At present, human society has entered the information age, the importance of chips is self-evident, it has become the country's most core means of production, chip technology is also the current continent urgently needs to break through the key core technology.
In recent years, around the supply of chips, the United States has adopted a series of blockade and restriction measures against China, not only introducing a chip bill for China, but also forming a chip alliance with other Western countries, in short, taking various means to prevent China from obtaining high-end chips, so as to achieve the purpose of curbing China's rise.
The US government's sanctions such as the chip ban adopted by China were opposed by Bill Gates, who proposed to avoid the reaction force after decoupling, and said, "Restricting chip shipments to Chinese companies will stimulate more Chinese companies to embark on the road of self-sufficiency, and eventually cause a backlash!" "Restricting China will only make China develop faster."
However, it turns out that Bill Gates' prediction was wrong, and more Huawei did not appear as expected! Affected by the US chip ban, the global semiconductor market ushered in a big reshuffle, the entire supply chain was rearranged, during this period, China realized the importance of chips for the country's science and technology and economic development, and constantly increased R&D investment and policy support in the chip field, and more chip R&D and manufacturing enterprises appeared in China.
And in the field of charging chips, RF chips and many other small chiplets to achieve domestic replacement, data show that in the past 1 year, China's chip imports have decreased by 97 billion, however, does this mean that China's chip industry has risen?
Facts have proved that this is not the case, the current situation of the mainland being "stuck in the neck" in the chip field has not fundamentally changed, and the gap between the mainland and the Western semiconductor chip giants is still very large!
Statistics show that in 2022, the total domestic integrated circuit imports have reached 415.579 billion US dollars, accounting for nearly 15.30% of the imports, accounting for the first place in China's import goods for many consecutive years, and the overall chip imports have not declined much. Although the number of imported chips decreased by 97 billion last year, because the mainland is still very backward in the field of advanced chips below 7nm, it still cannot get rid of its dependence on high-end chip imports.
In addition, after Huawei was cut off from the supply of chips, more than half of the market share of domestic high-end mobile phones vacated was pocketed by Apple, and domestic mobile phone brands simply did not have the ability to make up for this vacancy, and could only roll up in the remaining low-end share, and after Glory was sold, it also joined the competition.
Although the chip industry in the mainland is still in its infancy, the domestic chip industry has developed rapidly under the background of rapid industry growth. In recent years, in order to overcome the chip difficulties, with the strong support of the state, China has added more than 20,000 semiconductor-related companies a year, an increase of about 48,000 enterprises. But it still failed to change the overall backwardness of the chip, the fact is in front of it, the gap is obvious.
Not only in the field of chips, but also the high-speed rail that the mainland is proud of, according to reports, not long ago, Professor Feng Ke's team of Peking University accepted a project from the Ministry of Railways, and the Ministry of Railways asked them to make predictions, if we independently develop the software and hardware of high-speed rail, how long will it take?
Professor Fengke's team concluded that it will take 400 years, although the mainland's high-speed rail technology claims to be the world's first, but we are standing on the shoulders of predecessors, and the key core technologies such as software and control systems used in high-speed rail come from Germany, France and Japan.
In addition, statistics show that in the past 1 year, the rapidly expanding semiconductor field in the mainland, more than 6,000 semiconductor companies have silently withdrawn from this industry, facing the difficulties of chip research and development, they really can't hold on, so they retreat, which also makes our confidence in chip research and development seriously hit.
As the saying goes, "Rome wasn't built in a day!" "Realistically, China's chip industry started late, key core technologies are subject to people, and the integrated circuit industry has a big gap with the world's advanced level in terms of core technology, design, manufacturing process, industrial scale, and leading enterprises."
Developed countries have developed in the field of chips for decades to reach today's level, and American chip technology has a history of 65 years from the invention of the transistor to the manufacture of chips in 1929 to the invention of modern integrated circuits in 1958. Compared with Western countries, the mainland is still in its infancy in the field of chips.
In general, the current chip industry in the mainland, the chip design level is basically the same as the international one, the packaging technology level has a gap of 4-5 years, and the manufacturing process gap is about 3 and a half years.
Due to the characteristics of high investment, long-term development and long return period of the chip industry, it is difficult for ordinary enterprises to bear it. Moreover, chips belong to high-tech industries, technology update iteration is very fast, large investment, relatively long return period industry characteristics, making the chip industry a high-risk industry.
From a technical point of view, the level of mainland chips is in a backward state in the world. Mainland is the largest and most important market for global chip companies, and the huge market demand provides development opportunities for global semiconductor manufacturers.
At present, the world's most advanced process technology has reached the 5nm or even 3nm level, and Chinese chip manufacturers are still working hard to achieve mass production of 14nm process. At the same time, we must be soberly aware of the reality, in fact, in the case of the mainland suffering from a comprehensive technology blockade and sanctions, the chip process level that we can really produce independently may only be 90nm.
This means that we will lag behind the world's advanced level for nearly 20 years, unable to meet the needs of all walks of life for high-performance, low-power, high-integration chips.
At present, SMIC, the company with the strongest chip manufacturing capacity in the mainland, is realizing the plan for mass production of 14nm chips, but this is a goal that can be achieved under normal circumstances, and once it is sanctioned, its chip production capacity is only 90nm.
Why is this the case? It is mainly subject to the following conditions:
1. Lithography machine
The lithography machine is the most critical equipment in the chip manufacturing process, which determines the line width and integration of the chip. At present, Continental can only independently produce 90nm lithography machines. Lithography machine technology has become the most critical factor in chip manufacturing, which requires the use of more advanced light sources, lenses, masks and other components to achieve higher resolution and accuracy.
China is accelerating the pace of developing its own lithography machine technology, and plans to achieve a 28nm process level by 2025. At present, the world's most advanced lithography machine technology is monopolized by the Dutch ASML company, which can achieve 5nm or even 3nm process level, which shows that there is still a big gap between mainland lithography machine technology and the world's advanced level.
2. Chip design and packaging technology are backward
In addition to lithography machines, chip manufacturing requires a high level of design and packaging technology to improve the performance, power consumption, and stability of chips. However, in this regard, China also has a big gap with the world level, which is mainly manifested in the lack of core technology and intellectual property rights, and the existing technology lags behind the world's advanced level.
The mainland's huge chip demand provides the largest market for global semiconductor manufacturers, but the domestic production environment only has the production of low-end chips, production equipment and production level have obvious defects, resulting in insufficient production capacity, IP and architecture discourse power is in foreign hands, although the domestic IP supplier market share has increased in recent years, but there is still a big gap compared with developed countries.
Because China's chip industry started later than other developed countries, so lack of mature chip manufacturing technology and related technology professionals, chip manufacturing technology is a highly complex, precision requirements very high technology-intensive work, requires a high degree of technology accumulation and R & D investment, and China's technology accumulation and talent training in this field are very weak, in this case, the chip industry must lack market competitiveness.
3. The industrial chain and market environment are not perfect
Facts have proved that chip manufacturing is a complex and precise process, involving multiple links and many upstream and downstream enterprises. China still relies on foreign suppliers in some basic materials, equipment, testing and other fields, and it is difficult to form a complete and efficient industrial chain.
The improvement of the industrial chain is related to the cost, efficiency and quality of chip manufacturing, and a complete industrial chain is the first step in China's independent research and development of chips, and it is also the basic condition for mass production. If subject to comprehensive sanctions, the mainland's current industrial chain is very fragile, many rings still rely on imports, relying only on existing domestic materials and equipment, can only produce 90nm chips.
4. Wuhan Hongxin Project is "rotten", and Unigroup is bankrupt
In 2020, the mainland invested 128 billion yuan in the Hongxin project in Wuhan, which failed. It turned out that the state had high hopes for this project, hoping to promote the development of the mainland chip industry with this project, but unexpectedly, the project eventually became a bad project.
Tsinghua Unigroup is of great significance to China's chip industry, it is regarded as the "national team" of China's integrated circuit industry, and it is also China's largest semiconductor company, shouldering the expectations of the country and the people for a scientific and technological power.
However, in 2022, Zhao Weiguo, the former chairman of Unigroup, evaporated in the world, until 8 months later, the official announced that Zhao Weiguo was placed on file for investigation, and the investigation results were suspected of corruption and bribery, and deliberately seized state-owned assets, illegally profiting for relatives and friends, resulting in major losses to national interests.
Unigroup was eventually liquidated due to insolvency, and in order to avoid the loss of state-owned assets, the state decisively took over Unigroup.
5. The chip industry is facing the dilemma of shortage of R&D talents
Mainland chip industry high-end talents are extremely lacking, chip industry high-end talents not only refers to simple technology research and development talents, but also can integrate technological innovation and industrial innovation in one of the compound talents, the current mainland needs a large number of high-end chip positions, and these positions are in a scarce situation, according to the "China Integrated Circuit Industry Talent Development Report" predicted, in 2023 the mainland chip industry population gap will reach 200,000.
Although the mainland has a huge gap with the world's advanced level in the field of chips, the mainland has not stopped independent research and development. According to reports, Shanghai Microelectronics has developed a domestic immersion lithography machine that can be used for the production of 28nm chips and successfully delivered it. At the same time, the company is also developing and debugging 14nm lithography machines.
5nm etching machine, 12-inch large silicon wafer, 90nm lithography machine, 7nm and other process processes were completed last year, and the mass production of 7nm process is accelerating. All this shows that the mainland's chip industry is constantly improving.
epilogue
According to the mainland's chip development plan, by 2025, the mainland's chip production will reach 70%. But now it seems that this goal will be difficult to achieve on time.
Data show that in 2025, the number of global Internet of Things terminal connections will reach 10 billion, by 2050, the number will increase to 50 billion, at least in the next few decades, chip demand will only continue to grow, therefore, the development prospects of the mainland chip industry are huge.
Therefore, at present, we need to be soberly aware of the huge gap in the field of chips in the mainland, dare to face reality, do not have any illusions about the outside world, facts have proved that the core technology can not be bought, only on the road of independent research and development, in order to finally master their own chip technology.
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