Japan aircon king Daikin looks to custom chips for energy savings

Daikin Industries

01/12/2023 01:16

By Sam Nussey and Miho Uranaka
       TOKYO, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Japanese air conditioner maker
Daikin Industries  6367.T  is turning to custom-made
semiconductors to eke out energy savings, as companies
increasingly look to bespoke chip designs to enhance
performance.
    As tech heavyweights such as Apple  AAPL.O  and Amazon
 AMZN.O  spend heavily on custom cutting-edge chips, companies
using legacy chips are also looking to introduce custom silicon.
    Osaka-headquartered Daikin, which expects to make 10 million
home air conditioners in the current financial year, said it is
partnering with a Japanese design company to customise logic
chips for inverters used in its air conditioners. 
    Inverters adjust the speed of an air conditioner's motor to
save energy. They are standard in Japan and the European Union
but less common in the United States.  
    The custom chips, to be made by Taiwan's TSMC  2330.TW ,
cost more than off-the-shelf alternatives but offer better
energy efficiency and allow a reduction in the use of other
components, according to a Daikin executive. 
    "To bring out the full performance of an air conditioner's
compressor and motor, we need to improve chip performance or we
will hit a limit," Yuji Yoneda, general manger of Daikin's
technology and innovation centre, said in an interview. 
    Daikin plans to start introducing the chips in high-end air
conditioners from 2025 and is looking at using them in about a
fifth of units by the end of the decade.
    The company, which developed Japan's first packaged air
conditioner in 1951, is also working on customised power
modules, which help manage the air conditioner's electricity
supply.
    Daikin has been hiring engineers from the chip industry to
work on customisation while grappling with competition due to a
stream of investment in the domestic semiconductor industry. 
    Daikin hopes an increased focus on energy efficiency will be
a tailwind for the company. The number of air conditioners
globally is expected to more than triple to 5.6 billion units by
2050, according to the International Energy Agency.

 (Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Jamie Freed)
 ((sam.nussey@tr.com;))