At the 2017 ICCAD Summit of China IC Design Industry 2017 and Beijing IC Industry Innovation and Development Summit, Professor Wei Shaojun, chairman of IC Design Branch of China Semiconductor Industry Association, gave an authoritative summary of 2017 China's semiconductor IC design industry Statistics show that as of November 2017, there were a total of 1,380 IC design enterprises in China, an increase of 18 over 1,362 in 2016, with a small overall change rate.
Professor Wei Shaojun believes that there are both inevitability and contingency in the case of a sharp increase in the number of design enterprises in China by more than 600 in 2016. The inevitability is reflected in the huge driving effect brought by the introduction of the "Outline", and the contingency is manifested in the substantial increase in this number Unsustainable, the roughly equal number of firms in 2017 reflects the fact that the industry's development has to some extent reverted to rationality and that a reasonable reduction in the number of future businesses is expected over time.
From the sales point of view, according to IC Design Branch statistics: the industry-wide sales in 2017 is expected to be 194.6 billion yuan, up 152.15 billion yuan in 2016 compared with 28.15%, is China's IC design industry in recent years the fastest growing one Year growth rate of 23.04% in 2016. According to the exchange rate between the dollar and RMB 1: 6.65, the annual sales reached 29.263 billion US dollars, and the proportion in the global IC design industry has risen sharply to 30%.
In terms of IC product mix, the number of companies engaged in communications, multimedia, navigation, power and consumer electronics is increasing compared with that of 2016, while the number of manufacturers in smart card, computer and analog industries is decreasing, among which outstanding communication chips The number of design enterprises increased from 241 in 2016 to 266, with a corresponding increase of 31% in sales to RMB90bn. The number two consumer IC product, which has gained significant growth compared with the other categories, opened up The distance.
The data and results are exciting!
During ICCAD, I interviewed senior executives from EDA, IP, design services and foundry companies and conducted dialogues on the development and prospects of China's semiconductor industry and possible obstacles in its development.
A Discussion: Macroeconomic Prospects and Market Hotspots in China 's Semiconductor Industry
AI, Automotive, IoT, Security and 5G are the consensus of most guests.
Lin Jung-jian, Synopsys 'vice president and president of Asia Pacific, first expressed his opinion:' I think there are two attractive topics in China from 2017 to 2018, one is the wide range of AI applications and the other is the automotive industry. There are many applications, these two types are great opportunities.
Dai Weimin, chairman and president of VeriSilicon, gave a more detailed explanation of the AI applications and the automobile industry, saying that in the field of AI, a AI application in the field of monitoring, that is, security, just needs to be applied. In the car, the electric car will be China Strengths, a number of brand-name car prices have also begun to intervene, and introduced the Chinese standard.He said: 'overseas car prices also use Chinese standards, which is amazing, we have mastered the standard in the AI algorithm on the involvement of some Chinese companies The more comprehensive, the question is how to become a chip.
TSMC is the world's largest semiconductor foundry company, said Luo Zhenqiu, vice president of business development for the company: "I think China is really in a good momentum from a macro point of view. Now IoT, Automotive Electronics and Security is growing rapidly both in China and the rest of the world, only that China has not been able to catch up with its capabilities and financial resources in the past few days. In the future, in these three applications, China is starting up simultaneously with other countries and regions and even There are also some advantages because we have a vast market where automotive electronics will be the largest market in China and IoT applications are related to the population base.China will certainly have different results in three to five years in the IC field of these applications.
Lee Chu, vice president of sales at Kilopass, said: "China has begun to take a leadership role in the field of communications, setting a 5G standard and combining communications with IoT will be a big market, and now there is a lot going to be done at the terminal Computing, the entire semiconductor, memory, processor has great demand, coupled with the security requirements, the overall market is a great.This is not just to say the general IoT, car networking industry is a part of IoT.China Will be the leader's position. '
Ms. Xu Yun, general manager of Cadence China, said that Cadence optimistic about the development of the entire IC industry in China, especially the next round of large funds have also been approved, the investment in this industry will be more and more. 'For popular applications As far as we can see, several key applications that we will be focusing on in the next few years include: the first is the AI direction, the second is the Internet of Things, including the Industrial Internet of Things, and the Industrial Internet of Things may have better application space. In addition, There are automotive electronics, smart car concept is very popular in the country, we also see a lot of realistic opportunities; 'It is reported, Cadence has been with a number of advanced smart car manufacturers to develop a wide range of cooperation.
Jing-Yang Zhang, CEO of Moore Elite, optimistic about a small number of smart hardware and wearable devices, that these points will lead to subdivided chip demand. 'Before the chip is the market first, and then do chip service in this market, but Now I see some new trends are terminal first, many system vendors will kill the chip areas, such as Xinjiang, from the earliest to do drone to the pursuit of its own core chip autonomic control, as well as the supply chain security and stability; He said: 'At the same time, some chip companies are also changing the model, the company's core is the chip, but behind the product is a system, directly to consumers for the terminal market.This application may not be particularly large shipments, But it will bring a lot of new ideas and directions to the semiconductor industry.
He Ying, director of core technology products, shared his opinion from the perspective of IP: "From the point of view of IP providers, we are optimistic about the data encryption industry. There are other technical noteworthy behind digital encryption, such as blockchain; meanwhile, We also pay attention to the field of chip encryption related to national security, using domestic IP as a domestic chip.
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Second Theory: How does China's domestic IC achieve or catch up with the international advanced level?
Professor Wei Shaojun made it clear in ICKey's keynote speech that to achieve the growth target of "just to be set" for 2020, it will be difficult to achieve the target simply because of the current products, but to achieve the goal, first, to develop products such as CPU / DSP, Memory, FPGA and other product areas have a big breakthrough, the second is to increase product innovation.
Lin Rongjian, taking the market size and application scenarios as an example, believes that China has foundations in areas such as mobile communications and monitoring, and at the same time he is very optimistic about the corresponding applications of AI and is divided into two categories: IP security for AI chips and IP AI application, we believe that these two points complement each other and will have a great growth in 2018 and even in the coming years. In the past few years, China has mastered the latter half of the mobile field, but now China has a greater application , Can drive more technological development.
'There are more than 1,300 IC design companies in China, most of which are still small and medium-sized with distinctive characteristics. Are there any ways in which these different companies can concentrate on one point rather than making things homogenous? In terms of Taiwan's experience, many manufacturers do something from the beginning is similar, but slowly classified, but also some communication, we grasp a hot spot to go forward, do not cross each other.China now once there is a hot topic , We all go together for a time, some people can get the capital to want another to eat in. But this process does not guarantee that you now have a really competitive company, because the technology is the need to accumulate and study, once There are difficulties in widening it. "Lin Rongjian gave his advice: 'Businesses should have their minds in mind and I am afraid that price war will be the first to proceed, rather than a gradual accumulation of technology, there will be no good chance in history.'
Dai Weimin from the industrial level to answer this question, that there are two dividends: one is the capital dividend, funded; the second is to create dividends. From his point of view, the Chinese IC design companies in the next year we see the dividend is great At the same time, he urged the fund to dare to invest in high-end, long-term companies.
Luo Zhenqiu responded to the client contacted by TSMC: 'In China, there are always new companies coming into contact with us and the products we produce are all kinds of products. That is what I am talking about passionate and you will chase for a long time , There is an ideal goal.I now see the more strength, passion, financial resources, but also the development of earlier products are consumer.Consumption of a wide range of consumer, consumer security, which is a big hot , AI is also on the one hand; 'he said,' 360 degrees 8K quality in a system integration, the light gap can compensate, I see very much. TSMC in the world is very wide coverage, we probably know what new products Made.China has accumulated more than a decade of technology slowly introduced, and now poor industrialization.Industrialization of domestic enterprises and industrialization have the knowledge and experience is not enough, this may be the next step to be strengthened '
Lee Ch believes that industrialization must be co-operative, and in China, all of us are still competing. There are not enough co-operation platforms, or enough resources to exchange resources or co-ordinate resources. Resources can not be combined: 'I see microprocessors and This is also a new field for the guests we come in contact with one after another, and the general consumer products are not necessarily high-end, many are 30 euro, memory and sensor Together, this market is very large, the future will be more and more products.
Xu Yun believes that China has encountered resistance in overseas mergers and acquisitions, local IC design companies are practicing internal forces, down to earth to do a better job in the main industry. 'First of all, there is a reference for information: in the field of AI, China is The world's second-largest AI economy, there are three aspects: First, investment, and second, the number of companies, third is the number of patents, and lead than the third is very much to Haas, for example, the unicorn 970 chip introduced throughout The market is highly recognized and Cadence's DSP is used internally. "She shared:" In addition, there are many opportunities in China that have been advocated for autonomous control. There are also many opportunities for local Chinese companies in this area, such as AI, image recognition , Security are all together.China has many advantages in the system direction, such as Hikvision, Dahua, etc. are the global leader in the field of intelligent monitoring system.How to take advantage of our advantages in the system to The development of our chip area, I think it is our future direction. '
He Ying refers to a shared bicycle that is one of the four new inventions in China and believes that the current development of shared cycling in China is better than any other country in the world, but now the chip is still a foreign solution.Chinese local companies started to design miniaturized smart Chip, as long as the market, there are applications, in this area can catch up with advanced foreign companies and technologies.
Three theories: EDA company in the AI era where to go?
At present, the major EDA companies are expanding their coverage of services, in addition to EDA tools / IP and other traditional services, but also extended to other services.At the same time, EDA tools in the artificial intelligence era will appear what kind of development trend, whether the tool will change More intelligent?
'I remember very clearly that about two years ago, at an IC conference in Tianjin, many of my familiar friends asked me that your company is not working properly. How to do software from EDA and IP? After the constant exchange, more will be after the meeting Synopsys said: 'I think this direction is right. The scope seems to be extended, but we think the same, follow the needs of the industry go.IoT's development involves security, when you talk about the design, Talking about security is missing a big chunk of our expansion is based on business logic needs to move forward, our business balance is relatively simple, where more than the demand for more investment.
He explained Synopsys 'security software business:' Our perception of security is this: If you wait until it's already applied to your system, it's too late to talk about security because there is no way to completely stop outside risk after the system goes live, Originally considered, when you begin to develop the software you must put the system architecture into. Our solution covers the beginning of the entire software, there is a corresponding security program, so, no matter what the scene, basically there will be a certain Degree of security protection.
'Synopsys has a big growth rate in China in recent years, and we know very well that we can not do anything. Especially some things. Our partners are doing very well. Many users need design services or overall packages. We work with VeriSilicon, or We cooperate with TSMC in the early stage of a lot of cooperation in research and development.We do the most good part, the other should basically cooperate fully.
Lin Rongjian that AI is intelligent process, corresponding to different applications, EDA is one of the applications, EDA more intelligent: 'In terms of AI, we have invested a lot, and even because of the different regions and different product departments have to do AI. Our IT department has developed a common platform called "Common Machine Learning Platform," aiming to create a platform that does not require repetitive designs across different product development processes. EDA itself constantly has huge amounts of information on different software runs, The use of such a platform quickly back to the machine learning, which helped our development.Many important users to use our solution to design, after machine learning, the design that took months before now only needs 1 ~ 2 weeks. '
Another area is the AI chip design; he said: 'AI chip will use a heterogeneous architecture. A lot of computing, coupled with enabling heterogeneous design to run, usually with specialized tools. The second is verified. Previously Chip verification is really validation, AI is now used in a variety of different products, including cars and autopilot, we have to be able to ensure that the autopilot scene will not be life-threatening. So, for AI new applications, the verification of the difficulty Is pulled up. '
Cadence Xu Yun that basically the mainstream EDA companies are expanding service areas, is to adapt to industry-wide and customer needs and changes. 'In order to catch up with Moore's Law, the accumulation of many design companies did not like all the IP as well, Can be completed through its own design process.Now the chip complexity is getting higher and higher, we must solve how the problem with the development of Moore's Law, under the premise of several EDA companies are expanding to more areas. IP, we also see each important customer, basically need the cooperation of IP.Another is to verify that now the hardware and software collaboration, including software development needs and complexity of higher and higher, and this is our Everyone is walking. '
She also said: "In addition, the system is more complex, increasing the threshold in all other directions, such as packaging, PCB system-wide design will bring more challenges and new directions for Cadence, in addition to In line with the development of Moore's Law, the second major direction is that the system is driving the development of the entire chip design, we have to consider system-wide optimization of software and hardware, the integration of all directions in all directions. System Design Services is the future direction of Cadence development.Clusdence combined with the development strategy, the company recently set up in Nanjing, an independent company operating, focusing on IP and system design services.
In response to the needs of the AI era, Cadence offers solutions in both CPU and DSP, including DSP-based DSP IPs with neural networks, etc. In AI chip verification, Cadence offers multi-engine solutions to ensure that the final verification can be completed effectively The completion of, but also hardware acceleration simulation equipment.
'How did EDA itself evolve in the AI era? Whether it's implementation or verification, or traditional analog and mixed-signal circuits, we all have algorithms that use deep learning and machine learning to optimize their software, and more importantly, if everyone's design Data builds a public big data foundation and we have a great opportunity to make a new breakthrough at EDA by turning it into a learnable model that allows new companies or new design projects to draw on past project experience, You can also learn from other friends.A question is how to share information, because the information for each design company is their own intellectual property rights, at this point we also want to maximize their ability to cooperate with customers and Allowed to provide assistance.
The Fourth Comment: The Roadmap for the Next Development of China Foundries
In recent years, both the overseas foundries and the local foundries have been building factories in China quite frequently, and they are surging. "The same was true in Taiwan 20 years ago. To cover the factory, this is the crazy situation in Taiwan at that time.And in China, because of the NDRC and the government, the whole situation will be much better.You want to build the factory is not difficult, what process, what is your customer, this is difficult ; TSMC Luo Zhen ball said bluntly: 'Our factory in Nanjing, before the start of all the wiring diagram design is completed, how electricity cloth, how to go, how to drain the water, what process have been very clear. But found that some special What is the factory to cover? How many plants to plant? He said 10 million 12-inch like; in the end what is the process of what products? Anyway, is 100,000. Finally, I want to know where the customer. Domestic to do an industry Solid, strong, sure to put money, manpower, material and time to figure out what to do, what to do process, what to do to distinguish the next step to do, the product to sell to whom? This is my number of domestic counterparts Suggest. '
In view of the future development of TSMC in China, Luo Zhenqiu made an analogy with 'The Army is Not Moved and Forage is Forerunner'. "Forage is the order, and why TSMC will build a factory in Nanjing? This is because China's IC design is at this stage China now uses 16nm, 12nm projects with over 20 companies that need to serve those customers on a base, and it is time to deliver the most efficient local services: 'This naturally turns to be the next step. Our next step is to look at us completely What kind of products can be provided to China's design companies, the Chinese design company can not make it into a very competitive product. This has the demand. '
Founded in 2010, Shanghai Huali Microelectronics Co., Ltd. (HLMC) involved in 12-inch foundry business in China earlier. Its vice president Shu Qi shared the history of Huali: the first phase of HLMC has been completed successfully, and 35,000 Of the production capacity even to the first half of next year are full, the demand does exist.When we just built the factory, when China's design business is very weak, and now has reached the second place.China's future development is indeed for us Is good, so our two is 40,000, the main concern at 28nm. Three, four are also prepared, while the three piling has ended, but also 40,000.
'For flourishing Nanjing and other places, I think it is a good thing.Competition more and more, more and more, it can give domestic design enterprises to create a better platform, have more choices. Challenge us Is to choose more, we must make the process well; 'Shu Qi said:' When I visit the customer, the customer usually have a proactive and passive requirements.Activeness is the customer's new products come out such a process can To achieve, for example, he asked for power, smaller size, faster; passive requirement is that this node has done very well, but why go forward? The cost of each node is very high, but if not before Walk, competitors will move forward Passive forward is also a driving force, if there is no 14,16 nm, many people will not go forward, the development may be limited to 28nm limit, there is no impetus.
The Fifth Comment: New Requirements for Design Services ###
As China's IC design industry, design services also put forward new requirements.As a representative of the design services company, VeriSilicon Dai Weimin attended the interview.
First of all, we absolutely do not compete with customers, secretly products. We have a perfect IP core, and in some areas than the United States to do well; 'Dai Weimin stated:' Now the company to provide cloud services are getting stronger, The power is bigger and bigger.That is a change.We used to serve a lot of chip companies, now need to serve the object into a Ali, Tencent, Baidu, Amazon, Google and other types of companies, they want to do a high voice chip. Dominating this industry, and it needs to be customized. Now the cloud is a video. Who is leading the entire industry? Some customers are now also developing toward the system level and are in line with this trend. "
Lam Wing-kin agrees with the above point of view: 'The increasing share of system vendors is a trend. The entire electronics industry and the semiconductor industry, which used to be well-organized and varied, are now expanding around. For example, automobiles are very traditional industries In the past few decades, what we have been doing for a hundred years is very clear, but with the popularity of automotive electronics, automobile manufacturers are also going upstream. We are all vendors that provide solutions and must adapt to this situation. Will eventually increase, but in the end it is still necessary to make the IC, the corresponding supporting industries also need to move forward together.Currently, the most need to solve the problem is the system does not understand the IC, the IC can not understand the system.We also have many system companies, There are ways in which these two groups can communicate and communicate in the early stages through some techniques and this is why we now talk about this new and important change that will be applied in the future for a longer period of time. "
As for this will not disrupt the original IC eco-layout? Linrong Jian said: 'It is now happening, it is difficult to distinguish your company is what kind of company.'
Luo Town Ball added: 'Huawei, millet are also doing IC, Lenovo is also done, they have IC design department. Just look can not make good use of IC power, most companies do IC is very simple, if only to save The cost of the IC is sure to be very poor if the IC is to be differentiated to be successful soon.If the successful system company in China to enter the IC industry is to differentiate the purpose, it is very high chance of success, Support
Dai Weimin concluded: 'chip companies go up, the first chip into a chip, write the software, do a lot of system things.When the chip companies go up, the system company down, but do not have the chip team , So look for us design service company. Up, down all may find us.
The Sixth Discussion: IP Manufacturers' Opportunities in China
IP needs in all aspects, taking memory and hybrid IP as an example. Kilopass currently focuses on memory IP in China, and Lee Chu, the company, sees the demand for memory chips evolving from simple storage to security in recent years.
'It used to be simply a simple key, and now there is a system for the need to keep the key.' 'Memory is an indispensable and important component in addition to the processor, and China has paid more attention to flash memory in recent years. He said: 'In China, this part has not been studied, mainly requires a lot of long-term accumulation of technology, which is relatively weak domestic. Do IP less lovable, unlike R & D products, you can sell millions, thousands Million, IP is the basic work, need to develop slowly, I hope in the future to do it more in-depth.
Core Motion Technology provides hybrid IP, the company He Ying IP hotspot within the next one to two years, including the following points: On the one hand IoT chip for some new process nodes, to reduce power consumption, a new IP demand.
'The demand is driven by the drivers behind the fact that we have to get ahead of the market and get the IP ready, and the second is high performance, and now we know that regardless of AI or other high performance computing areas, one Larger bottleneck is the bandwidth, the current approach is to pursue the direction of DDR, but in the new application of this speed can not meet the requirements, but need a faster interface, and now only used in graphics And that is why some companies are leading Alco in most other companies because they have the key technology and that's where we want to work; and finally, the advantages of our IP cost-effectiveness and our service. '
Seventh Discussion: Differentiation of China 's Semiconductor Industry
Differentiation will not be transformed into the core competitiveness of various enterprises? Cadence Xu Yun said: 'When it comes to differentiation, how to use Internet companies to increase the viscosity of the customer? Many are built on the hardware system. Many systems Design companies make new demands on the hardware, these requirements are also because of the application of the changes caused by more and more customization of the hardware needs, which is the interaction of each other.This fact has a very big impact on our industry, This is why we put forward a big strategy of "system design and implementation", and indeed the thinking of the future development of the entire company is affected. We are also making corresponding adjustments and changes. '
'In the automotive field, for example, apart from basic work, more is how we accumulate experience in the application.We are internationally with the most advanced smart car companies have cooperation, we also purposely acquired a lot about Automotive electronics or smart car applications.We are now working in this direction, despite some bottlenecks, but also hope to be able to do for the entire automotive electronics industry at the system level support.
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Self-control can also be understood as a way to achieve differentiation, in this regard, Shu Qi shared his point: 'self-control is the core technology you want to grasp some of the early start-up small and medium companies in the early days did not So much energy, there is not so much independent intellectual property rights, he had to rely on some powerful collaborators to help him, so a lot of technology and all aspects of the hands of others in the hands of this product when done continue to develop It's harder, but it's the process, and it's going from the beginning. "
For example, it is not entirely independent and controllable at the beginning of the development of China. There are also many technologies that depend on some manufacturers. However, after a period of operation, his technical strength has accumulated and the business is also doing well. , R & D is getting bigger and bigger, in the end can make their own alternative chips, he mastered this technology. Including us too, we must master the core technology, we must develop our own independent and controllable brand, in order to Support domestic vigorous IC design enterprises.
Zhang Jing Yang also shared his view: 'To go beyond a company in front, go it the same way to catch up may never reach the replacement of Qualcomm is definitely not the same way to replace, we must make good use of our home advantage. Since the world Almost all of the electronic products are made in China, then we must find a differentiated opportunity here.Mobile phones have been very smooth industrial chain, we use the most convenient, but in reality there is room for optimization in each application, Need domestic manufacturers is not simply to replace foreign products.
'This road is easy at the beginning, but it is harder and harder to go after it, and when it comes to the back, it encounters a patent and encounters bargain prices. It is difficult to start with innovation and defining new products yourself, but it is often difficult Easy to become a difficult thing to start doing, be able to make some progress, stick to it, there will be barriers behind, and then foreign companies want to come to us it is very difficult.
On the Eight Problems: The Most Necessary Problem to be Solved in China 's Semiconductor Industry for Sustained Development
The following are the key elements that the honored guests believe will most need to be solved or are currently the most deficient for ensuring the sustainable development of the Chinese semiconductor industry and their proposals for action in 2018 and beyond.
Dai Weimin: 'I think it is a bonus for talents, and there must be a fund dedicated to start-ups.'
Lin Rongjian: 'It is not easy for technology to break through now. Technology is what people make and people are great constraints. This needs to be solved. We need to make planning from the entire education system and start from a lower level.'
Luo ball: 'I think there is the Chinese government support, there are funds, a lot of people, very excited, have the resources to see everyone must have the entrepreneurial spirit, to do one thing we should focus on Well, stronger and stronger. '
Lee Chu: 'In addition to being passionate, we must have the patience to go on and see how we can co-operate with universities. We hope that the industry will continue to support university research and development. Many cutting-edge technologies have been developed from universities and hope to pay more attention.'
Xu Yun: 'From the current situation in China, the development trend of semiconductors has been elusive. The most radical driving force for China's potential development is the huge market and the next largest development of information, which is different from the United States and any other country in the world The greatest value.We should invest more in AI or big data to really transform our data into resources that are useful to us and we will increase our chances of investing more in this area than in Europe and the United States.
He Ying: 'The issue that needs to be resolved is how we become game makers. We need to participate more in international standards and rules so that we can have a say in the world chip stage.'
Shu Qi: 2018 is indeed a very good opportunity, both from the market and from the opportunities exist, so all the chip companies, including our company, should do their own thing well, not only to invest in research and development, but also to step In fact, I think the media should make more recommendations with the state, at the national level, we should see that this opportunity exists to give more support to some policies, especially some start-ups, which the state should give to small and medium-sized enterprises Just set up, have good ideas business, give him support, and do not be afraid of his failure, because many times success is after the failure.