'Renesas is the dominant player in MCUs'

BANGALORE, INDIA: Renesas, a Japanese microcontroller supplier, maintained itself as the dominant supplier of microcontroller in the year 2011.

The company retained this position despite the turbulence in its regular course of production caused due to earthquake, that had struck Japan last year, reports Dylan McGrath of EETimes.

According to Databeans, Renesas logged microcontroller sales of $2.62 billion in 2011, down about 1 per cent from 2010.

As per Databeans, ''Renesas' microcontroller market share slipped to 17.3 per cent in 2011 from 17.9 per cent in 2010, but remained significantly higher than second-ranked Freescale Semiconductor, which increased its MCU market share to 10.1 per cent in 2011 from 10 per cent in 2010.''

Following Renesas and Freescale, Atmel and Microchip Technology recorded the third and the fourth position respectively. Atmel's performance has been noteworthy as it has climbed up to the third position from the fifth position in 2010.  

Databeans forecasts that, the automotive market remains the single largest application for microcontrollers, with nearly $6 billion in global sales estimates for 2012. The market is expected to grow 9 per cent CAGR over the next five years.