors to air conditioning equipment
It will probably be a microcontroller using an ARM core. With a custom microcomputer, if there is no strong influence on the foundry, it is likely to be in a weak position when there is a semiconductor shortage.
