1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 ……
Many people are familiar with this series of numbers, which is the famous Fibonacci sequence, also known as the “rabbit sequence.” This sequence has two obvious characteristics: first, the sum of the two preceding terms forms the next term; second, excluding the first four numbers, the ratio of two adjacent numbers approaches the golden ratio of 0.618. The former symbolizes growth and expansion, while the latter symbolizes the pursuit of perfection.
Now, let’s look at another set of numbers:
32, 35, 450, 20,000, 1,000,000,000……
What is the relationship between these numbers? What kind of magical significance do they hold? Join me to uncover the mystery!
32
Fully Entering the 32-bit MCU Era
As the core of system control, the advantages of MCUs are evident, and their applications are widespread.
Currently, embedded applications in the industrial and consumer markets, along with the automotive market, contribute significantly to the MCU market share. According to statistics from the well-known semiconductor consulting firm IC Insights, based on sales revenue, embedded applications primarily in the industrial and consumer markets contributed 46% of global MCU sales in 2021, while the automotive market contributed about 40%.
Data Source: IC Insights
In the industrial sector, applications such as industrial control, human-machine interaction, and industrial Ethernet all rely on MCUs; a single industrial robot may use at least a dozen MCU products. In the consumer market, MCUs are key to achieving intelligence in household appliances, smart homes, and consumer electronics.
In the automotive field, MCUs are the core systems for motor control, lighting control, and infotainment systems; luxury fuel vehicles can have over 100 MCUs per vehicle, while smart vehicles are expected to exceed 300 MCUs per vehicle.
As application demands continue to refine and enhance, 32-bit MCUs have become the market mainstream, evolving into several major product directions: low power, wireless, mainstream, and high performance.
According to IC Insights’ analysis, the global MCU market size reached a record $19.6 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $27.2 billion by 2026, with 32-bit MCUs alone contributing $20 billion by 2026, accounting for 73.5%, an increase of 11.5 percentage points compared to 62% in 2020. As a global leader in 32-bit MCU supply, Zhaoyi Innovation seizes market development opportunities to provide customers with high-performance, differentiated MCU products.
Data Source: Omdia, MarketsandMarkets,
BNP Paribas, Gartner
The widespread demand for 32-bit MCUs has also driven the comprehensive development of MCU cores. Currently, 32-bit MCUs commonly use the Arm Cortex-M core, which, through continuous technological innovation and product iteration, has achieved balance in performance, power consumption, code density, and cost-effectiveness at the single product level, while also maintaining significant differentiation between different product series. Furthermore, the long-standing market dominance of the Arm Cortex-M core has resulted in a large and robust ecosystem.
The RISC-V core is a new force in the 32-bit MCU field, and with the continuous development of cores, development tools, design solutions, and open-source plans, the RISC-V application ecosystem is gradually improving, also possessing advantages such as high performance, high reliability, high security, and low power consumption.
The GD32V series from Zhaoyi Innovation, as the world’s first general-purpose MCU product based on the RISC-V core, is widely applicable to mainstream application markets such as industrial control, consumer electronics, and the Internet of Things.
35+450
Comprehensively Covered GD32 MCU Family
Currently, Zhaoyi Innovation’s GD32 series MCUs have created 35 product series, with over 450 product models, achieving full coverage of mainstream application markets such as general-purpose, low-cost, high-performance, low-power, and wireless connectivity.
Popular Choice: Entry-level MCUs
Based on the Arm Cortex-M23/M3/M4 cores, Zhaoyi Innovation offers six major product series targeting the entry-level MCU market. Among these, the GD32F310/330/350, as Cortex-M4 core products, possess better clock frequency, better peripherals, more features, and lower costs, providing “great value” for cost-sensitive customers in industrial motors, variable frequency, and energy-saving applications.
Additionally, the GD32E230 series, built on the Cortex-M23 core, has received multiple awards for its excellent market performance and impressive shipment volumes, making it a low-cost development choice to replace 8-bit and 16-bit MCUs, crossing into the 32-bit realm.
To help customers flexibly enhance their product advantages, the GD32F3x0 series from Zhaoyi Innovation can achieve full hardware and software compatibility with the GD32F1x0 series and GD32E230 series, allowing for significant upgrades in CPU and Flash characteristics as well as peripheral resources with simple operations.
All-Encompassing: Mainstream MCUs
In the mainstream MCU market, Zhaoyi Innovation provides more diverse development options, offering both Arm core and RISC-V core products.
In terms of Arm core products, Zhaoyi Innovation offers ten product series based on M3/M4 cores, including the GD32F30x series, GD32F1 series, GD32E1 series, and GD32C1 series, achieving better product coverage in the mainstream MCU field.
Among these, the GD32F30x products based on the Cortex-M4 core offer three series with a total of 37 product models. The GD32F303 series is enhanced for Cortex-M4, while the GD32F305/307 series are interconnected versions, featuring a clock frequency of up to 120MHz, 3MB of ultra-large Flash capacity, rich peripheral functions, and leading GPIO multiplexing rates, making them the preferred choice for mass production among thousands of customers. The GD32E1 series offers an input voltage range of 1.7-3.6V and embedded Flash, while the GD32C1 is equipped with two CAN FD interfaces.
Products across GD32’s mainstream MCU series exhibit excellent software and hardware compatibility, allowing for flexible user solution upgrades. For example, users can easily upgrade their design from the GD32F103 to the GD32F303, enhancing product competitiveness and ensuring ample supply.
Almost all customers who have used the GD32VF103 series RISC-V MCUs from Zhaoyi Innovation remember the series for its leading open-source instruction set architecture, excellent power management, and significant cost advantages. The innovative product design and comprehensive ecosystem layout allow Zhaoyi Innovation and its customers to embark on a new track, ushering in the RISC-V “core” era.
Pursuing Excellence: High-Performance MCUs
Currently, Zhaoyi Innovation’s high-performance product line consists of 13 product series, catering to users’ advanced computing needs.
As part of the GD32 MCU series, the GD32F425/427/470 series maintains high cost-effectiveness while offering industry-leading processing capabilities, power efficiency, and connectivity features. Their support for complex algorithms and security is also outstanding, achieving high market share in interconnected and advanced application fields such as handheld devices, graphical displays, human-machine interfaces, industrial control, and energy power.
The compatibility among Zhaoyi Innovation’s high-performance MCUs is also noteworthy. The GD32F425/427/470 series MCUs better support seamless switching with the GD32F405/407/450 series MCUs, with the former based on industry-leading 40nm low-power (LP) technology, providing clock frequencies of up to 240MHz and large-capacity Flash cache to support advanced computing needs.
Charming “Wireless”: GD32W515
The GD32W515 series Wi-Fi MCU is Zhaoyi Innovation’s first wireless MCU, designed based on the Cortex-M33 core, integrating a 2.4GHz single-stream IEEE802.11b/g/n MAC/Baseband/RF module, providing industry-leading baseband and RF performance. It is also equipped with the Arm TrustZone hardware security mechanism, supporting independent memory access space, ensuring system development, code isolation, and secure operation.
The GD32W515 features a smaller package size while integrating larger Flash and RAM, making it highly suitable for compact applications with limited PCB area. With enhanced processing capabilities, leading RF integration, and rich peripheral features, it serves as an SOC solution for smart homes, industrial IoT, and consumer electronics application markets.
Energy Efficiency Preferred: GD32L233 Series
Built on the Cortex-M23 core, the GD32L233 series targets the mainstream low-power MCU market, utilizing industry-leading 40nm ultra-low-power (ULP) manufacturing technology and specially optimized low-power analog IP, adhering to various low-power digital design principles to achieve a better balance of energy efficiency.
The GD32L233 series balances current efficiency while also considering processing performance and peripheral resources, making it suitable for deep embedded application scenarios requiring low power consumption and high energy efficiency, such as industrial meters, small consumer electronic devices, and portable medical devices.
Custom-Made: Specialized MCUs
Moreover, Zhaoyi Innovation’s flexible and effective localized operation mechanism allows for quicker responses to customer needs. For example, introducing the Arm Cortex-M23/33 new architecture into the high-speed optical communication field, aiding the rapid development of the optical module industry, with the launch of domestically produced GD32E232 and GD32E501 series optical module dedicated MCUs. Additionally, they offer various MCUs suitable for fingerprint recognition and high-performance printing. Zhaoyi Innovation collaborates with users to define products, enabling more precise insights, understanding, and support of market demands, identifying opportunities for product evolution, and meeting users’ differentiated development needs.
20,000
International Layout Servicing Global Customers
Currently, Zhaoyi Innovation has over 20,000 customers for GD32. In the future, as the intelligence level of various industries improves, the global MCU market is expected to continue growing rapidly in both shipment volume and market size. Zhaoyi Innovation will seize development opportunities through product iteration, leveraging ecosystem strength to drive application innovation.
Automotive-grade MCUs Creating a New Starting Point
According to IC Insights’ forecast data, the global automotive MCU compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2021 to 2026 is 7.7%, higher than the average growth rate of the overall MCU market. The share of 32-bit MCUs in the automotive market will gradually increase, currently accounting for approximately 77%.
GD32 aims at the general automotive market as a breakthrough point, creating an industry-leading automotive MCU product matrix covering body control systems such as lighting, doors and windows, mirrors, tailgates, sunroofs, electric seats, air conditioning panels, gear controllers, multimedia information systems, safety systems, battery management systems, and advanced functions like NFC keyless entry and smart cockpit. They continuously introduce Arm architecture products and ecosystems into the automotive market, expanding the automotive-grade MCU industry camp and enriching automotive scenarios.
Ultra-High Performance MCUs Reaching New Heights
In the future, whether in industrial control, consumer electronics, automotive, or medical fields, the requirements for intelligence and human-machine interaction will become increasingly demanding. Ultra-high performance MCUs will become an important development blue ocean and incremental market in the global MCU market. To provide exceptional ultra-high performance MCUs, Zhaoyi Innovation will advance simultaneously in product processes, cores, and clock frequencies, demonstrating industry-leading advantages in key indicators such as processing efficiency, integration, and intelligence levels.
Wireless Dual-Mode MCUs Connecting Multiple Fields
In the wireless MCU field, Zhaoyi Innovation will leverage the GD32W515 series Wi-Fi MCU to further launch Wi-Fi+BLE wireless dual-mode MCU products, enhancing market competitiveness through leading RF performance and rich integration resources for customers’ wireless connections.
At the same time, Zhaoyi Innovation is continuously building a rich and diverse wireless AIoT development and application ecosystem, providing modules and various rapid connection solutions to help customers effectively shorten their product launch cycles.
Low-Power MCUs Supporting New Environmental Protection
To create low-power MCUs with longer battery life and better energy efficiency, Zhaoyi Innovation will continue to push for updates and iterations of low-power MCU products in the market, focusing on process, cores, product architecture, analog IP, wake-up mechanisms, and energy-saving modes, equipping various product positions with multiple packaging types to become a continuous driving force for energy applications and energy efficiency optimization.
1,000,000,000
GD32: Coming to You, Witnessing the Future
Data decryption successful!
As a leading brand of global 32-bit microcontrollers, GD32 offers 35 major product series and over 450 MCU products, serving more than 20,000 customers, with shipments exceeding 1 billion!
At this moment, GD32 has reached the historical starting point of “1 billion units and 20,000 customers,” embarking on a brand new journey. This new starting point has already defined the future of the brand.
The Fibonacci sequence tells us that tomorrow’s achievements are built upon past accumulations and present efforts. As we set sail in the wave of digitization, the sequence belonging to Zhaoyi Innovation GD32 will continue to write exciting new chapters!
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