Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) is planning to launch commercial production of microcontrollers (MCUs) and power management chips used for auto production in 2024.

At an investors’ conference on Thursday at the Taiwan Stock Exchange in Taipei, Hon Hai spokesman James Wu (巫俊毅) said that the mass production of MCUs and power management chips is part of the company’s efforts to develop key IC components for electric vehicle (EV) use.

In addition, Hon Hai aims to start mass production of silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductors for EV charging use next year, Wu said.

In 2024, the company aims to start commercial production of optical phased array in light detection and ranging for self-driving, as well as SiC power modules for inverters in vehicles, he said.

To avoid a supply shortage of smaller ICs, which have played an important role in automotive electronics, Wu said that Hon Hai plans to mass produce 6-inch and 8-inch wafers next year, while commercial production of 6-inch SiC wafers are also scheduled to begin next year.

Hon Hai has promoted a “3 plus 3” initiative in the past few years to expand from contract manufacturing into hardware and software integration.

The development of EVs is central to the initiative, as it is building an EV supply chain.

The “3 plus 3” initiative refers to three emerging industries — EVs, robots and digital healthcare — that are being developed through the application of artificial intelligence, semiconductors and communications technologies.

Hon Hai has an 8-inch wafer fab, while it acquired a 6-inch wafer fab from Macronix International Co (旺宏電子) in August last year.

In addition, the company has since last year been working with Yageo Corp (國巨), the world’s third-largest multilayer ceramic capacitor supplier, to set up a joint venture in Hsinchu to manufacture smaller semiconductors such as analog ICs, which cost less than US$2 per unit.

In May, Malaysia-based investment holding firm Dagang NeXchange Bhd (DNeX) announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Hon Hai to build a wafer fab in the Southeast Asian country.

Meanwhile, Wu said that Hon Hai has faith that it would report better-than-expected results for the second quarter of this year after its consolidated sales for the April-to-June period rose 11 percent from a year earlier to NT$1.51 trillion (US$50.47 billion), exceeding its forecast that second-quarter revenue would not change much from a year earlier.

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