Chips are becoming an important component that more and more industries rely on.
For example, the vigorous intelligent car needs hundreds of chips in the whole car to provide advanced driving performance, and the automatic driving that has consumed tens of billions of yuan is inseparable from the corresponding chip for calculation. Once the chip supply problem is encountered, some functions will not be provided when delivered to the user, and the vehicle will be stopped and stopped.
In this context, there has been an event that may be implicated in the future development of China's chip industry, and some industry media reported a few days ago that Texas Instruments (hereinafter referred to as Deyi) has dismissed all MCU teams in China and moved the corresponding product lines to other countries. Deyi officials quickly responded by denying the dismissal of the team, but still stirred up a thousand waves with one stone.
MCU is a micro-control unit, such chips are widely appearing in a variety of contemporary devices, from the small smart phone charging power control to the operation of industrial robots in factories, are inseparable from the figure of the MCU. What the rumor of Deyi means and what impact it will have on China's chip industry quickly attracted a lot of attention.
Behind the dismantling of Rashomon, China remains important
In the initial media reports, the MCU R&D team of deyi China, which was dismissed, was mainly responsible for the MSP430 product line, and some employees were laid off, and the other part was transferred to the LED DRIVER chip team. It is understood that MSP430 is a 16-bit MCU, first launched in 1996, due to its low power consumption and low cost characteristics, in china has obtained a certain number of custom research and development orders.
Some voices believe that deyi's market share, which is not high, and being squeezed by other manufacturers after 2018, is the main reason why the international chip giant made a decision on business changes. At the same time, the new situation of the global epidemic has also affected the chip industry involved in the collaborative division of labor, so it has made adjustments to shift china's research and development to a business line with more advantageous growth space.
The official response of Texas Instruments Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. denied almost all the rumors: Texas Instruments China did not lay off any employees, while saying that China remains the most important market in the world, while mentioning Deyi's domestic Chengdu integrated manufacturing base, two product distribution centers, three research and development centers, and nearly 20 sales and technical support branches.
Knowing that anonymous users provided a different voice on May 9, the anonymous person said that the Deyi MCU research and development has undergone major personnel changes since 2020, and the German team, which was once the main force of MCU research and development with the Shanghai team, has been completely dismissed. At the same time, the MCU appointed new Indian executives and built a R&D team in India that was larger than shanghai.
From this, we can get two basically confirmable pieces of information: 1, no matter what the internal changes, Deyi will not withdraw from the Chinese market or there are too many changes in The Chinese market, the Chinese market still has an unusual status. 2. Including Deyi, India is becoming a country where a large number of high-tech enterprises transfer R&D business, and employees of Indian descent are reused and local human resource costs or main reasons.
At the same time as the changes of these international enterprises, the rapid development of domestic semiconductor-related enterprises, they not only use the former to cultivate the market space and technical level for the country in a short period of time to complete the accumulation, through more active research and development and market strategy, from the former to obtain a considerable part of the market share. According to a number of industry insiders, many employees in MCU R&D head enterprises have Experience in Virtue.
Beneath the seemingly calm surface of the lake, there is a dark tide.
After leaving, leave more Chinese chip nutrients
Chip design and manufacturing has long accompanied China's industrial changes and upgrades. Since the vision of the relevant work in China has been put forward, there are a lot of goals to be achieved, which is a huge project with a long chain, which cannot be supported by a single enterprise or a technological breakthrough. There have been some detours, but it has also allowed many people to work more calmly and pragmatically.
Learning and surpassing is what has happened or is happening in many domestic industries, and the technology that originally needs to be imported from abroad can be produced, iterated and even independently designed and manufactured in China, which is now also reproduced in the semiconductor industry. As an anonymous person said, the R&D engineers flowed out of Deyi entered other companies in the industry and brought excellent products to the industry.
Chip design is only part of the industry process, with more downstream verification, manufacturing, shipment, sales and marketing work support, constitute a complete cycle of the industry. Some people will criticize the decisions of some international companies when transferring R & D and production departments, but it is undeniable that the advanced experience and technical support they brought in have become a footnote to China's chip take-off.
In recent years, domestic graphics chip-related companies have sprung up, depicting a market segment that is expected to reach the level of 100 billion. This not only has the actual market demand to give nourishment, but also from the world's top graphics chip design team, leading intellectual property licensing, a complete industry division of labor system and other parts of the support, so that this kind of business in a short period of time from the concept into reality.
There are many companies affected by similar influences, such as Nanxin Semiconductor, which manufactures charging chips for Xiaomi. According to relevant information, the start-up team of Nanxin is basically all from the world's largest digital signal processor and analog circuit component manufacturer Texas Instruments, they have more than 10 years of industry work experience, continue to deepen the field of power management chips.
A mature business system and market-oriented operation model will be one of the biggest gifts that Chinese chips have received from the outside world. Simply speaking of the top chip industry practitioners from China, many can be found in the world, but only scientific research needs cannot support a complete and reliable upstream and downstream environment, and it is truly healthy and sustainable to maintain long-term research and development and sales of chip products through market behavior.
The next road, there can be more Chinese chip companies to go down.
Change doesn't stop
It is known that anonymous sources that Deyi China still has the possibility of small-scale MCU R&D transfer, but for employees who have been proficient in this channel for several years, from digital circuit design to rumored analog circuit business, the technical span takes a long time to learn and adapt to deal with. Therefore, instead of accepting a job transfer, going to other companies that have MCU or digital circuit jobs, or more people's choice.
For Deyi, this may also be the beginning of a new history.
The company developed the world's first semiconductor radio, the Deyi calculator helped mathematicians to improve their studies, and the Deyi Mobile SoC witnessed the most glorious time of Nokia mobile phones. In September 2012, Deyi announced its withdrawal from the mobile SoC market, which was regrettable, but the business adjustment has increased its stock price several times in the past decade.
The wheel of time continues to move forward, and when the whole industry or human life changes significantly in a few years, it may be remembered what the changes that are happening at this moment really mean.