Guangzhou's "core" layout promotes the development of the Internet of Things

The picture shows the exterior panoramic view of the factory of Guangzhou CanSemi Technology Co., Ltd. Photo provided by the interviewee

In June, Guangzhou CanSemi Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "CanSemi"), located in Guangzhou Sino-Singapore Knowledge City, received exciting news: On June 15, CanSemi's production line started trial production (i.e. the process of manufacturing according to the integrated circuit design layout). So far, the production line commissioning has been completed, the first batch of samples have been shipped, and the yield rate has reached the expected target.

"This marks the birth of 'Guangzhou Chip' in September and has entered the final sprint stage." said the head of CanSemi. In fact, since the establishment of Sino-Singapore Knowledge City in December 2017, the construction of the project has refreshed the "Huangpu Speed" and even the "Guangzhou Speed". CanSemi's 12-inch chip factory with virtual IDM (Virtual IDM) as its operating strategy settled in Guangzhou, which "stirred up a thousand waves" and sounded the rallying call for Guangzhou's semiconductor industry.

Hu Shengfa, chairman and president of Ankai (Guangzhou) Microelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ankai Microelectronics"), which is also located in Sino-Singapore Knowledge City, "settled" Ankai Microelectronics in Guangzhou Development Zone in 2001. During this period, he witnessed the development of Guangzhou's semiconductor industry.

"It is no exaggeration to say that Ankai Microelectronics is one of the earliest companies in China to engage in chip design." As the "first person to try new things" in this field in China, Hu Shengfa led the newly-started Ankai Microelectronics to overcome financing difficulties and talent shortage problems. In just a few years, it has grown from an emerging chip design company to one of the most important providers of multimedia application processor chips in China. Various chip design solutions were widely used in mobile phones, MP3/MP4 digital players and other devices at the time.

But in fact, the development prospects of Ankai Microelectronics were not optimistic at that time. "It may take two or three years to design a chip, from establishing the concept to successful R&D, and then waiting until it is mature enough to be sold, and it will take even longer to make a real profit. Even if the R&D is successful in these two or three years, it will soon be surpassed by those large companies with huge assets and R&D investment." Hu Shengfa said frankly that, especially with the launch of smartphones, the functions of chips are changing with each passing day, and the cost of R&D investment is increasing.

"The key is that chip design should be the 'soul' of the entire semiconductor industry. Facing the mature field of mobile phones, pure chip design is actually very passive." In order to regain the "right to speak", Hu Shengfa turned his attention to the Internet of Things, a "virgin land" that has yet to be developed.

"To realize the Internet of Things, chip design is a prerequisite." Last year, Ankai Microelectronics successfully developed and designed an IoT camera chip, which not only fully adapts to the needs of IoT cameras with H.265 video encoding and 1080P resolution in the future 5G environment, but also reduces the transmission video traffic by nearly half, and the power consumption is further reduced. "The cloud surveillance recorder manufactured with such a chip not only completely solves the huge equipment space of traditional surveillance equipment, but also ensures data security and improves the convenience of access through cloud storage."

In addition, Ankai Microelectronics also leveraged its R&D advantages in multimedia application processor chips, integrating Bluetooth broadcasting, cloud surveillance recording, and LED lighting functions on the chip, and designed panoramic light bulbs that are exported to overseas markets. Today, Ankai Microelectronics is the largest chip design company in Guangzhou, with an annual output value of 250 million yuan in 2018, 50 million yuan in the first quarter of this year, and an annual output value of 345 million yuan in 2019.

On June 20 last year, the Ankai Microelectronics Knowledge City Industrial Park started construction and is expected to be completed and put into use this year. Hu Shengfa is also excited about the growing scale of Guangzhou's semiconductor industry market.

"Five years ago, there were no Guangzhou companies among Ankai Microelectronics' main customers. Last year, two of the top three customers were Guangzhou companies." But on the other hand, Hu Shengfa, who has a keen sense of the market, is worried about another thing.

Hu Shengfa said that in 2019, the top four global wafer manufacturing capacity accounted for 83.4%, and the total wafer manufacturing capacity of mainland China was less than 8%. On the other hand, in 2018, the proportion of chips involved in mainland China accounted for 16% of the world, and it is increasing year by year. "Domestic wafer processing, chip packaging and testing are facing an increasing shortage of production capacity. If Guangzhou wants to develop the semiconductor industry, it must find a breakthrough in wafer processing."

In December 2017, CanSemi settled in Guangzhou Knowledge City, which made Ankai Microelectronics, as its "neighbor", very optimistic. In fact, the construction of CanSemi was precisely to meet the local demand for wafer processing.

"Fast" has been the keyword for CanSemi since its construction began: the foundation was laid on December 26, 2017; piling started on March 5, 2018; the main plant construction started on May 15; the plant was capped on October 11; the first batch of equipment including lithography machines was moved in on March 15, 2019; wafer production started on June 15, and the goal is to start mass production on September 20...

In just one and a half years, the construction of Guangdong Xin Semiconductor has continued to accelerate, in response to the increasingly huge production capacity demand in the semiconductor market.

"If chip design is the 'soul' of the semiconductor industry, then wafer processing is the 'flesh and bones'. Without chip manufacturing, no matter how good the chip design is, it can only remain on the design drawing." Pan Xuehua, secretary general of the Guangzhou Semiconductor Association, frankly said that in the entire semiconductor industry chain, solving chip manufacturing will be the key to breaking through the technical bottleneck. "Guangdong Province is a province with a large demand for chips, but on the other hand, the chip manufacturing capacity is particularly insufficient."

According to reports, Guangdong Xin Semiconductor is the first 12-inch chip production line in Guangzhou. The investment in the first phase is about 10 billion yuan. After completion, it will produce 40,000 12-inch wafer chips per month. The main products are analog chips, power devices, and microcontrollers. The investment in the second phase is about 18.8 billion yuan, and the monthly production capacity will reach 40,000 12-inch wafer chips.

"Analog chips will be the focus of Cansemi's development." Pan Xuehua introduced that analog chips can process various external natural signals collected by sensors or antennas, including temperature, humidity, optics, piezoelectricity, acoustic electricity, etc., and convert them into digital signals for digital system processing. It is the "stepping stone" to realize the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. "Unlike mass-produced memory chips, analog chips emphasize customization, personalization, and flexible production. Guangzhou, as an important hub city in the Pearl River Delta and even the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, has gathered natural market demand."

More importantly, since the launch of the CanSemi project, a large number of semiconductor industries have gathered in Guangzhou. The day before the CanSemi project started, 15 companies signed contracts to settle in the Integrated Circuit Industry Innovation Park of Guangzhou Development Zone, including 14 industrial projects and an integrated circuit industry fund of 5 billion yuan.

In addition, during the construction period, Guangdong Xin Semiconductor also established industry-university-research cooperation relationships with Sun Yat-sen University, South China University of Technology, and Guangdong University of Technology to jointly cultivate talents for the development of the semiconductor industry. At the same time, nearly 80 chip design, packaging and testing companies have taken the initiative to contact it, and more than 30 of them have actually landed.

"In fact, with the arrival of Guangdong Xin Semiconductor, Guangzhou's semiconductor industry has been fully activated. Guangzhou will be able to use Guangdong Xin Semiconductor as a fulcrum to drive the upstream and downstream industrial chains to form a new trillion-level industrial cluster." Pan Xuehua said.

CanSemi also brought Guangzhou Semiconductor Association, which was established last year. Chen Wei, CEO of CanSemi, serves as the president of the association. In October last year, semiconductor organizations in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Hong Kong and Macau joined forces to form the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Semiconductor Industry Alliance, and Chen Wei also served as the first chairman of the alliance.

"Guangzhou can play such a big role in the semiconductor industry, which was totally unimaginable a few years ago." Pan Xuehua said frankly. Looking across the country, Shanghai, Wuxi, Wuhan, Nanjing, Xi'an, and Suzhou are cities with relatively good domestic semiconductor industry foundations. Among them, Shanghai, as the region with the most complete semiconductor industry chain, has many leading companies such as SMIC, Huahong Grace, AMEC, and Huada Semiconductor; Wuxi, as the national southern microelectronics industrial base, enjoys the reputation of "Huangpu Military Academy" for talents in China's integrated circuit industry. It currently has more than 200 semiconductor industry companies and nearly 50,000 employees.