China's high-end smartphone chip industry chain takes shape

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At the 2014 Beijing Microelectronics International Symposium Summit Forum held recently, a reporter from China Electronics News learned that Spreadtrum Communications' new generation 3G smartphone platform main chip uses Changdian Technology's 12-inch wafer copper bump process, fine pitch flip-chip bonding, and plastic direct filling advanced packaging technology, successfully achieving multi-chip fcCSP packaging test mass production; at the same time, the chip also uses SMIC's 12-inch wafer, 40-nanometer node low dielectric constant process technology for processing and manufacturing. Liang Xinfu, vice president of Changdian Technology, said that this marks that mainland China has opened up all links in the smartphone chip industry chain, and the integrated circuit industry is accelerating its overall rise.

Smartphone market strongly boosts local IC industry chain

The ongoing mobile terminal revolution is of great significance to the development of the integrated circuit industry chain in mainland China.

If the PC revolution has led to the development of the electronics industry in Taiwan, the ongoing mobile terminal revolution is equally significant to the development of the integrated circuit industry chain in mainland China. According to IDC data, in the second quarter of 2014, global smartphone shipments reached 295.3 million units, an increase of 23.1% from 240 million units in the same period last year. It is also reported that domestic brand smartphone sales account for more than 70% of domestic smartphones. Among the main components of smartphones, chips account for more than 40% of their costs, which is almost equivalent to the sum of display screens, touch screens, camera modules, batteries, and mechanical parts. The market size is huge. According to Gartner data, the mobile phone chip market size in 2013 was approximately US$66.7 billion. With the continuous improvement of smartphone penetration and the continuous advancement of technology, this market will continue to grow rapidly.

The significance of the smartphone market to integrated circuits goes beyond this. Liang Xinfu said: "With the evolution of process nodes, the design and manufacturing costs of integrated circuits continue to increase." From 32nm to 16nm, the design cost has increased by more than $100 million. At the 22nm process node, the investment in a wafer production line that reaches break-even requires as much as $8 billion to $10 billion. By the 16nm process node, it may reach $12 billion to $15 billion. "If there is no large enough application market to support it, it will be difficult for a company to survive. From the current application market, wearable devices and the Internet of Things have a promising future, but these markets are characterized by segmentation and fragmentation, which brings challenges to solution providers. Smartphones will continue to be the main integrated circuit application market for some time to come, and will have a huge impact on the industry." Liang Xinfu said.

Most importantly, mobile phone manufacturers in mainland China are growing rapidly. Among the world's top five mobile phone manufacturers, Samsung shipped 74.3 million smartphones in the second quarter of this year, down 3.9% from 77.3 million in the same period last year, and its market share also dropped from 32.3% in the same period last year to 25.2%; at the same time, Apple shipped 35.1 million smartphones, up 12.4% from 31.2 million in the same period last year, but its market share dropped from 13.0% in the same period last year to 11.9%. Huawei, ranked third, shipped 20.3 million smartphones in the second quarter of this year, up 95.1% from 10.4 million in the same period last year, and its market share also increased from 4.3% in the same period last year to 6.9%; Lenovo, ranked fourth, shipped 15.8 million smartphones in the second quarter of this year, up 38.7% from the same period last year, and its market share increased from 4.7% in the same period last year to 5.4%; Chinese local mobile phone manufacturers such as "China Cool Union" have put greater pressure on other global competitors. "The growth of Chinese mobile phone manufacturers has provided a foundation for the development of China's local smartphone chip industry chain. A number of local IC design companies, including smartphone chip design companies such as Spreadtrum, Leadcore Technology, and RDA Microelectronics, tablet chip design companies such as Allwinner Technology and Rockchip, and MEMS sensor companies such as AAC Technologies, Goertek, and MEMSIC Semiconductor, have benefited from this and grown stronger. The development of these design companies will bring more opportunities to local manufacturing and packaging companies," said Liang Xinfu.

The industry chain is connected and the overall strength of IC is improved

Mainland China is fully capable of undertaking large-scale processing of high-end integrated circuit products for applications such as smartphones.

From analog to digital, from fixed to mobile, from narrowband to broadband, from TDM to IP, mobile communication technology has changed along the way, and many major innovations and technological breakthroughs have emerged. In the future, there will still be many new development trends in smartphone chips, such as higher processing performance, smaller and thinner chip sizes, etc. Correspondingly, a large number of new technologies must be adopted in the chip manufacturing and packaging process to achieve this.

Liang Xinfu introduced that "in the most important baseband chips (Baseband) and application processors (AP) of smartphones, low-end products have begun to adopt 40nm advanced IC process technology, and high-density and low-cost multi-layer ball welding technology is used in packaging; mid-end products have adopted 40nm/28nm in process technology, and 2L low-cost high-density substrates and high-density BOT FC+ MUF technology in packaging; high-end products use 40nm/28nm process technology, and packaging adopts ≧4L embedded high-density substrates and POP DDR technology, and uses solder ball bumps with a fine pitch of less than 150μm."

For a long time, due to the dominant advantage of international brands in the smartphone market, the manufacturing and packaging technology itself also needs a process of progress and accumulation. There are gaps and gaps in the industrial chain of smartphone chips for mainland China's integrated circuit companies, especially AP+ Baseband, which are mostly outsourced to companies such as TSMC, and packaging is also mostly done overseas. "With the widespread adoption of advanced IC manufacturing processes such as 40nm and 28nm, the demand for bumping processing of mobile phone chips has increased sharply, and the mid-process field has received attention. Previously, mainland China lacked 12-inch wafer bumping processing capabilities, resulting in customers having to take their products to foundries in Taiwan and Singapore for bumping. Most customers at that time also chose to complete the packaging process nearby. This also caused the loss of customers for local packaging companies." Liang Xinfu believes.

But this situation is changing. In recent years, my country's integrated circuit enterprises have continued to innovate R&D, integrate and acquire, and expand their strength, laying the foundation for the upgrading of the integrated circuit industry. At the beginning of this year, Changdian Technology and SMIC signed a contract to build a joint venture with 12-inch bump processing and supporting wafer chip testing (CP Testing) capabilities, which better meets the needs of the smart mobile market. The successful mass production of packaging and testing of fcCSP smartphone platform chips further demonstrates that Changdian Technology's high-end packaging technology has reached the industry's leading level. Liang Xinfu pointed out: "Recently, the main chip of the new generation 3G smart phone platform designed and developed by Spreadtrum Communications has adopted the newly developed 12-inch wafer copper bump process, fine pitch flip-chip bonding, and plastic direct filling advanced packaging process of Changdian Technology, and successfully achieved multi-chip fcCSP packaging test mass production. At the same time, the product also uses SMIC's 12-inch wafer and 40-nanometer node low dielectric constant process technology for chip wafer processing and manufacturing. This is the first time that mainland China has opened up all links in the smart phone chip industry chain, and realized chip design, 12-inch wafer manufacturing, and advanced packaging testing are all completed in China, indicating that the strength of the integrated circuit industry chain has been upgraded to a higher level, and it is fully capable of undertaking large-scale processing of high-end integrated circuit products for applications such as smart phones."

Multi-chip fcCSP packaging becomes mainstream

As packaging technology develops towards high density, high performance and thinness, multi-chip fcCSP packaging will become the mainstream of AP/BB.

Market research firm IDC predicts that the demand for smartphone sales growth will gradually shift to developing countries such as China, and the mid-end market will become the mainstream of development. "The low-end and mid-end market does not mean low price and low quality, but high cost performance. Mobile phone users will have higher quality requirements, and mobile phone chips will also show a high-tech, high-performance and diversified development trend. These include all chips that make up smartphones, such as MCU, RFIC, GPS, PMIC, MEMS, CIS, etc. In this case, the packaging process will also develop towards high density, high performance and thinness, and multi-chip fcCSP packaging will also become the mainstream of AP/BB chips. Changdian Technology has always insisted on developing its own packaging and testing technologies such as MIS, SIP, WLCSP, etc., which can support almost all chip products in mobile phones; and has global intellectual property rights for copper bump and MIS packaging technology." Liang Xinfu analyzed and introduced.

In addition, Liang Xinfu is optimistic about the application of MEMS sensors in smart phones. "MEMS sensors have become an important part of mobile phone functions and even an important selling point. Silicon micro-wheat, CIS camera, accelerometer have good applications, and there are a lot of opportunities in new fingerprint recognition products. MEMS packaging technology is very different from general chip packaging, and it has high requirements for enterprises. At present, the packaging cost of some MEMS devices even accounts for 40% to 60% of the total price. Changdian Technology has always focused on the development of MEMS product packaging technology and is currently the largest MEMS geomagnetic sensor packaging base in China. Recently, Changdian Technology has begun mass production and packaging of fingerprint recognition chips and SiP modules of major domestic design companies, making full use of its advanced technology and large-scale processing advantages in the fields of mid-range packaging and SiP, and once again leading the breakthrough in the Chinese local industry chain of key MEMS sensor chips."

The development of the mid-range smartphone market and the leading position of Chinese mainland mobile phone manufacturers have brought new opportunities to the integrated circuit industry. At present, the localization process of mobile phone chips has started, although it started later than overseas giants, but it has taken a key step.

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