Chen Wei of Guangdong Xinxin: Import substitution of analog chips may accelerate

On September 17, the 2020 23rd China Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Annual Conference and Guangdong Integrated Circuit Industry Development Forum were held in Guangzhou. Chen Wei, Chairman of the Guangzhou Semiconductor Association and President and CEO of Guangzhou CanSemi Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd., gave a report on the theme of "Excellent Guangdong Innovation, Integrated Manufacturing for the Future", introducing the trend of the entire industry and the situation of CanSemi Semiconductor under the epidemic.

Under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global semiconductor industry has been in turmoil and has suffered a shock, especially the PMI index of the European and American manufacturing industries has shown a serious decline. Although the epidemic has impacted the industry, it has also brought opportunities to the industry.

Chen Wei said that the epidemic in China was brought under control in a short period of time and China was the first to resume work and production. Although the total demand in the global semiconductor industry has declined, the launch of new infrastructure investment represented by 5G and ultra-high voltage will drive the growth of the semiconductor industry.

As the global epidemic has severely impacted the supply chains of international semiconductor giants, domestic semiconductor companies will have a rare opportunity for terminal verification, and the pace of import substitution will accelerate.

According to the data shared by Chen Wei, IC Insights statistics show that China's self-sufficiency rate of integrated circuits was only 15.7% in 2019, and it is expected to reach 20.7% in 2020. Taking the Chinese analog chip market as an example, its market size has reached 23.5 billion US dollars, but the domestic output value is only 2.4 billion yuan, so there is huge room for import substitution.

Chen Wei pointed out that there is actually a serious shortage of production capacity in local analog chips. According to IC Insights, among the top ten analog chip companies in the world in 2019, there are 6 American companies, 3 European companies and 1 Japanese company. Chinese local analog chip companies are in urgent need of breakthroughs.

At present, China's analog chip manufacturing capacity is less than 300,000 pieces/month, and the domestic analog chip manufacturing capacity gap will reach 570,000 pieces/month in 2020. Even if Silan Microelectronics, Huahong, and Haichen add 415,000 pieces/month of capacity in the next five years, the domestic analog chip capacity gap will still exceed 505,000 pieces/month in 2025.

When talking about the integrated circuit industry cluster in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Chen Wei said that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has many advantages, including the right time, right place and right people. This includes the policy support of the "Several Opinions on Accelerating the Development of the Semiconductor and Integrated Circuit Industry in Guangdong Province", the location of the "Guangdong-Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Macao" science and technology innovation corridor, and of course, there are many first-class university clusters, which can well integrate industry, academia and research.

Chen Wei believes that with CanSemi as a platform, a "new Huangpu Military Academy" for integrated circuits will be formed in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, promoting the development of the semiconductor industry in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in a differentiated manner.

According to the plan, Chen Wei shared the mass production information of CanSemi: On September 20, 2019, CanSemi's Phase I project started trial production, with an estimated full production capacity of 18,000 pieces per month. The Phase II plan will be launched in 2020, and mass production is expected to begin by the end of 2021.