The e-cigarette industry is moving towards intelligence, and MCU solutions continue to upgrade towards low power consumption and high integration

Types of e-cigarettes include disposable e-cigarettes, replaceable cartridge e-cigarettes, and oil-filled e-cigarettes. The upstream of the industry chain is mainly raw material suppliers, involving cartridges, cigarette rods, atomizers and other accessories. The components required for cigarette rods include batteries, power management chips, flash memory chips, MCUs and silicon microphones. In the second half of 2023, the continued hot sales in the e-cigarette market led to a shortage in the MCU market. Industry insiders called this phenomenon "saving" the MCU market.

What is the development trend of the e-cigarette industry? How will it positively affect the MCU industry? With the development of technology, e-cigarettes have also joined the trend of intelligence . In the course of development, e-cigarettes have evolved from using e-liquid to using disposable e-liquid, adding digital tubes and display screens, and finally using TFT LCD. Today's e-cigarettes are equipped with a variety of display screens, such as LED, LCD and OLED. The price of MCUs for e-cigarettes with displays is usually higher than that of e-cigarettes without screens, which provides business opportunities for MCU manufacturers.

With the addition of display screens, e-cigarette manufacturers began to try to add touch functions, and some customers even wanted to add functions such as games, answering calls, and Bluetooth connection. The addition of such intelligent functions stimulated the development of the market.

As the core control unit of the Electronic Cigarette, MCU is responsible for processing sensor signals, optimizing power management, etc., realizing power regulation, temperature control, mode switching and other functions of the electronic cigarette to enhance the user experience. Currently, MCU manufacturers include Xinhai Technology, Puran Semiconductor, Lingdong Micro, Hangshun Chip, SMIC and Bojuxing Microelectronics.

As functions increase, the requirements for MCU power consumption, performance and integration continue to increase. After adding Bluetooth connection, MCU needs to add communication interfaces to support external communication. Xinhai Technology has launched the CS32L015, a 32-bit general-purpose MCU featuring low power consumption, integrating high-performance ADC and communication interfaces.

This year, Lingdong Micro launched a new product series F0120 for the consumer market. It is a cost-effective consumer MCU that is widely used in e-cigarettes, model airplanes, wireless charging and other fields. Lu Junyan, senior marketing manager of Lingdong Micro, said in an interview: "We hope that this new consumer product will make our customers more satisfied."

With the advancement of technology and the diversification of consumer demand, the e-cigarette industry has evolved from a simple substitute to a smart device with complex functions. "But we asked some customers and they didn't quite understand why the Bluetooth function should be added," said an industry insider.

Despite this, e-cigarette manufacturers are still exploring new market growth opportunities, trying to attract users by adding more intelligent functions . In the future, which functions will be accepted by consumers, upstream chip manufacturers will also benefit from the addition of these new functions. Xinhai Technology mentioned in an investor relations event: "Since the EU issued the ban, the demand for MCUs in the e-cigarette industry has increased significantly. Although the solutions are changing rapidly, the logic of upgrading still exists."