Xinhua News Agency reporter Peng Yi
The U.S. Department of Commerce recently announced the implementation of a 7-year export ban on ZTE Corporation, raising concerns about the core competitiveness of China's semiconductor chip industry. How did China break through the predicament of 'core-lessness' and embarked on a domestically controlled and alternative? The road to development?
Missing core
The “2006 China IC Industry Analysis Report” shows that China’s current core ICs have a low share of domestically produced chips, and the domestic share of chips in computers and mobile communication terminals is almost zero.
According to Dr. Li Xuwu, Senior Consultant of Zhejiang Zhijiang Laboratory Chip Center, the perspective of China's chip industry can be analyzed from both design and manufacturing. Over the past few years, China's chip design has progressed rapidly, and design companies have exponentially increased. But chip design technology and experience are far reaching. Inadequacies, especially in advanced signal converters, such as the conversion from analog continuous signals to digital signals and reverse conversion, greatly lag behind foreign countries.
Li Xuwu once served as executive vice president of technology research and development of SMIC International Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Co., Ltd.. He won the highest honor in the company's technical field 'Intel Academician' during his work at Intel Corporation in the United States. He is deeply impressed with the development differences between the semiconductor industry in China and the United States. He said that In terms of chip manufacturing, there are still many gaps between China and the world's most advanced technology. 'Usually Chinese companies can purchase systems needed for chip assembly from foreign manufacturers, but once the foreign governments take restrictive measures, weaknesses are exposed.'
For example, in the core service base station field of ZTE, the base station chip has the lowest self-sufficiency. The base station chip itself has much higher requirements for maturity and high reliability than consumer-grade chips. Some experts believe that after the United States announces the regulatory measures, China will start trials. It takes at least two years for domestic replacement chips to be used in batches.
According to Dr. Ding Xianfeng, director of the chip strategy team at Alibaba Cloud Connected Scientists, the status of chip research and development in China is scattered and small.
Semiconductor chips are an industry that requires high investment and economies of scale. They have long investment cycles and high risks. Many people are reluctant to get involved. The Chinese government has increased funding support for the semiconductor industry from chip R&D to manufacturing since 2003. However, experts believe that the current investment is too decentralized, and some investment-invalid projects divide the funds.
Luo Jianjun, general manager of Hangzhou Huaye Microelectronics Co., Ltd., a semiconductor industry practitioner, said: 'China is now not the only semiconductor production line but the design company. Without chip design, the production line cannot have its own controllable chip under the 'meter'. The pot eventually returned to the old road to OEM.'
The core of the road
Then, how should China 'pick up the core'? Experts say it can't be done in one go, but it needs to seize the existing opportunities. The Moore's Law, which has long been adhered to by the chip industry, considers: When the price does not change, the number of components that can be accommodated on integrated circuits , about twice every 18 to 24 months will double, performance will also double, but Li Xuwu said, due to semiconductor lithography and other bottlenecks, coupled with semiconductors are getting closer and closer to the physical limits, The speed of replacement is slowing down. This is an opportunity for China.
"The front walks slowly. It's easy to follow. With foreign companies first, the latecomers can also take a lot less detours," said Li Xuwu. 'Of course, there are many 'landmines' buried on the road, that is, various patents. All bypassing is also very challenging.
The beginning of development of China's semiconductor industry began in 2000. At that time, China Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd., the largest semiconductor manufacturer in China, was established. However, at the beginning of its establishment, it had already faced technology from the United States International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), Intel, etc. The fierce competition of giants, as well as strong foundries such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd., together with a huge industry talent gap.
Luo Jianjun said that the government should give guidance in professional setting and employment in colleges and universities, especially to strengthen cross-discipline training. It takes more than 10 years to cultivate a leader in integrated circuit design.
Ding Xianfeng also believes that the country’s current policy for entrepreneurial talent is good, but it needs to be tilted to a large number of talents who can fight in large companies for a long time. 'The chip needs to fight on a large scale, and it needs the ability to command thousands of troops rather than publishing articles. '.
In addition, experts believe that it is more important to encourage Chinese companies to purchase domestically-made chips when domestic chip technology is in place, rather than simply holding the attitude that 'the foreign moon is better than China’s round'. 'We are satisfied with import substitution for a long time. Aggressive'. For example, Huawei, Spreadtrum's mobile phone chip can fully meet a large part of the demand.
The direction of investment in the chip industry needs to be controlled by people with more industry perspectives. In addition to national financial support, there is also a need for active participation of the market and social capital. Some experts suggest that the China Securities Regulatory Commission can provide some acceleration for chip companies. Approval and other convenient channels allow enterprises to have more opportunities to raise funds for R&D from the market.
Ding Xianfeng believes that the era of digitalization requires trillions of chips and sensors. This era is almost entirely China. 'Because China can master such chips and sensors, from modules, Internet of Things terminals, edge services to cloud computing, China can do '.
How do Chinese companies learn from the past? The consensus view of experts is: Low-key work, law-abiding, and accumulation of their own core technologies.