China's IC industry has the ability to compete advanced

Is there a technological gap between China's IC industry and the international level? How big is there? Is it possible to make up for it? How can we make up for it? This is a topic that the current IC community often talks about. However, is there really a technological gap between China's IC industry and the international advanced level that cannot be pursued? If we analyze it carefully, we may have different conclusions.

There is no technology gap from design to manufacturing

The IC industry can be broadly divided into several aspects such as IC design, packaging and testing, OEM manufacturing, and equipment and materials. We can analyze the differences between China's IC industry and international standards one by one.

The industry has always had a market share of “3+3+3+1” for IC design. They represent general-purpose processors (CPUs), memories, system-on-chips (SoCs), and power devices. Integrated circuit technology.

SoC is the fastest-changing and most active part of the current market. The rise of mobile smart terminals represented by iPhones and iPads has prompted the rapid growth of related SoC markets and technologies. Driven by the rapid growth of the local market, Chinese IC design companies have taken advantage of being close to users and quickly taking the market, forming a set of customer-oriented, focused product development resources on Pioneer products, and tactics to quickly introduce product solutions. In the face of fierce competition from international manufacturers, China's IC design companies can still take advantage of home field, gain market share, and maintain growth. Spreadtrum, Quanzhi, and Rockchip Microelectronics have established a firm foothold in the low-end market of mobile smart terminals. The reason why these achievements can be achieved is that the production of related electronic products is mainly completed in China, which makes the design of related APs in China more advantageous.

As for the power devices such as IGBTs and CMOS image sensors and other integrated circuits that employ special processes, Chinese companies must be able to develop them as long as they give time. The relative weakness of the past is precisely because the terminal application industries of IC products such as industrial applications, automotive applications, and medical applications have not yet been developed. However, with the upgrading of Chinese industries in the future, China’s market demand in these areas will increase. Just as the consumer electronics market drives the upstream SoC, as long as time passes, the special process integrated circuit industry can also develop.

The industrial structure of the Memory section is more exclusive, and Korean companies have a dominant position in this field. This part of the product requirements for the process is also relatively high, Chinese companies are not not involved, such as trillion easy innovation is in the development and production of NOR flash memory, as to break through the NAND also need to wait.

General-purpose processors have always been China's weaknesses. Because of the high social awareness of the product, when it comes to the shortcomings of China's IC industry, ordinary consumers tend to use general-purpose processors. Prior to this, China has also invested a lot of energy in this area, but the effect is not satisfactory. However, the industrial structure of general-purpose processors is changing. The rise of mobile devices has replaced the dominance of PCs in the past. The wintel alliance has broken down, Win8 has begun to support ARM, and the market for X86 architectures has become smaller and smaller. The ARM architecture has begun to take advantage. This gives Chinese companies the opportunity to develop and does not need to be entangled in X86. With the ARM architecture, they can have their own chips.

When it comes to China's semiconductor manufacturing, it will inevitably have to talk about SMIC. In 2000, the foundation of SMIC and Grace was the beginning of Chinese private capital entering the semiconductor manufacturing industry. After more than ten years of development, it is inevitably bumpy. However, at present, SMIC has formed its own R&D capability of its own process, which can catch up with the world's most advanced processes. From the 0.25-μm process at which it was built, it can now mass-produce 40nm, and it is developing a 28nm process. Forming its own expansion capacity, from the beginning of an 8-inch plant, to the current three 8-inch plants, two 12-inch plants, production capacity increased by 7 to 8 times; formed a diversified customer from the beginning The majority of overseas customers are customers. Domestic customers are less than 10%, and domestic customers are now nearly 40%.

Previously, the key to SMIC's problems lies in its management. There is a saying in the industry that "Without Zhang Jingjing, there would be no SMIC; with Zhang Yujing, there would be no profitable SMIC." Zhang Jingjing emphasizes the expansion of scale and does not pay attention to the profitability of enterprises; at the same time, he seriously delays the development of research and development, and the gap with the international community is increasing. In June 2011, Zhang Wenyi became the chairman of SMIC and Qiu Ciyun was the CEO. In less than two years, the company has achieved good development.

As for packaging and testing, domestic companies such as Changjiang Electronics and Nantong Fujitsu have already reached the advanced level in the world and can meet most of the needs of the international and domestic markets. In this field, Chinese enterprises have no suspense and can reach the advanced level in the world.

Even in the field of equipment and materials, in the past 10 years, Chinese companies have also laid out layouts, including etching machines, cleaning equipment, diffusion furnaces, and lithography machines. However, these devices have only initially reached a commercial level, and most of them have not actually entered the market. However, the equipment and materials company's customers are manufacturers. With the strengthening of Chinese manufacturing companies, the future will also gradually reverse the weak pattern of equipment and materials.

In short, the development degree of different links in China's IC industry is not the same, some of them have reached the point where they can compete with international big companies, and some still need to concentrate on development, but at least the technology gap does not exist, China's IC companies completely Ability to participate in international competition.

New Development from State-owned to Privately-owned IC

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Chinese semiconductor industry was dominated by the state-run system. The biggest problem for companies at that time was to break away from the international trend and get rid of the market. In this context, China implemented the “908” project and the “909” project during the “Eighth Five-Year Plan” and “Ninth Five-Year Plan” respectively. These two key projects are aimed at promoting the development of the microelectronics industry. In August 1990, the "908" project was started; in 1995, the 6-inch production line was started; in January 1998, the "908" project Huajing project passed the acceptance of the foreign contract. The completion of the project put the production technology of domestic integrated circuits from 2 μm to 3 μm to 0.8 μm to 1 μm. However, due to the long time for approval, the project started from the start of the project to the actual production lasted for 7 years, so the technical level when completed and put into production has fallen behind the international mainstream technology 4 to 5 generations. In December 1995, the State Council Premier Office officially decided to implement the "909" project, invest 10 billion yuan to build an 8-inch, 0.5-micron chip production line, and 8-inch silicon single crystal production and several integrated circuit design companies. In February 1999, Hua Hong NEC production line was completed and put into production, and the technical grade reached 0.35 μm to 0.24 μm.

Looking back at the two projects can be summed up a few lessons: First, IC technology and market changes are too fast, state-owned and even joint venture system is difficult to adapt to the IC industry, such a rapidly changing market environment. The second is to invest only in building an isolated factory. It does not form a complete industrial chain, and a perfect industrial chain environment is necessary for the development of the IC industry. Third, the built companies lack market development capabilities and rely only on the market opportunities provided by the country. It is difficult to expand. For example, several design companies of the year started with transportation cards and telephone cards. Later, they also used second-generation ID cards. The initial monopoly market enabled companies to make a good living. However, once it really enters the stage of comprehensive market competition, it will be difficult to adapt. Even in the industry, there is a saying that "Chengyi also has identity cards and losers also have identity cards."

Reviewing the development stage of China's IC industry, which focuses on national inputs, the overall view is not very successful. This is because China's IC industry is facing a global market and international competition. There is no future for relying on national investment and internal purchases.

Therefore, only by changing the development model that takes the state-owned system as the main body and taking the road of internationalization and marketization can we really do a good job of the Chinese IC industry. At present, the relatively well-developed IC industry in China is an industrial cluster that has been gradually established and improved around the year 2000 and is dominated by private enterprises. Although they have certain historical origins in the semiconductor industry, which was previously dominated by the state-owned system, there are huge differences in the methods of market development, operation management, and technological innovation.

It is important to support and regulate the market environment

In the future, if China’s IC industry wants to achieve healthy development and narrow the gap with the international level, several measures are crucial: First, for industries such as IC design and packaging, the state should regulate and control the market, provide a good market environment, survive the fittest, and be fair. Competition; Second, through the "863" and other major projects, the project to support the leading research and development led by leading enterprises, Fuda strong support leading enterprises; Third, for the expansion of advanced production capacity, should be supported by state funds. The two most important directions are logic and advanced technology and memory.

The state's investment in advanced production capacity must meet the following conditions: First, the introduction of funds can not affect the original independence and internationalization of the company; second, the introduction of funds should be introduced in a market-oriented manner, and maintain state funds, local government support, and society. The capital investment is the proportion of 1..2..3; Third, the introduction of social capital is very important. It can introduce market-oriented restraint mechanisms, promote the company to form a clear long-term development goal, and at the same time also emphasize its own hematopoietic function, which can make the company The fourth is that through the establishment of an "industry fund" model to ensure the above points are implemented, the industrial fund operates independently, the introduction of professional management, avoiding multi-headed management; Fifth, it can be encouraged by policies during a period of time in the future. Support Chinese IC companies to enter non-consumer electronic products, such as automotive, industrial, high-speed rail, medical and other long-term promising markets.