■ Jing Xiaocui
The global chip landscape is undergoing unprecedented changes. The
2022 World Semiconductor Conference ended in Nanjing a few days ago. Due to factors such as epidemic prevention policies, this summit, which represents the trend of the global chip semiconductor industry, has a much smaller number of people in the offline field than in previous sessions.
But on the other hand, due to various internal and external problems such as the US "Chip and Technology Act", the slowdown in the growth of China's chip industry, and the slump in semiconductor stocks, industry insiders believe that the domestic chip industry has entered an inflection point, and 's future chip development trend has attracted many people. s concern.
my country is the largest chip importer
When it comes to chips, everyone is familiar with them. For example, there is a chip in the mobile phone. When people use the mobile phone to play video games, the chip performs a lot of calculations in the background, and finally presents the results on the screen. If a phone doesn't have a chip, it's like a brick. The importance of the
chip is not only reflected in the field of smartphones, but also in the fields of artificial intelligence and servers.
my country is the largest importer of chips. Chips are the products of today's most advanced technology. The equipment and technology required to manufacture a chip are also the world's most advanced. However, my country's chip research and development started relatively late. Even if the manufacturing of the chip does not talk about the patented technology involved, it is just an advanced EUV lithography machine that cannot be built in my country, and due to the technological blockade of Western countries, it is difficult to import advanced lithography machine from abroad , so it is still difficult for to manufacture advanced chips at this stage.
But as the largest producer of electronic products, China's semiconductor market is gradually increasing. From 2013 to 2021, China's market share has grown from 28.9% to 34.6%. After years of development of , my country has also become the largest chip importer.
According to the data of China Customs, imported 635.48 billion integrated circuits in 2021, worth 432.55 billion US dollars, an increase of 16.9% over the previous year, and exceeded 400 billion US dollars for the first time. In 2021, China's imported integrated circuits will account for 77.8% of global sales.
my country's semiconductor industry has made great progress in the past ten years, from the budding investment around 2010, to the gradual warming in 2014, and then to the rapid prosperity after 2019. In a cycle of ten years, the financing amount of China's semiconductor industry has reached the level of one trillion yuan. The international situation is changing and geopolitical problems are obvious, and the problem of "stuck neck" is becoming more and more prominent.
In the past ten years, Chinese chip semiconductors have just gone through a complete cycle. When the cold winter comes again, how to cross the cycle has become a key proposition. This is also the focus of the experts participating in the World Semiconductor Conference.
chip market growth slows down
According to China Semiconductor Industry Association Vice Chairman Yu Xiekang disclosed that In 2021, the growth rate of China's semiconductor industry is 18%, lower than the global growth rate of 26.2%. In the first half of this year, affected by the Shanghai epidemic and the sharp decline in consumer electronics, it is estimated that the growth rate of the domestic chip industry will slow down to 15%.
The growth of the domestic chip industry has also shown signs of slowing down.
In fact, although China has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in the semiconductor industry in the past few years, , as the world's largest chip importer, China's dependence on global semiconductors still exceeds 90%, and the localization rate of chips in some fields is insufficient. 10%.
Industry insiders pointed out that the core reason why there is no comprehensive domestic substitution of semiconductors in China is that pure PPT companies get financing, while inexperienced companies can get local subsidies, The wafer factory is undergoing low-level repetitive construction, disorderly competition in low-end links, and a large gap in industry talent.
Relevant professionals have long reminded that the enthusiasm of the domestic semiconductor industry is constantly rising, and some "three no" enterprises with no experience, no technology, and no talents have joined the integrated circuit industry. , the risk of low-level repeated construction appears, and even some projects are stagnant and workshops are vacant, resulting in waste of resources.
Hu Jiya , an associate professor at the School of Applied Economics, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, bluntly stated that performance, government financial subsidies, grants and tax reductions have not contributed to the improvement of total factor productivity and innovation capabilities of the strategic industry such as chips.
Today, with the chip industry entering an inflection point, investment has also entered a new period of adjustment.
Yunxiu Capital partner and CTO Zhao Zhanxiang found that the activity of semiconductor investment declined in the first half of this year, especially the decline in US dollar funds, which were supported by external forces, and some US dollar funds even tended to withdraw from semiconductors.
Gu Meng, managing director of Linxin Investment, believes that semiconductors are at a key node of strategic and cyclical superposition, showing the characteristics of "ice and fire". Strategic means that semiconductors are the cornerstone of the electronic information industry and are being Countries regard it as a strategic product, while cyclicality is an attribute of the industry itself. "Capital must distinguish which is fire and which is ice." Gu Meng said. A number of investors who attended the World Semiconductor Conference in
said that semiconductor itself is a big cyclical industry, and too hasty and premature investment has led to a big bubble in the semiconductor field. Venture capital needs to respect the laws of the industry and cannot help it grow.
Persistence for a long time and seize new opportunities in parallel
experts said that at present, China is in a very favorable stage of development, engaged in industrial upgrading. Transfer from low value-added to high value-added, from low-tech to high-tech, from low productivity to high productivity, and from the low end of the industrial chain to the high end.
China's status as the world's factory will not change in the short term, which also creates important conditions for the development of semiconductors.
wants to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises. It can be seen from the 2021 annual reports of 22 chip design companies listed on the science and technology board that their average gross profit margin is about 47%, which is 15 percentage points lower than the 62% gross profit margin of American companies. Although the average R&D investment of domestic companies has reached 25.5%, which is 8.5 percentage points higher than the 17% R&D investment of American semiconductor companies, the total R&D investment of 22 chip companies listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board is only 1.08 billion US dollars. The numbers are very small.
Therefore, due to the limitations of scale, specifications and profitability, Chinese enterprises actually have very weak innovation capabilities. More methods need to be taken to promote innovation capabilities and strengthen market segments.
China Resources Microelectronics Co., Ltd. Vice President Ma Weiqing said that many market segments in China are already very mature and developing very fast. Compared with the traditional white goods , the intelligent white goods and frequency conversion use modules, as well as new energy vehicles, photovoltaic inverters, and rail transit are all very good power semiconductor growth points. He believes that the automotive electronics and industrial control markets have brought new opportunities for power semiconductors. In the future, the automotive market will be more electronic, intelligent, and materialized, so that a large number of power semiconductors such as ICs, industrial devices, and modules will be used.
China should focus on "forging long plates".
5G (fifth generation mobile communication technology) is an advantageous industry for China, and it also indicates an important driving force for future development. According to ITU's vision, the development of eMBB (enhanced mobile broadband) has only been completed in China. Generally speaking, the speed of Internet access can be higher. This alone is enough to stimulate the development of VR/AR industry and make it form aA trillion-scale market space.
and more importantly, mMTC (massive machine type communication) and uRLLC (ultra-reliable low-latency communication) in the development of 5G, both of which are still in the process of development, so the development of fifth-generation communication is still Very preliminary. The development of mMTC and uRLLC will strongly promote the transformation of industries, such as autonomous driving and industrial automation, among which mMTC is an important support for the development of the industrial Internet and intelligent society.
China is also committed to developing new opportunities.
Li Ke, vice president of CCID Consulting Co., Ltd., pointed out that the development of global industrial intelligence, digital transformation, and development will drive the increase in the number of semiconductors in processors and the iteration of high-value chips, and continue to promote the development of the semiconductor industry. There are six major development trends in the industry in the future:
■ First, open instruction set and open source chips usher in unprecedented historic opportunities.
■ Second, emerging application scenarios will have a huge driving effect on the formation of a new development pattern for the global integrated circuit industry.
■ Third, digital tools will give global semiconductor companies more competitive advantages.
■ Four is that disruptive technologies with new materials and new architectures will become the main choice for the semiconductor industry in the post-Moore era.
■ Fifth is that the whole machine manufacturer accelerates the process of self-developed chips.
■ Six is that advanced packaging technology will become the focus of competition among major manufacturers.
Foreshadowing is established, not foreshadowing is invalid. The development of the semiconductor industry will not be achieved overnight. It requires long-term persistence and continuous innovation to have a good prospect.
Review: Yang Jing
Editor in charge: Huo Yue
Editor: Hu Na
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