The semiconductor industry chain as a whole can be divided into three sectors: upstream, middle and downstream.
The upstream is the semiconductor support industry, which consists of semiconductor materials and semiconductor equipment.
Midstream is the semiconductor manufacturing industry chain, including IC design, manufacturing, packaging and testing three links, its products mainly include integrated circuits, discrete devices, optoelectronic devices and sensors.
Downstream are the specific application fields of semiconductors, involving consumer electronics, mobile communications, new energy, artificial intelligence and aerospace.
From the perspective of global regional distribution, Europe and the United States absolutely dominate in design and equipment; The United States is the largest EDA & IP core; South Korea leads memory IC design; Japan has significant advantages in DAO and equipment; China accounts for the highest proportion of packaging and testing foundry.
In recent years, some domestic leading companies have outstanding technological advantages, accelerating the pace of domestic substitution, and there is greater room for the localization of the semiconductor industry chain.
First, the upstream of semiconductors supports the industrial chain
1. Semiconductor equipment
Equipment is the cornerstone of the development of the semiconductor industry. Semiconductor special equipment generally refers to the production equipment required for the production of various semiconductor products, which belongs to the key supporting link of the semiconductor industry industry chain and is also the part with the widest space and the most important strategic value in the upstream link.
For example, the lithography machine we know is one of the core semiconductor equipment, which is mainly used in the lithography link. Semiconductor equipment is mainly divided into oxidation furnace, glue development equipment, lithography machine, etching machine, ion implanter, cleaning equipment, quality testing equipment, electrical testing equipment, CMP equipment, CVD equipment, PVD equipment, etc.
From the perspective of subdivided products, lithography machines, etching machines and thin film deposition equipment are the main core equipment of semiconductor equipment, accounting for 24%, 20% and 20% respectively. Followed by test equipment and packaging equipment, accounting for 9% and 6% respectively.
Semiconductor special equipment is the technology leader of the semiconductor industry, chip design, wafer manufacturing and packaging and testing need to be designed and manufactured within the scope of equipment technology, and the technological progress of equipment in turn promotes the development of the semiconductor industry.
Figure: Location of semiconductor equipment in the semiconductor industry chain
2. Semiconductor materials
Semiconductor materials are located in the upstream of the semiconductor industry chain and are the material basis of the semiconductor industry chain, and the quality of their material properties affects the performance of the final product.
Semiconductor materials are mainly used in wafer manufacturing and chip packaging. From wafer die to finished chip, hundreds of special process steps such as oxidation, sputtering, lithography, etching, ion implantation, and packaging are required. According to the manufacturing process, semiconductor materials can be mainly divided into wafer manufacturing materials and chip packaging materials.
With the development of China's semiconductor industry, China's semiconductor materials are also gradually changing, and have transitioned from the first generation of semiconductor materials to the third generation of semiconductor materials.
3、EDA，IP
The semiconductor upstream support industry chain also includes EDA, IP.
EDA is simply industrial software designed and produced by IC. Manufacturing EDA tools are used in the process platform development phase and wafer production phase. Design EDA tools are used in the integrated circuit design phase.
IP core is a reusable design methodology for integrated circuits, which refers to a reusable module provided by a party in the form of logic units and chip designs. In layman's terms, IP cores refer to some circuit function modules with specific function optimization that have been designed and actually verified.
Second, the semiconductor midstream manufacturing industry chain
1. Three basic concepts: semiconductors, integrated circuits, chips
Semiconductor is a material with conductivity between conductors and insulators, the most common are elemental semiconductors, such as silicon; Later, compound semiconductor materials were developed with technology.
An integrated circuit is a miniature electronic device or component. It is a circuit or system that uses a certain process to interconnect the transistors, resistors and other components and wiring required in a circuit, and then encapsulate them in the tube department to perform specific functions.
Chips are a way of miniaturizing circuits (mainly semiconductor devices, but also passive components, etc.) and are often fabricated on the surface of semiconductor wafers.
Generalized chips include integrated circuits, sensors, discrete devices, optoelectronic device products, and narrow chips refer to integrated circuits. The relationship between the three is as follows: semiconductors> integrated circuits ≈ chips
Integrated Circuits (ICs)
Semiconductor products can be mainly divided into integrated circuits (IC), optoelectronic devices (O), discrete devices (D), sensors (S) four categories. Among them, integrated circuits use a certain process to interconnect the transistors, resistors, capacitors and inductors and wiring required in a circuit, make them on a small or several small semiconductor wafers or dielectric substrates, and then package them in a tube shell to become a miniature structure with the required circuit functions. As one of the most important products in the semiconductor industry, integrated circuits are large collections of circuits made of semiconductor materials.
As the core of the semiconductor industry, integrated circuits have a market share of 83%, and the industrial structure is highly specialized due to its technical complexity. With the rapid expansion of industrial scale, industrial competition has intensified, and the division of labor model has been further refined. At present, the market industry chain is IC design, IC manufacturing and IC packaging and testing. In the core link, IC design is in the upstream of the industrial chain, IC manufacturing is the midstream link, and IC packaging is the downstream link.
chip
Chips are products formed by different types of integrated circuits or a single type of integrated circuit. The physical form of the chip is divided by the wafer into a small wafer wafer wafer (die), and after packaging it becomes a chip, this chip becomes the carrier of the integrated circuit, emphasizing the integration, production and packaging of the circuit. The deep level can understand that the chip is a microscopic data information processing carrier, which concentrates many micro-level tiny units carrying data information to complete the processing of data information. Usually four types of integrated circuits: microprocessors, memory, logic devices, analog devices, collectively referred to as chips.
Chips belong to the semiconductor industry. On silicon wafers or other semiconductor materials, we can see block-like components similar to black, black inside is chips, black is resin and other plastic packaging materials, generally play a role in protecting circuits and conducting heat.
Chip production can be roughly divided into three processes: silicon wafer manufacturing, chip manufacturing and packaging and testing, of which the two links of silicon wafer manufacturing and chip manufacturing have high technical barriers: silicon wafer manufacturing is to smelt, purify, pull single crystal, cut and polish raw materials to produce electronic grade silicon wafers; Chip manufacturing can be divided into front-end and back-end processes, with the development of the process, the current number of processes has exceeded 1300, of which the front-end process refers to the process of forming devices on the wafer, also known as wafer manufacturing, and the back-end process refers to the process of separating the devices on the wafer and packaging.
2. Midstream semiconductor manufacturing industry chain
The semiconductor manufacturing industry chain is the core link of the semiconductor industry chain.
Because integrated circuits are the most important semiconductor products, and integrated circuits are basically manufactured in accordance with "IC design - IC manufacturing - IC packaging and testing", the midstream semiconductor manufacturing industry chain is generally divided according to this form:
(1) The manufacturing process of the semiconductor manufacturing industry chain
IC design is translated into a physical design layout through the study and design of the system, logic, circuit, and performance of integrated circuits.
IC manufacturing is used for wafer production, the design layout is used to make a photomask plate, and the circuit pattern is presented on the wafer by multiple lithography, and finally a three-dimensional circuit is formed on the surface/inside the wafer.
IC manufacturing is divided into two parts: wafer manufacturing and wafer processing.
The former refers to the process of gradually preparing monocrystalline silicon wafers using silica raw materials, mainly including silicon purification > polysilicon manufacturing - > crystal pulling - > cutting and grinding, etc., the corresponding equipment are smelting furnace, CVD equipment, single crystal furnace and slicer, etc.; Wafer processing refers to the process of building a complete integrated circuit chip on the preparation of wafer materials, mainly including coating, lithography, etching, ion implantation and other major processes.
IC packaging and testing is a collective term for IC packaging and IC testing. IC packaging and packaging mainly cut, encapsulate and package the processed wafer to protect the die and form a chip product. The test is mainly to test the reliability and stability of the chip.
(2) The operation mode of the semiconductor manufacturing industry chain
According to the presence or absence of wafer processing lines, the business model of semiconductor companies can be mainly divided into three forms: IDM, Fabless and Foundry/OSAT. Among them, the IDM model is a vertically integrated manufacturing model, which integrates multiple industrial chain links such as chip design, chip manufacturing, chip packaging and testing; Fabless mode is a fabless processing line design mode, which is only responsible for the circuit design and sales of chips; Outsource production, testing, packaging and other links; Foundry/OSAT is the foundry model, only responsible for manufacturing, packaging or testing, not responsible for chip design, can provide foundry services for multiple design companies at the same time. Among them, the representative enterprises of the head IDM such as Intel, Samsung, Hynix, Micron, Texas Instruments, and the representative enterprises of foundry such as TSMC, UMC, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, SMIC, HUAHONG SEMICONDUCTOR and so on. OSAT refers to enterprises specializing in semiconductor packaging and testing.
3. The main products of semiconductors
Semiconductor Products: mainly divided into four categories: integrated circuits, discrete devices, optoelectronic devices and sensors.
(1) Integrated circuits
Integrated circuits are the most important semiconductor products, accounting for more than 80% of all semiconductor products. According to the different functions used, integrated circuit products can be divided into three categories: analog integrated circuits, digital integrated circuits and digital/analog hybrid integrated circuits.
Digital integrated circuits are mainly used to generate, amplify and process various digital signals. The main products include logic chips, microprocessors and other products.
Analog integrated circuits are mainly used to generate, amplify and process various analog signals, and products include signal chains and power management products.
(2) Discrete devices
Discrete devices refer to independent components that are not packaged into integrated circuits and exist separately in the form of diodes, transistors, resistors, capacitors, etc. Products generally refer to semiconductor crystal diodes, semiconductor transistors, power transistors and other semiconductor discrete devices.
(3) Optoelectronic devices
Optoelectronic devices are various functional devices made by using the electro-photon conversion effect. Optoelectronic devices mainly include photoconductive devices that use semiconductor photosensitive characteristics, photocells and semiconductor light-emitting devices that use semiconductor photovoltaic effect.
(4) Sensor
A sensor is a detection device that can feel the measured information and convert the felt information into a usable signal according to certain rules. The sensor is generally composed of four parts: sensitive components, conversion elements, conversion circuits and auxiliary power supplies.
Third, the semiconductor downstream application industry chain
The application fields of semiconductors mainly include consumer electronics such as mobile phones and computers; Robotics, automotive electronics and other industrial fields; high-performance computing, parallel computing, storage and other computing fields; Mobile phones, base stations, satellites, cables and other communication fields.
Integrated circuits have been widely used in consumer electronics, high-end manufacturing, network communications, household appliances, Internet of Things and many other fields, and have become one of the important symbols to measure a country's industrial competitiveness and comprehensive national strength. In recent years, emerging applications such as the Internet of Things, wearable devices, cloud computing, big data, new energy, medical electronics, VR/AR, and security electronics have become the continuous growth points of the domestic semiconductor discrete device industry.
The United States occupies a dominant position in the global integrated circuit industry, and before export controls, the mainland was highly dependent on it. According to Gartner statistics, the operating income of the world's top ten semiconductor manufacturers accounted for 55.9% of the global semiconductor market in 2021; Six of them are U.S. companies with a combined market share of 30.9%. Before the United States imposed trade restrictions on semiconductor products exported to the mainland, the mainland integrated circuit industry was highly dependent on US imports. In 2019, the total amount of integrated circuit products imported by China was US$305.55 billion, accounting for 14.7% of the country's total imported products; Among them, the amount of integrated circuit products imported from the United States accounted for 48.8% of the mainland's total integrated circuit imports.
In the field of integrated circuit equipment, three of the world's top five manufacturers are from the United States: Applied Materials, Lam Research and Ketian Semiconductor, all of which have full-link equipment supply capabilities, including deposition, etching, ion implantation, annealing, polishing, testing equipment, etc.
In the field of integrated circuit materials, the whole is monopolized by Japan, but Dow Chemical in the United States, as a material giant, products involve photoresist, CMP slurry and other electronic chemicals.
At present, the degree of domestic substitution in the semiconductor field is low, and the future development space is large. In 2020, the self-sufficiency rate of mainland ICs will only be 15.9%, and there is huge domestic substitution space in the semiconductor industry. According to data released by IC Insights, a US semiconductor analyst organization, China's domestic ICs accounted for 15.9% of its $143.4 billion IC market in 2020, compared with 10.2% 10 years ago. The "Made in China 2025" issued by the State Council in 2015 proposed that by 2025, 70% of the core basic components and key basic materials should be independently guaranteed. At present, the self-sufficiency rate of mainland semiconductors is low, and there is a huge space for domestic substitution.
Mainland has the problem of "stuck neck" in the three core links of integrated circuit design, materials and equipment. For chip design EDA tools, mainland China has only achieved breakthroughs in local fields, and long-term technology accumulation is still required to form a complete and usable full-process tool chain. Most of the domestic substitutions in the field of materials are concentrated in low-to-mid-end links, and the substitution rate of high-end process subdivisions is low; Although there are enterprises in the field of equipment manufacturing that carry out technological development and product development in different links, there is still a distance from achieving the level of "domestic substitution" in the manufacture of 12-inch large silicon wafers.
As the competition between China and the United States becomes more fierce, China's chip industry faces the possibility of continuous sanctions, and there are many short-term difficulties, but in the long run, this is also the fundamental reason why China's chip industry can grow rapidly. In addition, chips are widely used in smart phones, robots, wearable devices, new energy vehicles and other fields, with the advent of the era of the Internet of Everything, the application scenarios of chips continue to expand, and the continuous growth of demand will continue to promote the rapid development of the semiconductor industry.