Recently, an authoritative institution released a forecast that Chinese mainland's wafer production capacity is expected to reach 8.6 million pieces / month in 2024, accounting for 29%. In terms of total production capacity, it has reached the first place in the world.
In second place is Taiwan, China, with a total production capacity of 5.7 million pieces per month, accounting for 19%. South Korea and Japan ranked third and fourth, and the world's leading American wafers were reduced to others.
If you look at it this way, the domestic chip is no longer the little brother of the year, the proper world boss! first master the production capacity, then the technology, and finally the right to speak, the future of domestic chips will be invincible, unstoppable.
The ideal is plump, but the reality is skinny.
In the past two years, the semiconductor industry has been sluggish, and only 13 new fabs will be built in 2023, which are mainly used for the production of power transistors, advanced logic, and foundry services.
This has increased the global wafer production capacity to 29.6 million pieces/month, of which China's wafer production capacity has reached 7.6 million pieces/month, accounting for 25.68%, an increase of 12% year-on-year.
Among these capacities, the sub-28nm advanced process has expanded the fastest, reaching 49% in just a few years, becoming a new growth pole, and the sub-10nm process has also increased to 25% of the total capacity, becoming the largest market category in the IC market.
To put it simply, the production capacity of domestic chips is mainly concentrated in mature fields above 28nm, and in fact, global chips are rapidly penetrating into advanced processes below 28nm.
In the field below 10nm, TSMC's share has reached 60%, and the market below 5nm is as high as 85%.
In the memory chip market, South Korea attaches the most importance to advanced technology, and Samsung and SK hynix have the most advanced manufacturing processes.
The number of domestic chips that can manufacture chips below 10nm is SMIC.
Founded in April 2000 and headquartered in Pudong, Shanghai, SMIC is a leading foundry in mainland China.
CEO Liang Mengsong is responsible for technology research and development, and led SMIC to break through the 28nm, 14nm, N+1, and N+2 processes in a few years, and the 7nm process will also be put into trial production in 2021.
In other words, SMIC has the ability to mass-produce 7nm chips, but the order is basically not available. Why?
First of all, most of the 7nm chip design companies are overseas companies, such as Apple, Qualcomm, Nvidia, etc., and the advanced production capacity of these companies is preferentially oriented to TSMC and Samsung.
So, you see that these three chips are all based on TSMC and Samsung processes.
This is because they are a community of interests, and on the surface, these companies belong to different countries and regions, but the major shareholders behind them are all American capital.
Second, most of the equipment on SMIC's production line is American equipment, or equipment that uses American technology and components, in this case, SMIC's customer selection is limited.
Due to the restrictions of the U.S. chip policy, Huawei, Wall Blade Technology, these companies are unable to place orders at SMIC.
Finally, there is the lack of production capacity.
SMIC uses ASML's DUV lithography machine, which has a resolution of 134nm and can achieve 7nm process after multiple exposures, but the yield rate and production capacity are greatly limited.
With the implementation of the latest semiconductor equipment policy in the United States, SMIC will be able to obtain even less advanced equipment, and its advanced production capacity will also decline again and again.
In this case, domestic chips will be divided into two steps:
The first step is to fight back in mature areas
At present, up to 70% of chips above 28nm are used, including aerospace, industrial control, automotive communications, etc., while advanced chips below 28nm are mainly used in smartphones, personal PCs, automotive cockpits, and AI chips.
Aerospace is of great significance to a country, related to national security and territorial integrity, so this field must be localized.
Industry is the foundation of a strong country, whether it is to defend the country or economic development, it needs the support of industry. For example, Russia has a very developed military, but its industry is relatively weak, and it was very fierce in the early days of the Russian-Ukrainian war, but the more it fights, the more difficult it becomes, and in the back, even the chips of the tank are not enough, so you can only disassemble the chips on the dishwasher.
Mature fields may seem to require no sophisticated equipment and technology, but if production capacity cannot keep up, it will affect the overall situation.
Therefore, it is necessary to expand production capacity.
Taking SMIC as an example, in 2021, it spent 150 billion yuan to build four wafer factories in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Shenzhen, with a production capacity of 350,000 wafers per month after all are put into operation.
Hua Hong Semiconductor has also raised 18 billion yuan to actively expand production, which can reach 83,000 pieces/month after the project is put into production, and the company's total production capacity will also be increased to 358,000 pieces/month.
These capacities are mainly concentrated in the Internet of Things, discrete devices, power chips, high-voltage drivers, image sensors, and so on.
With the rapid development of 5G, Internet of Things, new energy vehicles, and AI, domestic chip foundries are expected to benefit in the long run.
In addition, China is the largest chip demander, with an annual import of 2.8 trillion chips, and a considerable part of these 2.8 trillion orders are mature chips.
Therefore, the expansion of mature technology for domestic chips can not only reduce the quota of imported chips, but also seize overseas markets. Due to the strong demographic dividend and resource advantage of domestic chips, the effect of seizing the market is still obvious.
The second step is to strengthen the research and development of advanced technology
Advanced chips have the advantages of strong performance, low energy consumption and multiple functions, and are a battleground for soldiers.
TSMC, Samsung, and Intel have killed red eyes in the process below 7nm, and Samsung will invest 940 billion yuan in the next few years to improve the research and development process of new processes, and said that it will surpass TSMC in the 2nm process.
Intel bought 6 ASML's latest 2nm lithography machines for the first time, you must know that ASML only produces 10 units a year, Intel's move is undoubtedly declaring war on TSMC.
TSMC is also actively preparing for the war, setting up a 2nm chip R&D base, and spending $40 billion to build 3nm and 5nm wafer fabs.
At the same time, through rapid process upgrades, more and more chips will be iterated to the process below 7nm, after all, TSMC has the greatest advantage in these processes.
At present, chips iterated to 7nm include smart phones, PC chips, AI chips, automotive cockpits, autonomous driving, etc., but there will be more chips iterated below 7nm in the future, so it is urgent for domestic chips to strengthen the research and development of advanced processes.
Chips are a complex industrial chain, mainly including design, manufacturing, packaging, EDA, equipment and materials.
In terms of design, companies such as Huawei HiSilicon, Ali Pingtouge, and Bichen Technology have been able to design chips with advanced processes, but the required EDA tools cannot be fully localized.
Chip manufacturing is our weakness, and the process technology may be able to reach 7nm and 5nm, but the equipment cannot be localized, especially the lithography machine.
ASML has built a 2nm lithography machine, while the domestic lithography machine has not yet achieved 28nm, and there is a big gap.
In terms of chip packaging, we have achieved the world's leading position, and JCET has achieved the packaging of 3nm chips, which is in the third position in the world.
In terms of materials, it is mainly monopolized by Japan, and 14 of the 19 key materials have a market share of more than 50%, of which EUV photoresist is in a monopoly position.
The entry of domestic chips into advanced technology is to gnaw down the hard bones of EDA tools, lithography machines, and photoresists, and solve the shortcomings, so that the entire industrial chain can flourish.
The mature process chip has developed by leaps and bounds, and the achievements are hard-won, which is the result of the joint efforts of our government, enterprises, experts, engineers and front-line workers, which is worthy of praise and praise.
However, this does not mean that domestic chips have completely gotten rid of the "stuck neck", we still have to continue to invest high R&D funds, make great efforts to overcome weak links, and elevate domestic chips to a new height.
I'm a science and technology master, if you like it, give it a like!