Source: New Financial Watch
Suddenly, the lack of core and soullessness has become the hottest word in the field of China's science and technology and information technology. The chip industry has become the most vulnerable part of the international competition. It has become an unspeakable pain in the minds of countless industries. 'The US ban It may cause ZTE (31.310, 0.00, 0.00%) to enter a state of shock. 'The remarks made by Zeng Yimin, chairman of ZTE, made people feel chill in this season. After all, ZTE is the top four communications company in the world. With 80,000 employees, the annual turnover exceeds 100 billion RMB.
After the U.S. government started its operations with ZTE, it was revealed that there was a strong possibility that Huawei would also conduct a censorship. The reality that the two communications industry leaders faced on the same chip once again made the sound of mastering core technologies.
In terms of total economic output, China is already the second largest in the world, second only to the United States; from the perspective of industrial development, China has 39 industrial categories, 191 medium-sized and 525 sub-categories, and it is the only one in the world (nothing a) The country that owns all industrial categories in the United Nations Industrial Classification, thus forming an industry that is unique in the world and complete in the industry. Unfortunately, being large but not strong, it is a true portrayal of many industries.
The love of science and technology is no less important than China in any country. There have been plans and arrangements for the chip industry, both at the corporate level and at the industry level. Academician Ni Guangnan is the representative. Scientific and technological workers have also worked hard. It is a pity. History has never been able to assume that Lenovo at the time was more concerned with lack of energy.
Even ZTE, which suffered a chip crisis, had once invested in the chip field. In 2000, ZTE and the National Development and Investment Corporation jointly established ZTE IC, which first opened 3G mobile phone baseband chip R&D in Asia, compared with Huawei’s at the time. Think ahead.
Throughout the past two decades, the electronic information and communication industry has been a major highlight of China’s economic development. The output of mobile phones, computers, and flat panels is the highest in the world, and it can even be said that it has formed a monopoly advantage in the entire international division of labor and collaboration industry. On the chain, it exerts its own comparative advantage to form a complete industrial chain. However, the lack of core and soullessness has not been solved.
As the crisis of the ZTE intensifies, the Chinese core is also facing opportunities under pressure. Mastering core technologies can only rely on themselves. It is no longer empty talk but a solid investment. It has become the consensus of the government, enterprises and society. Made in China. The top level of 2025 is planned for the construction of multiple projects. The dawn of the Chinese core is gradually emerging.
ZTE’s emergency
ZTE has suffered the biggest 'black swan' since its establishment.
On the evening of April 16, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued an export ban on ZTE. Until March 13, 2025, US companies will be prohibited from selling components, products, software and technology to ZTE. The time limit is as long as seven years. .
ZTE Corporation has ushered in a crucial moment of survival.
According to Yin Yimin, chairman of ZTE, the US ban may cause ZTE to enter a state of shock. ZTE subsequently issued a statement that this refusal would not only seriously endanger the survival of ZTE, but also hurt a large number of US companies. The interests of all ZTE's partners.
One fact that should not be overlooked is that the core products of ZTE, from mobile phones to base stations, from switches to routers, rely heavily on U.S. chips.
Judging from the current products operated by ZTE, it mainly includes consumer electronics such as mobile phones and tablets, as well as telecommunication equipment. Telecom equipment accounts for about 60% of revenues and related services, while consumer electronics products account for about 30%.
Among them, the key components of ZTE's telecommunications equipment, such as transmitters and receivers for optical transmissions, etc., are still supplied by international companies as the main source of parts supply. Parts in telecommunications equipment also have many suppliers from the United States. On the whole, foreign parts account for at least 60% of its material parts, while materials from US suppliers account for at least half of the 60%. ZTE's self-produced parts ratio is not high.
In terms of mobile phone products, Qualcomm is currently one of ZTE’s largest source of application processors, accounting for approximately 60% of its mobile phone products. MediaTek is ranked second, nearly 30%, while its major memory and storage providers are Korea. Samsung and Hynix dominate.
It is not difficult to infer that, with the ban of the US Department of Commerce, once stocks run out, ZTE will soon face a crisis of no rice.
This is just a microcosm of domestic companies' dependence on chip imports. Although the government has supported the chip industry for many years, China has not made any major breakthroughs in chip self-sufficiency, especially on high-end chips.
ZTE is also actively carrying out self-help. On the evening of April 18th, a photograph taken at Shenzhen Airport (7.830, 0.00, 0.00%) was swiped in the circle of ZTE employees. The picture is a background of three people dragging luggage. In front of the crisis, Hou Weigui, who is now 76 years old, is once again out in the mountains and actively rushes for the break.
In addition, the New Financial Observer reporter learned that ZTE has established a crisis response team at the earliest time, analyzed and formulated countermeasures in various fields, and deliberately encouraged employees to maintain a stable attitude.
However, as of now, the crisis has not been resolved.
On the evening of April 27th, there was news that MediaTek would stop selling chips to ZTE. However, MediaTek later clarified that due to the fact that Taiwan’s regional economic authorities had already included ZTE in Taiwan’s strategic export control of high-tech goods. After exporting goods to ZTE in Taiwan, they must obtain export licenses for strategic high-tech goods in advance and then export them to relevant departments. At present, MediaTek cannot really ship to ZTE, because it is applying for a permit, and once it has obtained the permit Can be shipped.
This time ZTE suffered a US sales ban, not without signs.
As early as the previous few years, ZTE had been investigated and sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Commerce because of violations of U.S. trade sanctions and other non-compliance issues. In the meantime, because ZTE Corporation actively negotiated with the U.S. side, the U.S. government announced that it had 'temporarily' suspended ZTE’s sanctions were granted to ZTE for a three-month temporary export permit, which was later extended several times and was last extended until February 27, 2017.
Only when ZTE's luck has disappeared, the risk may not be able to be removed every time.
'Technology Trade' and 'Trade and Industry'
The chip crisis of ZTE has also triggered alarm in the industry and outside.
Accompanied by this, the voice of independent chip R&D has also been reheated. The name of the computer expert, Academician Ni Guangnan of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, has also been raised again.
As a person who has been working hard for a lifetime in the IT system that is widely regarded as the domestic intellectual property right in the industry, she is now 79 years old and still shouts for her own chip.
In the interview with ZTE, Ni Guangnan said in an interview that this is an inevitably happening matter. It is only when the concrete occurrence will be unpredictable.
'We have always said to be our own chip. If you do not do it, you will certainly encounter a lot of problems. The core technology is subject to people is our biggest hidden danger. The ZTE event also verified this. If you do not master the core technology, people will sooner or later use each There are ways to set obstacles for you. ' Ni Guangnan said.
Ni Guangnan's words represent the views of some people in the industry.
In fact, today's dispute over the route of chips, such as taking independent research and development, importing and absorbing, and relying on imports, actually, in the course of Lenovo's development many years ago, Ni Guangnan and Liu Chuanzhi have already performed.
In 1994, due to disagreements on the R&D route, Ni Guangnan, then the chief engineer of Lenovo, became a dissonant with Liu Chuanzhi, the then president of Lenovo. Ni Guangnan believes that Lenovo should benchmark Intel's 'chip' technology and hope to fully develop 'China Core'. Engineering, taking the technical route. The latter believes that at the time, Lenovo's strength could not match the needs of the 'China Core' project. Due to the lack of industrial foundation, technology reserves, and capital strength, Chinese companies could not have achieved it in a short period of time. Change the pattern of the international computer industry.
The dispute between the two was then considered to represent the struggle between the two companies' technology, industry, trade, and trade and technology.
In the end, however, the battle ended with Liu Chuanzhi. In 1995 Ni Guangnan was dismissed from Lenovo's chief engineer and director, and Lenovo's ASIC chips and other projects were suspended.
In the following four years, Ni Guangnan left Lenovo to return to the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and devoted all his energy to promoting open source software represented by Linux. He advocated the establishment of an autonomous and complete software industry system, and suggested that government procurement should be oriented toward domestic software.
Ni Guangnan once believed that the years when Lenovo switched to 'trade and technology' was a 'zigzag' detour. 'At that time, Huawei's technology had not reached Lenovo's level. Huawei's current development proves that it is feasible to always adhere to the development of core technology. ' Ni Guangnan said.
However, from this point of view, Lenovo did not go wrong with the "trade and technology" route.
At a meeting in 1996, after experiencing conflict with Ni Guangnan, Liu Chuanzhi shared his thoughts with Lenovo employees.
Liu Chuanzhi cited an example. The Japanese computer industry made a mistake in the 1980s. It thought that it was powerful enough to compete with the United States. No matter how independent it was, the international standard would not be compatible and the loss would be huge. Finally, it would have to come back again.
He believes: 'As a post-development country, we must use our market advantages. Do you want to sell products? I can help you sell them; I have low labor costs and can process them. Then I learn techniques from practical technologies to independent development. In this way, our technology is the most suitable for the market and will not be targeted.'
Ni Guangnan later encountered the dilemma of the overall ecological system in the independent research and development of the Ark CPU, Evermore Office, and so on, which confirmed this.
In addition, the autonomous chip industry is breaking, and it is by no means a company able to bear it. It needs the strong support of the country, the upstream and downstream cooperation of the industrial chain, and the division of labor among multiple companies.
For Liu Chuanzhi, at the time, China’s economy was in a period of rapid development and there were many opportunities. Most of the enterprises were also paying attention to the immediate needs of their interests. The technological atmosphere was not very strong. The enterprises urgently needed expansion to implement the trade and technology strategy. Making money first, and then considering other issues, may be correct. Practice has also proven that Liu Chuanzhi succeeded. ' Financial commentator Tan Haojun thinks.
Some analysts have said that, in the resumption of trading, there was no initial accumulation of trade, and Lenovo did not have the premise of surviving in the market under the prevailing circumstances, and there would be no achievement of today’s association. Therefore, Lenovo has no choice.
Liu Zhizhi also said many years later that Lenovo’s choice of trade and technology was a compelling one.
Engaging in the chip industry needs to be tolerant to loneliness, but also to be willing to invest. Saying that it is not necessary to engage in chips with rich money, no money is absolutely impossible. ' This is becoming the consensus of the whole industry. China's core future can meet with the government's The determination is closely related.
However, as the level of economic development continued to increase, especially as competition in the international market continued to intensify, trade-oriented mid- to low-end technology expansion and scale expansion entered a bottleneck, and the pattern of technology as king became more and more evident.
ZTE and Lenovo and other companies have also started to increase their investment in technology. In 2009, Liu Chuanzhi stated that Lenovo’s trade and technology accumulation is enough and will try to break through.
If you don’t, you’re eating after the people. You run for long distances. Many people eat soil behind people’s homes. Eating earth is because we can’t run. When we learn people’s technology, we definitely don’t want to eat soil. Advance. '
But breaking the independent chip is not easy.
The national team enters the game
After 20 years, China’s chip industry finally began to wake up. The launch of a single-billion-dollar investment project demonstrated determination and perseverance to occupy the commanding height of the chip in the future. However, it is clear that the future is still long and fleeting. In the face of opportunities, we need a higher vision and more pragmatic steps.
At the same time when the U.S. government imposed a ban on ZTE, the national memory base project, an important component of domestic chips, quietly took a step in Wuhan. In mid-April, the key node of the project, the chip production machine, began. The installation and debugging.
This is by far the largest single investment project in the technical field of China Hi-Tech (6.130, -0.53, -7.96%). There is no one. According to the plan, the total investment of the project is about 160 billion yuan, and the main production is memory chips. 1968 acres. China's first batch of 32-layer three-dimensional NAND flash memory chips with completely independent intellectual property rights will be manufactured here, and after the completion of the project, the total production capacity will reach 300,000 tablets/month, and the annual production value will exceed 10 billion US dollars.
"This is a national team project that we often say. It was not directly related to the difficulties faced by ZTE. However, under the background of the lack of core and soullessness in the country, there will inevitably be a benchmark." Wang Tao, who has long been engaged in research and development in this field, told the new financial Observe the reporter.
According to reports, in 2016, the National Storage Base Project was launched in Wuhan. One year later, in September 2017, the plant area of the project was capped in advance. After the chip production machine is installed and installed, it is expected that the first batch of China's first batch of products will have full autonomy during the year. Intellectual property 32-dimensional three-dimensional NAND flash memory chip. The scientific content of the plant can enter the world's top three levels.
Also in Wuhan, the National Information and Optoelectronics Innovation Center, which holds the strategic task of solving the 'Key and Common Technologies' Collaborative R&D and Realizing the First Commercialization' of China's information and optoelectronic manufacturing industry, was established on April 26 in Wuhan.
High input and high output are the essential requirements for the development of top-level chips. Not only is it a project in Wuhan, China, but also several similar projects underway by South Korea’s Samsung are also a billion-dollar investment level. Its 64-layer 512G built in Pyeongtaek. The flash factory costs $14 billion.
So far, three-dimensional NAND flash memory chips are mostly used in mobile phones and high-performance servers. Currently, they all rely on imports. The market discourse has been controlled by Samsung, Toshiba, Micron, and other companies in the United States, Japan, and South Korea, and Wuhan Base has been put into production. This indicates that the industry has increased New players, and the capital investment of this scale, basically indicates that except for China, it will be very difficult to have new players nowadays.
Zhou Zixue, chairman of the China Semiconductor Industry Association, also believes that national policy support is an important reason for the rapid development of the semiconductor industry.
Some people say that 'China's autonomous chip' is like a dream that has been repeated for many years. In the past two or three decades, it has been repeatedly mentioned by people and once again lost and forgotten. Now this dream is starting to develop. The development of the chip industry has China. The internal demand for industrial development upgrades, and the Trump administration’s crackdown on ZTE, has objectively increased the sense of urgency and reality. The chip industry is important to China, mainly because of the end of China’s commitment to the global industrial division of labor collaboration chain. The product manufacturing process, so the scale of imports is huge, but many chip products are not actually consumed in China, but exist in electronic products sold around the world.
'The chip industry needs to endure loneliness, but also to be willing to invest. Saying that it is not necessary to engage in chips with rich money, no money is absolutely impossible. ' This is becoming the consensus of the industry.
The future of China's core can be closely related to the determination of the government. The central and local governments have begun to focus on supporting the integrated circuit (chip) industry. Both the scale of funding and the supportive thinking are unprecedented. The reason why this is so is the consideration of national security. What's more important is to eliminate the long-standing reality that the chip market is monopolized by foreign giants.
In the "Made in China 2025," which was clearly put forward to vigorously promote the development of key areas, integrated circuits and special equipment are ranked first. 'This plan is all-round. If it can be realized according to the plan, then it can be said that the Chinese chip industry is truly Have their own right to speak. 'Wang Tao introduced.
The IC industry chain can be broadly divided into three major areas: circuit design, chip manufacturing, packaging, and testing. The plan has clear goals. The design needs to focus on upgrading the design level of integrated circuits, and constantly enriching intellectual property and design tools, breaking through the relationship. The core universal chip for the development of national information and network security and electronic machine industry will improve the application adaptability of domestic chips; while manufacturing requires high-density packaging and three-dimensional (3D) micro-assembly technology, and at the same time, the autonomy of the packaging industry and testing will be improved. The ability to develop, but in the upper reaches of the industry chain has proposed the ability to form key manufacturing equipment supply.
In the United States, when China’s technology companies entered the US market and adopted technology restrictions on the acquisition of U.S. technology, 'national security' was one of the main factors cited almost every time. This is not only China’s choice but the United States’ rejection of Huawei’s entry into the U.S. market. To ban U.S. companies from trading with ZTE, the banner of national security is high.
When the Chinese core began to catch up, South Korea’s development in this area has provided a path for China to learn from. When academician Ni Guangnan began reminding the importance of the chip industry more than 20 years ago, Korea is also behind in this area. The company began to take the lead and gradually found and formed its own advantages in the global market. Today, Samsung and Hynix have become industry giants. For China, the development history of Korean companies is both an experience and an opponent that they must face in the future. .
In the field of chips, China is unprecedentedly difficult to catch up with the advanced world. It needs sufficient technology accumulation and capital investment, and it needs to have the courage to survive.'