The chip is known as the 'grain' of modern industry and is the core of the information technology industry. The development of its industrial technology is directly related to the development level of the electronic industry. In recent years, the province has firmly seized the strategic opportunity for the development of the semiconductor industry and vigorously developed it. With the integration of leading industries, there is a huge market demand for driving chips, memory chips, home appliances chips and other specialty chips. The semiconductor industry has achieved a 'leap-forward development from nothing' to 'everything'. The province's semiconductor companies from 2013 Dozens of companies have increased to nearly 150 at present, and the growth rate ranks in the forefront of the country. Initially, a complete industrial chain from design, manufacturing to packaging testing, materials and equipment has been formed. The main products involved in storage, display drivers, automotive electronics, and video surveillance , Microprocessors and other fields. What is the development of silicon production?
The output value has increased by more than 10 times, initially forming a complete industrial chain
Wearing a dust-proof cap, wearing a dustless suit, wearing a mask, gloves, dusting through a dust pad, and dusting through the air shower room... Recently, the reporter visited the lithography machine of Hefei Core Electronics Co., Ltd. In the production workshop, after a series of strict dust-proof procedures, we entered the company's product R&D center and saw only one large-scale lithography machine in the eye. The technicians were nervously debugging.
'On a fingernail-sized chip, the densely populated millions of circuits need a lithography machine to complete. Therefore, in the chip manufacturing process, the cleanliness requirements are very high. Even fine dust may cause poor wiring.' Li Xiangbin, head of the engineering department, told the reporter that as the core equipment for manufacturing chips, the lithography machine had completely relied on imports before. The company's independently developed direct-write lithography machine realized 500-nanometer line-width write-through, supporting 65-nm line width. As a result, the manufactured chips can meet the applications of navigation, displays, mobile phones and other fields. 'The chip industry belongs to the high-tech industry and is also a high-barrier industry. Only by mastering the core technologies, will it be controlled by people. After the photolithography machine has been domesticated, , broke the market monopoly of foreign products, and the price of imported products has also dropped significantly.
Anhui Dongke Semiconductor Co., Ltd. is a chip company that integrates design, R&D, and production in Maanshan City. Its power supply chips, touch control chips and other products are widely used in chargers, power adapters, LED drive power supplies, etc. Long Xie introduced that in the field of power chips, domestically produced technologies are very mature and can completely replace imports. The market is enjoying rapid growth. Last year, Anhui Dongke sold over 200 million power chips, with an output value of 130 million yuan. This year will be further. To increase production capacity, the output value is expected to exceed 200 million yuan.
Taking Hefei as an example, there were only 12 IC companies in 2013. As of December 2017, Hefei has reached 129 integrated circuit companies. 'The introduction of Tao Hong, executive vice president of the Hefei Semiconductor Industry Association, is the sixth largest crystal in the world. The circle foundry company Taiwan Powerchip Technology, the world's largest photomask manufacturer, USA Phtronics, the domestic packaging enterprise leader Tongfu Microelectronics, the leading player in the design industry, Taiwan Lianfa Technology, and other companies accelerated the gathering of polymer fertilizer, Qunlian Electronics, Duntai Technology, Silicon Force Jie, Beijing Zhaoyi Innovation, Junzheng Technology, etc. have also settled in the provincial capital. MediaTek has set up the world's second largest R&D center in Hefei, with a chip design capability of 7nm; China Electronics 38 independently researched and developed “Soulcore II” A' can complete one hundred billion floating point operations in one second. The single-core performance exceeds 4 times the performance of similar chips in the international market. The 12-inch chip-level single-crystal silicon wafers independently developed by IC Semiconductor fill the gaps. Domestic gaps; The Junghein 12-inch line has been mass-produced, and it has now achieved a capacity of 5,000 wafers per month. It is expected to reach a monthly production capacity of 40,000 wafers by 2020 and is expected to become the world's largest panel-driven chip system. Hefei Changxin Storage Technology Co., Ltd. has a total investment of 8 billion U.S. dollars. It plans to build a 125,000 DRAM memory wafer manufacturing base per month, which will effectively fill the gap in the domestic market and reshape the world DRAM memory chip industry. The gap with the preemptive countries is where?
High-end chips also rely heavily on imports, and equipment self-sufficiency is still low
At the same time of rapid development, it should also be noted that there is a big gap between the chip industry in Anhui and even the whole country and the first-mover countries. The situation in which domestic semiconductors mainly rely on imports remains unchanged. Data show that China’s integrated circuit imports reached as high as USD 260.1 billion in 2017 , an increase of 14.6% over the same period last year.
'Especially in the field of high-end chips such as communications and CPUs, it also relies heavily on imports.' Tao Hong introduced that although it can be self-sufficient in the low-end and mid-range chips, it is in high-end chips such as memory, CPU, GPU, FPGA, and optical communication. EDA tools are almost empty in China. 'There are dozens of chips on a mobile phone. Although many chips have been made locally, the core embedded CPUs are completely imported.'
'In terms of manufacturing, domestic common chips can now reach 28 nanometers, while chip giants such as TSMC, Samsung, and Intel have already mass-produced 7-nanometer chips, which are different for several generations. The equipment is heavily dependent on imports, and the localization rate is still not enough. 2%. ' A series of data in Tao Hongkou reflects the gap between Chinese and foreign chip industries.
Industrial application is also a short board. Hefei Hongjing Microelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. is a company mainly engaged in video processing chip R & D and design companies, the company's chairman Liu Wei believes that in the field of flat panel display chips, domestic chips although the technology is maturing, awareness It is also continuously improving, but industrial applications are still insufficient. 'Foreign chip industry has a wide range of products and a wide range of products. The current industrial chain of domestic chips is still not perfect, 'only saw trees, but no forests', and there is no synergistic clustering effect, so market share The rate is not high, many downstream companies are more willing to purchase imported products.
In addition, the chip has a long development cycle, high investment, and high risk. It is also a 'stumbling block' that restricts the development of the industry. 'A chip from R & D to mass production, the cycle is generally 18 months to 2 years, invested at least tens of millions of yuan. Once the market does not recognize it, it means that the initial investment has gone awry. ' Liu Yuan, technical manager of Hefei Junzheng Technology Co., Ltd., told reporters that the rapid upgrading of electronic products, enterprises must maintain the momentum of sustained development, we must continue to increase investment in research and development. For many private enterprises, it is impossible to invest a lot of money in the research and development of high-end products.
At present, the direction of chip design products in our province is still not concentrated. Around the flat panel display, home appliances, automotive and other leading industries have few core chips and high-quality products, and high-end products such as memory, processor, sensors, and artificial intelligence chips are in short supply, and most of the products are occupied by the market. The rate is not high and the competitiveness is not strong. In addition, the upstream and downstream links of the industrial chain are not closely related. The degree of correlation between chip design and manufacturing is not high, and the manufacturing level is currently unable to meet the needs of the design companies for tapeout. Most of the design companies need to stream films overseas. The lack of integrated companies, and the linkage mechanism between complete machine application companies and chip design companies such as automobiles and home appliances have not yet formed, and the capacity for collaborative development is insufficient. How to strengthen the industry to avoid risks?
Enhance manufacturing capabilities, strengthen chip design, and promote application in key areas
With a line width of 10 nanometers, on a 1 square centimeter wafer (silicon chip for silicon semiconductor integrated circuit fabrication), 5.5 billion transistors can be densely populated. The chip industry can be said to be the highest level of microfabrication in the world today. Fine operation on the accuracy of a few parts per million of hair. 'Tao Hong believes that the advantage of the foreign chip industry is a long-term continuous investment in capital, personnel training and technological accumulation formed, we should rationally view the gap between the Chinese and foreign chip industry The development of China's chip industry cannot be achieved overnight. The chip products have a wide range of products. It is unrealistic to hope that relying solely on independent research and development to replace imports in the short term. It should not be carried out overnight, regardless of cost, without considering the actual blind development of funds and talents. The future should be market-oriented, proceed from the reality of talent, capital, and technology foundation in our province, focus on and strengthen the core technology R&D programmatically, and gradually strengthen the province's semiconductor industry.
Recently, the "Development Plan of Semiconductor Industry in Anhui Province (2018-2021)" issued by the General Office of the Provincial Government clearly stated that by 2021, the scale of the semiconductor industry in our province will strive to reach 100 billion yuan, and the number of related companies in the semiconductor industry chain will reach 300. The chip design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, and equipment and materials leading enterprises reached 2 to 3 respectively. It focused on building the semiconductor industry development arc with Hefei as the core and the cities of Yancheng, Zhangzhou, Wuhu, Tongling and Chizhou as the main components. 'Nuclear and arc' semiconductor industry spatial distribution pattern.
The Hefei chip industry started earlier and initially established the development path of “design-led, wafer-fabrication-based, combined with the needs of the local market to establish the entire industry chain.” In the chip industry, chip design is a light asset project. Smaller, more effective. Wafer manufacturing industry is strong in driving, can effectively promote the development of upstream and downstream industries, including design, packaging, equipment and materials companies; Combined with local industry characteristics, relying on strong market demand support, can effectively avoid Market risk, promote the healthy development of the semiconductor industry. 'Tao Hong believes that in the future, Hefei should further enhance its chip manufacturing capabilities, enlarge and strengthen chip design, introduce a number of design leading companies and several design, manufacturing, and package integration companies; Industrial characteristics, give full play to the market demand advantages of panel, auto, home appliance and other characteristic industries, promote the steady development of the semiconductor industry in an all-round way, and build China's IC center.