Text/JING Audit/Zi Yang Correction/Zhi Qiu
According to the data released by the Fundamental Semiconductor Industry Association on February 15, global chip sales reached $5559 in 2021, an increase of 26% year-on-year, setting a record high.
Among them, sales in the Chinese market reached 192.5 billion US dollars, ranking first in the world. Not only that, the growth rate of the Chinese market is also higher than that of the international market. However, although the scale of China's chip market is large, the degree of localization is not high.
After all, the mainland chip industry not only started late, but also had a low starting point. More importantly, during the development period, it was also affected by erroneous ideological trends, wasting more than ten years of time.
Although the data given by relevant departments shows that the self-sufficiency rate of mainland chips will reach 70% in 2025, in fact, if only the chips produced by local factories in the mainland are calculated, the domestic share of chips in China will not be higher than 10%. From this point of view, to achieve the target of 70% chip self-sufficiency rate in 2025, there is still a long way to go.
It is worth mentioning that although China's chip industry lags behind the world, it is not lagging behind in an all-round way. Domestic manufacturers have the ability to design excellent chips, such as Huawei's Kirin processor, and their strength was once comparable to Qualcomm Snapdragon.
In addition, SMIC also announced two years ago that it had successfully trial-produced 12nm chips and began to tackle 7nm technology.
In fact, if China can complete the independent design and production of 14nm and above process chips, it will be easy to achieve the target of 70% chip self-sufficiency rate.
So, why is China's chip self-sufficiency rate still so low? In my opinion, there are three main reasons:
First, in the field of chip design, Chinese chip manufacturers "have their own appearance". It is undeniable that Huawei Kirin processor is a very good product, but it should be known that Huawei Kirin chip is based on overseas processor architecture, and it is also based on chip design software developed by overseas manufacturers. The Loongson processor, which truly has core independent intellectual property rights, still has a big gap compared with intel, AMD and other manufacturers' products.
Second, in the chip production process, Chinese manufacturers have simply solved technical problems and have not gotten rid of equipment constraints. So far, China does not have the ability to build a mature chip production line. Many semiconductor production equipment needs to be purchased from overseas, which has greatly limited the increase in China's chip production capacity.
Third, in the global chip industry chain, Chinese manufacturers are "isolated", affected by international relations, most companies are following the orders of the United States, cooperation with domestic manufacturers, it is likely to be "sitting together". This has caused China's semiconductor industry to be invisibly suppressed, and it is difficult to achieve technological upgrading with the help of overseas companies.
However, China is not unable to achieve the goal of 70% chip self-sufficiency. Affected by the expansion of the semiconductor market, more and more capital has begun to enter the semiconductor track. With the blessing of many funds, domestic enterprises began to frequently spread good news. Key equipment for manufacturing chips, such as etching machines and thin film machines, has been self-developed. Not surprisingly, domestic 28nm chips can achieve mass production this year.
In addition, the change in the attitude of Chinese manufacturers has also brought more development opportunities to related enterprises.
The domestic substitution word has appeared more and more frequently in the past two years. Chinese manufacturers have begun to take the initiative to choose domestic products and give greater tolerance to domestic chips. Overall, China's semiconductor industry chain has been united. With the blessing of market advantages and talent advantages, it is only a matter of time before China becomes a chip power and a chip power.