After the last two issues, we talked about chip design. Today we should talk about the chip manufacturing and packaging testing links. The manufacturing process of chip mainly includes 7 independent key steps, namely heat treatment (oxidation/diffusion/annealing), photolithography, etching , ion implantation, thin film deposition, metallization, and chemical mechanical polishing. Only when the chip that passes the measurement is qualified will enter the packaging and testing process.
Speaking of chip manufacturing, it is actually about chip foundry. In the chip industry, once, , Samsung and , Intel "love and fight each other". We mentioned last issue that the two giants in the IDM model were Samsung and Intel. For a long time, the global chip throne was the two above fighting back and forth. Later, TSMC rose, and the two polar patterns were completely broken. Nowadays, global chip foundry is dominated by Taiwan, China, while TSMC is absolutely monopolized, with a global market share of more than 50%, and a yield rate of more than 90%.
As of the first quarter of 2022, the chip foundries ranked 2nd to 9th in the world are Samsung, UMC, GM , SMIC , Huahong Group, Liji Electric, the world's advanced, Hefei Jingtong Integration, Tower Semiconductor, among which SMIC, Huahong Group and Hefei Jingtong Integration are mainland Chinese companies, with the growth rates of 16.6%, 20.8%, and 26.0% respectively on the month-on-month basis. In terms of
process, the most advanced thing in the mainland is SMIC's 14nm process, while Samsung and TSMC's 5nm have been mass-produced, with the gap being about 3 generations. At present, SMIC cannot break through at 7nm, and it is a basic fact that it is 5 years behind from a technical perspective. After the chip manufacturing is completed, it enters the packaging and testing process, which is the downstream industry of chips. In the semiconductor industry chain, due to the high technical and capital barriers in the design and production links, they have obvious first-mover advantages, and mainland China is at a disadvantage, while the added value of packaging and testing is relatively low, the labor intensity is high, and the entry barrier is low. Therefore, packaging and testing is the highest link in domestic production and a strong competitive link. Among the top ten packaging and testing factories in the world with revenue, Changdian Technology ranks third, Tongfu Microelectronics ranks fifth, and Huatian Technology ranks sixth.
chip industry is a complex industry with relatively high industrial and technical barriers, but the entire chip industry is not an industry with high investment return. It requires a relatively long investment cycle to generate investment returns, so our companies did not pay much attention to chip design and production in the past. But the Huawei HiSilicon incident sounded a wake-up call to us.
Huawei HiSilicon developed its own 5nm Kirin chip in 2020. This is a matter of morale increase. If the United States had not blocked it, it would only be a matter of time before HiSilicon continues to iterate to the 3nm design. Now, chip design is hindered by people by three generations, and it may take our generation to slept on firewood and taste gall to achieve a breakthrough. Therefore, no matter when and where, it is necessary to put the core R&D technology in a core position!
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