Du Zhide: New Growth in Circuit Protection

The status of circuit protection

With the increasing use of electronic products, any electronic product requires circuit protection devices. Circuit protection has a great influence on the quality of electronic products. The circuit protection components with better quality will be used, and the products will have higher reliability and safety. In the field of circuit protection, Littelfuse is undoubtedly one of the most well-known manufacturers. According to Mr. Du Zhide, global technical marketing manager of Littelfuse, Littelfuse has technical experts who are members of international safety standards organizations such as IEEE, IEC, etc. Littelfuse attaches great importance to these safety certifications in order to provide customers with The most reliable circuit protection product.

New growth in circuit protection
For electronic devices, people always want to make the size smaller and more integrated. However, the current chip manufacturers are gradually increasing the degree of chip integration while gradually "evacuating" the circuit protection elements from the inside of the chip to the outside. The reason is that circuit protection devices are usually large in size. With the technical capabilities of chip manufacturers, most of them cannot achieve a smaller size to integrate into the chip under the premise of ensuring performance and reliability, and must be placed outside the chip. The circuit protection vendor is responsible for this - this is an opportunity for Littelfuse.

Customization and cooperation

At present, driven by the demand for product differentiation, many semiconductor manufacturers have gradually introduced some targeted customized products. Du Zhide said that Littelfuse will also provide some customized products for some customers, but the coverage of Littelfuse's conventional general-purpose products is already very wide, and most of the time it can meet the needs of manufacturers. We are more keen to cooperate with the chip manufacturers, and jointly launch a complete program to provide customers, Littelfuse actively cooperate with other manufacturers. During the cooperation process, Littelfuse engineers interacted with the engineers of the partners face-to-face, obtained first-hand data, conducted corresponding research and development, and formulated programs. Du Zhide mentioned that the benefits of cooperation with chip manufacturers, in addition to technical guarantees, also better serve end customers to obtain a complete solution for circuit design.

The road to the future

Du Zhide said that Littelfuse's global revenue last year was about US$700 million, with fuse-type products accounting for about half of total revenue, and industrial applications accounting for about a quarter, and it was also a category that grew faster. In the past, Littelfuse has focused more on the North American and European markets and is now shifting its focus to Asia. As for the revenue of Littelfuse's electronics division, the Chinese market now accounts for about 17%, and the future share will have a chance to reach one-third.

In addition to power control and sensors, Littelfuse's promising markets and areas in the future include communication facilities, LED lighting, new energy, and security. In particular, with the 4G wave coming, the three major operators need to build a large number of base stations, and base station equipment providers such as ZTE, Huawei, Cisco, Datang, etc. have basically adopted Littelfuse's product solutions. This is for Littelfuse. It will be an important opportunity.

Littelfuse faces not only opportunities but also challenges. The market of fuse products has been widely used in the market. Everyone has a deep understanding of overcurrent protection. Although Littelfuse has obvious technical and market advantages in this regard, it also has to face some low-end. Product manufacturers grab market share. Therefore, in order to maintain growth and achieve the goal of doubling revenue in 2017, Littelfuse will continue to expand its product lines and seek new growth points as needed.

Acquisition considerations

For a long time, Littelfuse has been mainly engaged in circuit protection products. In the past decade, Littelfuse has acquired a number of companies in succession, expanding its business areas in both power control and sensors. When asked whether Littelfuse will continue to acquire other companies in the future, Du Zhide stated that Littelfuse has a set of criteria for whether to acquire a company: First, Littelfuse will study its current capabilities (including management, technology, and promotion). , product and market share, etc. Then, according to the current situation, it is determined whether to acquire a company and who to acquire. For the target companies to be acquired, there are three major factors that must be met: first, good profit margins; second, within Littelfuse's R&D and management capabilities; third, and most importantly, should be related to existing products. Associated, there is some overlap with existing customer resources. Littelfuse expands into the power control and sensor field through acquisitions. On the one hand, it is optimistic about the development of the two markets. On the one hand, it also overlaps with existing customer resources, and hopes to provide customers with more complete solutions.