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Acquisition of Dialog: Renesas’s path to success

Latest update time：2021-09-09

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Following the acquisition of Intersil and IDT, Renesas announced the completion of its acquisition of Dialog on August 31, which is the third major acquisition of Renesas in four years. Each acquisition of Renesas is accompanied by the launch of a "successful product portfolio". After the acquisition of Intersil and IDT, Renesas has launched more than 200 "successful product portfolios". While successfully acquiring Dialog, Renesas also announced the launch of 39 new successful product portfolios.

The advantages of acquiring Dialog are fully demonstrated

The acquisition of Dialog has many advantages. First, the addition of Dialog expands the multi-regional nature of Renesas' talent pool . Renesas previously focused its R&D efforts on Japan and the Far East, but now has added about 1,800 developers, mainly in Europe. After the acquisition, Renesas will have about 9,200 people worldwide. This will not only balance and expand R&D capital, but also seamlessly serve global customers.

Secondly, the combination of the two companies will expand the product line and the coverage will also increase, which will make the profit growth more diversified .

In addition, the two companies have a successful combination of technology products . According to Sailesh Chittipeddi, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit of Renesas Electronics, Renesas itself has already occupied a certain position in automotive SoCs and MCUs, and also has corresponding MCUs and MPUs in industry, IoT and infrastructure. Dialog's accumulation in power management ICs, wireless technology and analog ICs will be further combined with Renesas' existing products to form a successful combination product.

Specifically, Dialog's PMIC, CMIC, WiFi, Bluetooth, LED driver, Hapitics and other products can be expanded into Renesas' products in the fields of automotive body and interior control, ADAS and safety; Dialog's CMIC, SSC, NVM and ReRAM and other products will enhance Renesas' capabilities in the Internet of Things, telecommunications infrastructure and industrial fields; ULP Bluetooth and low-power WiFi, AC/DC, radio and other products will increase Renesas' capabilities in wireless connectivity, signal chain, power management, sensors/OIS and other aspects, as shown in the figure below.

Sailesh Chittipeddi said that the addition of all these products will generate a synergy of $325 million , and will diversify Renesas' revenue, with the proportion of IoT, infrastructure and industrial applications increasing, with automotive electronics accounting for 41%, IoT accounting for 24%, infrastructure 18% and industrial accounting for 17%.

Renesas's "Automobile Road" is Broader

In the field of automotive semiconductors, Renesas has been ranked among the top three for many years. The acquisition of Dialog further deepens and broadens Renesas' automotive electronics product lineup with Dialog's outstanding analog technology, making Renesas' road in the automotive field wider. It is reported that 9 of the 39 new successful product portfolios are automotive products.

In fact, in the automotive market, Dialog's power management chips have been working with Renesas Electronics' R-Car platform for many years. According to Takeshi Kataoka, CEO of Renesas Automotive, Dialog's expertise in PMIC, CMIC (configurable mixed-signal IC), LED drivers, BLE and tactile technology will benefit Renesas Electronics' technology in ADAS, xEV, body control and other fields. The expertise of the two companies can be transformed into solutions for marketable products particularly quickly and profitably. Against this background, Renesas has proposed a series of "winning combinations" (see the figure below).

These winning combinations include a solution for automotive smart cameras that uses Renesas' R-car SoC and Dialog's PMIC. A new solution for in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems uses Dialog PMICs and CMICs with Renesas R-Car SoCs, buck regulators, and timing ICs. Another winning combination combines Dialog LED backlight and haptic drivers with Renesas LCD PMICs to build an in-vehicle display system. More solutions including wireless battery management systems (BMS) with Dialog Bluetooth LE ICs and Renesas battery management ICs, MCUs, and other products are under development.

But in addition to the automotive field, in recent years Renesas has begun to set its sights on three rapidly emerging markets: the Internet of Things, industry, and infrastructure. In these fields, what kind of sparks will Renesas and Dialog create?

In addition to automobiles, the three major business sectors have taken a step forward

According to Sailesh Chittipeddi, executive vice president and general manager of the IoT and Infrastructure Business Unit at Renesas Electronics, major trends are driving rapid growth in the three major areas of IoT, industry, and infrastructure: the compound annual growth rate of cloud data in data centers is 33%, and data-centric computing is beginning to emerge; secondly, the penetration rate of 5G is also increasing, with a 40% content expansion from 4G to 5G, coupled with the continuous development of sub-6G, millimeter wave, and satellite communications; there has been a significant increase in connected devices and sensor devices for smart terminals.

In these three market segments, the combination of Renesas' microcontrollers and Dialog's analog/power solutions has taken Renesas' product array in these three areas to a higher level. For the combination of these new products, Renesas has also made diversified investments, so that it can also participate more deeply in diversified applications.

The combination of Renesas and Dialog products has established a PoC design platform for customers. PoC provides users with an improved development platform, reduces risks and shortens time to market. Sailesh Chittipeddi highlighted the following successful product combinations for the Internet of Things and industrial fields: including Quick Connect IoT, smart tracking tags, 100W PD adapters, etc. At the same time, Renesas has more PoC products that are about to be released.

Specifically, Quick Connect IoT is an IoT system design platform that simplifies the prototyping of IoT systems and helps users significantly shorten time to market. The multi-board design platform eliminates hardware and software compatibility issues, allowing designers to quickly and easily connect a variety of sensors to MCU development boards. Combined with the low-power Bluetooth low energy and Wi-Fi SOCs, Pmod-6A board-to-board connectors, and glue code embedded in Renesas software now provided by Dialog, Quick Connect IoT enables Renesas sensors and MCUs to be seamlessly transmitted to mobile applications or the cloud.

Then there is the smart tracking tag, an ultra-thin, credit card-sized asset tracking solution that monitors and tracks environmental data via Bluetooth LE. It combines the low-power DA14531 Bluetooth LE 5.1 SoC with Renesas high-performance humidity and temperature sensors to achieve ultra-long battery life, and data records are stored via Dialog onboard serial flash memory. It uses a disposable, printable 25mAh battery to provide a 2-3 month shelf life and an effective use cycle of approximately 30 days.

The Renesas 100W PD adapter is a multifunctional PD adapter that supports 65W maximum PD output, BC1.2 fast charging, Qi 15W wireless charging, and two 5V2.1A USB A interfaces. It combines Dialog's latest high power density AC/DC chipset (primary-side digital flyback controller/secondary-side interface IC) with advanced zero-voltage switching and Renesas' USB PD controller, MOSFET, PFC, and wireless charging equipment.

In addition, the combination of Renesas and Dialog has more business opportunities. Sailesh Chittipeddi cited two more examples: one is the combination of Dialog's EcoXiP NVM and Renesas RZ/A2M's MPU. The octal xSPI non-volatile memory (NVM) provides effective AI weight storage for low-power AI reasoning, and uses the eXecute-in-Place (XiP) mode to execute code directly in external flash memory. EcoXiP supports ultra-fast startup, with instant startup capability and real-time system responsiveness.

Furthermore, Dialog's GreenPAK solution will be an excellent addition to Renesas' complete kit for IoT and industrial applications, and Renesas' sales staff are trained to use GreenPAK solutions in a wide range of applications. And the CMIC solution machine is suitable for a wider range of markets where Renesas excels.

Conclusion

Today's 39 products are just the tip of the iceberg. In the future, Renesas Electronics will continue to combine the technical strengths of the two companies to create more successful product portfolios and continue to bring better and lower power SoC solutions to the infrastructure/IoT and automotive markets.

*Disclaimer: This article is originally written by the author. The content of the article is the author's personal opinion. Semiconductor Industry Observer reprints it only to convey a different point of view. It does not mean that Semiconductor Industry Observer agrees or supports this point of view. If you have any objections, please contact Semiconductor Industry Observer.

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