2 trillion chip giant Samsung recently announced its first-quarter earnings: operating profit of 600 billion won (about 3.13 billion yuan), down 96% year-on-year. The problem is mainly in the semiconductor division, which according to CLSA's assessment of an operating loss of at least 3.3 trillion won (about 17.282 billion yuan) in the first quarter.
In the face of real pressure, Samsung had to urgently announce the reduction of chip production capacity to a "meaningful level". This is just one slice of the slowdown in demand across the chip industry. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, global chip sales plunged 20% in February, the biggest drop in 14 years.
And all this was foreshadowed as early as when the old United States officially opened the chip restrictions on the mainland in 2019.
- 5-year chip limit, US media: limited to loneliness
Continental is the world's largest chip consumer market, digesting 60% of the world's new chip energy in 2020. However, for its own selfishness, Lao Mei restricted its and its allies Qualcomm, ASML, Samsung and other companies to sell chip-related products to the mainland. In the past five years, the mainland has faced the dilemma of "no cores available" in the midst of many containments.
However, with the joint efforts of mainland academia and industry, the domestic chip industry not only did not stop there, but developed and grew after the pain, and even gradually realized the domestic replacement of some chips. According to reports, last year alone, mainland chip imports cut 96 billion.
The chip giants that surrounded the mainland ushered in a cold winter. Last year, the market value of the Laomei chip industry once evaporated by 11 trillion yuan, and some chips were reduced by 90%. Under the huge impact, Qualcomm had to urgently freeze recruitment positions; Intel even asked 2,000 people to take "unpaid leave"; Now Samsung has exploded a sharp drop in profits...
In the face of the grim reality, some of the US media waiting to see the lively mainland have long recognized the situation, shouting "limited to loneliness", "we need the Chinese market", and more pessimists shouted "chip restrictions are a wrong decision, now it's too late."
- Bill Gates: Chip restrictions are self-defeating
According to the British media "Financial Times", Microsoft founder Bill Gates has publicly opposed restrictions on the mainland chip industry. He believes that this will only force the mainland to become self-reliant, "will never succeed", and even cut off Meixin's sales and reduce American employment. Today, it can be described as a truism.
In fact, the mainland chip industry is not too late to start. The Chinese Academy of Sciences began to study lithography machines in 1965, a full 5 years earlier than the Dutch lithography machine giant ASML. However, due to the low input-output ratio and optimism about globalization, China does not pay enough attention to this, which is the tragic lesson of chips being necked by old Meika.
After experiencing this round of neck pain, People's Daily has repeatedly published articles calling for "abandoning all illusions", and all walks of life are deeply aware that the core technology must be in their own hands. As a result, the mainland has made major breakthroughs in many high-precision fields: on April 12, the artificial sun, a continental fusion energy device, once again broke the world record, and is expected to obtain unlimited clean energy in the long term; A month ago, Nanjing University published an article in "Cell", successfully lengthening the survival of nematodes by 5 times through mitochondrial intervention mechanisms...
Mitochondria are important organelles that are responsible for more than 95% of an organism's energy supply, but as they age, they also weaken, dragging down the entire organism. As early as 2019, the intervention on it, together with exercise, calorie restriction, etc., was considered by Nature as the 7 reliable aging-health intervention paths. Countries such as Europe, the United States, Japan, and South Korea have put it on the research agenda early, and have also launched preparations such as "Paiweiro PRO", and even harvested mainland users at high prices through JD.com.
Now Nanjing University has also made breakthroughs in the field of mitochondrial research, and may end the high-priced monopoly of the mainland market such as "Paiweiro PRO" in the future. According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch's forecast, with the deepening of global aging, the market size of focusing on aging health will reach $600 billion by the end of 2023. If the mainland can also launch the mature results of the "Paiweiro PRO", it may not be able to subvert this strategic industry again like subverting the chip chip industry and get a big piece of the cake.
5 years ago, Lao Mei raised the giant brick of chip restrictions, perhaps never imagined that it not only could not kill the mainland chip industry, but also became a stepping stone for the rise of many high-precision industries in the mainland.
- "SMIC" rides the wind and waves, and the trouble of the chip giants is still ahead
Against the backdrop of slowing demand in the global chip industry, there is good news from China's chip industry: SMIC has broken through 7nm advanced manufacturing process; Harbin Institute of Technology has not only successfully developed a high-speed precision laser interferometer, but also broken through the core laser light source technology of EUV lithography machine...
According to the current development trend, once SMIC completely expands and completes domestic substitution, the chip industry in Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea, which once stuck the neck of the mainland, is bound to suffer a greater impact in terms of price and orders. "No one can be sure where the end of the cold wave will be."