From the unique perspective of a chip maker, see why China is not to be seen by developed countries

Author: @ know almost mountain branch

I am optimistic.

First of all, I declare that there are many problems in China. But I personally don’t believe that sort of list out China’s various issues and come to the conclusion that eating dates pills and the like. This argument is too cheap. To say the question, three The problem was more than 40 years ago. In the 1980s, it was known as the 'river', but China did not die and it was still coming.

There are many perspectives to see this issue. To provide everyone with a perspective of my own private. It is considered to be an experience of participation in China's manufacturing industry for more than 10 years.

I'm at an American integrated circuit company X. Although I don't have any secrets, I still hide the company's name. Of course, people in the industry can understand it. Regardless of the scale or technology, it's fair to say that X is among the top in the world. There should be no dispute. Sales X Not the largest, Intel's largest, X is stable around the world third to fifth. But the X feature is the product line is particularly wide. To what extent to the width? If the breakdown by the complete product model: tens of thousands, than the ranking The sum of the second and tenth sums is even more. From a dedicated processor with a few thousand dollars, to the high-performance AD ​​that China cannot afford to buy, to a small logical little op amp that is worth a few dollars. Chips, X have.

Because of this feature, the X product application is very extensive. Basically, as long as there is live power, it is possible to use X's products (just say it may be not necessarily, after all, X also faces a lot of competition), even before your eyes Mobile phones may already be used. Base stations, servers, mobile phones, computers, televisions, CNC machine tools, medical equipment, automobiles, high-speed rail, high-voltage transmission, smart wear, money counters, POS machines (scan QR code), servo, PLC, Air Conditioning, Robot, Industrial Control, CNC Machine, Inverter, Movie, Lighting, New Energy, Drone, Elevator, Refrigerator, Washing Machine, Acoustic, Oscilloscope, Sound & Light Toys, Water and Electricity Meters, Mobike GPS Electronic Locks ... Basically you can think of live applications, more or less able to use X's products. I list these applications, as long as they can rank among the top companies in China, they are definitely X's key customers. Outsiders may find it incredible, but X is such a company.

So I observed one thing myself: 'X-index' - - is X's total sales in China. I think this X-index can reflect certain problems because:

1. As mentioned earlier, X's products are very comprehensive and can cover very many industries.

2. Chips are the source or core of many industries. Many products require chips, and even sports shoes carry chips. So chips are the target of many industries. Many industries are either directly our customers or they are our customers. Indirect coverage (such as textile customers covered by our electric sewing machines).

3. The sales volume of X in China has been very large and highly dispersed. The rapid growth has reached several billion RMB per year. This scale I think is already statistically representative. And because of the large variety of products, X’s customers in China Thousands, highly dispersed.

4. Companies that can use X products, or companies that need chips, need certain R&D capabilities. Although not necessarily the most sophisticated part, they are definitely out of tradition or low-end in the manufacturing industry. They are not silly. Large and black, not plastic shoes and shoes. Their products can be regarded as mid-range industrial products, and a few can be considered as high-grade industrial products. Their performance reflects a certain degree of transformation of China's manufacturing industry.

5. There is also a very important one: X's statistical sales of data systems is to exclude pure foundry processing. For example: Foxconn produces Apple's mobile phone Dell computer in China, which uses the X chip. This performance in the system is counted in the United States team rather than China. Therefore, the sales of X in China are reflected in the R&D, design and production of local businesses. Local calls are called Local Demand Creation. Although Foxconn is a part of China's manufacturing industry, local demand clearly has higher gold content.

Having said so much, what is the conclusion?

1. The result is that each year from the year 2005 to the 16th year is refreshed and the previous record is created, creating the highest historical record. Including the financial crisis of the year 2008.

2. In 12 years or 13 years, China has become the world's second largest market in X. More than Japan, and more than the sum of Europe, Taiwan and South Korea naturally go without saying that the whole India probably hasn’t had a big business in our city. Of course, the biggest still is. The United States (an apple accounted for X’s global business is not only a small one, but also the largest customer), but China and the United States are already a grade, far more than other countries. If we follow a wide scope of statistics on the Chinese manufacturing industry, it is to put Article 5 above. With the elimination of OEM demand, China has long surpassed the United States.

3. In the past two years, the economy has not been very good, and the business has no imagination to do - - The X index hit another record high in the second quarter of 17th. In the past two and a half months of the third quarter, there is no suspense to set a record high again. The speed has also reached a level rarely seen in recent years. The growth rate of similar friends and merchants has also reached the highest level in recent years.

4. X’s own business has gone up, but in fact the Chinese market may have lost its share. Part of it was lost to foreign competitors, and many were lost to domestic production. For example, Huawei's Hass chips have us in the image processing field such as IPNC. The DSP has turned upside down. It shows that China's consumption of chips may increase faster.

Essentially, without the huge downstream R&D, design, and manufacturing capabilities, it is impossible to require so many upstream chips. So, with my understanding of Chinese manufacturing in X for so long, our manufacturing industry is indeed Transformation and upgrading. China now relies on massive engineering bonuses (not only IT electronics, but also civil engineering, chemical biology, etc.). Now look at Nike's move to Southeast Asia to claim that Chinese pills people, probably live at one and twenty Years ago.

In many countries, even the company X, which is characterized by its long antennae, does not even have an office. However, X does research and development in China, fabs, packaging and testing plants, and logistics centers, not to mention markets, sales, and technology. Support. Investing in tens of billions of dollars. From this perspective, I think that China's industries have climbed up little by little and have opened up gaps with ordinary countries.

Industry, technology can not climb, is the country's most important determinant of whether to go out of the middle-income trap, or even the factors that promote the ecological and political ecology of the upper society. In addition to those resource-based countries (such as Saudi Arabia), all developed countries are developed The fundamental reason is to stand tall in the technology tree and industrial tree. The old developed countries began to climb from the industrial revolution, but lately, although Korea is late, it is still catching up. Ordinary agriculture, low-end manufacturing cannot make the country Wealth, those industries can not have excess profits. Only work with technical content can bring great returns. This is true for individuals, companies, and countries.

About Supplementary Comments:

Many people questioned the representativeness of this perspective. I think: When discussing the Chinese economy, no one can dare to say comprehensively. But tens of billions of scale, nearly a quarterly trend, highly dispersed downstream applications and customers can always respond to it. More importantly: The chip is the foundation of the high-end manufacturing industry. The demand for it is a direct reflection of many industries. It is a reference point for many industries. Many industries are either directly customers who consume chips or are indirectly covered by chip customers.

Want to know how Chinese pharmaceutical companies are now? Go and see how many customers buy spectrum analysis equipment to buy. Know how to real estate? Take a look at how our chip is in the elevator controller customer, look at the performance of air-conditioning customers How do you want to know if the movie theater business is good or bad, how many digital micromirror chips are bought for theater projection? - This chip won an Oscar.

Want to know how domestic autonomous cars are? Look at the number of automotive-grade chips that a few domestic automakers want. Do you want to predict the Internet giant's business? Look at the server for more chips, data center dedicated power and temperature and humidity transmission How do you feel about selling a chip? Some days ago, people saw news that the world's tobacco sales have fallen. Do you think it was because of tobacco control? That's because electronic cigarettes... As for those industries that are originally electronic products, such as mobile computer communications equipment, It goes without saying.

So everyone can understand why the country is making great efforts to get IC chips.

201703 Supplement

In the first quarter of this year, the X index is very good, but it does not necessarily exceed the fourth quarter of last year. However, the year-on-year growth rate should be a high point in recent years. The semiconductor industry's pick-up should be a well-known phenomenon this year. There are people who ask questions. Industry is very good.

201707 Supplement

In the first half of the year, all major regions and all teams in the country achieved very good year-on-year business. The business scale of the country’s annualized number of billions has grown by more than 10%. In particular, the small and medium-sized client team is the department that specializes in long-tailed SMEs. (tens of thousands of customers across the country), also all grew by more than 10%, very rare!

'Tell a story'

There are dozens of product lines in the former club. There used to be a product line with a chip, xxx2046. It was a very simple IC, and it was a resistive touch screen controller. As far back as the mobile phone knows, the iPhone had a touch screen phone before, but It is a resistive touch screen, and the experience is far better than the current capacitive touch screen. It also requires a small pen point to point. When the high-end brand Dopod (later HTC), Samsung, various PDA, domestic brands and so on there are many models.

At that time, touch screen mobile phones were not as 100% popular as they are today, but they can be regarded as mass consumer goods. As a business, it is very large. How much money does our company's IC sell? When it came out, it costs one US dollar, and each cell phone is To one, and the market share is very high, almost monopolized.

Don't underestimate 1 US dollar. Generally speaking, a mobile phone company sells millions of millions of dollars a year, which means that a mobile phone company with a dozen square millimeters of chips will spend millions of dollars a year. The foreigners who make this product should not be too cool. For a few people, every time you come to China is like saving the world, you can't look at the domestic brand mobile phones, and you can increase prices when you are out of stock. August is definitely a vacation. When you go to your customers, you always despise overtime. --- My value is family first.

Later on, domestically produced ICs come out, things just came out about 80% of our quality, 70% of the price, some people use, low-end brands. And then slowly, the quality is getting better, the price is getting lower and lower People slowly climb up and make big efforts. Our company has high profits anyway, followed by price cuts, 9 US dollars, 8 hairs, 7 hairs... It's all the way and domestic killings. How much do you guess the final kill? $0.22 U.S. Dollar. The same thing, which was previously sold for $1, is now sold for $0.22, is still selling, indicating that it is still profitable. Later, our company developed an improved model, which is not too complicated. It is to strengthen the ESD anti-static and to speed up the reaction. After the new model came out, the market price was stable for about half a year. Later, domestically produced products also followed the same performance product. The price quickly dropped below $0.2. Our company didn't think it was interesting. We wouldn't do it. Those six or seven people were not on this product. Some of the products were changed, some were changed product lines, some were changed companies. Now this IC is still there, but not on the mobile phone, in special occasions that can only use resistive screens, such as some industrial, automotive Etc. This type of touch IC head is now domestic.

I looked at a chip from a piece to a piece of hair, and looked at the foolishness. 2 We have more profit than the company. Let's think about the profits that were made when the domestic alternatives didn't come out. It was even more stupid. When I began to vaguely understand why Europeans and Americans can live so elegant.

This is just a small story on one model of our company. There are tens of thousands of products in our company. Later, this kind of thing is getting more and more, similar things are getting more and more in the customer - before domestic communication power comes out, International brands sold tens of thousands, our customers have made it, and now sell hundreds of, also sent a bunch of services. Imported tens of thousands of inverters, made out after selling thousands of domestic.

Those foreigners used to work off at five o'clock in the afternoon. At night, they also need to accompany domestic customers to concall. The profit reduction is good. The entire market is being terminated. It is a job to lose their jobs. The key is that the Chinese are also very numerous. I don’t know if they remember the old cheese, I’m reminded of the days in Shenzhen, whether I’m going to see China.

You have grabbed so many people's jobs. Of course, it is impossible to be welcomed by others. At least one of the reasons. You don’t see Trump running. The three words “The Chinese rob us of our jobs.” When the American Exclusion Act of the United States was the largest, The promoters of the United States are the 'proletariat' of the United States -- blue-collar workers in various industries, because Chinese laborers have robbed them a lot of jobs. = = = = = = = = = Someone has misunderstood the example I just cited. In the first place, the chip is divided into grades, but it is not low-end to make chips. For developing countries, smaller chips are also more expensive than clothes and plastic bowls, or selling high-end mineral oil. Second, The low end does not necessarily not make money. Our company's own philosophy now is: To make the product cheap and sufficient is to work with technology content.

There are also many examples of big products, such as our digital TV, IP camera chip has long been overwhelmed by Huawei Hass. Also said that the mobile phone, when the Motorola recalled the world, our main mobile phone chip almost in the world In every corner, the influence was so great that the company's CEO came to China to be interviewed by 386. Now that it has been withdrawn from the mobile phone kit, Huawei Hass' mobile phone kit has sold hundreds of millions of dollars in the past two years. ===== ========== Some people still say that Japanese and South Koreans have also grabbed a lot of high-end rice bowls. Why aren't they not so unsatisfied? I want to say: People who say so are definitely young and young. , Japan and the United States in the 1980s and the United States campfire trade war, car warfare, beef fight may not have any impression.

Second, more importantly, China and Japan and South Korea are completely different countries. I mean scale. This scale is qualitatively different. Japan has a population of 130 million. South Korea has a population of only 50 million people. China is 1.4 billion. How much industry? Not to mention Korea. And China's population is more than the total population of all developed countries. If so many people can join the tide of industrialization, no matter which way you join in - Foxconn production line The younger sister Ye Hao, Jingdong’s deliveryman, Dajiang’s R&D engineer, and the company’s PE/VC every day—If so many people develop in the modern historical process, mobilize, everyone feels that China What level can I go to?

China’s scale guarantees:

Chinese people can enter a lot of fields: If you have only 50 million people, you may have advanced electronics and shipbuilding, but your mechanical engineering, biology, IT, aerospace... There will not be enough engineers. And China will not, China The scale of potential human resources in each area is almost equal to that of a medium-sized developed country.

2. China eats from the low end of the industry chain, but even if it climbs up, it doesn’t stop eating. In Japan and South Korea, their industrial chain upgrades, and the relatively low-end ones are transferred out and transferred to China. Southeast Asia, India. China can have a wealth of resources at different levels. While a small number of industries go up, the lower end of quite a few pyramids still eats their own food. Now that China has developed machinery and electronics, there can still be a lot of Material processing enterprises, clothes and shoes plastic pots. Foxconn Shenzhen can not stay, you can go to Dongguan, go to Henan. At least for a long time, the industrial transfer can be completed in China. Before the Japanese and Korean meat to eat Chinese soup, etc. When so many people in China started eating meat, the soup could not be left to others. This is very scary.

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