Hi, I am Like a Boat. In the previous part, we talked about the current situation of the mobile phone market and why the core is the problem, friends who have not seen it can click the link below, this time talk to you about the domestic manufacturers to make cores, where is the difficulty.
The world's first commercial computer microprocessor Intel_4004
To understand this problem, we must first understand the gaps. Looking at the entire industry chain, front-end design is the first part. First of all, the chip architect determines the original requirements such as the type, use, specification, performance level and so on of the chip, and selects the most appropriate solution, and determines that it will not be modified. The chip design engineer then uses the Hardware Description Language (HDL) to write the chip function and circuit code, and uses the EDA tool to simulate, route and verify the function and circuit, test and analyze whether the key circuits are complete and whether the functions can be implemented. It's like building a house, first drawing design drawings to determine the structure and space. Based on the feedback results, the physical layout is continuously optimized and adjusted, and finally the physical layout is drawn by the EDA tool. Fabless semiconductor companies and EDA tools are the main body in this process.
2020-2021 China Smartphone SoC Market Share Change
Fabless Semiconductor Company, also known as IC designers, is primarily responsible for chip design, research and development, application and sales, while the wafer manufacturing part is outsourced to wafer foundries. Let's look at the two tables released by market research agency CINNO Research, which are soC shipments and market share in the Chinese smartphone market in the Q1 quarter of 2020 and the whole year of 2021, when Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin ranked first with a market share of 43.9%, more than the combined share of Qualcomm and Apple, Unigroup Zhanrui also belongs to others, MediaTek is less than one-third of Huawei, but in 2021, under the sanctions and suppression of the United States, Huawei's market share plummeted 68.6%, Qualcomm and Apple combined have occupied half of the country, MediaTek jumped to the first position, Zhan Rui soared 100 times, barely ranked fifth.
Known as the "Huawei Singing", the Kirin 9000 chip
It is not difficult to see that China's current chip design capabilities are by no means weak, there is a company like HiSilicon Kirin that can wrench the wrist with Qualcomm Apple, although in the absolute chip performance, we dare not be arrogant and ignore the gap, but at least consumers are voting with real money. The problem is also obvious, the HiSilicon Kirin sanctioned by the United States, overnight, the country and mountains handed over to people, mediatek although on the list, but currently the main low-end products, and Qualcomm, Apple still has a certain gap. The supply of domestic mobile phones also depends on the face of the United States, and it is not possible to talk about chip freedom. Although Tsinghua Unigroup has developed rapidly, it is difficult to look back in the face of the leader, and the installed capacity cannot pose a threat to the market. Not to mention the powerful opponents such as Samsung that integrate chip design, manufacturing and sales.
Open source EDA tool KiCad EDA interface diagram
In terms of EDA tools, the semiconductor industry has a classic Moore's Law effect, that is, every 18 months or so, the number of transistors that can be accommodated on integrated circuits will double. In the earliest days of chip design, circuit diagrams were relatively simple, and engineers could even draw them by hand. But now, the number of transistors on the mobile phone SoC chip is hundreds of millions of levels, if the limit of human beings is to micro-engrave words on the hair, then now to hand-draw logic circuits, is tantamount to drawing a map of the world on the hair, the requirements for drawing accuracy are infinitely magnified, any one of the flaws will lead to the abandonment of the previous achievements, obviously at present, whether it is ability or efficiency, human beings are impossible to do. So EDA tools become very necessary. It can help enterprises save a lot of time and cost, greatly improve the fault tolerance rate, and provide a full-process solution.
Representative EDA companies and coverage businesses in China
Embarrassingly, 95% of EDA software is occupied by overseas companies, which is equivalent to monopoly. Since the development of the 100s and 1990s, the EDA industry has formed a three-legged trend of Synopsys, Sonorton Electronics and Siemens EDA, and the market share of these three companies alone has reached 70%. Mainland EDA representative enterprises include BGI Nine Days, Xinhe Technology, Guangli Micro, Qiulun Electronics, Chuanglian Zhisoft, etc., although they have their own advantages in local processes, but the development is not comprehensive, can not cover the whole process of chip design. EDA is the most upstream and high-end industry in chip design, known as the "mother of chips", covering the whole process of integrated circuit design and manufacturing, with very comprehensive functions and a wide range of fields. On the other hand, the EDA industry has a high entry threshold, large cost elasticity, and strong performance dependence, which is extremely critical to chip research and development, and once subject to people, the development of the entire chip industry will be blocked and stopped.
Yin Zhiyao, general manager of Zhongwei Company, sighed in an interview
There is also a problem that is easy to ignore, and the chip talent gap in the mainland is very large. According to the data of the "China Integrated Circuit Industry Talent White Paper (2019~2020)", the shortage of chip professionals in mainland China will be about 250,000 in 2022, and there are problems of insufficient total supply and structural imbalance. The shortage of total supply has to start with the United States. The development of the semiconductor industry in the United States is earlier, mature and faster, the talent training system is perfect, and most of the world's outstanding talents have been attracted to the past. For example, almost half of engineers in Intel are foreigners with skilled immigration status. What makes people speechless is that Yin Zhiyao, the founder of Zhongwei Semiconductor, said in an interview: "During my work at Intel, I found that most of the chip experts in the company are actually Chinese. "The brain drain is serious and technological hegemony is severe, tearing open a big hole.
The three chip-related technology giants are all Chinese-American
On the one hand, we are faced with the problem of how to retain chip talent. In 1977, when China had just resumed the college entrance examination, many domestic universities began to rebuild semiconductor or microelectronics majors, to send talents to enterprises, but the domestic economic environment for integrated circuit talents treatment is insufficient, many graduates looking for jobs, even no counterpart positions, so they have run to foreign companies or choose to go abroad, Europe and the United States not only excellent scientific research environment, generous salary, but also through a variety of ways to intercept talents, from Silicon Valley technology companies to famous university tenured professors, Many Chinese chip experts have not returned to serve the country, but have chosen skilled immigration and lifelong employment, which is actually very sad.
The current situation of the talent gap in China's integrated circuit industry
On the other hand, on the issue of chip talent training, domestic universities, students and enterprises have taken a long detour. According to the number of college graduates entering the chip industry every year, it is difficult for a mere 30,000 people to meet the demand, not to mention the uneven quality of teaching. The professional structure of some colleges and universities is unreasonable, and the phenomenon of following the trend is serious, for example, some colleges and universities think that "integrated circuits are very hot" and rush to set up integrated circuit majors, do not fully consider the teacher conditions and school-running resources, cannot be targeted for the market and enterprise needs, teach the students the industry applicability is poor, will not be flexible and lack of experience, it is likely to appear the dilemma of graduation or unemployment.
There is also poor engineering practicability, talent training and industrial demand are disconnected, graduates can not directly meet the R & D and production needs of enterprises, after entering the job will take 2-3 years of training to meet the job requirements. Many companies raise the threshold of work experience to 3-5 years, they think that the students cultivated by colleges and universities are "not easy to use", the enthusiasm for accepting interns is not high, and they are afraid that after opening corporate courses, students will eventually leave to choose another good place. Such a vicious circle leads to a disconnect in the "last mile" of talent training, and it is difficult for graduates to find employment.
Yin Zhiyao, general manager of Zhongwei Company, was interviewed on the training of existing integrated circuit talents
A senior industry insider who is studying for an on-the-job doctorate is deeply touched by this, and he believes that the school system is to put students in the direction of scientific research, which is not right. Many tutors do not understand the pressure of competition in the outside industry, and in school, let alone make a usable chip, there are very few students who can open up the whole process of chips. It is better to find an engineer of the enterprise to explain the industrial knowledge in practical applications, let the students quickly understand and enter the industry, lead the students to visit the production line, operate the machine, and personally feel the R & D environment and production atmosphere. Microelectronics majors can not only focus on the design of the physical structure of the chip, research on scientific research topics, should let students understand, participate in the tape-out, run the operating system on the chip and other processes, it is best to graduate with their own design of the processor chip.
The current situation of talents in China's integrated circuit industry
There is also the problem of structural imbalances mentioned earlier, which is even more serious. The field of integrated circuits is a very comprehensive discipline, from tools, IP selection, and then to different module design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, at least to go through more than 40 links, if roughly divided into design and manufacturing two areas, then the design field in addition to integrated circuit industry knowledge, but also design a large number of computer, radio, software engineering and other disciplines, and the manufacturing field is a set of physics, chemistry, mechanics, optics as one. However, the status quo is that the proportion of compound talents is too small to promote the rapid development of the industry, and the talents of a single profession are cultivated according to the requirements of the enterprise, and the limitations are too strong. Many joint laboratories run by enterprises and schools, only seven or eight people do special research on a topic, which is not inclusive talent training, but simply customized talents. In the cultivation of cutting-edge talents, we have not done enough.
Director of EDA Office of State Key Laboratory, Professor zhou Zucheng, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of Tsinghua University
Professor Zhou Zucheng of Tsinghua University once mentioned the construction of a scientific system: "What is science? It is to find a problem, solve a problem, and then ask another problem. Domestic higher education only pays attention to the training of students' ability to analyze problems and solve problems, but ignores the cultivation of students' ability to ask questions and innovate. The COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 has exposed many shortcomings in our basic disciplines and research related to medicine and biology. "The chip industry is the same reason, only by re-strengthening basic research, returning to the essence of science, finding those who are good at asking questions, looking at problems with innovative ideas, and cultivating their multidisciplinary integration capabilities in the field of chips, it is possible to bring out leaders." The reason is very simple, these students do not graduate to write a thesis, nor to do cooking, but to create history.
Global foundry market share status
In addition to chip design, there is also the old and difficult problem of chip manufacturing. Core manufacturing requires foundries and manufacturing equipment. After years of market competition, the wafer foundry has basically fixed the layout. Like Intel, Samsung, and design, manufacturing, and packaging testing of the top bully is very small, and the production capacity is given priority to their own products. In the factory that helps others to manufacture chips, TSMC overwhelms the crowd with more than 50% of the share and wins the first place.
Chinese companies occupy 3 of the top 10 foundry markets
Fortunately, Chinese mainland occupy 3 seats in the top 10, namely SMIC, Huahong Semiconductor and Shanghai Microelectronics. Among them, in advanced process processes such as 7nm and 5nm, TSMC has a leading edge. Chinese mainland foundry is the strongest one is SMIC, which can produce FinFET 14nm chips, and the yield rate has reached more than 90% of TSMC, and the 12nm production line is also in preparation. Huahong Semiconductor can produce 28nm chips; Shanghai microelectronics is more delicate, and it was rumored in June last year that it planned to launch the first domestic 28nm IC front-channel lithography machine at the end of the year, but there is no follow-up so far, and the production of 90nm lithography machine can be realized at present. Don't underestimate this 28nm, if it can really go offline, Shanghai Microelectronics will become the world's second, second only to ASML manufacturers.
Shanghai Microelectronics 90nm IC front road lithography machine
Therefore, Chinese manufacturers still have a foundation in OEM, and catching up with TSMC is not a magic moon in the water. However, on one of the most important equipment for core making, the lithography machine, China is still firmly stuck in the neck. At present, the only manufacturer of lithography machines in the mainland is Shanghai Microelectronics, and its 90nm products are far from the 7nm and 5nm of the global lithography giant ASML. The lithography machine concentrates the crystallization of centuries-old industrial manufacturing in the West, and an ASML lithography machine requires 100,000 spare parts and is composed of 13 systems. These spare parts include light source controllers from the United States, ZEISS optical lenses from Germany, masks from Japan, etc., all of which are the top-of-the-line. They spread the error evenly across 13 systems to ensure overall manufacturing accuracy and yield. At present, the advanced process lithography machine based on EUV technology is monopolized by ASML, or to be precise, monopolized by the United States.
The CEO of lithography giant Asmai's assertion of China
As we all know, ASML is a Dutch company, but in fact, EUV technology originated from the EUV LLC alliance led by Intel and the U.S. government. Although ASML successfully entered the game, it made a number of concessions such as building a factory and research and development base in the United States, because the US government was worried about cutting-edge technology falling into foreign companies, and directly did not bring two other lithography machine manufacturers, Japan's Nikon and Canon Play. And while ASML continues to acquire and integrate related technology companies, the United States is also gradually infiltrating ASML at the technical and capital levels, so EUV technology is actually controlled by the United States, and one of asMU's commitments to join the EUV Alliance is that the United States needs to account for more than 55% of the components, so the United States is the actual controller behind ASML. AsML's CEO even confidently said that China could not independently build a top-notch lithography machine. In an environment where technology, companies, and equipment parts are all controlled in the United States, China wants to catch up, almost doing something from scratch.
In addition to lithography machine, there are many equipment required for chip manufacturing, such as ICP plasma etching system, reactive ion etching system, ion implantation machine, single crystal furnace, wafer dicing machine, wafer thinning machine, oxidation furnace, cleaning machine, etc., many of these equipment we have a way to replace, but there is still a gap with foreign countries in terms of technology, there are also world-leading levels, such as The etching machine of Zhongwei Semiconductor Company, etching equipment in chip medium, silicon through-hole etching equipment, MOCVD The three major segments of equipment are at the level of the world's top three, so this part of the resistance is much smaller than that of the lithography machine. The last chip sealing and testing link, China has accumulated a certain foundation in the past, the overall gap is not large, there are advantages in the labor force, what to do now is to strengthen as soon as possible, strengthen the advantages of the link, make up for the shortcomings and try to catch up.
Ren Zhengfei was worried and helpless when he spoke at Tsinghua University and Peking University
Of course, in chip manufacturing and packaging and testing, we also have a shortage of talents, and the more top innovative talents and compound talents are lacking, the greater the impact on us. In general, the main differences in core manufacturing are EDA tools, lithography machine manufacturing equipment, the lack of complete supporting industry chain clusters, and the huge gap in chip talents. To be sure, we have to break through these gaps one by one, and there are no shortcuts. Under the stick of U.S. sanctions, Huawei's encounter has awakened the whole of China, especially the words of Huawei President Ren Zhengfei in his speech at Tsinghua university and Peking University: "The chips we design, the domestic basic industry can not yet build", it sounds so sad and unwilling.
Jiangsu Nanjing Purple Mountain Laboratory successfully broke through 5G millimeter wave chip technology
However, in our country of great power, there are still many scientific researchers who stick to the front line and work hard, and their achievements are equally proud. Purple Mountain Laboratory 5G millimeter wave chip successfully developed, ZTE self-developed 7nm main control chip successful, SMIC FinFET N+1 advanced process chip tape-out successful, Nanda Optoelectronics ArF photoresist 28 nanometer process node breakthrough, China's electronic ion implantation machine national production, covering 28nm process, Shengmei semiconductor cleaning machine into the production line 14 nanometer verification, in advance to cover the latest domestic process; from the chip production link and technical nodes, Chinese mainland has achieved 28nm complete coverage, Pure localization is just around the corner. Therefore, I believe that with the great wisdom of the millions of working people in China, we will certainly be able to break through the siege, because whatever cannot destroy me will make me stronger.
reference
Timeline of the development history of China's semiconductor industry【Sen Guoke】
Dialogue with Professor Zhou Zucheng: Two Eras of China's Integrated Circuit Industry [SupplyframeChina]
Take a look at the shortage of domestic chip talents, the salary increase of the chip industry is expected to exceed 50%, and the annual salary of fresh graduates is as high as 600,000 [Tao Singapore dollars]
The problem of chip talent training needs to be solved urgently [China Youth Daily]
2020 Global EDA Software Industry Market Competition Pattern Analysis【Prospective Economist】
Wind chaser, interview with "Silicon Valley legend" Yin Zhiyao [Yang Lan interview]
What is the difference between DUV and EUV lithography machines? 【Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily】