TAIPEI – Market research firm TrendForce has issued its 10 major technology trends expected to take place across various segments in 2022:

1.       Micro/Mini LED display development will revolve around active matrix solutions.

A substantial number of technical bottlenecks in micro LED development will persist in 2022. While micro LED manufacturing costs are expected to remain high due to these bottlenecks, companies have not shown decreased willingness to participate in all segments of the micro LED supply chain, says the research firm. On the contrary, these companies are expanding their respective production lines. Regarding the development of self-emitting micro LED display products, TVs represent a major direction of mainstream micro LED development, primarily because TVs have a relatively low technological barrier of entry; micro LED TVs are easier to develop than other micro LED display products. For instance, after releasing a 110" commercial passive matrix micro LED display, Samsung will likely continue to develop 88" and under consumer-grade active matrix micro LED TVs.

Regarding display products equipped with mini LED backlights, brands have been raising the number of mini LED chips used per panel in an attempt to boost the specs of their display products and pursue 1:1,000,000 high-contrast ratios comparable to OLED displays. As a result, mini LED backlight panels’ LED chip consumption is more than 10x higher compared to traditional LED backlight panels, in addition to mini LED backplane manufacturing requiring SMT equipment with a higher degree of accuracy and production capacity, says TrendForce. While mini LED backlights are primarily based on passive matrix solutions, they will move toward active matrix solutions going forward, with a corresponding surge in mini LED chip consumption. Hence, the performance and capacity of SMT equipment will also become key in brands’ selection of potential supply chain partners.

2.       More advanced AMOLED technology and under-display cameras will usher in the next stage of smartphone revolution.

As the supply of and production capacity for AMOLED panels continue to rise, AMOLED technology has also become increasingly mature. Suppliers are still attempting to tack on additional functions and improved specs to their AMOLED panels to not only raise said panels’ added values, but also maintain the competitive advantages of the suppliers themselves. The primary value added to AMOLED panels in 2022 will likely continue to be the improving foldable designs, featuring optimized weight reduction and power efficiency. Apart from mainstream foldable phones that can unfold to reach tablet-like sizes, clamshell-like designs such as flip-up and flip-down smartphone bodies will also emerge as a form factor that more closely resembles the smartphones currently in use. Furthermore, retail prices of foldable phones are expected to fall within the price bands of mainstream flagships, thereby generating sales growths for the upcoming foldable models. Other foldable designs, including form factors with even more folds or rollable form factors, are expected to enter production within the near future. TrendForce expects foldable phones to reach a penetration rate of more than 1% in 2022 and 4% in 2024. LTPO panels, on the other hand, are an effective solution to power-consumption issues arising from the adoption of 5G technology and high refresh rate displays. Hence, LTPO panels will likely gradually become the mainstream display panel for flagship smartphones. After two years of development and adjustments, under-display camera modules will make their appearance in various brands’ flagship models and enable the creation of smartphones with full-screen displays.

3.       The foundry industry welcomes the arrival of 3nm process technology courtesy of TSMC’s FinFET and Samsung’s GAA technologies.

As semiconductor manufacturing processes approach physical limits, chip development must now turn to either changes in transistor architecture or breakthroughs in backend packaging technology or materials to achieve faster performances, reduced power consumption, and smaller footprints, says the firm. After incorporating EUV lithography at the 7nm node in 2018, the semiconductor industry will welcome yet another revolutionary process technology in 2022: the 3nm node. More specifically, TSMC and Samsung are expected to announce their respective 3nm process technologies in the second half of 2022. While the former will continue to adopt the FinFET architecture it has been using since the 1Xnm node, Samsung will for the first time use its own implementation of GAAFET (multi-bridge channel field-effect transistor) for its 3nm process technology.

GAAFET architecture consists of a gate that surrounds the nanowire or nanosheet channel on four sides, thus increasing the surface area of contact. The GAAFET design reduces leakage currents by giving the gate a greater degree of control over the channel. Regarding possible applications, the first batch of products mass produced at the 3nm node in the second half of next year is expected to be HPC and smartphone chips, since these products place high demand on performance, power consumption, and chip compactness.

4.       While DDR5 products gradually enter mass production, NAND Flash stacking technology will advance past 200 layers.

Dominant DRAM suppliers Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron will kick off mass production of next-gen DDR5 products and continue to increase the penetration rate of LPDDR5 in the smartphone market in response to demand for 5G smartphones. With memory speed in excess of 4800Mbps, DDR5 DRAM can improve computing performances via their fast speed and low power consumption. As Intel releases its new CPUs that support DDR5 memory, with Alder Lake for the PC segment, followed by Eagle Stream for the server segment, DDR5 is expected to account for about 10-15% of DRAM suppliers’ total bit output by the end of next year. Regarding process technologies, Samsung and SK hynix will kick off mass production of 1 alpha nm products manufactured with EUV lithography. These products’ market shares will likely increase on a quarterly basis in 2022.

NAND Flash products’ stacking technologies have yet to reach a bottleneck, says TrendForce. Hence, after 176L products entered mass production in 2021, suppliers will continue to migrate toward 200L and above in 2022, although these upcoming products’ chip densities will remain at 512Gb/1Tb. Regarding storage interfaces, the market share of PCIe Gen4 SSDs will likely skyrocket in the consumer PC segment next year. In the server segment, as Intel Eagle Stream CPUs, which support PCIe Gen 5, enter mass production, the enterprise SSD market will also see the release of products that support this interface. Compared to the previous generation, PCIe Gen 5 features double the data transfer rate at 32GT/s and an expanded storage capacity for mainstream products at 4/8TB to meet the HPC demand of servers and data centers. Additionally, the release of PCIe Gen 5 SSDs is expected to raise the average data storage capacity per server unit.

Regarding the server market, flexible pricing schemes and diverse services offered by CSPs have directly propelled the cloud service demand of enterprises in the past two years. From the perspective of the server supply chain, the predominant business model has gradually transformed from traditional server brands to ODM direct, meaning that traditional server brands will see fundamental structural changes, such as providing colocation servers or full-service cloud migration support, in their business models. This shift also means enterprise clients will come to rely on more flexible pricing schemes and diverse risk mitigation measures in response to an uncertain global environment. In particular, while the pandemic accelerated changes in work and everyday life in 2020, hyperscalers are expected to account for nearly 50% of total demand for servers in 2022. In addition, the growth in ODM direct server shipments is expected to surpass 10% year-over-year as well.

5.       Mobile network operators will undertake more trial projects for 5G SA network slicing and low-latency applications.

Mobile network operators have released 5G standalone networks as the core network powering various services around the world, in turn accelerating the build-out of base stations in major cities, diversifying their network services via network slicing and edge computing, and delivering end-to-end networks with a high degree of quality assurance. Moving to 2022, applications that are at the intersection of 5G, massive IoT, and critical IoT will emerge in response to enterprise demand. These applications, including light switches, sensors, and thermostats used in smart factories, involve the combination of network endpoints and data transmission. In particular, critical IoT applications include smart grid automation, telemedicine, traffic safety, and industrial automation, whereas critical IoT use cases within the context of Industry 4.0 include asset tracking, predictive maintenance, field service management, and logistics optimization.

Now that the pandemic has forced enterprises to engage in digital transformation and brought changes to the general public’s lifestyles, the importance of 5G deployment has become increasingly apparent, says TrendForce. Private 5G networks, openRAN, unlicensed spectrums, and mmWave developments have also generated a diverse ecosystem that ranges from traditional mobile network operators to other emerging service providers, including OTT media service providers, CSPs, social media, and online businesses. In the future, mobile network operators will likely expand their enterprise 5G applications. For instance, O2’s 5G-ENCODE project explores new business models in industrial 5G networks, while Vodafone is collaborating with the Midlands Future Mobility consortium to test networks for autonomous vehicles.

6.       Satellite operators will compete over the low-earth orbit satellite market, with 3GPP now supporting non-terrestrial networks.

3GPP recently announced Release 17 Protocol Coding Freeze will take place in 2022. Release 17 represents the first time 3GPP has incorporated non-terrestrial network communications into its releases, therefore marking a milestone for both the mobile communications industry and the satellite communications industry. Prior to this, mobile communications and satellite communications were two separate, independently developing industries. That is why companies working across the two industries in the upstream, midstream, and downstream supply were generally different as well. After 3GPP includes NTN in its upcoming release, the two industries are likely to generate more opportunities for collaboration and cocreate new innovations. Regarding the deployment of low earth orbit satellites, US-based SpaceX has applied to launch the highest number of satellites among all satellite operators. Other major operators include Amazon, UK-based OneWeb, Canada-based Telesat, etc. Regionally, US operators account for more than 50% of all satellites launched. Not only do LEO satellites have the advantage of signal coverage unaffected by geographical features such as mountainous regions, oceans, and deserts, but they are also able to synergize with the 5G network. The ability of LEO satellites as part of the NTN to enhance 5G communications makes them a crucial component in the 3GPP Release 17. TrendForce therefore forecasts an increase in global satellite revenue in 2022.

7.       While smart factories are among the first to leverage digital twins, IoT technologies are expected to become the backbone of the metaverse.

The new normal that emerged in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic continues to propel demand for contactless devices and digital transformations. As part of this evolution, IoT development in 2022 will likely focus on cyber-physical systems, which combines 5G, edge computing, and AI technologies to extract and analyze valuable information from vast data streams for the purpose of smart automation and prediction. A current example of CPS applications is the digital twin, used for such verticals as smart manufacturing and smart cities; while CPS integration for the former facilitates design, testing, and manufacturing simulations, the latter makes use of CPS to monitor significant assets and assist in policymaking. Now that industrial realities have become more complex, and the interplay between usage cases and equipment have increasingly demanded attention, digital twins will subsequently be deployed to a wider range of applications. Paired with 3D sensing, VR, and AR capabilities, IoT-based metaverse will likely emerge as a smart, complete, real-time, and safe mirror to the physical world, and the first application of IoT-based metaverse is expected to be smart factories. Ultimately, technological innovations in data collection, including visual, auditory, and environmental data via sensors, data analysis via AI platform integration, and data integrity via blockchains, will emerge as a result of IoT development.

8.       AR/VR equipment manufacturers aim to deliver fully immersive experiences via integration of additional sensors and AI processing.

The Covid-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the way people live and work, says the firm. For enterprises, the pandemic not only accelerated their pace of digital transformation, but also increased their willingness to integrate emerging technologies into their existing operations. For instance, AR/VR adoption for applications such as virtual meetings, AR remote support, and virtual design has been on the rise recently. On the other hand, companies will likely focus on various remote interaction functionalities in virtual communities and online games as an important AR/VR market segment. TrendForce therefore believes the AR/VR market will expand by a considerable margin in 2022 due to the falling retail prices of AR/VR hardware, as well as the growing adoption of such hardware for various use cases. Furthermore, the market will also continue to pursue more realistic AR/VR effects, such as applications that feature more realistic images constructed by software tools or the creation of virtual responses from real-world data assisted by either AI processing or the integration of various sensors. For instance, eye-tracking functionalities will become an optional feature of consumer products released by Oculus and Sony. Apart from these examples, AR/VR solutions may even evolve to the point where they are able to provide partial haptic feedback to the user through controllers or other wearable devices to deepen user immersion.

9.       A natural extension of autonomous driving technology, automated valet parking is set to resolve drivers’ pain points.

As part of autonomous driving technology’s implementation aimed at improving everyday life, automated valet parking, an SAE level 4 driverless parking service, is expected to become an important optional function of high-end vehicles beginning in 2022. Relevant international standards are currently being drafted and are expected to facilitate the adoption of AVP going forward. However, since AVP systems differ according to vehicle specifications, they are subject to various restrictions related to driving conditions, including fixed/unfixed routes and private/public parking spaces, while parking lot conditions such as wireless network connectivity and the comprehensiveness of traffic markings can also affect the viability of AVP. The distance between people and the vehicle during AVP use, on the other hand, is governed by domestic laws. In view of automakers’ diverse technological roadmaps, AVP parking routes are generated by either local computing on the vehicle end or cloud computing, the latter of which requires sufficient network connectivity to function. The former is therefore expected to see usage in a wider variety of use cases. Alternatively, some vehicles may be equipped with both computing solutions. With other such factors as V2X and high-definition maps affecting the range of AVP applications, TrendForce expects an increasing number of different AVP solutions to be under development at the moment.

10.   The third-generation semiconductor industry will move toward 8" wafers and new packaging technologies while expanding in production capacity.

The gradual phasing out of ICE vehicles by various governments across the 2025-2050 period is set to both accelerate the pace of EV sales and increase the penetration rate of SiC and GaN devices/modules. Energy transition activities worldwide and the rapid growth of telecom applications such as 5G technology have also led to a persistent bull market for third-generation semiconductors, resulting in strong sales of SiC and Si substrates. However, as current efforts in substrate production and development are relatively limited, suppliers are able to ensure a steady yield of SiC and GaN substrates only by manufacturing them with 6" wafers. Such a limitation has, in turn, led to a long-term shortage in foundries’ and IDMs’ production capacities.

In response to this quandary, substrate suppliers, including Cree, II-VI, and Qromis, are now planning to not only expand their production capacities in 2022, but also migrate their SiC and GaN production to 8" wafers, hoping these plans will gradually alleviate the prevailing shortage in the third-generation semiconductor market. On the other hand, foundries such as TSMC and VIS are attempting to shift to 8" wafer fabrication for GaN on Si technology, while major IDM Infineon is releasing products based on the latest CoolSiC MOSFET, delivering trench designs that enable significant power efficiency for semiconductor devices. Finally, telecommunication component provider Qorvo has also released a new GaN MMIC copper flip-chip packaging architecture for military applications.

• Prev
• Next