China's chip industry to have a sense of crisis

Any industry has a life cycle, the Chinese semiconductor industry is no exception. Since the beginning of twentieth Century 90 years at the end of China semiconductor industry a new round of cycle, has experienced seven or eight years of rapid growth, there are long periods of stability for China semiconductor industry in accordance with about 30% of the average annual growth rate of forward? China's semiconductor industry in a good momentum of the situation, there are some potential threats to China's semiconductor industry.

DELL vice president of the United States recently published a view that Moore's law can be extended to 2020. At that time, the feature size of chip for the 16nm node, CMOS silicon planar technology has been running for 50 years, has been to the end of time.

From the global semiconductor industry environment, assuming that in 2010 the global semiconductor industry output value of 300 billion U.S. dollars, in 2020 will increase to $550 billion, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) was 6%, of which net design and accounted for 25% of the beta value, if in accordance with each chip production line value is 1 billion dollars (monthly output the 12 inch wafer 40 thousand and the average price of $2000 per piece), about 400 of the global equivalent of 12 inches of chip production line. Its size is almost the same as the current mainstream chip production line.

In this context, the transfer of the global chip industry chain is regular. From the perspective of the region, one is the development of "the United States, Japan and South Korea", and the two is the "Taiwan, China - India".

Since China's reform and opening up, the development of the chip industry has created a good environment. First of all, the development of electronic products in the Pearl River Delta assembly and "three" of the export processing trade, laid the foundation of electronic products manufacturing; next, in 2000 the State Council issued the "Document No. 18" ("to encourage the software industry and IC industry development policies"), on foreign investment in the integrated circuit industry has given certain concessions in addition, Chinese; has a lot of high quality, and low cost of talent; the more important is that Chinese IC consumer market has great potential, may be more than the United States as the world's largest IC consumer market, the global chip industry chain began to transfer Chinese.

As you can see, this shift begins with the chip packaging test, followed by 6 inch and 8 inch chip production lines. Of course, due to cultural factors and other factors, this shift is closely linked with the semiconductor industry in Taiwan.

It should be emphasized that such a transfer is a stage and time, that is, it can not always go on. From the preferential policies, many countries in the world can imitate this policy; from the perspective of labor costs, there are lower than China, such as Vietnam, Pakistan, India, etc.. Therefore, the main reason why China has a strong advantage in the global semiconductor industry is that it is the foundation of the electronic products processing trade and the potential huge market of chip consumption in the past 20 years.

Recently, the rapid rise of India in the semiconductor industry, vigilance. A series of data show that in January 6, 2005, India to build the first 8 inch chip factory into the chip foundry; in March 16, 2005, India Taiwan Chinese design manufacturing the two together rule the roost in system on chip (SOC); March 18, 2005, Intel intends to build package in India test factory; March 22, 2005, India announced the April, computer import tariffs to zero; the last 3 years of Microsoft the $400 million investment in India, Ericsson GSM wireless base station built in India production factories and South Korea LG group in India, the production of mobile phone etc..

From the China and India chip industry, India design in software and chip has more than China; and the chip manufacturing industry is not strong, only 4 with FAB (chip production line), one is 6 inches, the current South Korean enterprises began to build the first 8 inch chip factory in India. In addition, the majority of people in India can speak English, language ability is also the advantage of a large population, the same potential market. Therefore, India is likely to become a strong competitor in china.

According to March 21st Huaqiang electronic world network forecast, in 2010, China's IC industry market size of $95 billion, but China's IC output value of only $14 billion 500 million, the output value accounted for only about 5% of the world, self-sufficiency rate is only about $15%.

So Chinese chip industry to achieve the benign development, how the global industrial environment, industrial chain transfer to other places, whether or not Chinese is the world's largest IC consumer market is not the key factor, the key lies in the Chinese chip enterprises to improve their competitive ability, to occupy the market. If it is a big market, and China their lack of occupation ability, the Chinese chip industry is still the whole wedding dress for others.

"Their finest hour". From a variety of indications, can be left to China's stable development of the semiconductor industry has not been a good long time. China's chip industry now hear more praise, but the urgent need is a sense of crisis.