1. Julong: China's IC industry cannot rely on money, equipment and materials are the biggest shortcomings
Shenzhen Microsystems reported that at the 2018 China Integrated Circuit Innovation Application Summit held yesterday, SEMI China President and Global Vice President Julong published the theme of “Upgrading to the next floor – the new outlook for the global semiconductor industry” The speech, starting from the development of the global semiconductor industry, explores what kind of transformation it will bring to China's semiconductor industry.
Last year, memory played an important role in the entire semiconductor market.
Julong said that data from Gartner, ICinsights and WSTS, a well-known research institution, showed that global semiconductor revenues totaled US$423 billion in 2017, which is also the first time to exceed US$400 billion. It is estimated that global semiconductor revenue will reach US$480 billion in 2021. .
From the 'Global Top 10 semiconductor companies' revenue situation', the total revenue of the world's top 10 semiconductor manufacturers in 2017 reached nearly 280 billion US dollars, an increase of 27.3%, accounting for the total revenue of the entire semiconductor market last year ($ 423 billion) 66%.
'In the top 10 semiconductor companies in the world, there are four storage companies, including Samsung, Hynix, Micron and Toshiba. Visible memory plays a very important role in the semiconductor market last year. 'Julong said, 'and remove the memory In terms of enterprises, Nvidia grew at the fastest rate last year, reaching 44%. The main reason was that NVIDIA's GPU was heavily applied to AI-related data centers and edge devices last year. He even claimed to be AI.
The 'black cloud' of the semiconductor market began to appear looming
For the growth performance of the global semiconductor market this year, Julong said that at the beginning of the year, the research institutions predicted that there will be 6%-9% growth. But by the middle of the year, many organizations have revised the semiconductor for 2018. Expectations of market growth, they believe that this year can still achieve double-digit growth.
It is worth mentioning that in the first quarter of this year, global semiconductor revenues totaled US$111 billion, an increase of 21% year-on-year. Among them, memory revenue in the first quarter reached US$23 billion, accounting for nearly 25% of total semiconductor revenue. Julong said. The main reason for driving the growth of the global semiconductor market in the first quarter is that memory prices are still rising, and it will take time for capacity to catch up with demand.
In addition to memory, the performance of the non-memory market in the first quarter was also very bright. Among them, Foundry's revenue grew by nearly 9%; wafer shipments revenue grew by 3.6%; The record high, the first quarter shipments grew by 28%.
But is the development of the semiconductor industry really a clear sky? Julong believes that it is not entirely true that there are already some 'black clouds' in the looming. First, the memory factory headed by Samsung in the second half of the year began to slow down the construction speed, perhaps because of Samsung. The demand for the market has been met; Second, due to Sino-US trade friction, the growth of Chinese semiconductors may be slightly affected.
The US's leading position in the AI field is difficult to surpass
So, where is the growth momentum of the semiconductor market in the future? Julong said that looking back at the development process of semiconductors in the past 30 to 40 years, we can find that every 10 years there will be a killer application. With the gradual diversification of smart applications The development of diversity, the kinetic energy that will drive semiconductor growth in the next few years will be AI and 5G.
At present, AI has a place in all processors (including TPU, CPU and GPU, etc.) From the specific data, global venture capital investment in the AI industry has reached 15 billion US dollars last year, and the growth rate is very fast.
Judging from the industry chain of AI, Julong believes that the most basic is the chip. Regardless of TSMC, Intel and Samsung have a large amount of R&D investment in CPU and GPU every year. In addition to traditional processors, many AI companies also In the new way of doing ASIC, scenes, algorithms and accelerators, the data they generate is also a huge driving force for the development of the semiconductor industry.
It is worth noting that in the ASIC market, the United States is undoubtedly the leader, but China is progressing very fast. At present, many companies in China have received venture capital, including Cambrian, Horizon, Shenjian Technology, Yunzhisheng. And bit continent and so on.
Julong believes that the US's leading position in the AI field will not change in the near future. First of all, technically speaking, the US AI company will not be worse than the domestic company, but the technology is very advanced, which may subvert the tradition. The market for processors; Secondly, from the perspective of R&D investment, the current total investment in the United States is 10 billion US dollars, while China has only 1 billion US dollars. So the entire R&D investment, the entire US large company still occupies a large proportion.
Chip is an important carrier of AI
Compared to traditional data centers, the difference between AI servers is that they require more computing and storage, so it will promote semiconductors to grow 100 times. For example, the US network company Facebook's capital investment this year is expected to arrive. $14 billion, mainly investing in data center servers. Although the United States is still a leader, but in China, Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu are also rapidly catching up.
In Julong's view, AI will drive the development of the semiconductor industry, and the chip is also an important factor and carrier for achieving AI, because smart home, smart phone, smart manufacturing, intelligent transportation, etc. all need to rely on chips.
China is still seriously deficient in semiconductor equipment and materials
'Since last year, in terms of semiconductor investment, both construction and equipment investment have been at a record high.' Julong said, 'and this year and next year will continue to grow, and the speed of building factories is growing.'
Of course, the fastest growth in investment is still semiconductor equipment. Julong said that the equipment industry last year's total investment reached 56 billion US dollars, a growth of 38%, and this year's total investment will reach at least 61 billion US dollars.
In 2017, Samsung’s total investment in equipment reached US$26 billion. It is expected that China is expected to surpass South Korea in terms of equipment investment this year, but in fact China has not surpassed it. But perhaps by 2019, China’s equipment investment may become the world’s number one. Second or first.
However, for the development of the equipment industry, Julong also raised a concern. Currently, among the top ten equipment manufacturers in the world, there are no Chinese companies on the list! But in the IC design industry, the world's top ten China has two seats. Domestic equipment manufacturers have some good achievements, but their current domestic share is only 5%, accounting for only 1-2% in the world.
In the revenues of the top 10 equipment manufacturers in the world, they can see that their annual revenue growth rate is all positive, there is no negative growth, and, in addition to the sixth ranked Dean (1% annual growth) and platoon In addition to the 8th Hitachi High-tech (annual growth of 5%), the growth rate of the other 8 companies is at a high level. Among them, the 7th largest beauty event (SEMES) has increased by an astonishing 142%.
In the materials market, SEMI's statistics show that China's share of the global market increased by more than 12% in 2017. This growth reflects China's growth in production capacity and packaging capacity. However, the supply of Chinese local material manufacturers only accounts for About 5%. Although there are also material companies in China that are growing, but the international gap is still very far.
Finally, Julong concluded that the global semiconductor industry will continue to grow. If 2017 is a year of prosperity, then 2018 will be a good year. In the future, diversified intelligent applications driven by AI artificial intelligence (and 5G) will continue to drive semiconductors. Demand growth, and the chip is also the carrier of AI. Although China's semiconductor industry (design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, equipment materials) has continued to grow, but also achieved significant achievements, but still behind the international first-tier manufacturers technical level, especially equipment and materials are the largest Short board. 'China's IC industry cannot rely on money to pile up, be patient and innovative, actively seek international cooperation, and integrate into the global semiconductor industry chain ecosystem.'
2. Ruixin Micro released Android 8.1 NNAPI SDK, AI performance greatly improved
Based on the micro-network news, Rockchip officially released the Android 8.1 Neural Networks API (NNAPI) optimized SDK based on the RK3399 platform, providing more general-purpose and more powerful AI computing support. It is applicable to various applications based on mainstream model architecture. Face recognition, ADAS, commodity identification, fatigue detection, etc.
RK3399 has high performance, high expansion, all-round application features. CPU uses big.LITTLE size core architecture, dual-core Cortex-A72+ quad-core Cortex-A53, has technical leadership in overall performance and power consumption, GPU adopts quad-core ARM new The generation of high-end image processor Mali-T860, integrated with more bandwidth compression technology, the overall performance is excellent. Android 8.1 can fully call the neural network API (NNAPI) for hardware acceleration, so that RK3399's AI computing performance is greatly improved.
This release of the RK3399 SDK is a GPU acceleration solution based on Android 8.1 NNAPI, which provides accelerated support for AI-related applications developed with Android NNAPI. It has four advantages:
1. Wide compatibility: Standard API, directly supports various APK applications developed based on Android NNAPI;
2. Versatility: Supports many mainstream model architectures, suitable for various applications based on mainstream model architecture, including face recognition, ADAS, commodity identification, fatigue detection, etc.
3. Performance soaring: Real-time performance can be achieved in multiple tasks, such as using MobileNet for image recognition with a maximum frame rate of 23.2 frames;
4. Lower power consumption: Based on GPU efficient calculation, the full-load power consumption is only 1W;
According to the APK test data of image recognition and target detection, the performance of the mainstream model is excellent:
AI calculation is in the period of explosive growth. Rockchip artificial intelligence chip has been widely used in image recognition, intelligent security, intelligent driving, speech recognition, consumer electronics and other fields. This time based on the RK3399 platform Android 8.1 NNAPI optimization SDK, will make it The AI chip product line is more hard.
3. Domestic chips 'Supplementary class' Capital of each road: Can you overtake the corner?
Since the ZTE incident, the company has quietly set off a wave of chip research and development. In addition to ZTE's intention to increase its core chip R&D investment, Alibaba also announced the acquisition of Zhongtian Microsystems' AI chip industry. 'Make the chip unwavering', and recently announced that Gree air-conditioning will use its own chips next year. There are also entrepreneurs who are chasing the wind and have joined the chip business.
Securities Times reporter Zhuo Yong
' Recently, many investors are busy with two things: one is to look at the blockchain, and the other is to look at the chip. ' At a recent venture capital summit forum, an investor who participated in the roundtable discussion said. Since the ZTE incident In addition to ZTE's intention to increase investment in core chip research and development, Alibaba also announced the acquisition of Zhongyi Microsystems' layout of AI chip industry, and even Chairman of the Gree Electric Appliances Dong Mingzhu also said that 'it is firm. Not moving ', and recently announced that Gree air-conditioning will use its own chips next year. And the entrepreneurs who are chasing the wind have also joined the chip business.
This national effort to give domestic chips a 'remediation' seems to give people the possibility that China's chips will soon be overtaken. However, on the one hand, the rapid rise of industry demand, on the one hand, it is an industry atmosphere of quick success. How to face domestic chips The status quo, how to find a way to solve the pain point, how to invest in chip investment? Some insiders pointed out that the threshold of the chip industry is extremely high, only entrepreneurs and investment talents who really understand this profession may succeed. Therefore, entrepreneurs should not blindly follow Investors can't help chase the wind.
Manufacturing and materials links 'behind'
At the moment, there is one thing that plays a key role in the high-speed operation of the information society. This is a small integrated circuit, which is commonly known as the 'chip.' Chen Chuanhong, director of the major special affairs office of the Ministry of Science and Technology, said in an interview with the media. The manufacturing technology of the chip is the highest level of micro-machining technology in the world today, and it is the strategic high point of the global high-tech national competition.
However, China's high-end manufacturing equipment and materials for integrated circuits are heavily dependent on imports. In addition, the developed countries such as the United States have strict censorship and restrictions on these materials exported to China. Our integrated circuit development has been constrained.
However, with the rapid development of China's national economy, especially the acceleration of information technology, the demand for integrated circuit products continues to grow rapidly. According to statistics, since 2006, integrated circuit products have surpassed oil to become the largest imported products in China. Since 2013, the annual import volume has exceeded 200 billion US dollars.
It is understood that the chip industry's industrial chain is very long, including design, manufacturing, packaging, testing, assembly and other aspects. Compared with the United States and other Western developed countries, China's chip industry in which links are left behind? Partner and CEO Shi Anping found that the two aspects of manufacturing and materials are the biggest gap between China's chip industry and foreign countries after researching the chip industry and examining many chip-related projects.
'From the perspective of manufacturing, the investment required for this link is quite large, up to 10 billion yuan, and it is not just the problem of money. We don’t have the core production equipment needed for the manufacturing process, nor do we produce smaller threads. The technology of more sophisticated products, so high-end products can not come out. 'Shi Anping said. In addition, he also introduced, from the material point of view, a considerable part of China's high-purity silicon wafers are imported, which is why we need to make up ' of.
Although there is still a huge gap between the above two links and the international advanced level, there is one link that can catch up with overseas. This is the chip design. 'Because of the gradual opening up of the country and the increase in the number of returned overseas students in related majors, the chip design link is China and The shortest distance in foreign countries. 'Shi Anping said. However, he also admitted that from the raw material production equipment, to the inspection equipment, to the manufacturing equipment, we are lacking. If foreign countries are 'discontinued' on these core equipment, then design is good. It’s just a 'paper talk'.
After the ZTE incident, the people raised a wave of discussion and reflection. In the past 40 years of reform and opening up, China has achieved such great economic success, but why is it that a small chip is not doing well? It used to work for eight years at Qualcomm headquarters in the United States, and now Dr. Yang Yafei, CEO of Dapu Microelectronics, told reporters that in fact, China was able to produce chips on its own, but the products that were made were used for military industry, and they could not meet the standards of civilian use, that is, the price could not come, the specifications were not enough. Precision. 'The reason is that there is no way to scale production. It can only be done in the laboratory. Once you contact the factory for production, you will encounter big problems. The main problem is that the technical and talent problems restrict the mass production.
Various capitals have entered the chip industry
'When we looked at the chip project in the past few years, there was very little interest in the industry. But this year, everyone’s enthusiasm for the chip project has risen a lot, and even some investors are blindly snapped up. 'The relevant person in charge of a state-owned background investment fund The reporter said.
Some investors told reporters that their investment in chip projects has also been sought after by many investment institutions. The valuation has risen shortly after the completion of the investment. It is not difficult to find that the hottest market in the market this year is the AI chip field. The head of the field, Shangtang Technology, Cambrian, etc., has carried out several rounds of financing this year, and the valuation is very high.
In addition, various capitals including Internet giants and home appliance giants have increased their investment in the domestic chip industry. After the ZTE incident, Alibaba wholly acquired a supplier of embedded CPU IP, Hangzhou Zhongzhong. Tianwei System Co., Ltd.. At the 'Future Forum X Shenzhen Summit' on May 26 this year, Ma Huateng, Chairman and CEO of Tencent Holdings, hinted that it might design software compatible with Chinese chips and operating systems in the future.
Chairman of Gree Electric Co., Ltd. Dong Mingzhu said that Gree will invest 50 billion yuan into the chip field and will use all its chips in Gree air conditioner next year. Then Konka Group also announced that Konka Group will set up the semiconductor technology business unit and formally enter the army. Semiconductor industry.
Yuanhe origin, which has long tracked the IC industry, has also invested in the Cambrian in the near future. Le Jinxin, a partner of the company, said that as early as 2005, there was a wave of investment in integrated circuits in China, but from the industrial chain to technology to talents. To the market is not mature, only a small part of the company survived. From the development cycle of the entire chip industry, it takes two to three years to see the product prototype, and five years to do the landing and promotion. So it takes at least eight years before and after.
Overall, the high input cost, high threshold and long cycle are the characteristics of the chip industry. Zhu Xiaohu, managing director of Jinshajiang Venture Capital, said in response to outside questions that China VC is not a chip, but several previous investments. The lack of money, this makes the chip investment into a cycle of not making money. But in fact, chip investment is not necessarily a loss of business. 'It is only a long cycle, once the success is like printing money, the chip's early investment is very large, But the gross profit margin is very high. ' Shi Anping said. Yang Yafei also agrees with this point of view, Qualcomm, Intel, such a company can be confirmed.
The investment boom has triggered an industrial bubble?
The chip industry is booming. One view is that there are more semiconductor funds, fewer good projects, high valuations of industrial enterprises, and a bubble in the industry. Another view is that China's semiconductor companies are far from investing in R&D, and they need long-term funding at all levels. Investing. But no matter how you look at it, the project is highly valued, and the competition for talent is really happening.
'Now learning computer and electronic communication want to do this, there is indeed a big talent bubble.' Yang Yafei told reporters that this bubble is actually a price bubble caused by the influx of funds and related professional talent supply. The reporter also learned from some institutions that some institutions that want to enter the chip investment are not willing to attract investment managers at high prices, but these investment managers are not really familiar with the entire life cycle of the industry.
'Now the domestic level of good talents in this area is even higher than that of foreign countries. 'Le Jinxin believes that capital chasing a certain vertical industry will inevitably lead to a rise in salary levels. But in his view, promoting the development of the industry requires a tolerance bubble, if not It is difficult to attract money and eyeballs.
Shi Anping believes that no matter from technology development, talent reserve or talent reserve of investment institutions, it needs to be calm. 'First, not all chip projects are suitable for this fund investment, and not all talents need to reserve. The range of applications covered is very wide, and one institution cannot cover it all.'
As far as the chip industry talents are concerned, Shi Anping believes that on the whole, the reserve of college graduates in China is sufficient, but it needs to be exercised in practice, but the leading talents are lacking. Currently, it is necessary to introduce from overseas or encourage study abroad. Talents return to China.
The competition for good projects is not inferior to the competition for talents. 'Now many institutions come to us.' Yang Yafei said. The reporter also learned from some investment institutions that after some projects were invested, the valuation soon rose. And as long as there are good projects that are known to the industry, there will be a bunch of institutions flocking, and even the bosses who do real estate and do business want to enter. ' Objectively speaking, this is a good thing. Everyone makes up the class and realizes that this thing is The importance of the information age. ' Yang Yafei believes that this can promote the industry.
What are the opportunities for entrepreneurs?
For China's chip industry, how far away from foreign countries means how much room for development. At present, the manufacturing links that restrict the development of the chip industry chain are unable to get involved because of the huge investment. In the eyes of Shi Anping, the country We should increase our efforts to support this link, and we must have a division of labor.
'The core equipment chain of the manufacturing process has many parts and many equipments. One of the parts and one piece of equipment may be a place where small businesses and entrepreneurs can make a difference. ' In addition, the application market and space of the chip are very Big, entrepreneurs can play a role in the specific chip application market.
In Lejinxin's view, the terminal market of chips is a bigger market, but there must be a certain amount of applications in the terminal. If it is a niche product, the revenue will not be worthwhile. But it is undeniable that these terminal applications are racing. The roads are basically occupied by big brands, forming a certain brand structure, leaving little space for startups, and these brands can also make their own chips.
After the ZTE incident, from the country to the place to the enterprise, they all put the chip in a very important position. Can China overtake the curve at this node? 'If we want to overtake the car, it can't be unrealistic. Overtaking the car, after all, technology needs a process of accumulation, which can be borrowed and introduced to digest, but it cannot be developed at once. 'Shi Anping said.
It is undeniable that the state has profoundly realized the importance of developing the chip industry from the policy and fund level. In addition to the large funds of the integrated circuit industry, there are also industrial funds with state-owned assets, which are fully deployed from the local to the central. Shi Anping also pointed out that this must not lack the national master plan.