The pace of localization of chips is accelerating, but there are concerns about "blossoming everywhere"

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In recent years, the investment in the domestic integrated circuit industry has been hot, and various regions have been competing to introduce and launch semiconductor construction projects, resulting in a rush to invest and homogeneous competition. Experts said that the threshold for integrated circuit investment is high and the risk is high. The "factory building fever" and chip projects "blooming everywhere" in China are not conducive to the healthy development of the industry. It is more necessary to concentrate resources to form innovative technologies and innovative products in several core technology fields, rather than blindly pursuing factory construction and expansion.

The reporter learned from the "21st China Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Annual Conference" held recently that the domestic integrated circuit industry has shown a rapid development trend in recent years. The global integrated circuit industry chain has begun to move to China. China's integrated circuits have formed a technical system, established an industrial chain, and the industrial ecology and competitiveness have been improved and enhanced.

The integrated circuit industry is usually divided into design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, equipment and materials. According to Ye Tianchun, director of the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, my country's high-end chip design capabilities have been greatly improved in recent years; manufacturing processes have made great progress, with 65, 40, and 28 nanometer processes in mass production, 14 nanometer technology research and development has made breakthroughs, and the competitiveness of special processes has been improved; integrated circuit packaging has moved from the middle and low end to the high end; key equipment and materials have been created from scratch.

There have been two landmark events in the domestic integrated circuit industry recently, which, to a certain extent, represent the rapid progress of domestic chip technology: First, SMIC announced that the company's 14nm process technology is in the customer introduction stage and is expected to be mass-produced in the first half of 2019. This is currently the most advanced wafer manufacturing process for mainland Chinese companies; second, Yangtze Memory announced a new 3D NAND architecture - Xtacking, which is also the first time that a Chinese company has proposed an important new architecture and technology path in the field of integrated circuits.

With the rapid development of "China Chip", in the field of integrated circuit manufacturing, mainland Chinese enterprises have the ability to support 55% of the value and 90% of the quantity of product manufacturing, covering most product needs; in the field of equipment and materials, there are 20 key chip manufacturing equipment, 17 advanced packaging equipment and 103 key material products sold at home and abroad.

"As the world's largest electronic information market, China is becoming a strategic partner of the global integrated circuit industry." Zhang Suxin, Chairman of Shanghai Huahong (Group) Co., Ltd., said that integrated circuits are the support and core of the transformation of the electronic information industry. In every period of the development of the electronic information industry, integrated circuits are the core driving force supporting the transformation and progress of the industry. China's promotion of the development of integrated circuits is inevitable in the evolution of the global industry.

Although the domestic integrated circuit industry is currently developing rapidly, it cannot be ignored that there is still a clear gap with the international advanced level. The current phenomena such as overheated investment, disorderly competition, and homogeneous competition are even more worthy of vigilance.

In the global integrated circuit field, China is becoming the most active investment region. As market demand heats up, semiconductor investment began to hit a new high last year, mainly reflected in fab construction and equipment investment. According to statistics from the International Semiconductor Industry Association (SEMI), in 2017, mainland China accounted for 15% of global semiconductor equipment sales, ranking third in the world, and is expected to rise to second in the world by 2019. In addition, from 2017 to 2020, it is expected that 62 new wafer fabs will be put into production worldwide, of which 40%, or 26 new wafer fabs, will be located in China.

Shen Bo, president of ASML China, a Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer, said that in the first half of this year, the equipment shipped to China accounted for about 20% of the company's total business volume, and this proportion is continuing to rise. "The Chinese integrated circuit industry is particularly hot, but in fact, the number of wafer fabs that are actually moving forward seems to be much less than announced, so we are also waiting and watching."

The semiconductor investment and factory construction boom has caused concerns in the industry. Ding Wenwu, president of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co., Ltd., pointed out that one of the main problems in the domestic integrated circuit field is low-level, duplicate construction, and homogeneous competition. The consequences are also the dispersion of resources, fierce competition for talent, and malicious poaching of talent between companies.

Chen Nanxiang, Executive Vice Chairman of China Resources Microelectronics Co., Ltd., pointed out that the current situation of the domestic integrated circuit industry is high birth rate and low success rate. The high birth rate indicates the prosperity, social support and attention of the industry, and also means the dispersion of R&D resources and innovation momentum within the industry, and even leads to homogeneous competition. The success rate means the sustainable development of semiconductor companies, and the industry needs a high success rate.

The integrated circuit industry needs to remain rational amid the investment clamor. Ye Tianchun stressed that China's IC industry needs to reposition itself from its own development to the global landscape. "After building an industrial chain from scratch, China needs an upgraded development strategy and can no longer just pursue factory construction and expansion."

In his opinion, the development strategy of the domestic integrated circuit industry in the next stage is "product-centered, with industry solutions as the breakthrough point", and system applications, design, manufacturing and equipment materials must have more powerful measures to achieve integrated development. In addition, it is necessary to shift from the "catch-up strategy" to the "innovation strategy", form its own characteristics in the global industrial innovation chain, lead the global market with the Chinese market, and reshape the global industrial chain.

"The industry layout is characterized by disorderly competition, fragmentation and homogenization, which runs counter to the international integration trend." Ye Tianchun said that it is useless to just build factories now. The entire industry is busy expanding production, and the ultimate goal is to be able to truly develop and manufacture chip products. Therefore, the key is how to tap the potential of the Chinese market, provide product solutions, and thus change the global integrated circuit industry landscape.

Zhou Zixue, chairman of the China Semiconductor Industry Association, pointed out that my country's integrated circuit industry chain still has a huge gap in all links compared with advanced countries and regions in the world, and industrial upgrading is necessary. To this end, it is necessary to adhere to innovation-driven development, focus on talent cultivation, and take the path of openness and international cooperation.

"The layout of the domestic integrated circuit industry needs to be further optimized. We cannot rush into it all at once. The main players in the industry need to be concentrated, and we need to try to concentrate all forces on key enterprises." Long Hanbing, a researcher at the Electronic Information Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said. At the same time, we need to improve relevant industrial policies, implement them, and promptly revise and improve policies according to changes in industrial development.

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Moore Elite is a leading chip design accelerator that reconstructs semiconductor infrastructure to make it easier for China to make chips. Its main businesses include "chip design services, supply chain operation services, talent services, and enterprise services". It covers more than 1,500 chip design companies and 500,000 engineers in the semiconductor industry chain, and has precise big data on integrated circuits. It currently has 200 employees and is growing rapidly. It has branches and employees in Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Nanjing, Beijing, Shenzhen, Xi'an, Chengdu, Hefei, Guangzhou and other places.

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