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Text丨Cognitive history
Editor丨Cognitive history
Because Huawei, let Chinese know what a chip is many years ago, it can not eat or drink, but it is inextricably linked with our lives, chip is a collective term for semiconductor component products, is an integrated circuit, all intelligent equipment leaves the chip lacks computing processing power.
If the chip is compared to a part of the human body, equivalent to the human brain, you think about a person if mental retardation, or brain lesions will cause a series of problems in other parts of the body, then what will happen if the smart device lacks a chip?
China wants to develop the field of intelligent industry, must rely on chips, but China's chip industry started late, which led to the fact that we can only seek foreign chips at that time, the United States, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan manufacturers, is the leader in chip manufacturing and chip production equipment.
Why the United States banned the sale of chips
The world's first transistor was born in the United States in 1947, and with the establishment of Fairchild Semiconductor in the United States, chip research and development began. By the seventies, the semiconductor industry has become the three pillar industries of the United States with steel and automobiles, and the Americans have single-handedly created semiconductors, so the US semiconductor domination of the world has begun in the fifties and sixties of the last century, and the Silicon Valley of the United States has evolved from that time.
Japan discovered the potential of semiconductors after World War II, imported technology and equipment from the United States at the same time, Japan developed its own, from 1975 to 1980, Japan's memory chips accounted for 40% of the world's share, and the United States changed from 95% to 60%, and even surpassed the United States in later years, which made the United States like swallowing a fly, learning technology from my family to seize my home market, who gave you the guts?
As a result, it began to curb the development of Japanese semiconductors, while supporting South Korea and Taiwan to reorganize the global semiconductor industry chain. Finally, in 1993, after the United States successfully defeated Japan in the semiconductor industry, the global market share once exceeded 43%, and in 2020 statistics, the global market share of semiconductors in the United States was as high as 55%, and it still is.
The Chinese chip industry, especially Huawei and SMIC, which started late but caught up, made the United States feel the threat really, with Japan as an example, in order to maintain its industry dominance, the United States had to issue a chip ban, starting from September 15, 2020, prohibiting local American companies from exporting chips to Huawei.
It was then expanded to prohibit all U.S. companies from providing any products to Huawei, as well as other companies. However, Qualcomm was allowed to provide Huawei with 4G custom chips, and 5G don't even think about it.
Forcing us Huawei to release its own 5G base station chip in April this year, and Qualcomm wants to sell Huawei's chip, which shows that Huawei is superior to the technology of Qualcomm in this field.
In recent years, the mainland's chip research and development has indeed been at a high international level, but there is still a certain gap with the international leading level, because chip research and development is not only technology, but also includes nine major links, all of which are indispensable. The chip industry is a very typical winner-take-all industry.
Its research and development technology, in line with Moore's law, in the case of equal cost, on average, every 18-24 months, the number of components will double, and the performance will naturally double.
Under such a terrifying iteration, the chip industry can produce technology replacement every two years, you hum to overcome technical difficulties, it is easy to research the same chip as the top technology, and the result is that people have long been upgraded, which means that your investment is all wasted.
Can China's chip industry fight a beautiful turnaround battle in such a siege? At present, it is more difficult, but it is not without opportunity, and it will take time to verify.
What about China in the three pillars of the chip industry
Let's take a look at why it's harder to turn over in the short term! The chip industry follows logic, such as Moore's Law, and the industry has three pillars: technology, capital, and the market are indispensable.
The biggest shortcoming facing China lies in technology, and the United States will do everything possible to contain our technology and production capacity, such as preventing the Netherlands from exporting EUV and DUV lithography machines to the mainland.
In the pillar of capital, we can still do it, not to mention the support for companies such as Huawei and SMIC in the early years, just a news reported by the domestic media earlier: China's current support funds for the chip industry are not capped.
I have also noticed that the support policies of various provinces and cities for chip manufacturers are differentiated, and the government's support funds are also in batches, regions, and projects such as a steady stream of support for China's chip industry regardless of returns.
When it comes to the market, China has an absolute advantage. For terminal consumers, no one will buy a chip, consumers buy cars, mobile phones, tablets, various electrical appliances, high-end smart products, etc.
The chip market is composed of manufacturers of these terminal products, and the largest manufacturers of these terminal products are in China, which means that the market is in the hands of Chinese.
"Mercy" to cannon fodder
The United States only thinks of pinching others in technology, but ignores that it also depends on others in the market, and many semiconductor manufacturers are directly or indirectly required by the United States not to provide some or most of the chips and chip production equipment for China. But the United States also presents a problem for chipmakers around the world.
That is, the world's manufacturers are forced to give up the world's largest chip market, look at the examples I mentioned earlier, the chip industry may not live well if it loses the technology of Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea, but if it loses the Chinese market, it is also not very good. Such a stir-up of the United States is really "many" defeats. Now we can already see a little bit of this in this regard.
Look at the United States first
Qualcomm can still hold on to retaining part of its business in Chinese companies, Intel is a bit miserable, net profit in the third quarter of last year fell 85% year-on-year, and thousands of employees were laid off worldwide; AMD's net profit in the third quarter of last year fell 93% year-on-year, and the price of Texas Instruments chips fell 90%.
Nvidia's second-quarter net profit fell 72 percent, though Nvidia has sought ways to bypass the ban and find alternatives to exporting chips to Chinese companies.
Look at South Korea again
In April, the United States asked South Korea to urge its domestic chipmakers not to fill the market void left by Micron if China banned memory chip maker Micron from selling in China. (Micron is an American semiconductor company with 5 factories in China)
It can be said that this move is completely out of the normal market operation, using national administrative means to force third countries not to fill or even withdraw from the blank market, which is undoubtedly bad news for South Korea's semiconductor leaders Samsung and SK Hynix.
To add insult to injury, Samsung's financial report in the first quarter of this year came out, with expected revenue of about 63 trillion won, about 330 billion yuan, but in fact, operating profit was only 600 billion won, about 3.13 billion yuan, down nearly 96% year-on-year, which is the first time since 2009 that Samsung's operating profit in the first quarter fell below 1 trillion won in 14 years.
At the same time, the final ruling of the intellectual property infringement case of American technology companies against South Korea's Samsung Electronics found that Samsung Electronics was fined 303 million US dollars, about 400 billion won, Samsung Electronics only earned 600 billion won in the first quarter, but had to take out 400 billion to pay the fine, this lawsuit is enough to stimulate Samsung's nerves!
Fortunately, South Korean chip factories in China were exempted when the U.S. Department of Commerce announced new export controls on chips last October. They were given a grace period for export controls to China, and just today, foreign media disclosed that the United States would extend the exemption period for one year, and the exemption extension may be compensation for this time.
But even so, South Korean chip factories will not be able to import the extreme ultraviolet lithography machine (EUV) needed to produce 3nm chips, which makes South Korea not only unable to use itself, but also unable to export this type of lithography machine to China, Samsung Electronics If the current situation continues, it may become the first batch of cannon fodder to fall in the Sino-US game.
EUV lithography machine
Look at the European Union again
To say what will the United States provoke a chip war bring to the world? Through the performance of other semiconductor chip production giants in the past five years, everyone can see that the United States is not so much targeting China, but that this chip war has affected the world, and even the most fundamental purpose is to target the world.
We see that in the process of banning sales to China, Japan has long been unable to keep up, and the Dutch lithography machine production giant ASML has been playing tai chi with the United States, and now it finally can't bear the pressure and has also taken embargo measures. But this ban is not good for ASML, because lithography machines are a niche product and the market is very limited.
And China occupies 15% of ASML's share in this market, there is no subsidy like the United States to TSMC, there is no corresponding market share supplement, then the loss of the Chinese market for ASML, undoubtedly become a victim of the Sino-US chip game.
Why Europe is stretched to launch its own chip bill under the tight financial situation, taking out 43 billion euros to subsidize its semiconductor chip industry, shows that Europe feels the crisis, the EU knows that the purpose of the United States is not just to target China, so they want to establish a European semiconductor chip industry chain to get out of the dilemma of being subject to people.
The United States wants to curb the development of the global chip industry, make chips become similar to the "petrodollar", and turn into "chip dollars" in the future, which is a new tool for the dollar to maintain its hegemonic position, and is more likely to curb the world and ascend to the position of the hegemon of intelligent manufacturing.
In 2022, the United States passed the Chip and Science Act, and in the next five years, the United States will attract global chip manufacturers to settle in the United States through various support and subsidy policies, thereby forming an industrial cluster.
In the end, it will form a "chip quadrilateral alliance" led by the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, in a vain attempt to swallow up the global market. Once successful, the United States can not only achieve the purpose of chip self-sufficiency, but also realize the chip business settled in US dollars, then the position of the "chip dollar" will be as stable as Mount Tai.
But before the scale of this alliance, all enterprises must maintain their livelihood and make money, this fundamental demand will not change fundamentally because of the intervention of the United States, in order to ensure the interests of these companies that stand on the same front with it, the United States can only match the chip industry chain products to many countries that did not deal with it in the past, even hostile.
This practice of hurting the enemy by 1,000 and self-inflicting 800 damage runs counter to the past practice of the United States in maintaining hegemony. So can such a trading system last? Difficult!
Who do you know about the community of interests of the "petrodollar"? The Middle East and the EU, so what now? Not to mention the EU, just say that many oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran in the Middle East have begun to make their own decisions and price themselves, getting rid of dollar settlement.
Even if the "chip dollar" can be formed, it will not last long, because China lacks only technology, and in terms of technology, from the current research progress of SMIC, the industry leader, can provide 0.35 microns to 25 nanometers process design and manufacturing services, and mass production, can produce 14 nanometer chips, 7 nanometer mass production is subject to lithography machines, currently can not be done.
Compared with TSMC's upcoming 3 nm mass production after the year, it seems insignificant, but some experts predict that the physical limit of the semiconductor chip process is 2-3nm, and as semiconductor technology approaches the physical limit, "Moore's Law" will also tend to end, making the global semiconductor technology develop to a technical fault period, just like a person who grows tall when he is an adult.
Before finding new things that can replace monocrystalline silicon on a large scale, technology iteration is almost impossible to achieve, which leaves more time for China's chip industry to catch up, as long as we achieve a real breakthrough in technology, the entire world chip market pattern will definitely undergo subversive changes, this change will be fully beneficial to China!