After years of rapid development, China's semiconductors are about to enter a new stage, and people in all industries will face new questions: Where will future opportunities appear? In response to this, at the main forum of the 6th JIWEI Semiconductor Summit in 2022, Han Xiaomin, general manager of JW Insights, delivered a keynote speech on "From Chaos to Order - The Development of China's Semiconductor Industry Has Entered Deep Water", shared the relevant views of JW Insights.
Compared with the three major data of global GDP development, semiconductor industry revenue and wafer shipment area in the past 20 years, Han Xiaomin believes that the development of the global semiconductor industry is highly related to the overall global economic development trend, and there is no time difference. Even if price fluctuations have an impact on market size statistics, it can be seen from the high correlation between market size and shipments that the main driving force for market growth is the increase in silicon content.
Han Xiaomin said that the development of the semiconductor industry shows a certain periodicity, about 5 years, and there will be disturbances of about 1 year under the influence of special circumstances (subprime mortgage crisis, new crown epidemic , etc.).
Looking back at the 20-year development of China's semiconductor industry, Han Xiaomin divides the development of China's semiconductor industry into several paragraphs according to the number of investment in the semiconductor industry each year. First of all, before the launch of the 02 special project, there were less than 10 industry investment cases every year; from the launch of the 02 special project to the establishment of the large fund, the market gradually became active, and the number of investment cases gradually increased from more than 10 to about 30; After the establishment of the fund, a consensus on the development of the semiconductor industry has been formed nationwide. The successive events of ZTE and Huawei, as well as the launch of the Science and Technology Innovation Board, have resulted in nearly 300 investment cases in the semiconductor industry; after the official opening of the Science and Technology Innovation Board in 2019 , more companies and investment institutions have begun to enter this track. From 2019 to the present, the number of investment cases in the entire industry has exceeded 500 each year.
Regarding the future development of China's semiconductors, based on two observations, Han Xiaomin believes that it is about to enter the deep water area.
First, despite the excellent performance of the Chinese market, the share of Chinese companies in the global market is still very small. Han Xiaomin said, "The total revenue of the top 100 domestic companies is about 280 billion, which is only half of the size of a giant like Intel." If divided according to the track, the global microprocessor market size is about more than 100 billion US dollars, and the market share of Chinese enterprises is insufficient. 1%; the global memory market size is about 150 billion US dollars, and the market share of Chinese enterprises is only about 2%. The global automotive semiconductor market size is about 56.5 billion US dollars, and the market share of Chinese enterprises is only about 2.7%. These data show that there are still many domestic enterprises.
The second is wafer production capacity. "In the past one or two years, the investment in the entire domestic wafer production capacity, including the production line construction speed, is still very fast, but in general, the domestic 12-inch wafer production capacity, including 8-inch wafer production capacity, only accounts for about 10% of the world." Han Xiaomin said that whether it is power semiconductors or memory products, domestic foundries have a lot of room for development.
At present, the entire industry is in a downward cycle, and many people in the industry are trying to find some logic for crossing the cycle. However, Han Xiaomin believes that the big cycle of the entire industry is inevitable, and opportunities must be grasped from the subtleties of the market.
Han Xiaomin believes that the development of the entire domestic industry can be divided into two main lines, one is the mature market-oriented process, from wafer manufacturing, equipment materials to capacity expansion, the entire chain operates relatively smoothly. The other is in the field of advanced technology. Equipment manufacturers should make key breakthroughs. In the manufacturing field, they should pay attention to the advanced technology itself. Material manufacturers should cooperate with industry partners.
Han Xiaomin finally pointed out, "In the future, China's semiconductor industry will enter the third stage from the first two stages of the past, with technological innovation as the leading factor, high-end domestic substitution will be carried out, and more original innovations will be generated."
