Power IC licensing and industry status

Development and classification of power ICs
With the development of electronic technology, especially the current popularity of portable products and the promotion of energy conservation and environmental protection, power ICs play an increasingly important role. A few years ago, power ICs were only integrated voltage regulators and DC/DC converters, but now power ICs cover a lot of content, including DC/DC, LDO (low dropout linear regulator), battery charge and discharge management, PWM controller, Reset, PFC (power factor correction), energy-saving control, power MOS EFT, etc.

The current development trend of power ICs is no longer limited to a single function, but integrates various functions together, so power ICs are currently more often called power management ICs, or power management units (PMUs).

Industrial status of power ICs
The power management IC industry should be an emerging industry. In recent years, the highest growth rate of enterprises has reached 70%, and the overall compound growth rate has reached 30%.
Power IC manufacturers are not like digital ICs that are monopolized by several large European and American manufacturers. For example, Intel monopolizes 80% of the CPU market. Power IC manufacturers are more numerous and scattered. The key is to find their own position. There are 11 power management IC manufacturers in Taiwan, China, which is an important industrial base for power management ICs. Taiwan manufacturers have a large production scale and a wide range of products, with an annual output value of hundreds of millions of US dollars. The product proportions of Taiwan's major power management IC manufacturers are shown in the following figure:
Power Management IC Product Project

There are about 10 companies in the mainland. The main manufacturers are Onbao, Shengbang Micro, Changyuntong, Meixin, Xinyuan, Zhongxin Micro, Qida, etc. The products of mainland manufacturers are more specialized, the starting point is not high, and they have not yet formed a large scale, but they have their own characteristics. For example, Onbao's novel "frequency shuffling" patented technology is used in most of its ICs, which greatly improves the system EMI performance and the simplicity of system design, and reduces standby power consumption. In addition, in response to the "environmental protection" requirements, Onbao has also launched green and energy-saving AC/DC power control chips. Its AC power adapters, chargers, communication switching power supplies, integrated LCD TVs and display backlight power systems can not only significantly improve the energy conversion efficiency of the switching power supply system under light load and full load, but also directly meet the various power saving requirements in recent years.
Almost all semiconductor manufacturers with analog products in Europe and the United States have entered the field of power management ICs, such as National Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, Maxim, Fairchild, ON Semiconductor, Intersil, Ricoh, STMicroelectronics, etc.
From the perspective of the entire global power IC industry, European and American manufacturers still dominate the world. Taiwanese manufacturers benefit from the good relationship with foundry manufacturers and system manufacturers and are also in a good development period. Mainland manufacturers are catching up under the leadership of a group of returned scholars.