Global semiconductors have entered a downward cycle, and the "core shortage" has become "core panic", but the trends are different. With the stock prices of lithography machines, Asmay and TSMC, the leading lithography machines, peaked in November last year and January this year, respectively, it may imply that the highlight moments of global semiconductors are passing. Coupled with the shrinking demand caused by global high inflation and the gradual release of new production capacity invested in the past two years, the chip shortage problem that has plagued the global technology industry in the past two years is gradually being alleviated. Against the backdrop of repeated reports of differentiation of downstream market demand, weak demand for consumer electronic terminals, and sharp order cuts in the industrial chain, the industry's inventory level is gradually rising, and the current prosperity of the semiconductor industry is entering a downward cycle.
Mobile phones/PCs are the mainstay of semiconductors. According to IC Insights' forecast, the global semiconductor IC market size in 2022 is about US$565.1 billion, of which communications (including mobile phones) are the largest downstream application, accounting for 35%, PCs account for 30%, ranking second, and consumer electronics accounts for 11%. The automobile and industrial sectors account for 8% and 7% respectively. At present, the demand for semiconductor has maintained growth, mainly concentrated in the fields of automotive electrification, intelligence, and Industry 4.0.
As the chip production capacity expanded in the past two years gradually put into production, the "core shortage" has become a "core panic". The current chip inventory is in a new round of excess cycle. In the past September, the Shenwan Semiconductor Index fell by 12.33%. Of course, it is not that A shares "scenery collapses alone" - look at US stock again. As the global semiconductor industry's weather vane, Philadelphia Semiconductor has also suffered huge losses recently, with a cumulative decline of nearly 14% in September and a cumulative decline of more than 40% since the beginning of the year.
Although the semiconductor index has seen a large decline, the trends of each sub-sector are completely different. Among the seven sub-sectors of Shenwan Semiconductor, discrete devices, namely power semiconductors, fell the most, with a drop of nearly 20% in September; integrated circuit packaging and testing fell 16%; analog chip design fell nearly 14%; digital chip design fell nearly 12%, semiconductor material fell 8%, and semiconductor equipment fell 1%.
From the perspective of various semiconductor segments, although semiconductor equipment and semiconductor materials have fallen, they are obviously more prosperous. In particular, semiconductor equipment only fell slightly by 1%.
Semiconductor equipment domestically achieved initial results, and domestic substitution was accelerated. Since the Sino-US trade war in 2018, the United States has continuously suppressed China's high-tech industries and restricted the development of China's high-tech industries. Faced with various difficulties, not only has it not restricted the development of China's core technology, but especially with the support of policies that continue to tilt towards core areas such as "bottlenecks" and "filling on shortcomings", China's core technology field has achieved initial results. Taking semiconductor equipment as an example, after years of national development, the proportion of domestic production in the semiconductor equipment field has increased to nearly 36%, and domestic substitution has achieved initial results.
According to the annual data, the domestic production rate of equipment in 2021 reached 27.4%, a significant increase from 16.8% in 2020. A total of 666 process equipment were launched from January to August 2022, with a total of 239 equipment produced by mainland Chinese manufacturers, accounting for 35.9%. By equipment, the links with higher domestic yields from January to August 2022 are mainly dry glue removal equipment (domestic yields 80.6%), etching equipment (58.9%), cleaning equipment (53.7%), polishing equipment (42.9%), and glue coating and development equipment (38.9%).
Since this year, the United States has repeatedly imposed targeted sanctions on my country's semiconductors: the US chip law restricts international wafer factories from building factories in the mainland, restricts US equipment manufacturers from selling equipment with 14nm or less processes to the mainland, restricts EDA, GPU, etc. to the mainland, etc. exports to the mainland, etc. The semiconductor sector is highly sensitive to event catalysis, sanctions strengthen the logic of domestic substitution, and domestic substitution is accelerated.
semiconductor equipment continues to have a high prosperity and is expected to cross this downward cycle. related data shows that there are currently 23 12-inch wafer factories in mainland China that are currently put into production, with a total monthly production capacity of about 1.042 million pieces. Compared with the total planned monthly production capacity of 1.565 million pieces, the capacity loading rate of these wafer factories only reaches 66.58%, and there is still a lot of room for expansion.With the rapid development of new energy vehicles and wind and solar storage, industrial robots, automation and other industries, the current wafer production capacity is difficult to meet the needs of future growth.
According to Jiwei Consulting, 25 new 12-inch wafer factories will be added in mainland China in the next five years (2022-2026), and the total planned monthly production capacity of these wafer factories will exceed 1.6 million pieces. As of the end of 2026, the total monthly production capacity of 12-inch wafer fabs in mainland China will exceed 2.763 million pieces, an increase of 165.1% from the current level.
CITIC Securities also stated that the mainland Chinese wafer fabs currently plan to add 2.35 million pieces per month in the future (equivalent to 12 inches), with a total investment of more than US$150 billion, corresponding to an average investment of approximately US$650 million per month.
It is worth noting that in the global semiconductor equipment market in 2021, the market size of wafer manufacturing equipment accounts for more than 85%, while the market size of packaging and testing equipment accounts for about 7%. The global semiconductor equipment market size reached US$103 billion in 2021, an increase of 42.24% over 2020. SEMI predicts that the global semiconductor equipment market size will reach US$118 billion in 2022.
Therefore, in the context of large-scale expansion of wafer manufacturers in mainland China, the high prosperity of semiconductor equipment will continue, and domestic semiconductor equipment companies will benefit significantly, and are expected to cross this round of global semiconductor downward cycle.
Focus on: China Micro Company , Shengjian Environment, Zhi Pure Technology , Huaya Intelligent, Northern Huachuang , Shengmei Shanghai, Xinyuan Micro, Tuojing Technology.
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