According to foreign media reports, according to foreign media reports, semiconductor wafer manufacturers worldwide wafers and South Korean local governments reached an agreement to expand factories, initially agreed to invest 480 billion won or equivalent to 449 million US dollars, including 200 million US dollars of foreign direct The investment, which will be used to expand the production capacity of 12-inch silicon wafers, is expected to be completed by 2020. In response to this, Global Wafer Clarification stated that the possibility of expanding factories in various regions is currently under investigation.
It is reported that the silicon fab to be expanded is located in Cheonan City, South Korea. At 80 kilometers south of Seoul, it is estimated that it will bring 185 job opportunities in the next five years, and the revenue will look at 900 billion won. At present, Universal Crystal is the world’s largest company. The three major suppliers of silicon wafers, with a market share of 18% in 2017, have a total of 26 subsidiaries and are located in 14 countries around the world.
Global Wafer stated that it is investigating the possibility of plant expansion in various regions. In countries such as Japan, South Korea, and the United States of the existing plant areas, the government’s incentive and subsidies are also one of the survey indicators. It has not yet been finalized, whether it is expansion or The possibilities for building a new plant are all under consideration, but other conditions must be met before it can be carried out.
Previously, Global Silicon Board Chairman Xu Xiulan had stated that the global supply of semi-conductor silicon wafers does not need to be substantially expanded. In terms of the global wafers themselves, they will achieve the best use of space in existing plants and make good use of space. Increase the bottleneck process. To build a new plant requires 3 conditions, the first is the price returned to a reasonable, stable and healthy figure, and the second is to have a clear (5 years) customer order. Third, only new Specifications, the most advanced new plant.
In addition, foreign media reported that Global Wafer's Japan-based GWJ will invest approximately 8.5 billion yen in three years to increase production of semiconductor silicon wafers. The target is to increase 12-inch wafers by 110,000 in the first half of 2019. Currently, the global crystal order visibility has been reached. In 2020, the production capacity has been booked more than half, and it also represents the overall operating performance before 2019. This year, the prices of 6, 8 and 12-inch silicon wafers will both increase compared to last year, and the increase will be better than the 4th quarter of last year. The price will continue to rise.
2. Domestic chips welcome policy support opportunities SMIC once rebounded 5%
Sina Hong Kong Stocks SMIC may have benefited from national policy support. The stock price rose by 5% and narrowed to 2.3%. ZTE’s sanctions in the United States once again showed the importance of domestic substitution of chips. Analytical materials are expected to increase as the country increases investment. Opportunities for domestic chips are highlighted, and companies with solid research and development are expected to grow into giants in the air.
Behind the Sino-U.S. trade frictions such as the ZTE Incident are the dispute between science and technology and strategic dominance, which will prompt China to accelerate the occupation of technological highlands and achieve localization substitution. Therefore, major domestic semiconductor companies such as SMIC may benefit from the government’s increased support efforts. SMIC is the absolute leader in the field of wafer foundry in China, and is responsible for the country's determination to manufacture silicon wafers in the upper reaches. Last year, it achieved revenue of 3.101 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year increase of 6.4%, a record high. Sina Finance
3. All specifications of silicon wafer supply will continue to be tight The price increase will not be too small
The recent shortage of semi-conductor silicon wafers continued to unfold, and silicon wafer giants raised their product prices. The world's largest and second-largest silicon wafer maker Japan Shin-Etsu Semiconductor, Japan's Sheng Hi-Tech Co., Ltd. have successively raised their quotation in the first quarter of 2018. Xu Xiulan, Chairman of the Global Silicone Board of the three major silicon wafer manufacturers, also stated that the supply of silicon wafers of various specifications will continue to be tight in 2018-2019, and the price increase will not be too small.
Continuation of supply and demand 'scissors'
Since 2017, global silicon wafers have continued to show an imbalance between supply and demand, with quotes increasing by 15%-20%. It is expected that the price of silicon wafers will increase by 20% in 2018. Zheng Zhenxiang, an analyst at Zhongtai Electronics, believes that the global silicon wafer supply and demand 'scissors' 'It will continue into 2020. The demand gap for silicon wafers will be 10%-20% in 2018. After the 12-inch, 8-inch silicon wafers are priced up, the 6-inch silicon wafers may also rise in price.
Among various specifications of silicon wafers, 12-inch silicon wafers account for more than 70%. According to IHS Markit report, with the rapid development of smart devices, the demand for logic chips and memory chips such as CPU/GPU has remained strong. Most of these chips are adopted. 12-inch wafer fabrication. The future demand for large-size silicon wafers will further increase.
According to Yan Lingxing, an analyst at Zhongtai Electronics, the global total production capacity of 12-inch silicon wafers is 5.5 million pieces per month, while more than 92% of the production capacity comes from Japan's Shinitsu Semiconductor, Hi-Tech, Universal Wafer and other top five silicon wafer factories. An expansion rate of about 4% was announced. According to statistics from the Foresight Research Institute, domestic production of 12-inch wafer fabs reached 10, with a production capacity of 620,000 tablets/month. 15 projects were under construction for 12-inch fabs, and the capacity under construction exceeded 81. Million / month. The 12-inch silicon wafer is expected to further increase the demand gap.
IHSMarkit expects that the area of semiconductor silicon wafers will increase by 4.5% in 2018. Global Silicon Board Chairman Xu Xiulan said that it does not consider investing in new plants, nor does it have plans to expand production, but allows the existing production lines to release maximum production efficiency.
Localization continues to advance
Large-size silicon wafers are key materials in the field of integrated circuit manufacturing, and they are also a major shortcoming in China's semiconductor industry chain.
According to industry insiders, currently China's semiconductor wafer suppliers mainly produce wafers of 6 inches and below, and have only two or three 8-inch silicon wafers, while 12-inch silicon wafers have always relied on imports. Large-size wafer size It is difficult to produce, and the main technical obstacle lies in the high purity of silicon in silicon wafers due to integrated circuit-related processes, and the yield problem caused by the increase in wafer size.
In 2015, former founder of SMIC (9.79-2.00%) Zhang Haojing participated in the investment to establish Shanghai Xinsheng, becoming the first 12-inch silicon fab in China. The total planned production capacity of Shanghai Xinsheng 12-inch silicon wafer project is 60 Million / month, the original plan of 150,000 / month production capacity in mid-2018 production, all production capacity in 2021 full production.
However, Yang Jing, the secretary of Shanghai Xinyang, told the China Securities Journal that due to changes in the management of Shanghai Xinsheng Group and difficulty in ordering crystallizer equipment, the actual production of Shanghai Xinsheng was not as expected, and the current production capacity was only 5 Million / month or so.
According to public information, on June 30, 2017, Zhang Haojing resigned from the post of general manager of Shanghai Xinsheng, and Shanghai Fuyang Chairman Wang Fuxiang also no longer served as chairman of Shanghai Xinsheng, but both reserved the board of directors. Shanghai Xinyang holds Shanghai New Rose 27.56% stake.
For many years, Zhonghuan Co., Ltd., which has cultivated photovoltaic monocrystalline silicon wafers for years, has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Wuxi Municipal Government and Jingsheng Electromechanical Co., Ltd., and will jointly invest in the construction of integrated silicon wafer projects with a total investment of approximately US$3 billion and an initial investment of approximately 1.5 billion yuan. USD. China Securities News
4. Chinese customers scan the goods? Chip equipment supplier ASML saw rising revenue this quarter, Maori drop
Semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV issued its first quarter earnings report for 2018 on April 18: The revenue quarter was reduced by 10.8% to 2.285 billion euros, slightly higher than the 2.2 billion euros estimated three months ago; Interest rate increased from 45.2% in 4Q17 to 48.7%, which was better than the 47-48% estimated three months ago. The rate of profit fell to 28.1% from 29.3% in the fourth quarter of 2017. 16.2% to 540 million Euros. According to the Thomson Reuters survey, analysts had expected ASML's quarterly net profit to reach 500 million Euros.
Looking forward to this season, ASML expects revenues to reach 25.6 billion euros (middle value of 2.55 billion euros, equivalent to a quarterly increase of 11.6%), with an estimated gross margin of about 43%.
Peter Wennink, chief executive officer of ASML, said on the 18th that shipments of EUV (EUV) equipment in the first quarter of 2018 were 3 units, while another one was ready for shipment.
ASML spent back 170 million euros to buy back its own company's shares during the first quarter of 2018; the stock repurchase quota for the 2018/2019 year had left 2.33 billion euros.
The press release of the fourth quarter 2017 earnings report released in January this year shows that ASML's annual sales of system equipment in the Chinese market increased by more than 20% in 2017.
ASML revealed at the time that, in addition to shipping to mainland China fabs operated by non-land companies, 2018 is expected to ship to five Chinese customers.
The semiconductor etching machine manufacturer Lam Research Corp. (LRCX.US) pointed out on April 17 that in the third quarter of fiscal year 2018 (as of March 25, 2018), China’s revenue accounted for 17% of the total. , Jumped to the second largest market. As a comparison, in fiscal year 3 of fiscal year 2017 and the second quarter of fiscal year 2018, China accounted for 11% of Colin's R&D revenue.
5. TSMC today said that the four major focus will be: mining, EUV, 7/10nm, MediaTek kinetic energy
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. will hold a law meeting today. The US Department of Foreign Investment Report on the 18th is expected to hold the second quarter of TSMC's operating level, and reiterated that the target of annual revenue increase of 10~15% will remain unchanged in 2018. US Department of Foreign Investment also believes that the demand for cryptocurrency is stable. , Apple 2019 using EUV technology, 10nm revenue and MediaTek strong kinetic energy to bring changes to the mobile business, will be the four key focus of tomorrow's Law Society.
The US Department of Foreign Investment estimated that TSMC’s revenue for the second quarter will fall between 0-2%. With the beginning of inventory replenishment, MediaTek, NVIDIA, the cryptocurrency boom will offset the trend of Apple’s orders in the off-season. In the second half of the year, TSMC operations will A strong rebound, while the US Department of Foreign Investment also slightly adjusted its forecast data for the 1st quarter, in order to reflect the revenue in 2018, the exchange rate headwinds. Meanwhile, the US Department of Foreign Investment also lowered its 2019 capital expenditure estimate due to the ease of use of EUV technology.
The cryptocurrency has always been the most concerned topic in the market recently, but the U.S. Department of Foreign Investment believes that the cryptocurrency trend will fluctuate in the third quarter. In particular, bitcoin diving recently, if bitcoin prices continue to drop substantially, I am afraid It will also affect the cryptocurrency field.
U.S. Department of Foreign Investment believes that strong demand for 7nm, 10nm has cryptocurrency orders, 12nm industry is expected to meet the potential growth of Qualcomm orders, will be TSMC's key operations this year.
The U.S. Department of Foreign Investment further pointed out that all three iPhone products will still use the A series chips this year, and will use the 7-nanometer process. It is estimated that the 7-nanometer products will grow steadily in the second half of the year; and in the 10nm process, the demand for the old iPhone will continue. , Hass, the demand for cryptocurrency pull is relatively critical, especially if the trend of cryptocurrency mining slowdown, there may be demand for 10nm weaker doubts.
As for the 12- and 16-nanometer manufacturing process, due to the strong demand from MediaTek, NVIDIA, China's mining company Bitmain, and maintaining demand in short supply until 2019. Economic Daily
6. The COF tape production base with a total investment of 1.2 billion yuan was started in the Hefei Comprehensive Bonded Zone.
According to the Hefei Evening News, on April 17th, the largest COF tape production base for semiconductor display chip packaging in mainland China was started in the Hefei Comprehensive Bonded Zone, with a total investment of 1.2 billion yuan. Hefei will work with Hefei Comprehensive Bonded Zone to open a new semiconductor field. era.
It is reported that COF tapes, often referred to as flip-chip films, are flexible circuit boards that connect semiconductor display chips and end products, and are key materials for COF packaging. At present, only a few companies in South Korea and Taiwan can produce.
'Our project design capacity is 70 million COF tapes per month. It is expected to start production in the second quarter of 2019. The annual output value will reach 1 billion yuan after the full production. 'The person in charge of the project told the reporter that after the completion of the project, it plans to introduce a bachelor degree or above. More than 300 talents, can create more than 1,000 direct employment opportunities, promote and stimulate the development of domestic integrated circuit industry and personnel training.
The person in charge introduced that the reason why he chose to settle in Hefei was to have a complete industrial chain in the display area. After the production site is put into operation, COF tapes will be locally produced, which effectively fills the COF tape blank and can promote Hefei IC. The formation of the entire industrial chain structure helps form an internationally competitive industrial cluster.