The views of different companies are not exactly the same. At Synopsys SNUG China, held on June 4, 2018, Synopsys president and executive officer Chen Zhikuan pointed out what the major development drivers of the semiconductor industry will be in the eyes of Synopsys, and the future market. Change and change.
What is driving the semiconductor industry today?
The world is changing every day, and the semiconductor industry is no exception.
Mr. Chen Zhikuan believes that today's semiconductor industry has undergone tremendous changes compared with the semiconductor industry 30-40 years ago. Whether it is from market applications, customers, industry chain, technology or market demand orientation, the semiconductor industry has undergone changes. Has completely changed our lives.
At the same time, the demand for terminal applications is also stimulating changes in the semiconductor industry itself, and pushing the industry forward toward the application end. It can be said that applications and technologies complement each other and accompany each other.
In this process, it mainly went through three stages.
Mr. Chen Zhikuan pointed out that at the earliest time, under the influence of the Internet and computers, the semiconductor industry made a good start. Since then, with the emergence of feature phones and smart phones, the semiconductor industry has ushered in another wave of development.
Especially after the emergence of smart phones, various new technologies emerge in endlessly. New technologies such as artificial intelligence and 5G will also appear in smart phones.
In Mr. Chen Zhikuan's view, the two major technologies of artificial intelligence, 5G, and automotive electronics (autopilot and electric vehicle) will become the three major driving forces driving the development of the entire semiconductor industry in the future.
Although these technologies are not widely used at present, with the gradual deployment of applications, technology will make more dreams come true. Scenes that originally appeared in movies will come true in reality one by one. It is exciting to think about it!
Looking at the Change of Semiconductor Industry from Artificial Intelligence
On the other hand, Mr. Chen Zhikuan also saw changes in the development trend of the entire industry in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. This change is not based on technology but on geographical basis.
One of the most obvious changes in geographical distribution is that more and more companies have chosen to relocate to Greater China.
The second trend is that the consolidation trend of the semiconductor industry companies becomes more obvious, but this trend is divided into two different phases.
Before 2014, although the merger within the semiconductor industry was also happening, mergers and acquisitions also took place between many companies. However, the overall scale was not large. The major mergers were concentrated in large companies. The main model was the merger of large companies. small company.
However, from 2014 onwards, fundamental changes have taken place in the mergers and acquisitions within the semiconductor industry, and mergers and acquisitions among major companies have become mainstream. This tendency is evident both in terms of volume and quantity.
Why did this change occur? Mr. Chen Zhikuan gave his own explanation.
In Mr. Chen Zhikuan’s view, mergers and acquisitions between big companies highlight the maturity of the entire semiconductor industry and the development bottleneck of the market. Previously, the main reason for the merger and acquisition of small companies was that the entire industry was not yet mature and large companies needed to come through small companies. Continuously develop new areas that have not yet been involved, or enhance existing advantages. The immature markets provide opportunities for the emergence of small companies, and provide more choices for mergers and acquisitions of large companies. Acquiring small companies is even more important. Cheap and cost-effective.
After the market matures, the market scale gradually reaches a bottleneck. In this case, the number of small companies emerging in mature technologies will decrease, or even disappear, and there will be no external conditions for the acquisition of small companies. M & A became the best choice.
However, the mature market also brings another advantage: the emergence of new technologies, and the emergence of new technologies has brought a lot of new companies.
Take artificial intelligence as an example. Although this concept has emerged decades ago, due to the immaturity of hardware and software, it has only recently become a market possibility in recent years.
Therefore, until now, under the influence of artificial intelligence, a large wave of artificial intelligence companies began to appear. A large wave of companies that did not belong to the semiconductor industry began to engage in this field.
In foreign countries, software companies such as Google and Facbook have begun to launch chips for artificial intelligence. Domestically, Alibaba and Baidu are also doing the same. At the same time, companies such as the Cambrian and Bit Continental specialize in the research and development of artificial intelligence chips. The company is also springing up. The development of the artificial intelligence market can be described as momentary.
Therefore, in Mr. Chen Zhikuan's view, the semiconductor market may have matured for the previous wave of trends, but the semiconductor market has only just begun for the new trend of artificial intelligence and automotive electronics.
'I believe that with the promotion of artificial intelligence and other technologies, the entire semiconductor market will continue to improve. I am optimistic about the entire industry. ' Mr. Chen Zhikuan stressed.
Automatic driving will start in China first
So what kind of impact will artificial intelligence and automotive electronics have on the entire semiconductor industry? It can be seen from both technical and regional perspectives.
From a technical point of view, artificial intelligence is taken as an example. Artificial intelligence technology has brought a lot of new demands to the semiconductor industry. The realization of this technology requires more computing power, greater storage space and stronger device connectivity.
The constant emergence and reinforcement of demand will force the semiconductor industry to continue to develop and introduce technologies that are more suitable for trends.
From the point of view of regional development, taking automatic driving as an example, the development of major regions in the world presents different characteristics, and the category of their main landing products is also not the same.
Mr. Chen Zhikuan pointed out that due to the wide range of laws and regulations in various states of the United States, automatic driving will encounter completely different obstacles when landing in various states. The automatic driving company needs to make corresponding adjustments to the different legal conditions in each state.
On the other hand, urban planning and road layout in the United States will not make corresponding adjustments for autonomous driving. Autopilot companies need to take the initiative to adapt.
Therefore, according to Mr. Chen Zhikuan, landing speed of automatic driving in the United States will be very slow, and the first area of development will not be universal auto-pilot technology, but will be directed to designated track-operated or purpose-built self-driving trucks or Passenger cars.
In China, the situation is completely different. The government has seen this future trend of autonomous driving and has given it a high degree of attention and support. Therefore, we can see that both the production and R&D companies and the government Cooperation and interaction have never stopped.
At the same time, China has unified laws and regulations, as well as more efficient and adaptable roads, which will promote the deployment of universal autopilot technology in China.
Therefore, from the perspective of the landing of universal autopilot technology, China will prioritize autonomous driving technology in the United States.
However, Chen Zhikuan also emphasized that, compared to self-driving cars, electric vehicles will develop faster and will have faster penetration.
Of course, regardless of the country’s companies’ enthusiasm for autonomous driving technology, Mr. Chen Zhikuan said that Synopsys understands that even new technologies are interoperable in many details with previous technologies. This requires companies not only to Cooperation with traditional technology vendors also needs to cooperate with emerging emerging technology vendors to accept new technologies before they can better adapt to market development.
For the entire semiconductor industry, the development of the last wave of smart phones may have reached a bottleneck, but the next wave of artificial intelligence and autopilot has arrived!