On May 31st, China’s State Market Supervision Administration conducted “peep investigations” and on-site forensics for offices of Samsung, Hynix, and Micron in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, marking the official launch of the anti-monopoly authorities in China on three companies. survey.
At the end of December and May of this year, Chinese anti-monopoly agencies successively interviewed Samsung and Micron. The content mainly concerns the price manipulation of the three major storage giants during the skyrocketing price of DRAM industry since 2016. The latest data shows that Samsung, Hynix The total market share of Micron in the first quarter of this year reached 95.4%. The DRAM sector has been monopolized by the three major manufacturers for more than ten years.
The continuous rise in DRAM prices has brought great pressure to Chinese companies and consumers, and whether or not there is an oligopoly behind the current round of soaring prices has led to speculation and skepticism.
In the previous report on the micro-grid, a number of industry-related and business people thought that such a situation existed, and said that it had reported to the relevant departments. According to the micro-network reporter, the market supervision of the Samsung anti-monopoly investigation , It is the direct reflection of reports from Chinese companies and industry organizations to the relevant authorities, and the result of the report.
On April 10 this year, in accordance with the reform requirements of market supervision filed by the two associations, the State Market Supervision Administration officially listed. The newly established department has integrated three former agencies: the Ministry of Commerce, the National Development and Reform Commission and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. The anti-trust responsibilities of the industry pointed out that this reflects China's attitude and determination in anti-monopoly and regulating the market competition environment.
As of now, China's State Market Supervision Administration has not responded to the investigation of three companies.
Wang Yanhui, the secretary general of China Mobile, said that compared with the European Union, Google, Apple, and Qualcomm continue to issue tickets for monopoly reasons. Because of the limited manpower, the Chinese anti-monopoly institutions are not too influential in market supervision but too small.
'As the world's largest electronics manufacturing base and the second largest market, we need a stronger market surveillance organization to ensure a fair and just market competition order.' Wang Yanhui said.
From 2005 to 2006, the U.S. Justice Department ruled that Samsung, Hynix, Infineon, Elpida, and Micron had a price monopoly between 1999 and 2002 and imposed a total fine of 730 million U.S. dollars, of which Samsung’s sales penalty was 300 million yuan. The dollar, which accounted for 20% of its US$1.2 billion sales in 1999-2002.
It is understood that China's "Anti-Monopoly Law" and "Anti-Price Monopoly Regulations" and other laws stipulate that if operators have monopolistic behavior, they will be fined 1%-10% of the sales for the previous year, and the duration of illegal activities must be considered. .
According to the statistics of Micron, Samsung, and Hynix, in fiscal year 2017, the three companies’ semiconductor business revenues in China were US$10.388 billion, US$253.86 billion, US$8.908 billion, and total US$44.68 billion, respectively, which was US$31.6 billion in 2016 fiscal year. An increase of 39.16%.
The domestic media’s article “21st Century Business Herald” pointed out that if the three giants were found to have a price monopoly and were punished for sales in China in 2017, then the fine would be between US$440 million and US$4.4 billion. The market behavior from 2016 to the present is punished with 2016-2017 sales, and the fine will be between USD 800 million and USD 8 billion.
Last month, Samsung, Hynix and Micron faced litigation in the United States. The three companies were accused of collusion between 2016 and 2017, limiting the supply of various DRAM products in the market, artificially driving up DRAM prices.
The evidence provided by litigators included March 30, 2016. Micron Technology asked Samsung Electronics and Hynix whether it could reduce production. At the same time, Micron executives stated that the company would not reduce production unilaterally and said to competitors that ' Our goal is not market share' etc.
At present, the US lawsuit is still in progress. If it is finally determined that Samsung and others participated in the market price manipulation and other punishments, the Chinese anti-monopoly agencies may also refer to the penalties imposed in this respect. Rong)
2. Elimination of two-tenths of shares in the world for two consecutive years. Samsung was investigated by the Chinese anti-monopoly investigation;
For Samsung, the chip can be said of the 'engine' of the entire electronics business. Thanks to the rising prices of DRAM and NAND flash memory, Samsung’s chip rankings also surpassed the oldest Intel’s in the second quarter of last year and’reverse’ in single-quarter profits. ' Apple.
However, for hardware manufacturers, the rising price of chip memory makes them 'distressed'.
'After soaring 40% last year, DRAM prices are still rising from the beginning of the year to the present. Although the rate is less than 10%, it is eroding the profitability of Chinese brand factories that originally had relatively small profit margins. ' Wu Yating, chief analyst at the Semiconductor Research Center of the State Semiconductor Group, told a financial science and technology reporter that a survey of the Big Three shows that the rise in DRAM prices has left downstream companies under pressure.
DRAMeXchange, a research organization, showed that in the first quarter of 2018, the three major manufacturers of memory, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, had a market share of 44.9%, 27.9%, and 22.6% respectively. The combined storage giant's 95.4% share shows that The DRAM market has apparently assumed an oligopolistic pattern. China is the world’s leading consumer of memory chips. Affected by the price increase of memory chips, China imported storage chips of US$88.921 billion in 2017, an increase of 39.56% year-on-year to US$637.14 billion in 2016.
Since last year, companies including mobile phone manufacturers have successively complained about the increase in storage prices. Some media reported that on May 31, the Chinese anti-monopoly agencies had suddenly launched offices in Samsung, Hynix, and Micron in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. The investigation marks the official launch of the investigation by the national anti-monopoly agency on the three companies. At present, the three companies have not responded to the outside.
China is the largest storage demand country
The soaring of memory prices in recent years has caused many speculators to earn a lot of money. It is called 'businesses that make more money than real estate'. '
From the second quarter of 2016, DRAM (mainly including PC memory, mobile memory, server memory) prices soared, and sales figures were refreshed every quarter. The latest data from IHS Markit shows that the global DRAM output jumped by 2017 %, reaching US$ 72.2 billion, which will be further expanded to 84.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, with an annual growth rate of 16.9%. The last time such a grand scene appeared was still 23 years ago.
Wu Yating, chief analyst at the Semiconductor Research Center of the State Semiconductor Group, told reporters that since last year's price soared by 40%, DRAM prices have been rising since the beginning of the year. Although the rate is still less than 10%, the original profit-making space is relatively small. For the Chinese brand factory, it is under no small pressure.
According to the reporter, the cost of storing in mobile phones has reached 25%-35%. At the same time, due to the rapid price hike of memory chips, prices for mobile phones, solid-state hard drives, memory sticks and other products have risen. Among them, crazy Memory is a 300% increase in one year.
In addition, the Chinese market has digested DRAM and NAND globally by as much as 20% and 25%, which is the largest demand for memory.
According to the DRAMeXchange analysis, although China is actively carrying out semiconductor support projects, it will take at least several quarters to achieve the goals of 'technology independent research and development' and 'stable mass production scale'. The immediate need to solve cost pressures is far-reaching. In addition to the interview with Micron, Samsung Semiconductor, the leading memory manufacturer, was also interviewed by China's National Development and Reform Commission at the beginning of this year. Although there is no evidence that the two events are related, it is enough to show that Official attention to DRAM prices soared.
'At present, we are still in the initial stage of investigation. No specific monopoly case has been identified yet. But from the perspective of impact, the increase in DRAM prices will continue to be curbed.' Wu Yating told reporters.
'Price Alliance' encounters investigations across the country
The huge increase in DRAM has brought huge profits to these chip giants.
According to the statistics of Micron, Samsung and Hynix, in 2017, the three companies’ semiconductor business revenues in China were US$10.388 billion, US$253.86 billion, US$8.908 billion, and total US$44.68 billion, respectively, which represented a year-on-year growth of US$32.1 billion in FY2016. 39.16%. Its revenue in the first quarter continued to grow. From the financial report, the operating margins of the three major DRAM makers in the first quarter of this year (OP Margin) reached a water level of 50-70%, which is not only the highest in history. Profitability even exceeds that of a higher-level CPU.
In fact, after receiving complaints from mobile phone manufacturers, regulators have started to focus on storage markets that have continued to increase prices last year. At the end of 2017, in May 2018, Chinese anti-trust agencies interviewed Samsung on the issue of continuous price increases. Micron.
The most important reason for the interview was that the price of standard memory has increased for several quarters in a row, which has led to an increasing cost burden for Chinese manufacturers, and the restriction of suppliers of equipment suppliers to Fujian Jinhua is an obstacle to fair competition. The first in 2018 Season Samsung, SK hynix and Micron have a market share of approximately 96% in the DRAM industry. Compared with the semiconductor components used in other end products, it appears that this has become a monopoly condition. Future antitrust investigations may continue to occur in the future. , And may repress memory gains. ' Wu Yating told reporters.
Wu Yating added that, according to the anti-monopoly investigation, there were precedents in various countries.
From 2005 to 2006, the US Department of Justice had ruled that Samsung, Hynix, Infineon, Elpida, and Micron had a price monopoly between 1999 and 2002 and fined the first four companies for a total of 729 million U.S. dollars by the end of April this year. Samsung Electronics and others suffered a class action lawsuit in the United States and were accused of conspiring to limit the supply of DRAM memory chips.
A lawyer named Hagens Berman filed a class-action lawsuit with Samsung Electronics, Hynix and Micron Technology in the Northern California District Court. The law firm claimed that their investigations revealed that these major DRAM manufacturers colluded with each other and restricted the market. The supply of DRAM products has artificially pushed up DRAM prices. During the period of class action lawsuit charges, the price of DRAM increased by 130%. At the same time, Samsung Electronics, Hynix and Micron Technology's DRAM sales revenue. It has more than doubled.
Wang Yanhui, secretary-general of the China Mobile Alliance, told a financial science and technology reporter that after the NDRC's investigation into Qualcomm’s anti-monopoly, Chinese companies had already understood how to use government power to maintain market equity and also knew how to reflect to the government on the inequities in the market. The anti-monopoly investigation of SAMSUNG by the General Administration of Market Supervision is also a direct response to reports from Chinese companies and industry organizations to the relevant authorities.
'Compared to the EU continue to Google, Apple, Qualcomm monopoly grounds to open a ticket, objectively speaking, the Chinese antitrust agencies due to limited manpower, the intensity of market surveillance is not too large but too small. As the world's largest electronics The manufacturing base and the second largest market need stronger market surveillance agencies to ensure a fair and just market competition order. 'Wang Yanhui told reporters. 3. Why does universal autopilot first land in China?
With the micro-network news (Reporter/Aki), which technology is the driving force for future development for the semiconductor industry in the future? Many companies in the industry are thinking about this issue. Now, with the stability of industry and technology, Gradually there is a conclusion.
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 trend 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 previous wave of smart phones may have reached a bottleneck, but the next wave of artificial intelligence and autopilot has arrived! (Proofreading / Maocao)
4.Huawei announced the progress of car networking: It will cover 100,000 network buses in the year;
Each reporter Wang Jing is edited by Chen Junjie
In recent years, Huawei has always had plans and plans to expand to other areas. Before this, it has been rumblings that it will cooperate with car manufacturers to build cars. In response, Huawei officials have denied. In fact, Huawei's ambition to enter the automotive industry ' lies in providing relevant solutions for car networking.
Huawei's actions in the area of vehicle networking are quite frequent. As early as in 2013, Huawei launched the on-board module ME909T and promised to spend more than 100 million yuan each year for research and development related to vehicle networking. Since then, Huawei and many auto manufacturers have launched Strategic cooperation, including Mercedes-Benz and Audi's Hass chips for on-board communication modules; cooperation with Toyota, deployment of WiFi hotspots to cars, and connection with call centers; at home, Huawei and Dongfeng Motor and Changan Automobile respectively Become a strategic partnership, develop car networking products.
On June 5th, Huawei introduced the progress of its cooperation with Audi in Shenzhen Putian Base and announced its positioning in the market of car networking, market strategy and latest developments. Huawei's LTE product line president Xiong Wei accepted “including According to an interview with a reporter from the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper, Huawei's cooperation with Audi covered the cars, molds, module platforms, and applications. In addition, Xiong Wei revealed that Huawei will cover 100,000 U.S. vehicles this year. .
Car networking standards dispute
At present, China’s car networking environment has been initially formed and the market has great potential. From a policy perspective, the state has seen the development of car networking as an important aspect of “Internet +” and artificial intelligence in the real economy. As one of the major transformation directions for the automotive industry, "Made in China 2025," "Guidelines for Actively Promoting 'Internet Plus' Action," "Notice on Printing a New Generation of Artificial Intelligence Development Plan," and other important policies have all proposed the development of car networking.
With the strong support of policies, China's car networking market has developed strongly. According to related surveys and forecasts, the scale of China's car networking market is expected to reach 216.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2025, accounting for one quarter of the global market, and the five-year average compound annual growth rate will reach 44.92%.
However, to achieve interoperability between the car and everything, we must have a unified standard. This is the importance of the V2V standard. At this stage, there are two support camps for the establishment of vehicle and car communication standards. One is The Dsrc solution, which is currently used by most companies for communication standards; the second is the LTE-V solution.
Dsrc (Dedicated Short Range Communications) is a special short-range communication technology and is an efficient wireless communication technology. Based on the 802.11P standard, it can realize the recognition of moving objects under high-speed motion within a specific small area (usually tens of meters). Two-way communication, real-time transmission of images, voice and data information, organic connection of vehicles and roads, widely known ETC system is based on this technology.
The United States issued the V2X recommendation announcement at the end of 2016. It plans to force Dsrc technology and provide a specific timetable: In 2021, 50% of new cars need to be equipped with Dsrc, which is 75% in 2022 and 100% in 2023. Almost simultaneously , The European Commission adopted the 'European Cooperative Intelligent Transportation System Strategy' final framework. The goal is to have a large-scale deployment of a cooperative intelligent transportation system on the roads of European Union countries by 2019 to achieve 'between car and car, car and road facilities' Smart Communication', and Dsrc is the recommended technology.
However, Huawei and Qualcomm and other companies have adopted LTE technology to enter the Internet of Vehicles and are facing challenges to the old standard. Why does Huawei consider LTE-V2X technology?
In this regard, Xiong Wei explained that in autonomous driving, Huawei believes that the infrastructure of roads and roads also needs to make some changes. In order to build the entire ecosystem and make traffic more efficient and safer, Huawei has done a lot. Research, and reached agreements with relevant domestic ministries.
Car networking platform war
The fast-growing Internet of Cars has attracted attention from hundreds of billions of dollars of prospects and the characteristics of the Internet. As far as the domestic market is concerned, Internet giants represented by BAT have all laid out the field of car networking. 3. The boom of the automakers' car network is increasingly fierce.
Interestingly, the three BAT companies have all proposed to establish a car networking platform. However, various organizations have different understandings and strategies for how to effectively build a platform to maximize profits. Among them, Baidu takes CarLife as the core platform of the Vehicular Network. Accompanied by MyCar cloud computing service; Ali chose to cut in from the system, the core of the vehicle networking platform is YunOS, for the vehicle (vehicle navigation) environment, Ali optimized YunOS, and released YunOS for Car; and Tencent's car networking product array In addition to the vehicle ROM, there is also a mobile phone interconnection, that is, a vehicle linkage APP. In addition, Tencent also accesses the MyCar module in QQ and WeChat, enabling human-car interaction.
Then, what are the strategic layouts of Huawei, which is pursuing the integration of cloud-end-end products, and whether it will provide support for Vehicular Interconnect? Minister He Liyang stated: “The key to the success of the digital transformation of auto companies is to build an eco-friendly digital cloud platform that integrates eco-developers and industry application partners through platforms to meet the needs of transnational sales of their products and services in a global market environment. Vehicle owners and vehicle users provide personalized travel service requirements.