Since Huawei was cut off, Chinese technology companies have begun to accelerate the layout of semiconductor field, and the country's support for semiconductor companies has also increased. Scientific research institutions and universities have also focused on cultivating talents related to integrated circuits. After two years of hard work, the domestic semiconductor industry has indeed made certain progress and breakthroughs, so we often see words like "overtaking on the curve", but is this really the case?
As we all know, it is very difficult to gain a foothold in the chip field. Western countries started early in the chip field, had leading technology, and had core technologies as support, but China has been in a long-term lagging stage in the chip field. Chip manufacturing not only has requirements for manufacturing equipment, but every link may make China Chip "bottleneck" in terms of chip design architecture, chip design software, and chip packaging process.
Therefore, let alone "overtaking", it is very difficult to narrow the gap with Western countries. Therefore, "overtaking on the curve" is entirely a self-interested behavior of netizens or the media. To achieve this goal, it will take at least 10 years of hard work, or even longer. Recently, the "fig leaf" of China's core was torn off. Taiwan's semiconductor expert Huang Qinyong said that it is difficult for the mainland to overtake on the curve, but the chance of overturning on the curve is very high.
and Academician Wu Hanming have the same views. Huang Qinyong also believes that China does not have real competitiveness in the semiconductor field at present, and the most important thing at present is to meet China's domestic demand. The demand for mainstream chips of Chinese technology companies is still concentrated on mid- and low-end chips, so we should not consider high-end chips at this stage.
Take SMIC as an example. In order to promote the process process technology below 7nm, SMIC spent a lot of money to buy EUV lithography machines. However, due to the US's modification of the chip ban, ASML's EUV lithography machines supply was limited, which also led to the hindering of SMIC's chip propulsion of 7nm.
In desperation, SMIC can only focus on the mature process process chip market. Judging from the revenue share data of SMIC, 55/65nm process chips account for 29% of SMIC's total revenue, 0.15μm-0.18μm process chips account for 29% of SMIC's total revenue, while 28nm and 14nm process chips account for 15% of SMIC's total revenue.
Although China's chips have indeed made certain breakthroughs in the past two or three years, to be honest, the gap between China's chip industry and European and American countries is still very large. Taiwan’s semiconductor experts say it’s ugly, but it also makes sense. Regardless of whether or not to overtake, it would be great to achieve the goal of "a self-sufficiency rate of 70% in 2025".
In fact, the word "overtaking on the curve" has certain limitations. Only companies with the same starting line can have the ability or qualification to talk about "overtaking on the curve". When China's core started, it had been trapped several times. How to overtake? At this time, we should not focus on the high-end chip market, nor should we focus on chip giants, but focus on ourselves. As long as we make progress compared to ourselves and make breakthroughs in core technologies, this is already quite amazing.
Academician Wu Hanming's words are correct. Only when he stands firm in the mid- and low-end chip market can he be qualified to talk about other things. China Chips still have a long way to go, don’t be too anxious! What do you think about this? Welcome to comment and leave a message!
