An article analyzing the current situation and opportunities of crafts with Chinese characteristics

At the Second China (Chengdu) Electronics Show Integrated Circuit Industry Development Summit Forum, Professor Zhang Bo, Director of the Integrated Circuit Center and doctoral supervisor of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, delivered a keynote speech on "Specialized Processes in the Post-Moore Era and China's Development Opportunities". Based on Professor Zhang Bo's speech, the editor made this article's analysis of the development of specialized processes and China's opportunities.

text:

When it comes to technology, we can’t avoid Moore’s Law. The origin of Moore’s Law is that in 1965, Gordon Moore was invited by Electronics Magazine to write an article. He calculated how integrated circuits would develop based on his own experience and the discovery of transistors by Bell Labs at the time. In the article, he predicted that the number of transistors in chips would quadruple every year. Ten years later, with the development of technology, Gordon Moore revised Moore’s Law in his report at the IEDM conference. The development of the entire integrated circuit will change from quadrupling every year as predicted in the early days to doubling every two years. This is the famous Moore’s Law!

It is this Moore's Law that guides the development of the entire integrated circuit. Intel has always taken Moore's Law as its technical principle for development. For a long time, Intel has been adopting a Tick-Tock strategy, that is, one year of process and one year of architecture, continuing the development of integrated circuits that doubles every two years. However, what happens when the number of transistors reaches its limit? Moore's Law still needs to continue to develop, and the process also needs to continue to advance.

Professor Zhang Bo said at the meeting that the development of semiconductors cannot rely solely on Moore's Law. At this time, a very important direction, More than Moore, emerged. As an important reference direction for integrated circuits, More than Moore was proposed and greatly developed, and then there is advanced packaging technology. In fact, the development of the entire integrated circuit presents such a three-dimensional development model.

Semiconductor Development Roadmap

How to understand More than Moore? Professor Zhang Bo understands it as non-size-dependent special processes, such as eNVM, RFCMOS, SOI, MEMS, GaN, SiC, etc.

The white paper explains More than Moore as follows: "The improvement in device value or performance does not rely solely on size reduction, but rather on the increase of functionality."

X-FAB understands More than Moore as: "Intergrating analog function into CMOS-based specialty technologies enables cost-optimized ang value-added system solutions". Translated, it means: Integrating analog functions into CMOS-based specialty technologies enables cost-optimized ang value-added system solutions.

"Moore's Law is undoubtedly very important in guiding the development of the semiconductor industry. The continuous reduction in size will bring revolutionary changes to memories and microprocessors in the digital field. However, this is not the case in the field of analog circuits. Many applications, such as RF devices, power management systems, biochips, sensors and MEMS, also have their own place in the semiconductor world. Combining CMOS technology with analog/hybrid technology will undoubtedly bring more value to consumers." said Thomas Hartung, vice president of marketing and sales at X-Fab.

Professor Zhang Bo explained that non-size-dependent specialty processes mean low plant construction and maintenance costs, relatively mature processes, and relatively less product R&D investment. However, X-FAB's open platform shows that there are many platforms and types of specialty processes, including 2,504 types of ON Semiconductor's MOSFETs, and multiple specialty process platforms coexist.

X-FAB's open platform technology at a glance

Why is there an opportunity for China to develop unique crafts?

According to data from IHS and New Era Securities Research Institute, the top ten global power semiconductor discrete device manufacturers accounted for 60.60% of the market share in 2017. According to IC insights data analysis, the top ten global analog chip manufacturers sold about $33 billion in 2017, accounting for nearly 61% of the market share; and the distribution of the analog chip market in 2018 showed that the top ten global analog chip manufacturers sold $36.1 billion in 2018, accounting for 60% of the market share.

Power Semiconductor Discrete Device Market Distribution in 2017

Analog chip market distribution in 2017

Analog chip market distribution in 2018

From the above data, we can see that there is no monopoly enterprise in the specialty craft products, and the specialty craft applications are strongly related. These are enough to bring opportunities for China to develop specialty crafts.

China is a manufacturing powerhouse. Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, our country has established a modern industrial system with a complete range of categories. The strength of our industrial economy has greatly grown and it has leapt to become the world's largest manufacturing country. It is also the only major country in the world with a complete manufacturing system, products and industrial chain. World Bank statistics show that in 2017, China's manufacturing value added was 3.59 trillion US dollars, accounting for 28.57% of the world, which is a combination of the added value of the manufacturing industries of the United States and Germany, far ahead of other countries in the world.

China is also a major country in the application of integrated circuits. Since 2012, China's integrated circuit consumption has accounted for more than 50% of the world's total.

Global IC consumption share

China is also a major importer of integrated circuits. According to data released by the General Administration of Customs of China, in 2018, China imported 417.6 billion integrated circuits, including about 118.9 billion processors and controllers, about 39.8 billion memories, and 295 amplifiers. The average import price of integrated circuits was US$50.75, and the total amount was as high as 312.058 billion yuan (about RMB 2.1 trillion), accounting for about 14% of my country's total imports. The price of CPU is even more expensive. The price of a Core i9-9900K is about 4099 yuan, and the price of a Core i7-9700K is about 3099 yuan.

Overall, there is huge room for domestic substitution for specialty craft products and there is market space. Do we have the industrial foundation?

In recent years, many Chinese manufacturers have deployed special processes. For example, Shanghai Huahong Hongli and Huahong Wuxi have deployed 8-inch and 12-inch processes, while China Resources Microelectronics and Hangzhou Silan Micro Integrated Circuit have 6-inch, 8-inch and 12-inch processes. In addition, there are CEC Shanghai Jetta Semiconductor Special Process Production Line and Xin'en (Qingdao) Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd., etc. It can be seen that there are many companies with special process products.

Overview of China's characteristic craft industry foundation

So does China have excess capacity in its specialty process product lines? Professor Zhang’s answer is: No.

In 2018, TSMC's 300mm wafer production capacity was 12 million pieces, and its 200mm wafer production capacity was 11 million pieces, an increase of 5.4 million pieces from 2013. The production capacity of all the mainland companies mentioned above may not be as much as that of TSMC alone.

Driven by the Sino-US trade war and the market shortage in 2017-2018, the development of 5G, AIoT and the automotive field has created great opportunities for the development of Chinese characteristic processes. However, there are opportunities as well as many challenges. Why can international manufacturers quickly occupy the market? Where are we behind? This can be attributed to the following points:

First, the product system of related enterprises in my country is weak. Second, the special products related to special processes are often closely related to processes, products and applications. Third, looking at the top ten analog chip manufacturers in the world, foreign special process enterprises are often in the form of IDM, and they are old companies with a long history, rich experience, and abundant talents.

Top 10 Analog IC Manufacturers

Professor Zhang Bo concluded: "Although there are the above challenges, we also have advantages. China is a big market for integrated circuits. Special process products are closely related to market applications. my country has an ecological environment for independent and controllable chips. Our special processes have been made through the unremitting efforts of several generations of Chinese people. With the synergy of all these factors, there are opportunities for the development of Chinese special processes."