With the global automobile electronics market set for strong growth in 2015, a number of semiconductor firms including Micron Technology, Spansion, Micronix International, Winbond Electronics and Silicon Motion Technologies, have begun strengthening their deployments in the segment.

According to IC Insights, IC parts for automobile applications will command a CAGR of 10.8% during the period from 2013-2018 compared to 5.5% on average for the entire chipset solution market, which includes chips for PCs, consumer electronics, telecommunications, medicare, and other applications.

For 2014, the market for automobile chips will grow 15% on year to US$21.7 billion. Additionally, the automobile chip market in Asia will outpace that of Europe to become the world's largest market of its kind by 2016, with the growth momentum lasting into 2018. Analog ICs and MCUs currently account for a majority share of automobile ICs.

Demand for automobile memory chips will also take off, expanding from US$2 billion in 2014 to as much as US$4.2 billion in 2018, driven by increasing telematics devices and in-car entertainment systems.

Micron has announced its new Twin-Quad family of serial NOR flash, featuring expanded bandwidth as compared to current quad-I/O devices. The Twin-Quad NOR flash chips are designed for automobile and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Meanwhile, Spansion has also rolled out its HyperFlash chips for automobile applications.

Macronix and Winbond, which both have strong business relations with Japan-based system module makers, have been actively promoting auto memory chips for years.

Macronix said recently that it has teamed up with NXP Semiconductors to develop and produce memory chips for auto applications. And NXP also helps introduce Macronix' newest serial peripheral interface (SPI) NOR chips to its clients.

Meanwhile, Micron and Winbond have joined hands to develop serial NOR flash memory for automotive and IoT applications, according to Micron.