At present, the global semiconductor industry is undergoing the third industrial transfer, mainly from South Korea, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, etc. to Chinese mainland. The sudden outbreak of covid-19 around the world has prompted this shift to accelerate. The secretary of the board of directors of Huafeng Measurement and Control told reporters.
Huafeng Measurement and Control (688200. SH) is a domestic manufacturer of semiconductor testing equipment, its board secretary told reporters that the fab will be unpackaged bare chips manufactured after sending to the packaging and testing plant, after the packaging is good, and then use the corresponding test equipment for testing. For example, test parameters such as the electrical signal of the chip. This process can also be understood as: testing whether the computing power of the packaged chip is qualified.
At present, with the increase in the application of chips in various industries, the demand for semiconductor equipment is also rising. The semiconductor industry chain mainly has three links: integrated circuit design, wafer manufacturing and packaging and testing. Each link needs to use the corresponding testing equipment, especially the final package testing link.
According to the annual report released by Huafeng Measurement and Control on February 26, the company's operating income in 2021 was 878 million yuan, an increase of 120.96% year-on-year; the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company was 439 million yuan, an increase of 120.28% year-on-year.
Huafeng Measurement and Control said in the annual report that the expansion of fabs and packaging and testing plants has brought huge market space to semiconductor automated test system companies. At the same time, with the improvement of technology in various industries, the integration degree of chips is also constantly improving, during which the third generation of semiconductors represented by gallium nitride, silicon carbide and other semiconductor new materials and new technologies have been spawned, providing new opportunities for domestic semiconductor automation test system companies to surpass international giants in some segments.
According to a recent report released by the International Semiconductor Equipment and Materials Association (SEMI), the Chinese mainland 8-inch wafer capacity will lead the world in 2021, with a market share of 18%, and it is expected that the total global semiconductor manufacturing equipment market will expand from $103 billion in 2022 to $114 billion.
The expansion of chip production has led to the growth of demand for testing equipment
Precision Electronics (300567. SZ) is another domestic manufacturer of testing equipment. The company's board secretary told reporters that the company's semiconductor equipment is mainly produced by subsidiaries Shanghai Jingji Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Jingji") and Wuhan Jinghong Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Wuhan Jinghong"). Among them, Shanghai Jingji mainly does the front road of semiconductor testing, and Wuhan Jinghong mainly does the back road of semiconductor testing.
It is reported that semiconductor testing equipment is mainly divided into front and rear test equipment. Among them, the front road testing equipment pays attention to process process monitoring and is used in almost every manufacturing process. It is mainly used in the wafer processing process, is a physical, functional test, to detect whether the processing parameters of the product after each step of the process meet the design requirements, and to check whether there are defects on the wafer surface that affect the yield, etc., to ensure that the yield of the processing line is controlled above the specified level. According to SEMI statistics, the front test equipment can be divided into three parts: measurement equipment, defect detection equipment, and process control software. Among them, measurement equipment accounts for 34% of the front-end testing equipment, and defect detection equipment accounts for 55%.
Back-channel test equipment is used for design verification before wafer processing and packaging and testing after wafer processing, mainly including testing machines, sorting machines, probe tables, etc. Among them, the test machine is used to detect the function and performance of the chip, and the probe table and the sorting machine realize the connection between the measured chip and the function module of the test machine. Back-end test equipment is used to analyze and test specific failure causes, and improve the design and production process to improve yield and product quality, which is the detection of electrical performance.
KLA (NYSE: KLAC), Teradyne (NYSE: TER) and Advantest are three major manufacturers of semiconductor testing equipment abroad. According to the financial report released by Kelei Semiconductor at the end of January, the company's annual revenue in 2021 reached 8.166 billion US dollars, compared with 6.069 billion US dollars in 2020, an increase of 34.55% year-on-year. Kelei Semiconductor said at the performance briefing that there is a wide range of strong demand in the field of optical inspection products. Among them, the sales revenue growth of wafer measurement systems in 2021 far exceeded the growth of wafer fabrication equipment (Wafer Fabrication Equipment) in 2021, becoming one of the fastest growing areas of WFE.
Kelei Semiconductor further said that digital transformation is becoming a long-term demand driver in the industry, with growing demand for advanced memory, logic devices, advanced packaging, and PCB (printed circuit board) technology. WFE growth is expected to drive WFE growth in 2022 in all end markets.
According to Tereda's announcement, the company's revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $885 million, of which $592 million came from semiconductor testing. For the entire fiscal year 2021, the company's revenue reached $3.703 billion, 18.6% higher than the previous fiscal year's $3.121 billion. Tereda further expects supply to tighten in 2022. More semiconductor companies will move into the formal configuration, suggesting that market supply will become increasingly tight in 2022.
In January, Wu Wankun, general manager of Edwin's Taiwan region, said at the media exchange meeting that the current equipment delivery time is at least more than half a year, and the chip shortage problem is expected to be gradually alleviated by the fourth quarter of this year. In terms of advanced processes, it is estimated that the 2nm advanced process is expected to be in trial production in 2024 and mass production in 2025, thus driving the growth of demand for test equipment.
In terms of the current layout of advanced wafer test equipment, Wu Wankun said that the 3-nanometer test is more complex, mainly because the complexity of the high-efficiency computing (HPC) chip design is improved, the test time is lengthened, and the demand for test equipment is increased, and it is expected that the relevant equipment layout preparation will continue from this year to next year.
Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI, said in the relevant report: "The total sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment exceeded the $100 billion mark, reflecting the consistent and outstanding efforts of the global semiconductor industry to expand production capacity to meet strong demand. We expect continued investment in digital infrastructure and long-term trends across multiple end markets to drive healthy growth in 2022. ”
Some equipment to achieve domestic substitution
The above-mentioned Huafeng measurement and control person told reporters that the company has achieved import substitution in simulated chips and digital-analog hybrid chip test equipment. However, there is no production of digital chip test equipment, and the technical content of the equipment for testing digital chips is relatively high. The main difference between analog chips and digital chip test equipment is that the frequencies are different, and the test frequency of digital chips is higher and more complex.
It is reported that the analog and hybrid test machine is mainly for the analog signal circuit, digital signal as the supplement of the semiconductor design of the automatic test system, the test circuit includes power management devices, high-precision simulators, data converters, automotive electronics and discrete devices (ordinary resistors, capacitors, transistors and other electronic components) and so on. Wherein the analog signal refers to the continuous signal of the information parameters in a given range, the amount of information characteristics represented can be presented as a signal of any value at any moment; The amplitude of the digital signal is discrete, and the amplitude is limited to a limited number of values.
Huafeng measurement and control personnel also told reporters that the current gap between the company's equipment and foreign manufacturers is gradually decreasing. Huafeng Measurement and Control said in the annual report that the company has grown into the largest domestic semiconductor test system local suppliers, is also one of the few domestic and foreign well-known chip design companies, fabs, IDM and packaging and testing manufacturers to supply semiconductor test equipment Chinese enterprises, the company is currently the top three domestic semiconductor packaging and testing manufacturers simulation mixed testing field of the main test equipment suppliers, and entered the international packaging and testing market supplier system, in Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Japan and Europe and other regions have installed capacity. (IDM: Vertically integrated manufacturing, refers to semiconductor companies from chip design, manufacturing, packaging and testing to sales)
"The company has maintained full coverage of domestic companies for a long time to ensure that it maintains its leading position in the long-term competition in the future, and at the same time maintains good communication with foreign design companies for a long time, and some of them have become our customers." There are fewer IDM companies in China, such as China Resources Micro (688396. SH), SilanWei (600460. SH), etc., have become corporate customers. Foreign IDM has long been covered by Teradyne, EdWin and other test equipment companies. Huafeng measurement and control said.
In addition, Huafeng Measurement and Control has also made rapid progress in power chip testing. Huafeng Measurement and Control said in the minutes of the performance briefing released on March 3 that in recent years, power has become a very hot word, whether it is photovoltaic, new energy or white goods, it will use a lot of power devices. With the development of the entire power market, the company's power testing business has also ushered in a period of rapid growth, "the company's years of accumulation in power has made the company have a certain first-mover advantage, whether it is a well-known domestic power IDM enterprises or overseas top IDM companies, we have also made good progress." (Reporter's Note: Power devices, also known as power electronic devices, are power semiconductor devices with the ability to handle high voltages and large currents)
As early as last year's semi-annual report, Precision Measurement Electronics disclosed that its subsidiary, Shanghai Precision Measurement, mainly focused on the field of semiconductor pre-testing equipment, and has now formed three major product lines of film thickness/optical key size measurement equipment, electron beam measurement equipment, and pan-semiconductor equipment. Shanghai fine film thickness products have obtained batch repeat orders from domestic first-line customers, and optical key size measurement equipment, semiconductor electron beam detection equipment, and automatic wafer defect review equipment have also been delivered to domestic customers.
Wuhan Jinghong, another subsidiary of Jingji Electronics, mainly focuses on the field of automatic testing equipment (ATE) (the main product is memory chip test equipment), and has realized the technology transfer of key core products, localization of R & D and manufacturing, and localization of core components. Automated test system (ATE) is the core component of the back-end test equipment, through the computer automatic control of the completion of the test of semiconductors, can speed up the detection of electrical parameters, reduce the cost of detection. It is mainly used to test the circuit function and electrical performance parameters of semiconductor devices. According to the downstream application, ATE can be divided into analog/hybrid test machines, SoC (System-on-Chip) test machines, storage test machines, power test machines, etc.
The above-mentioned fine test electronics sources told reporters that the company's product goal is to achieve import substitution of semiconductor test equipment, although there is still a technical gap between domestic equipment and foreign countries, but the company is trying its best to narrow this gap.
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