In recent years, the number of chip companies in China has grown rapidly. In 2015, the number of IC design companies in China was only 736. By 2016, this number has increased to 1362.
The increase in the number and manufacturing capacity of chip manufacturing companies has driven the demand for water treatment in both aspects of the chip industry. In particular, the demand for ultrapure water at the front end of the production chips has been expanded. With stricter back-end sewage treatment standards, environmental protection companies need to adapt to this change. Provide corresponding solutions.
The national emphasis on the chip industry has also made the chip water treatment industry face new requirements and challenges. In addition, Boten Environmental plans to acquire High Frequency Metri Environmental Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'high frequency environment') recently. Chip industry water market has triggered industry attention.
The policy is forced to renovate the company’s water treatment facilities
High demands are placed on the quality and quantity of ultrapure water in the chip production process, and there is a challenge in the production of waste water discharged from the back end of the production process.
In the next few years, the increase in the number of chip manufacturing companies and manufacturing capacity will drive the water treatment needs of both aspects of the chip industry. The first is the demand for ultrapure water manufacturing in the chip production process, including the increase in chip manufacturing capacity. The demand for pure water 'quantity' has increased, and the demand for 'quality' of pure water purity and stability has increased with more sophisticated and high-end chip manufacturing.
The second is the discharge of wastewater from the back-end of the chip production. This change in demand is attributable to the increase in environmental emission requirements. In the past, the chip industry implemented the “Comprehensive Emission Standard for Wastewater” in 1996 (Shanghai and Jiangsu have more requirements). High-level emission standards for the semiconductor industry. In October 2017, the new "Emission Standard for Electronic Industry Pollutants" was released. The industry's wastewater treatment requirements have been significantly improved (such as COD from the old standard A standard 100mg/L, Upgrading to the current unified 60mg/L). The reversal of policies will prompt the transformation of some of the existing chip companies' water treatment facilities, and the new chip project will need to select a more effective wastewater treatment program.
Ultra-pure water producers are rare
The scale of the chip water project is long, the technical barriers of the industry are high, and the value of the technology enterprise is prominent.
An important reason for the slow development of the chip industry is its low input-output ratio. It is a typical 'slow work-skilled' industry, and the investment amount is more than tens of billions of yuan. Therefore, before the challenge of industry improvement really comes. There are not many organizations that are willing to spend a lot of time and money waiting for revenue. This is a problem facing the chip industry, but this issue is not necessarily a bad thing for water treatment companies.
The investment in single-chip projects in the chip industry is much higher than that of traditional industrial projects, and the corresponding water treatment projects must be even more substantial. Long-term investment means long project cycles, and once a water treatment company has won a bid for a project, it can be easily achieved. Long-term stable cooperation, occupy a place in the market.
Although the chip water market is very attractive and there are many related companies in the industry, in fact, currently chip water companies in the market are mainly concentrated in low-end and mid-range markets. They basically have no core technology competitiveness and can do high-end ultrapure water business. The business is rare.
Under this circumstance, the acquisition of technology companies has become a very good choice for large-scale industrial water treatment companies. The high-frequency environment of the target company that Botian Environment plans to acquire this time is
Focus on high-end manufacturing industries such as chips and smart displays, and provide national wastewater treatment systems, ultra-pure water systems, wastewater reuse and zero-emissions systems to the national high-tech enterprises.
Customers of high-frequency environment ultra-pure water business include Microelectronics Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Research Semiconductor Materials Co., Ltd., etc. A major customer of wastewater treatment business is SMIC. High-frequency environment is not only strong in the field of ultra-pure water. And with high-quality customers such as SMIC, it will be of great help to establish the technology and resource advantages of Botian Environment in this field in the future. SMIC is the largest chip foundry company in China, which is favored by the industry and will not be developed in the future. Xiao Wei. Therefore, the future project opportunities and influence of its service provider high-frequency environment will be improved.
Which areas have great potential?
The country wants to cultivate a chip industry cluster, and the market potential is huge in the north and the north.
The Chinese government is committed to cultivating different provinces and outstanding enterprises to form a leader in all areas of the chip market. Therefore, companies interested in doing chip water services can focus on the Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang) and the Pearl River Delta (Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Guangzhou), Beijing-Tianjin-Bohai Sea (Beijing, Tianjin, Dalian), Midwest (Wuhan, Xi'an, Chengdu, Chongqing) Four major industrial clusters. More specific to the city, mainly Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Nanjing and Xi'an.
China started with the earliest and the most core chip industry cluster is Zhangjiang, Shanghai. Numerous leading chip companies such as SMIC, Huahong Hongli, Spreadtrum, Rui Dike, Suiqi, etc. are all concentrated in Shanghai, 2007, Shanghai. The integrated circuit chip manufacturing industry already accounts for more than 70% of the country's production capacity and actual sales.
In addition to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd., which recently settled in the Songjiang area, the shipbuilding Suzhou wafer fab in the background of UMC and a large number of 6-inch plants, packaging plants, and the Shanghai area have initially formed microelectronic production bases with clustering effects. Accumulated and waiting for many years. Shanghai will become an important pillar of China's chip industry in the future, so the chip ultra-pure water and water treatment market in Shanghai has great potential.
Compared with Shanghai, Beijing is slightly behind in the chip industry, but Beijing has unique and excellent talents (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Peking University and other scientific research talents) and application market (Lenovo, Peking University Founder, Tsinghua Unisplendour and other electronics, communications, computer fields High-tech enterprises), the future development is also worth the wait.
In addition, Shenzhen, where Huawei, ZTE and Tencent are located, Xi'an, which wants to build a 100 billion-class semiconductor industrial cluster, and Nanjing, which wants to create a 'chip city', are also worthy of attention by industrial water treatment companies.
The rise of the chip market will bring vast opportunities for industrial water treatment enterprises. The next 10 years will be an opportunity period for the development of China's chip industry, and will also be an important period for water companies to establish customer resources. The intention is to lay out environmental protection in this field. Enterprises can use the acquisition, technical cooperation, project cooperation and other means to establish competitiveness in the future cluster provinces as soon as possible.
However, irrational or even speculative investments will enter the chip industry under policy support. Environmental companies that focus on the development of water treatment business in the chip industry must see the status of the industry, choose the right region, the right customers and the right partners. .
The chip industry is an industry with ultra-high technical barriers. In the long-term, each chip field will often achieve large-scale survival of the fittest, mergers and acquisitions, and ultimately high concentration. Therefore, as an environmental protection enterprise that serves the chip industry, it must also strive for While doing more projects, choose a long-distance winner.