A grand review of domestic semiconductor strength

Latest update time：2020-10-01

Reads：

I would like to dedicate this article to all the "fireflies" working on the front line of the semiconductor industry.

prelude

We have to blaze a trail through the mountains and forests.

This is a true portrayal of the history of China's semiconductor industry since its founding.

In recent years, the development of China's semiconductor industry has been extremely difficult. There are technological blockades from outside and chip counterfeiting from within. This has had a huge impact on the development of China's economy and the semiconductor industry.

Even so, as long as there is a tiny spark and a little wind, it can start a prairie fire.

This is inseparable from the hard work of domestic semiconductor companies of all sizes. When they gather together, they are like a fire, and when they disperse, they are like stars in the sky. With their own strength, they shine and heat up the domestic semiconductor industry.

During the National Day, Semiconductor Industry Watch presents a wonderful parade of domestic semiconductor strength as a gift to all the semiconductor people who have dedicated their youth to the industry.

develop

In this military parade, packaging and testing, design, and manufacturing industries advanced in parallel, forming an extremely majestic marching formation, demonstrating China's semiconductor capabilities to the world.

First Square: Design

First, the IC design team came towards us. They held up the logos of various companies and marched in neat steps.

The Huawei team took the lead, with an impressive slogan: "Without scars, how can you be tough?" What a strong will! As Ren Zhengfei, President of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., said, Huawei is now like a damaged plane, with the fuel tank of its consumer business riddled with holes. Only with continuous capital investment and technological accumulation can Huawei be able to cope with external challenges.

Huawei HiSilicon Semiconductor was founded in 2004. Its predecessor was Huawei Integrated Circuit Design Center founded in 1991. Its R&D products cover multiple fields such as mobile devices, wireless networks, fixed networks and digital media. Among them, video surveillance related chips have an absolute leading market position in China. In addition, the company has made great efforts in mobile processors in recent years. At present, according to the latest data from Counterpiont, in the field of mobile processors, HiSilicon Semiconductor is already the world's third largest company, and the company has been firmly in the position of China's IC design leader for many years.

It is not difficult to find that in recent years, the domestic IC design industry has been accelerating its development process.

According to statistics from the China Semiconductor Industry Association, there were 1,780 integrated circuit design companies in China in 2019, an increase of 82 from 2018. IC design sales revenue is expected to exceed 308.49 billion yuan, accounting for more than 10% of global integrated circuit product sales revenue for the first time.

In terms of CPU types, the issue of domestic CPU autonomy has been on the agenda since the 15th Five-Year Plan, and industrial policies have been continuously strengthened. After decades of hard exploration, the domestic CPU industry has begun to take shape, and a number of leading companies have emerged. Domestic manufacturers have already involved in a variety of instruction set architectures such as ARM, MIPS and even X86, and have achieved success in both self-development and licensing.

Domestic companies such as Tianjin Feiteng, Haiguang, Shenwei, Loongson, Zhaoxin, and Huawei HiSilicon have all launched products, and their product performance has improved significantly in recent years. For example, in high-performance computing, processor products such as Tianjin Feiteng, Haiguang Shenwei, etc. have been used in E-class (100 trillion times per second) supercomputer prototypes; in terms of servers, Feiteng, Loongson, Haiguang, and Huawei HiSilicon have all released new products, among which the performance of Feiteng 2000+/64-core products is already comparable to that of some mainstream Intel E5 products. In terms of mobile CPUs, Huawei HiSilicon is the most internationally competitive Chinese manufacturer. The tide of localization of CPUs has risen, and many heroes are vying for supremacy in the Central Plains.

In terms of GPU, my country's industry development is relatively slow, partly because there are indeed technical barriers for GPU, and this technical barrier cannot be overcome in the short term. Moor Insights & Strategy chief analyst Moor Haider once said: "Compared with CPU, GPU development is more difficult, and there are fewer GPU designers, engineers and driver authors."

There are also some companies in China that independently develop GPUs. Jingjiawei and Changsha Shaoguang have just turned to the civilian market. Jingjiawei is currently the only company in China that independently develops GPUs and has achieved industrialization. Its products mainly include graphics display control, small specialized radars and chips.

In terms of MCU, in general, China cannot compare with foreign companies in terms of market share or technological advancement. Domestic MCU application areas are mostly concentrated in low-end electronic products, and the mid-to-high-end electronic product market is still in the hands of foreign companies. With the rise of the Internet of Things, there is an increasing demand for intelligent electronic products, and the upgrading of traditional industries is imminent, which has spawned many MCU companies.

Among them are GigaDevice, Zhongying Electronics, Beijing Ingenic, Shenzhen AMEC, HDA Semiconductor, Lingdong Microelectronics, Jiuhai Semiconductor, Neusoft Carrier, Shanghai Belling, Fudan Microelectronics, Hangshun Chip and other companies (not all companies).

As one of the first MCU companies to be listed in China, SinoWise's MCU products are widely used in home appliances, instrumentation and other fields. GigaDevice is the largest local 32-bit general-purpose MCU manufacturer. It has entered the optical communication field in early 2020 and has launched the GD32E232 series MCU for optical module applications.

FPGA chips are a very weak link in China's semiconductor industry chain. Relevant data indicate that domestic FPGA companies' products currently account for only about 4% of the Chinese FPGA market due to barriers in technology, capital, talent and FPGA mass production. The extremely low market share means huge market potential. In order to gain a larger market share, domestic FPGA companies have made rapid progress in catching up with technology in recent years.

The leading enterprises include Unigroup Tongchuang, Jingwei Qili, Gaoyun Semiconductor, Shanghai Anlu, Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics, etc. At present, most domestic enterprises have started 28nm research and development. Unigroup Tongchuang is the first domestic manufacturer to launch 28nm FPGA chips. Anlu and Gaoyun are also developing 28nm FPGAs, and they are expected to release samples in 2020. Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics has also launched a 28nm process billion-gate FPGA series products, and Jingwei Qili is expected to launch a 22nm series of products in 2021. With the full entry of domestic FPGA manufacturers into the research and development of 28nm ten-million-gate products, it means that Chinese FPGA manufacturers have begun to truly enter the stage of direct competition with advanced manufacturers.

In terms of memory, the development of technologies such as 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, and artificial intelligence has driven the explosive growth of data. The generation of such a huge amount of data has also directly promoted the rapid development of the memory chip industry represented by DRAM and NAND Flash. However, in the past few years, the memory chip market has been dominated by foreign manufacturers. Fortunately, with the mass production of domestic memory manufacturers, the monopoly of foreign manufacturers on memory chips has begun to be broken.

GigaDevice has increased its layout in memory, and its business covers key chip technology areas such as NOR Flash, NAND Flash, MCU, fingerprint recognition, etc. GigaDevice pointed out in its 2020 semi-annual report that in terms of NAND Flash products, 24nm process products continue to advance, and the company will improve its small and medium-capacity NAND Flash product series.

Doxin Semiconductor focuses on the research, development, design and sales of small and medium-capacity general-purpose memory chips. The company can also provide complete solutions for NAND, NOR, DRAM and other memory chips.

It is worth noting that in the storage field, most of the manufacturers are IDM (Integrated Device Manufacturing), such as Yangtze Memory Technologies and Hefei Changxin.

Yangtze Memory has achieved a breakthrough in the NAND Flash field. After releasing the world's first 128-layer QLC storage chip in April this year, it is expected to achieve mass production by the end of this year. Currently, Changxin Memory mainly produces 19nm DDR4/LPDDR4/LPDDR4X chips, and is expected to launch 17nm DRAM chips in 2021.

In the newest AI chip industry, the market is growing rapidly. At present, some AI products have been put into use and are being continuously optimized, and the algorithms are gradually becoming stable. For my country, since the AI chip entrepreneurship boom in 2014, there have been more than hundreds of domestic AI chip companies.

Companies that have publicly announced the launch of AI chip products include traditional chip manufacturers such as Huawei HiSilicon, Unisoc, and Rockchip, as well as technology giants Baidu and Alibaba that have entered the AI chip market with their strong strength in the Internet field, and a large number of "rising stars" focusing on AI chip segments such as Cambricon, Horizon Robotics, and InnoLife. In 2019 alone, Alibaba, Baidu, Cambricon, Black Sesame, Horizon Robotics, and many other manufacturers launched leading-edge AI chip products covering image recognition, smart cities, cloud computing, autonomous driving, and many other fields.

For China's IC design industry, achieving breakthroughs in niche areas seems to be a feasible approach.

For example, Goodix Technology surpassed Sweden's FPC in the field of fingerprint recognition chips in 2017, becoming the world's first in the field of consumer electronics. Goodix Technology has now become the main market occupier of the three major markets of capacitive touch screen chips, fingerprint recognition chips and fixed-line phone chips in China.

After completing the acquisition of Beijing OmniVision (Beijing OmniVision is one of the top three image sensor suppliers in the world) and Sipix in 2019, Will Semiconductor also performed very well. Its main business has realized the layout in the field of CMOS image sensors. By "buying, buying and buying" to achieve both profitability and valuation, Will Semiconductor has become one of the semiconductor listed companies with a market value of over 100 billion yuan. Before the acquisition, Will Semiconductor was essentially a trade intermediary, not a semiconductor design company. The acquisition enabled Will Semiconductor to achieve a real transformation.

Unisoc is a leading company in my country's integrated circuit design industry. After entering the 5G era, Unisoc, which was low-key in the 4G era, accelerated its progress. In early 2019, when 5G was not yet commercially available, it released its self-developed 5G baseband Springtide V510, and at the beginning of this year, it released its first 5G SoC, Tiger T7510, which uses TSMC's advanced 6nm EUV process. Looking at the global 5G chip market, only five companies: Huawei HiSilicon, Unisoc, Samsung, Qualcomm, and MediaTek can provide 5G baseband chips. Unisoc has obviously entered the forefront of the 5G era.

Of course, there are many other companies that cannot be included in this article due to limited space. They work hard, become stronger when facing strong opponents, and never stop. Starting from their respective fields, they have achieved a qualitative leap and injected strong energy into China's semiconductor industry.

The Second Array: Closed Beta

Looking at the packaging and testing team, it is really impressive! The packaging and testing field can be said to be the strongest link in my country's current integrated circuit industry. Many domestic packaging and testing manufacturers have not only formed economies of scale in terms of volume, but also have been integrated into the national team strategically, led by Changdian Technology, and formed a corps combat system.

At present, China, Taiwan, and the United States are the three major players in the global packaging and testing market, and their market share has reached 28.1% in 2019. According to statistics from the China Semiconductor Industry Association, the number of packaging and testing companies in mainland China has exceeded 120.

Among many packaging and testing companies, the "Big Three" of Changdian Technology, Tongfu Microelectronics and Huatian Technology performed relatively well. Among the top ten packaging and testing manufacturers in the world, Changdian Technology, Tongfu Microelectronics and Tianshui Huatian ranked third, sixth and seventh respectively. They are at the forefront of the formation.

By launching a number of international mergers and acquisitions, mainland China's packaging and testing manufacturers have achieved rapid development. In November 2014, Huatian Technology acquired 100% of the equity of Flip Chip International, LLC and its subsidiaries in the United States for US$42 million, improving the company's technology level in wafer-level integrated circuit packaging and FC integrated circuit packaging.

In January 2015, with the support of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Fund, Changdian Technology spent US$780 million to acquire STATS ChipPAC, the world's fourth-largest packaging and testing company in Singapore, and acquired its advanced packaging technology and European and American customer resources. Changdian Technology's market share jumped to third in the world.

In October 2015, Tongfu Microelectronics signed an equity purchase agreement with AMD, investing US$370 million to acquire 85% of the equity of Advanced Micro Devices Export Sdn. Bhd. and Advanced Micro Devices Technology (China) Co., Ltd. After the acquisition, Tongfu Microelectronics, as the controlling shareholder, established an integrated circuit packaging and testing joint venture with AMD.

From 2017 to 2018, Suzhou Gotech completed the acquisition of 100% equity of Malaysian packaging and testing manufacturer AICS in two batches.

In September 2018, Huatian Technology announced a tender offer to acquire 75.72% of the shares of Unisem, a semiconductor packaging and testing supplier listed on the Malaysian main board, with a total offer price of 2.992 billion yuan. In November 2018, Tongfu Microelectronics announced that it planned to acquire 100% of the shares of FABTRONIC SDN BHD, a Malaysian packaging and testing company, for no more than 22.05 million yuan.

Domestic packaging and testing manufacturers, relying on their own "money" capabilities, have made strong acquisitions, gained a place on the world stage, and presented us with a wonderful phalanx performance.

At present, domestic packaging and testing mainly focuses on traditional packaging products. In recent years, through mergers and acquisitions, it has rapidly accumulated certain advanced packaging technologies, which are basically synchronized with overseas manufacturers. However, the proportion of overall advanced packaging revenue in total revenue is still somewhat behind that of Taiwan and the United States.

Third Phalanx: Manufacturing

In the manufacturing industry, equipment companies are in the lead. They installed wheels and flags on their own machines. These equipment that can only appear in clean rooms were exhibited in front of the public for the first time. Talents in the equipment industry stepped forward with vigor and power. Only when the equipment is developed, our semiconductors will have tonsils as strong as steel, so that we will not be afraid of others strangling our throats.

In recent years, my country's semiconductor equipment industry has been accelerating its layout and developing rapidly. Driven by the construction of new production lines across the country, China's demand for semiconductor equipment surged in 2018, with the market size reaching US$12.82 billion, a year-on-year increase of 47.1%, nearly five times the growth rate of the global equipment industry.

In newly built wafer fabs, semiconductor equipment expenditure accounts for about 80%. Among them, wafer manufacturing equipment accounts for the largest proportion of semiconductor equipment. Chip manufacturing mainly includes wafer production, photolithography, etching and ion beam injection, deposition and polishing.

Lithography machines are the core equipment for wafer manufacturing, and the world's largest lithography machine manufacturer ASML accounts for more than 80% of the market share. The best domestic lithography machine, Shanghai Microelectronics, is currently still at the 90-nanometer mass production level.

However, in the fields of testing, cleaning, silicon wafer preparation, etc., domestic equipment has a certain degree of substitution, such as Changchuan Technology's testing equipment, Jingsheng Electromechanical's single crystal furnace, and Zhichun Technology's high-purity process system and cleaning equipment.

AMEC and North Huachuang are leading domestic semiconductor equipment companies. AMEC is considered the strongest chip stock on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in 2019, and is mainly focused on the research and development of plasma etching equipment and MOCVD (chemical vapor deposition) equipment. AMEC has successfully developed a 7-nanometer dielectric etcher and is the only domestic equipment manufacturer to enter TSMC's 7-nanometer process.

North Huachuang is engaged in the pan-semiconductor industry, focusing on sub-sectors such as integrated circuits, photovoltaics, panels, and LEDs. Its semiconductor equipment includes etching equipment, deposition equipment (PVD/CVD/ALD), oxidation furnaces, and cleaning equipment. It is a mainstream domestic semiconductor equipment supplier.

Driven by the recovery of memory investment and the construction and expansion of factories in mainland China, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SEMI) predicts that global sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment will reach US$58.8 billion in 2020, a 12% increase from 2019. Mainland China will become the largest market for semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

Wafer foundry companies are unwilling to lag behind and use wafers as shields to protect themselves and add defense to the domestic semiconductor fortress. Among them, SMIC and Hua Hong Semiconductor are known as the two giants of China's wafer foundry.

SMIC is the largest wafer foundry in mainland China, providing 0.35 micron to 14 nanometer process foundry and technical services to global customers. In the fourth quarter of 2019, SMIC's 14 nanometer officially shipped and began to contribute to revenue, marking the small-scale production of SMIC's 14 nanometer process. On August 11, according to Cailian News, SMIC stated on the interactive platform that 14 nanometers have entered the mass production stage and the yield rate is steadily climbing.

Hua Hong Semiconductor is a global leading pure-play foundry company with specialty processes, implementing the corporate development strategy of "8-inch + 12-inch" wafer differentiation technology. In 2019, Hua Hong Semiconductor achieved sales revenue of US$933 million, setting a new record for the company's historical revenue, with a year-on-year increase of 0.2%.

Semiconductor materials are a very weak link for us. Including semiconductor manufacturing materials and semiconductor packaging and testing materials, the subdivision fields are very wide. Most of the domestic semiconductor materials are still in the early stage of research and development. The semiconductor materials on the domestic 12-inch mainstream production line basically need to be imported. Only some polishing liquids, target materials, electronic gases, and a small amount of wet chemicals can be replaced by domestic products. Among them, the polishing liquid of Anjie Technology has the highest degree of localization. There are also silicon industry groups and Zhonghuan Semiconductor silicon wafer manufacturers in China, and there is still a big gap compared with advanced manufacturers overall.

The domestic semiconductor manufacturing sector has always been considered a relatively weak link in the industrial chain. However, with the rapid development of the industry and the relentless pressure from the United States, China's policies are continuing to strengthen, with the aim of turning the US bottleneck list into a scientific research task list.

On September 4, Bloomberg quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that China is planning to formulate a comprehensive new policy to develop its own semiconductor industry in response to restrictions imposed by the US government, and will give this task the same high priority "as it did when it built the atomic bomb."

Recently, Bai Chunli, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also stated at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office that he will concentrate his efforts and advantages to focus on major scientific and technological technologies that the country is most concerned about, including the lithography machines that have recently attracted widespread attention due to the problems faced by Huawei. This means that the national team will help the domestic chip industry, including Huawei, solve chip manufacturing problems.

Many policies support my country's semiconductor manufacturing industry. Under this good opportunity, my country's semiconductor manufacturers will surely rise and even take off.

end

my country has made a lot of achievements in the development of integrated circuits, but there is still a gap between the design and manufacturing fields and the world's top level.

In the field of design, a large number of different types of domestic chip designers have never designed products that can occupy a significant market share. Fortunately, in some sub-segments, certain breakthroughs have been achieved.

In the manufacturing field, there is still a large gap between domestic mainland foundries and TSMC in Taiwan; at the same time, in terms of equipment, there is still an insurmountable gap at present.

In the field of packaging and testing, the gap between the technical level of Chinese enterprises and the world's first-class level has gradually narrowed. At present, the domestic packaging and testing volume has entered the top three in the world, and the development speed is significantly higher than other competitors. However, it should be noted that the proportion of overall advanced packaging revenue to total revenue is still somewhat behind that of Taiwan, China and the United States.

Foxconn founder Terry Gou once said: "In the future, the higher-end the semiconductor, the more it will be a game for 'power and wealth'. By then you will see that only when you devote the whole country's strength to bring an industry to the extreme and become irreplaceable in the whole world can you survive."

Today, all regions have good policy guidance. Chinese semiconductor manufacturers need to seize the opportunity, work day and night, strive to break through themselves, become industry leaders, and only then can they stand on the world stage for a long time.

*Disclaimer: This article is originally written by the author. The content of the article is the author's personal opinion. Semiconductor Industry Observer reprints it only to convey a different point of view. It does not mean that Semiconductor Industry Observer agrees or supports this point of view. If you have any objections, please contact Semiconductor Industry Observer.

Today is the 2449th issue of content shared by "Semiconductor Industry Observer" for you, welcome to follow.

Latest articles about

■SiC giant, rebirth: how to predict the future?

■Apple chips may hit Qualcomm hard

■Chip cost per car: soaring to $1,000

■TSMC 2nm, important information

■Huang Renxun's latest views

■The risks of this type of chips that are promising have increased significantly!

■NPU, how to see it?

■Storage giants are abandoning DDR 4

■Intel, why?

■Nvidia will definitely be disrupted