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wafers are the basic raw materials for manufacturing semiconductor devices. Extremely high-purity semiconductors are prepared into wafers through crystal drawing and slicing processes. The wafers form extremely tiny circuit structures through a series of semiconductor manufacturing processes, and then become chips after cutting, packaging and testing, and are widely used in various electronic devices. Wafer materials have experienced more than 60 years of technological evolution and industrial development, forming a current industrial situation dominated by silicon and supplemented by new semiconductor materials.
Basic framework of semiconductor wafer materials
20 In the 1950s, germanium (Ge) was the first semiconductor material to be used and was first used in discrete devices. The emergence of integrated circuits is an important step forward in the semiconductor industry. In July 1958, at Texas Instruments, in Dallas, Texas, the first integrated circuit made by Jack Kilby was made of a piece of germanium semiconductor material as a substrate.
Semiconductor industry chain process
However, there are shortcomings in the high temperature resistance and radiation resistance of germanium devices, and by the late 1960s, it was gradually replaced by silicon (Si) devices. The silicon reserves are extremely rich, the purification and crystallization processes are mature, and the oxidized silicon dioxide (SiO2) thin film has good insulation performance, which greatly improves the stability and reliability of the device. Therefore, silicon has become the most widely used semiconductor material. In terms of semiconductor devices output value, more than 95% of semiconductor devices and more than 99% of integrated circuits worldwide use silicon as substrate material.
In 2017, the global semiconductor market size was approximately US$412.2 billion, while the compound semiconductor market size was approximately US$20 billion, accounting for less than 5%. Judging from the wafer substrate market size, the annual sales of silicon substrates in 2017 were US$8.7 billion, and the annual sales of GaAs substrates were approximately US$800 million. GaN substrates have annual sales of approximately US$100 million, while SiC substrates have annual sales of approximately US$300 million. Silicon substrate sales account for 85%+. Its dominance and core position remain unshakable in the 21st century. However, the physical properties of Si materials limit their application in optoelectronics and high-frequency, high-power devices.
Semiconductor market share (by material)
20 Since the 1990s, second-generation semiconductor materials represented by gallium arsenide (GaAs) and indium phosphide (InP) have begun to emerge. GaAs, InP and other materials are suitable for the production of high-speed, high-frequency, high-power and luminescent electronic devices. They are excellent materials for the production of high-performance microwave, millimeter wave devices and light-emitting devices. They are widely used in satellite communication, mobile communication, optical communication, GPS navigation and other fields. However, GaAs and InP material resources are scarce, expensive, and toxic, which can pollute the environment. InP is even considered a suspected carcinogen. These shortcomings make the application of second-generation semiconductor materials very limited.
The third generation semiconductor materials mainly include SiC, GaN, etc. Because their band gap width (Eg) is greater than or equal to 2.3 electron volts (eV), it is also called a wide band gap semiconductor material. Compared with the first and second generation semiconductor materials, the third generation semiconductor materials have the advantages of high thermal conductivity, high breakdown field strength, high saturation electron drift rate and high bonding energy. They can meet the new requirements of modern electronic technology for harsh conditions such as high temperature, high power, high voltage, high frequency and radiation resistance. They are the most promising materials in the field of semiconductor materials. They have important application prospects in the fields of national defense, aviation, aerospace, petroleum exploration, optical storage, etc. In many strategic industries such as broadband communication, solar energy, automobile manufacturing, semiconductor lighting, and smart grids, they can reduce energy losses by more than 50%, and can reduce the equipment volume by up to 75%, which is of milestone significance to the development of human science and technology.
Wafer Material Properties Comparison
Compound semiconductors refer to semiconductor materials formed by two or more elements, and the second and third generation semiconductors mostly belong to this category. According to the number of elements, it can be divided into binary compounds, ternary compounds, quaternary compounds, etc., and binary compound semiconductors can also be divided into III-V, IV-IV, II-VI, etc. according to the position of the constituent elements in the periodic table of chemical elements.Compound semiconductor materials represented by gallium arsenide (GaAs), gallium nitride (GaN), and silicon carbide (SiC) have become the fastest-growing, most widely used and largest production semiconductor materials after
silicon. Compound semiconductor materials have superior performance and band structure:
(1) high electron mobility;
(2) high frequency characteristics;
(3) wide bandwidth;
(4) high linearity;
(5) high power;
(6) material selection diversity;
(7) radiation resistance.
Therefore, compound semiconductors are mostly used in the manufacturing of radio frequency devices, optoelectronic devices, power devices, etc., and have great development potential; silicon devices are mostly used in logic devices, memory, etc., and are irreplaceable to each other.
compound semiconductor material
wafer preparation: substrate and epitaxial process
wafer preparation includes two major links: substrate preparation and epitaxial process. A substrate is a wafer made of semiconductor single crystal material. The substrate can directly enter the wafer manufacturing process to produce semiconductor devices, or can be processed and produced by epitaxial processes. Epitaxy refers to the process of growing a new layer of single crystal on a single crystal substrate. The new single crystal can be the same material as the substrate or it can be a different material. Epitaxial can produce more types of materials, giving more choices in device design. The basic steps for preparing the
substrate are as follows: The semiconductor polycrystalline material is first produced by purification, doping and drawing processes. Taking silicon as an example, the silicon sand is first refined and reduced to metallurgical-grade crude silicon with a purity of about 98%, and then purified multiple times to obtain electronic-grade high-purity polycrystalline silicon (purity reaches more than 99.99999999%, 9~11 pieces), and a single-crystalline silicon rod is drawn through a furnace. Single crystal material is mechanically processed, chemically treated, surface polished and quality inspection to obtain single crystal polished sheets that meet certain standards (thickness, crystal direction, flatness, parallelism and damage layer). The purpose of polishing is to further remove the damaged layer remaining on the processing surface. The polishing sheet can be used directly to make the device or as an epitaxial substrate material. The basic steps for preparing
substrate
epitaxial growth process currently mainly includes two types of MOCVD (chemical vapor precipitation) technology and MBE (molecular beam epitaxial) technology. For example, the new Optoelectronics uses MOCVD, and Intelee uses MBE technology.
epitaxial wafer structure diagram
In comparison, MOCVD technology has a faster growth rate and is more suitable for industrial large-scale production, while MBE technology is more suitable for use in some situations such as PHEMT structure and Sb compound semiconductor production. HVPE (hydride gas phase epitaxial) technology is mainly used in GaN substrate production. LPE (liquid phase deposition) technology is mainly used in silicon wafers and has been basically replaced by vapor deposition technology.
MBE and MOCVD technology
wafer size: The technological development process is different
silicon wafer size reaches 12 inches, and the compound semiconductor wafer size is up to 6 inches. The mainstream size of silicon wafer substrates is 12 inches, accounting for about 65% of the global silicon wafer production capacity. 8 inches is also a commonly used mature process wafer, with a global production capacity of 25%. GaAs substrates have mainstream sizes of 4 inches and 6 inches; SiC substrates have mainstream sizes of 2 inches and 4 inches; GaN self-supporting substrates are mainly 2 inches.
substrate wafer material corresponding size
SiC substrate has currently reached 6 inches and 8 inches under development (II-VI has manufactured samples). In fact, the mainstream adoption is still 4-inch wafers. The main reason is (1) Currently, 6-inch SiC wafers are about 2.25 times the cost of 4-inches, and by 2020, there is no major improvement in cost reduction, and replacing equipment machines requires additional capital expenditure. The current advantage of 6-inch is only in terms of production efficiency; (2) 6-inch SiC wafers are relatively low in quality than 4-inch wafers, so 6-inch is currently mainly used to manufacture diodes. Making diodes on lower-quality wafers is simpler than manufacturing MOSFETs.
epitaxial growth corresponds to the waffer size
GaN material lacks single crystal material in nature, so it has long been epitaxial on heterogeneous substrates such as sapphire, SiC, and Si. Today, 2-inch, 3-inch, 4-inch GaN self-supporting substrates can be produced by hydride vapor-phase epitaxial (HVPE) and ammonia thermal processes. Currently, GaN epitaxial on heterogeneous substrates is still mainly used in commercial applications. GaN self-supporting substrates have the greatest application on lasers, which can achieve higher luminous efficiency and luminous quality.
Development history of different wafer sizes
silicon: mainstream market, strong demand in segmented fields
from silicon wafer supply manufacturer structure: Japanese factory control, oligopolis pattern is stable. Japanese manufacturers occupy more than 50% of the market share of silicon wafers. The top five manufacturers account for more than 90% of the world's share. Among them, Japan's Xinyue Chemical accounts for 27%, Japan's SUMCO accounts for 26%, and the two Japanese manufacturers have a total share of 53%, more than half. Taiwan Global Wafer acquired the United States' SunEdison Semiconductor during the wafer industry trough in December 2016, and rose from sixth to third place, accounting for 17%, Germany's Siltronic accounts for 13%, and South Korea's SK Siltron (formerly LG Siltron, acquired by SK Group in 2017) accounts for 9%. Unlike the top four manufacturers, SK Siltron only supplies Korean customers.
In addition, there are French Soitec, Taiwan Taiwan Semiconductor, Hejing, Jiajing and other companies, with relatively small shares. The types and sizes of wafers supplied by major manufacturers are different. Overall, the products of the top three manufacturers are quite diverse. The top three manufacturers can supply Si annealing sheets and SOI chips, among which only Japan Shin-Etsu can supply 12-inch SOI chips. Siltronic in Germany and SK Siltron in South Korea do not provide SOI chips, and SK Siltron does not supply Si annealing chips. However, the sizes of Si polishing sheets and Si epitaxial sheets are basically no different.
Silicon wafer supplier competitiveness
In the past 15 years, Japanese manufacturers have always occupied more than 50% of the market share of silicon wafers. There has been no significant regional transfer in silicon wafer production capacity. According to Gartner, in 2007, the market share of silicon wafers was the first in Japan (32.5%), the second in Japan SUMCO (21.7%), and the third in Germany Siltronic (14.8%); in 2002, the market share of silicon wafers was the first in Japan (28.9%), the second in Japan SUMCO (23.3%), and the third in Germany Siltronic (15.4%). The recent major market change is that in December 2016, Taiwan Global Wafer acquired SunEdison, the United States, and promoted from the sixth largest manufacturer to the third largest manufacturer. But Japanese manufacturers always account for 50%+ share.
Japan's competitiveness in the fab link declined while the materials link always maintained a leading position. In the mid-1980s, Japan's semiconductor industry once had a world share of more than 50%. Japan's advantages in the field of semiconductor materials continued from the last century, while the competitiveness of wafer manufacturing has significantly weakened, and there has been a significant regional shift in the semiconductor fab link. The reason is that the fab link is close to the demand side and the market changes greatly; but the degree of homogeneity of silicon wafers is high, and new players need to have a long time to verify with customers; and the cost of wafers in wafer foundry accounts for less than 10%, and wafer foundries are unwilling to risk changing immature products for smaller price differences.
silicon wafer supplier share changes in the past 15 years
silicon wafer demand manufacturer structure: mainly overseas, domestic manufacturers have many highlights
IC design, giants have high barriers to controlling competition, and since 2018, AI chips have become a new growth driver. Manufacturers such as Qualcomm, Broadcom, MediaTek, and Apple are the strongest, and mainland manufacturer HiSilicon has risen. As technology development leads to the upgrading of terminal products, the demand for IC products by innovative applications such as AI chips continues to expand. It is expected that by 2020, the AI chip market size will rise from about US$600 million in 2016 to US$2.6 billion, with a CAGR of 43.9%. At present, domestic and foreign IC design manufacturers are actively deploying the AI chip industry. Nvidia is the market leader in AI chips, and AMD and Tesla are jointly developing AI chips for autonomous driving.
For domestic manufacturers, Huawei HiSilicon was the first to launch the Kirin 970 AI chip in September 2017, and has been successfully equipped with P20 and other models; Bitmain's world's first tensor acceleration computing chip, BM1680, has been successfully used in Bitcoin mining machines; Cambrian's 1A processor, Horizon Journey and Sun Rising Processor have also emerged. IC design is inevitable for terminal and market-oriented, and domestic manufacturers have obvious advantages. Only by being demand-oriented in the IC design industry can better serve downstream customers. Mobile processing chips and baseband chip manufacturers such as HiSilicon and Zhanrui have risen rapidly in recent years, becoming one of the top ten IC designs in the world. HiSilicon chips have been fully applied to Huawei smartphones. Samsung and Xiaomi have also adopted self-developed chips. Today, China is the world's largest terminal demand market, so the domestic IC design industry has huge development advantages.
Global IC design manufacturers ranked 2017 in
In terms of foundry manufacturing, the manufacturer Capex has grown rapidly, led by giants such as Samsung and TSMC. Judging from the capital expenditure, the global advanced process chip market is currently fiercely competitive. The Capex of Samsung, Intel and TSMC, the top three chip manufacturers in the world, all reached the 10 billion US dollars, and was 440/120/10.8 billion US dollars in 2017, respectively. It is expected that Samsung's total Capex will be close to 110 billion US dollars in the next three years. Intel and TSMC are expected to reach 140 and 12 billion US dollars in 2018, both of which have significant growth, which is conducive to the giants occupying the market through the research and development of advanced process technologies and expanding production lines.
From the perspective of process manufacturing, TSMC is at the forefront of the industry. It has currently produced 10nm process chips on a large scale, and the 7nm process will be mass-produced in 2018; SMIC, the most leading foundry manufacturer in mainland China, currently has the capacity for mass-producing 28nm process, while TSMC has already had the capacity for mass-producing 28nm as early as 2011. In comparison, there is still a big gap among mainland manufacturers.
Global wafer pure foundry (Pure-Play) manufacturers Ranking in 2016
In terms of packaging and testing, the future trend of high-end manufacturing + packaging and testing integration is beginning to appear, and the technical gap between mainland manufacturers and Taiwanese manufacturers narrows. Packaging and testing technology has been developed for four generations, and manufacturing and packaging and testing have been integrated in the highest-end technology. Among them, TSMC has established two high-end packaging ecosystems, CoWoS and InFO, and plans to double the InFO production capacity by extending from Longtan to Zhongke to meet the needs of Apple's A12 chips.
packaging and testing leader Riyueguang has mastered top packaging and microelectronics manufacturing technology, and is the first to mass-produce TSV/2.5D/3D related products. In March 2018, it established Riyueyang Electronics to expand its SiP layout with Japanese factory TDK in March 2018. Due to the relatively low threshold for packaging technology, mainland manufacturers are currently catching up quickly, and the technical gap with global leading manufacturers is gradually narrowing. Mainland manufacturers have basically mastered advanced technologies such as SiP, WLCSP, and FOWLP. In terms of application, packaging technologies such as FC and SiP have been mass-produced.
Global semiconductor packaging manufacturer ranking 2017
A new round of regional transfers is aimed at mainland China. Although the top manufacturers of IC design, manufacturing, packaging and testing are currently mainly located in the United States and Taiwan, China. Overall, the semiconductor manufacturing industry has experienced the development history of the United States-Japan-Korea-Taiwan: in the 1950s, the semiconductor industry originated in the United States, transistors were born in 1947, and integrated circuits were born in 1958. In the 1970s, semiconductor manufacturing was transferred from the United States to Japan. DRAM is an important entry point for the development of Japan and South Korea's industries, and 80s Japan is already in a leading position in the semiconductor industry. In the 1990s, taking DRAM as an opportunity, the industry turned to manufacturers such as Samsung and Hynix in South Korea; the wafer foundry process turned to Taiwan, and manufacturers such as TSMC and UMC rose. In 2010s, smartphones and mobile Internet exploded, and industries such as the Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence grew rapidly. Demographic dividend, demand transfer may drive manufacturing transfer, and it can be foreseeable that mainland China has become the destination of a new round of regional transfer.
Global semiconductor industry US-Japan-Korea regional transfer history
downstream application split: Dual-wheel drive technology advancement
wafer size and process development in parallel, and each process stage corresponds to the wafer size.(1) Process progress → transistor reduction → transistor density increases exponentially → performance improvement. (2) Increased wafer size → more chips produced per wafer → increased efficiency → reduced cost. At present, 6-inch and 8-inch silicon wafer production equipment have generally been depreciated, and the production cost is even lower. It mainly produces mature processes above 90nm. Some processes are produced on wafers of adjacent sizes. 12-inch wafers are used between 5nm and 0.13μm, of which 28nm is the boundary to distinguish advanced and mature processes. The main reason is that new designs and new processes such as FinFET are introduced later, and the difficulty of wafer manufacturing is greatly improved.
silicon wafer size corresponds to the total demand for
wafers, the 12-inch NAND and 8-inch markets are the core driving forces. The largest proportion of 12-inch silicon wafers for storage is 35%, followed by 8-inch and 12-inch logic. In terms of product sales, memory accounts for about 27.8% of global integrated circuit products, logic circuit accounts for 33%, and microprocessor chip combined analog circuits account for 21.9% and 17.3% respectively. According to our forecast, the global demand for 12-inch silicon wafers in the second half of 2016 is about 5.1 million pieces/month, of which 1.3 million pieces/month are used for logic chips, 1.2 million pieces/month are used for DRAM, 1.6 million pieces/month are used for NAND, including 1 million pieces/month, including other demands such as NORFlash and CIS; the demand for 8-inch silicon wafers is 4.8 million pieces/month, which is converted into about 2.13 million pieces/month for 12-inch wafers, and the demand for wafers below 6-inch is about 620,000 pieces/month.
12-inch, 8-inch, and 6-inch wafer demand structure
From this estimate, the demand for 12-inch wafers used in the storage market, including NAND and DRAM, accounts for about 35% of the total demand, the demand for 8-inch wafers accounts for about 27% of the total demand, and the demand for 12-inch wafers used in logic chips accounts for about 17%. In terms of demand, memory contributes the most demand for wafers, followed by 8-inch mid- and low-end applications.
8-inch wafer demand structure
wafer size corresponds to product type
downstream specific applications, the advanced processes below 12-inch 20nm have strong performance and are mainly used in mobile devices, high-performance computing and other fields, including smartphone main chips, computer CPUs, GPUs, high-performance FPGAs, ASICs, etc. The 14nm-32nm advanced process is used in applications including DRAM, NAND Flash memory chips, mid- and low-end processor chips, image processors, digital TV set-top boxes, etc. The mature process of
12 inch 45-90nm is mainly used in areas with slightly lower performance requirements and high cost and production efficiency requirements, such as mobile phone baseband, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, NFC, ZigBee, NOR Flash chip, MCU, etc. 12-inch or 8-inch 90nm to 0.15μm is mainly used in MCUs, fingerprint recognition chips, image sensors, power management chips, LCD driver ICs, etc. 8-inch 0.18μm-0.25μm mainly includes nonvolatile storage such as bank cards, sim cards, etc., and above 0.35μm are mainly power devices such as MOSFETs and IGBTs.
process-size corresponds to downstream application requirements split
compound semiconductor: 5G, 3D sensing, key materials for electric vehicles
compound semiconductor wafer supply manufacturer pattern: Japan, the United States and Germany dominate, oligopoly pattern.
substrate market: High technical thresholds lead to oligosity of compound semiconductor substrate market, dominated by Japanese, American and German manufacturers. GaAs substrates are currently occupied by four companies: Sumitomo Electrician, Germany Freiberg, the United States AXT, and Sumitomo Chemical, with the share of the four companies exceeding 90%. Sumitomo Chemical acquired the compound semiconductor business of Hitachi Cable (Hita Metal) in 2011 and transferred it to its subsidiary Sciocs in 2016. GaN self-supporting substrates are currently mainly monopolized by three Japanese companies, Sumitomo Electric, Mitsubishi Chemical and Sumitomo Chemical, accounting for more than 85% of the total. The SiC substrate leader is Cree (Wolfspeed department), with a market share of more than one-third, followed by German SiCrystal, US II-VI, and US Dow Corning. The total share of the four companies exceeds 90%. In recent years, SiC substrate manufacturers with certain mass production capabilities have also emerged in China, such as Tianke Heda Blu-ray.
compound semiconductor supplier competitiveness
epitaxial growth market, the UK IQE market share exceeds 60% is the absolute leader. The total shares of IQE in the UK and new Optoelectronics in Taiwan in China reached 80%.Epitaxial growth mainly includes MOCVD (chemical vapor precipitation) technology and MBE (molecular beam epitaxial) technology. For example, IQE and the new Optoelectronics both use MOCVD, and Intelee uses MBE technology. HVPE (hydride gas phase epitaxial) technology is mainly used in the production of GaN substrates.
compound semiconductor wafer demand manufacturer pattern: IDM coexist with foundry manufacturers
compound semiconductor industry chain presents an oligopolitical competitive landscape. IDM manufacturers include Skyworks, Broadcom (Avago), Qorvo, Anadigics, etc. In 2016, global compound semiconductor IDM showed a three-oligopoly pattern. In 2016, IDM manufacturers Skyworks, Qorvo and Broadcom accounted for 30.7%, 28% and 7.4% of the market share in the gallium arsenide field, respectively. The industrial chain is showing a multi-modal integration trend, and de-waferization of design companies and outsourcing of IDM production capacity has become an inevitable trend.
Global gallium arsenide components (including IDM) output value distribution
compound semiconductor wafer foundry is the largest manufacturer, accounting for 66%, and is the absolute leader. The second and third are Hongjie Technology AWSC and Huanyu Technology GCS, accounting for 12% and 9% respectively. Domestic design promotes OEM, and the leading foundry of the mainland compound semiconductor is about to emerge. At present, domestic PA design companies have emerged with Ruidike RDA, Weijiechuangxin Vanchip, Hantianxia, Feixiang Technology and other companies.
Global GaAssinide Foundry Market Share
Domestic compound semiconductor design manufacturers have now occupied low-end applications in the consumer electronics market such as 2G/3G/4G/WiFi. Sanan Optoelectronics currently focuses on LED applications and is expected to fill the domestic gap in compound semiconductor foundry. The construction of its fundraising and production line is smooth, and it is expected to achieve a production capacity of 4,000-6,000 pieces per month by the end of 2018, becoming the first large-scale mass-producing GaAs/GaN compound wafer foundry enterprise in mainland China.
compound semiconductor wafer downstream application split: unique performance, self-forming system
compound semiconductor downstream application can be divided into two categories: optical devices and electronic devices. Optical devices include LED light emitting diodes, LD laser diodes, PD optical receivers, etc. Electronic devices include PA power amplifiers, LNA low-noise amplifiers, radio frequency switches, digital-to-analog conversion, microwave monolithic ICs, power semiconductor devices, Hall components, etc. For GaAs materials, SC GaAs (single crystal gallium arsenide) is mainly used in optical devices, while SI GaAs (semi-insulated gallium arsenide)
is mainly used in electronic devices.
compound semiconductor wafers correspond to downstream applications of
optical devices, LED accounts for the largest proportion, and LD/PD and VCSEL have a lot of room for growth. About 70% of Cree's revenue comes from LEDs, and the rest comes from power, RF, SiC wafers. 80% of SiC substrates market comes from diodes, and SiC materials are the most mature of all wide bandgap semiconductor substrates. LEDs made of different compound semiconductor materials correspond to different wavelengths of light: GaAs LEDs emit red and green light, GaP emits green light, SiC emits yellow light, and GaN emits blue light. White LEDs can be used to excite yellow fluorescent materials to create white LEDs. In addition, GaAs can make infrared LEDs, which are commonly used for infrared emission of remote controls, while GaN can make ultraviolet LEDs. Red and blue light laser emitters made by GaAs and GaN can be used for reading CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs.
Various material processes correspond to output power and frequency
Electronic devices are mainly RF and power applications. GaN on SiC, GaN self-supporting substrate, GaAs substrate, GaAs on Si are mainly used in radio frequency semiconductors (RF front-end PA, etc.); while GaN on Si and SiC substrates are mainly used in power semiconductors (automotive electronics, etc.). Comparison of application range of
GaN and SiC power devices
GaN has unique advantages in the field of high power devices in base stations due to its high power density. Compared with silicon substrates, SiC substrates have better thermal conductivity. Currently, more than 95% of GaN RF devices in the industry use SiC substrates. For example, Qorvo uses a process based on SiC substrates, while silicon-based GaN devices can be manufactured on 8-inch wafers, which has a more cost advantage. In the field of power semiconductors, SiC substrates compete with GaN on Silicon in only a small part of the field. The GaN market is mostly in the low voltage field, while SiC is used in the high voltage field.Their boundary is about 600V. Analysis of the main downstream applications of
: From the process materials, the degree of domestic chip production
(1) Smartphone: IC design is the first to catch up, and OEM and materials are still to be broken through.
Smartphone core chips involve advanced processes and compound semiconductor materials, with low domestic yields. Taking Huawei mobile phones, which currently use more domestic chips, as an example, we can roughly see the "upper limit" of domestic chips.
CPU Currently, Huawei HiSilicon can design independently, and also includes fabless design companies such as Xiaomi Songcone. However, due to the use of the most advanced 12-inch process, manufacturing mainly relies on Taiwanese companies in China; no related companies are mass-produced in China for DRAM and NAND flash memory; the front-end LTE modules and WiFi Bluetooth modules use GaAs materials, and the production capacity is concentrated in US IDM companies such as Skyworks and Qorvo, as well as Taiwanese foundries such as Wenmao, and there are no gallium arsenide foundries in mainland China; RF transceiver modules, PMICs, and audio ICs can be designed + foundry foundries, while charging control ICs, NFC control ICs, and air pressure, gyroscopes and other sensors are mainly provided by European and American IDM manufacturers. Overall, the domestic production rate of core chips of smartphones is still low, and some chips such as DRAM, NAND, RF modules, etc. are almost zero.
Taking the mainstream flagship phone iPhone X as an example, we can roughly see the position of mainland Chinese chip manufacturers in the global supply chain. The CPU adopts Apple's independent design + TSMC's advanced process foundry, DRAM and NAND are from South Korea/Japan/US IDM manufacturers; the base belt is from Qualcomm's design + TSMC's advanced process foundry; the RF module uses gallium arsenide material, from IDM manufacturers such as Skyworks and Qorvo or Broadcom + Wenmao foundry; analog chips, audio ICs, NFC chips, touch ICs, image sensors, etc. are all from companies outside mainland China, and mainland Chinese chips account for zero proportion in Apple's supply chain. Most of the components except chips and screens are included in mainland Chinese suppliers, and some are even monopolized by mainland manufacturers. This shows that the competitiveness of mainland Chinese chip companies is still low on a global scale.
Smartphone internal chip correspondence process - iPhone X
(2) Communication base station: High-power RF chips are extremely dependent on the United States
Communication base stations are extremely dependent on foreign chips, and are mainly American chip companies. Currently, the base station system mainly consists of two parts: baseband processing unit (BBU) and radio frequency remote unit (RRU). Usually one BBU corresponds to multiple RRU devices. In contrast, RRU chips have a lower degree of domestic production and are highly dependent on foreign countries.
BBU+RRU system diagram
This main difficulty is reflected in the fact that RRU chip devices involve high-power RF scenarios, usually using gallium arsenide or gallium nitride materials, while mainland China lacks the corresponding industrial chain.
RRU The maximum internal chip threshold is
American manufacturers monopolize high-power RF devices. Specifically, the current PA, LNA, DSA, VGA and other chips in RRU devices mainly use gallium arsenide or gallium nitride processes, from Qorvo, Skyworks and other companies, among which gallium nitride devices are usually silicon carbide substrates, namely GaN on SiC. RF transceivers and digital-to-analog converters use silicon-based and gallium arsenide processes, and the main manufacturers include TI, ADI, IDT and other companies. All of the above manufacturers are American companies, so communication base station chips are extremely dependent on American manufacturers.
Base station communication equipment main chip
(3) Automotive Electronics: The industry technology is becoming more and more mature, and some have been domestically produced
Automotive Electronics mainly needs MCU, NOR Flash, IGBT, etc. Traditional cars mainly have high demand for MCUs, including power control, safety control, engine control, chassis control, and on-board electrical appliances. New energy vehicles also include electronic control unit ECU, power control unit PCU, electric vehicle control unit VCU, hybrid vehicle controller HCU, battery management system BMS, and inverter core component IGBT components.
Traditional automotive internal chip
In addition, NOR Flash is required for the above related systems, as well as emergency braking systems, tire pressure detectors, airbag systems, etc.MCUs usually use 8-inch or 12-inch 45nm~0.15μm mature processes, while NOR Flash usually uses 45nm~0.13μm mature processes, and mass production has been basically achieved in China.
Automotive internal chip
Search driver uses semiconductor devices including high-performance computing chips and ADAS systems. High-performance computing chips currently use 12-inch advanced processes, while the millimeter-wave radar in the ADAS system involves gallium arsenide materials, which are currently incapable of mass production in China.
(4) AI and mining machine chips: a new driving force for growth, domestic design manufacturers achieve breakthroughs
AI chips and mining machine chips are high-performance computing and have high requirements for advanced processes. In the AI and blockchain scenarios, traditional CPUs lack computing power, and new architecture chips have become a development trend. Currently, there are mainly chip paths for GPU, FPGA, ASIC (TPU, NPU, etc.) that continue the traditional architecture, as well as chip paths that completely subvert the traditional computing architecture and use to simulate the structure of human brain neurons to improve computing power. The GPU ecosystem is leading in the cloud field, and the specialization of terminal scenarios is the future trend.
AI core chip briefly sorts out
According to the technical roadmap released by NVIDIA and AMD, the GPU will enter the 12nm/7nm process in 2018. Currently, AI and mining machine-related FPGA and ASIC chips also use advanced processes of 10~28nm. Domestic manufacturers have emerged with excellent IC design manufacturers such as Cambrian, Shenjian Technology, Horizon, and Bitmain, which have taken the lead in achieving breakthroughs, while manufacturing mainly relies on advanced process foundry manufacturers such as TSMC.
Mainstream mining machine chips compared with
Prospects: Some fields are expected to be the first to make breakthroughs, and more participation in global division of labor
At this stage, the degree of domestic production is low, and the semiconductor industry actually relies on global cooperation. Although my country's semiconductor industry is currently in a stage of rapid development, overall, there are situations such as low overall production capacity, weak global market competitiveness, low domestic production in the core chip field, and high dependence on foreign countries. my country's semiconductor industry chain is highly dependent on foreign countries in many high-end fields such as materials, equipment, manufacturing, and design, and it takes a long way to achieve independent replacement of the semiconductor industry.
Currently, the domestic chip share of China's core integrated circuits is
According to IC Insight data, in 2015, my country's integrated circuit companies had only 3% of the global market share, while the United States, South Korea and Japan were as high as 54%/20%/8% respectively. In fact, even the United States, South Korea and Japan cannot achieve 100% self-produced semiconductor industry chain. For example, in terms of core equipment lithography machines, which are manufactured by advanced process, still rely on a Dutch ASML company. Participating more in the global division of labor and gradually increasing the proportion of localization in this process is a practical and feasible development path for semiconductor industry.
Mainland China's chip downstream demand terminal market is fully equipped, and the supply side is expected to tilt towards Mainland China. (1) Demand side: The downstream terminal application market is fully equipped, and the scale conditions are gradually mature. With the transfer of global terminal product production capacity to China, China has become a global terminal product manufacturing base. In 2017, China's automobile and smartphone shipments accounted for 29.8% and 33.6% of the global shipments respectively. Chip demand covers the silicon-based and compound semiconductor markets, and the chip market space is huge. (2) Supply side: There are only a few IC design, wafer foundry and storage manufacturers with the highest output value in mainland China, and their technical level has not yet reached the leading level. Mid-to-high-end chip manufacturing and compound semiconductor chips are heavily dependent on imports. As terminal demand has gradually shifted to mainland China with industrial chains such as smartphones in recent years, demand shifts may drive manufacturing transfers, and the downstream chip supply end has begun to shift to mainland China.
Domestic policies accelerate the development of the semiconductor industry. In recent years, my country's integrated circuit support policies have been intensively promulgated, and the policy environment such as financing, taxation, and subsidies has been continuously optimized.In particular, the "National Integrated Circuit Industry Development Promotion Outline" issued in June 2014 sets the tone of "design as the leader, manufacturing as the basis, equipment and materials as the support", and with 2015, 2020 and 2030 as the growth cycle, we will fully promote the development of my country's integrated circuit industry: the goal is to achieve sales revenue of the integrated circuit industry by 2015, the sales revenue of the integrated circuit industry exceed 350 billion yuan; by 2020, the annual average growth rate of sales revenue of the integrated circuit industry exceeds 20%; by 2030, the main links of the integrated circuit industry chain will reach the international advanced level, and a number of enterprises will enter the first echelon of the international community to achieve leapfrog development.
