The United States pursues "America first" and needs to strengthen its chip supply chain. What's wrong with sacrificing Japan.
号号号号号号号号号号号号号号
According to Reuters , Japan is worried that the US and China's chip competition may destroy Japan's chip industry.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Technology of Japan issued a warning in a document released: It is expected that by 2030, the share of the Japanese chip industry may return to zero.
Why does China and the United States compete in, affect Japan?
What should the Japanese chip industry go?
chip industry has become the battlefield for China and the United States to fight. After Huawei
6 Huawei was choked, China made up its mind to build an independent chip supply chain system.
, from the country, enterprises and then to the public, are all taking action, so I won’t introduce it in detail.
The latest case is that Anshi Semiconductor , a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese company Wingtech Technology, spent 540 million yuan to acquire all 100% of the equity of NEPTUNE 6 LIMITED, the parent company of Newport Wafer Fab, the largest chip manufacturer in the UK.
Wingtai Technology Announcement
details, you can check the official explanation of the matter "Chinese company acquires the largest chip company in the UK: UK, will it agree this time? 》 This article has in-depth analysis and foresight judgment.
Look at the United States again and lists the chip industry as an important national policy.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo described strengthening chip manufacturing capabilities as "a top priority for economic and national security."
To achieve this goal, the United States has successively issued a number of bills and invested US$54 billion to develop and manufacture chips.
The US Congress also intends to support Intel and other US manufacturers to strengthen production capacity and promote the return of semiconductor supply chain to the United States.
Under the "kind invitation" of Trump , TSMC has decided to invest US$3.5 billion to build a factory in the United States. It plans to start construction in 2021, install and trial production in 2023, and put into production in a large scale in the first half of 2024. It will directly deploy the current latest 5nm process, with a planned monthly production capacity of 20,000 wafers .
Even the world's only manufacturer of EUV lithography machine has decided to respond to the US call and move the company's headquarters to Phoenix, USA.
ASML company
The United States's efforts are evident.
In fact, before the Huawei incident, the global chip industry was in a delicate balance as a whole.
The United States leads research and development, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are strong in manufacturing, Europe's role is basically consumers, and the presence in mainland China is not high.
20 pure wafer foundry sales in various regions (the proportion in 2010 in brackets, source: IC Insights)
Huawei was choked, forcing China to catch up with the whole country, breaking the original balance.
out of confrontation, the United States has further exacerbated the competition in the entire industry.
plus, the recent widespread shortage of automotive chips has directly threatened one of the few advantageous industries in Europe - the automobile industry.
European countries, which were originally out of the matter, have also begun to worry about the security of the chip industry chain.
Therefore, 13 countries represented by Germany, France, Spain, etc. have planned to jointly invest in chip and semiconductor technology. It is understood that the investment amount is about 145 billion euros (about 947.56 billion yuan).
Advantage players like South Korea are also working hard.
On May 13 this year, the South Korean government released a plan called "K-Semiconductor Industry Belt", with the goal of enabling South Korea to achieve its goal of becoming a comprehensive semiconductor power by 2030.
There is a call for the country and enterprises take action.
Samsung Electronics , SK Hynix and other companies announced that they will invest 510 trillion won (about 3 trillion yuan) within 10 years, and the investment this year will reach 41.8 trillion won.
For semiconductors, South Korea even parole Samsung boss Lee Jae-yong .
is really hard-working.
There are models in front and pursuers behind. How can Japan not be in a hurry?
Japan's chip industry has also written an article to introduce it before.
As the former king, Japan's market share in the global chip field once reached 50%, but now it is only about 10%.
Now, Japan's advantages in the chip field are mainly concentrated in the semiconductor materials and equipment fields, that is, the upstream of the industrial chain.
such as wafers of Shintsuki Chemical and SUMCO, photoresist of JSR and Tokyo agile, CMP grinding solution of Showa Denko, etc. Semiconductor materials such as
are important and important, but the threshold is not as high as imagined.
On July 1, 2019, Japan suddenly announced that it would regulate semiconductor materials exported to South Korea, which shocked South Korea's chip industry.
News Report
2 years have passed. Now it seems that Japan's control not only did not stuck South Korea's neck, but instead forced South Korea to develop alternative products.
like high-purity hydrogen fluoride�
Another example of fluorinated polyimide, South Korea Kelong Industry has built mass production equipment and has reached the export level. In terms of EUV resists, South Korea is turning to imports from Europe.
Once there is another choice, the advantages of Japanese semiconductor materials will be lost, and it is really shooting itself in the foot.
fell from 50% of the market share to 10%. Japan reflected on itself, believing that it was mainly because technology is no longer leading, and at the same time, the cost of competitors was lower.
Now, China and the United States are competing, South Korea is also making efforts, Europe is joining in, and the entire chip industry is already "inverting".
In the long run, Japan's market share will also decline.
Japan Ministry of Economy, Industry and Technology has even estimated the timetable, and it is estimated that by 2030, the share of Japan's chip industry may return to zero.
News report
That means that the Japanese chip industry was destroyed and completely eliminated.
Faced with the severe situation, Japan did not sit still.
First, increase investment.
Data shows that the Japanese government has allocated 500 billion yen (about 4.5 billion US dollars) to strengthen the chip technology supply chain.
chip manufacturing is a typical capital-intensive industry. The construction cost of an advanced wafer fab is about US$10 billion, and the investment is huge.
Japanese money is really a bit unpretentious.
is a bit much worse than the US$54 billion in the United States and the 145 billion euros in the EU .
You should know that China's National Industrial Fund for Integrated Circuits has a scale of 138.7 billion yuan in Phase 2, and is expected to exceed 200 billion yuan in Phase 2. Some think tanks believe that from 2020 to 2030, China's new semiconductor investment will exceed 1.2 trillion yuan.
The second is to adjust the direction of the industry.
In June this year, the Japanese government approved a strategy formulated by the Nishikawa team of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan to ensure that Japan has enough chips to compete in the technology areas that drive future economic growth.
One of the measures is to turn Japan into an Asian data center. Such a center will create a huge demand for semiconductors, which in turn will attract chip manufacturers to build factories nearby.
This is a typical idea of "attracting technology with the market".
looks beautiful, but big data is closely related to the Internet industry.
Looking at Asia, China's Internet industry is the strongest, and Southeast Asia's Internet is gradually becoming one of its own. It is almost impossible for Japan to become an Asian data center.
cannot become a data center, so how can we develop the chip industry?
Although Japan's chip industry has a good foundation, it does not have an advantage in terms of current industrial layout, future investment and planning. What’s more important is that Japan is also worried that the United States will “empty its assets” by the United States—
The United States will “comfortably invite” Japanese companies with leading technology to build factories in the United States like they did when dealing with TSMC.
In this way, Japan really loses its advantages.
Historically, this is not an unfair worry.
Japanese economy has long relied on the United States, and once it emerges, the United States will kill. This logic has long been confirmed by the rise and fall of Japanese chips.
At this stage, the United States pursues "America first" and needs to strengthen its chip supply chain. What's wrong with sacrificing Japan.
is just a repeat of history.
