According to data from the General Administration of Customs, the number of integrated circuit imports on the mainland in 2021 was 635.481 billion yuan, an increase of 16.9% year-on-year, and the import amount was 2,793.48 billion yuan, an increase of 15.4% year-on-year, achieving substantial growth.
The full outbreak of the integrated circuit industry, on the one hand, is related to the continuous increase in the share of domestic mobile phones, on the other hand, it is also related to the continuous growth of smart car sales in the past two years.
Because of the continuous expansion of market demand, the demand for chips in the mainland is also growing, but because the self-sufficiency rate of the mainland semiconductor industry is not high, more integrated circuits can only be obtained through imports.
The key reason for this scene is because the mainland semiconductor industry started late and the starting point was low, and in the early 21st century, Lenovo and other companies believed that "it is better to make a core than to buy a core", which is also the reason for missing the best development opportunity.
Although the mainland has increased investment in the semiconductor industry in recent years, and capital is also pouring in, but due to the limitations of upstream supply chain technology, the mainland semiconductor industry still needs to overcome many problems if it wants to catch up with the advanced level, and the biggest problem is the manufacture of semiconductor equipment.
From the current situation, the semiconductor equipment used to manufacture advanced processes is almost monopolized by overseas manufacturers, and the lithography machine is like this, almost all high-end lithography machines are controlled by ASML, and under the interference of the United States, ASML cannot be sold to Chinese companies.
Under such influence, the domestic wafer foundries represented by SMIC have no way, so it is difficult to break through the 7nm technical bottleneck and have been stuck at the 14nm level.
However, the domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers are not a mess, in fact, there are breakthrough areas, Zhongwei Semiconductor Company is the representative of domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers, and its research and development of etching machines has reached the world's leading level.
In the chip manufacturing process, thin film manufacturing machines, plasma etching machines and other equipment, also played a very important role, although such equipment in the past was also limited to overseas companies, but now the micro-company etching machine has reached the international leading level.
According to the performance forecast released by Zhongwei Company a few days ago, the company's revenue in 2021 is expected to reach 3.1 billion yuan, and the net profit is 950 million to 1.03 billion, which is double that of 2020.
The micro-company can achieve this result, and the company's own strong strength has a close connection, its launch of plasma etching machine, has now been applied to the international first-line customer production line, the product is to achieve a breakthrough in the 5nm process.
From this point of view, Zhongwei Company has become the head enterprise in the field of global etching machines, and Zhongwei Company can make such an advanced etching machine, in the author's opinion, there are two main reasons.
The first is the company's heavy technology research and development, the semiconductor equipment manufacturer founded in 2004, the emphasis on talent is quite high, the company currently has more than 160 experts in various fields, and the company's R & D and technical personnel account for more than half of the total number of people.
In addition, the annual R & D investment of the company is also high, accounting for 20% of the company's total revenue all year round, it is precisely because of the emphasis on technology research and development, so that the company continues to grow, and in the field of etching machines to form their own technical barriers.
As a Chinese semiconductor company, Zhongwei is not only a supplier of foundries such as TSMC and SMIC, but also sets up branches in countries such as Japan, South Korea and Germany, which can better expand its global business.
According to a data from the Statistics of Founder Securities Research Institute, in the field of global etching machines, the share of micro companies has reached 14.65%, which is the second largest manufacturer in the world, which shows that micro companies do have a certain market competitiveness.
With the increase in the scale of the chip market and the strength of the micro company, I believe that this company can achieve better results in the future. So are you optimistic about the future performance of the micro company, welcome to comment, like, share, talk about your views.