The "core shortage" crisis sweeping the world continues to spread
Strengthen China's "Core"
On March 17, Volvo Cars stated that due to the global supply shortage of semiconductor chips, the company will suspend or adjust the production of factories in China and the United States this month.
Volvo is not alone.
Since the end of last year, a "core shortage" crisis that has swept across the world has continued to spread and intensified.
Automobile chips are in desperate situation, mobile phone chips are scarce, graphics card prices are rising... Almost all industries that use chips have been impacted to varying degrees. Many well-known domestic and foreign manufacturers have been forced to suspend operations or cut production due to insufficient chip supply.
What is the current status of the global "core panic"?
Where is the problem?
Looking back at China's chip industry, how should we overcome the predicament?
Many car companies stop production and reduce production, chip shortages spread to many industries
"In March, Volvo Cars will temporarily suspend or adjust production at some car plants. We expect the situation will become severe in the second quarter, so we decided to take measures to minimize the impact on production, while working hard to improve the problem every day." Volvo Cars Announced in an email statement.
Previously, Volvo Car CEO Hokan Samuelson said that the shortage of chips in the automotive industry may pose a huge risk to the company's first-quarter performance.
Chips, also known as microcircuits and integrated circuits, are the core components of smart appliances and act as the "brain".
It can be said that chips are important in the era of information technology, similar to coal and oil in the industrial era.
From the management engine module to automatic braking and assisted driving technology, many systems must use chips.
Without a chip, it means that it cannot be produced, and the automotive industry is suffering from it.
Recently, Honda, Volkswagen, Ford and other car companies have announced that they will cut production or shut down some factories due to insufficient chip supply.
According to the US Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC), the shortage of chips will cause the global automotive industry to lose more than $60 billion in revenue this year.
According to data released by the British company Esson Huamai, the global automobile production will be reduced by 672,000 in the first quarter due to a shortage of chips. This problem will continue until this fall.
The "butterfly effect" of chip shortage is emerging.
Industries such as mobile phones, game consoles, and security cameras are also facing the "lack of cores" dilemma.
Apple said that the sales of some new high-end iPhones are restricted by a shortage of parts; due to production bottlenecks, Sony may not be able to fully meet the demand for its PS5 products in 2021.
The main control chip, memory chip, WiFi chip and other core components used by security camera manufacturers are all out of stock.
In the Shenzhen Huaqiangbei Electronics Wholesale Market, the delivery cycle of security products has generally been extended by about half a month, and downstream agents have appropriately increased their stockpiles.
A person in charge of an enterprise said that the commonly used 2 million pixel camera was 140 yuan in September last year, but it has now risen to 210 yuan.
Chip manufacturers are not optimistic about the supply situation.
Although almost all of the global chip foundries are operating at full capacity, the backlog of orders has not been alleviated, and some orders will be delayed for 40 weeks or more.
TSMC said it is discussing with customers to solve the serious shortage of automotive chips.
Qualcomm, ON Semiconductor, Nvidia, Micron, AMD and other chip manufacturers ask their customers to wait patiently, because manufacturers’ demand for chips is increasing rapidly from automobiles to consumer electronics.
The epidemic is superimposed on trade frictions, it is difficult to find a short-term solution
Industry insiders have noticed that since the fourth quarter of 2020, there has been a serious shortage of components such as 200mm wafers suitable for automobiles.
According to analysis, the reasons for the shortage of automotive chips are roughly as follows: First, the global automotive industry has recovered more than expected, and demand for chips has increased; second, due to the export control of some Chinese manufacturers by the United States, the procurement of chip manufacturing equipment and materials has been forced to delay. Later, the expansion plan was also affected; third, as the global epidemic spread, remote office, home entertainment, online education, etc. promoted the recovery of electronic product consumption, and the shipment of personal computers, TVs, tablets, and smartphones increased significantly. .
According to a report by the market research organization IDC, global PC shipments in the third quarter of 2020 were 81.3 million units, a year-on-year increase of 14.6%, the highest year-on-year increase in the market in the past ten years.
In May 2020, on the one-year anniversary of Huawei’s inclusion in the US Entity List, the US government initiated the second round of sanctions, requiring wafer foundries using US technology to obtain US government permission before producing chips for Huawei. Existing orders must be completed before September 15.
From May to September, major manufacturers were busy making full effort for Huawei's urgent orders.
On August 17, the U.S. government imposed another ban, requiring all chip companies around the world to obtain permission from the U.S. government before shipping to Huawei as long as they use American technology.
So far, chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm and MediaTek are still limited in supplying Huawei.
Due to lack of stock, since the fourth quarter of 2020, the channel prices of old phones such as Huawei P40 have risen instead of falling.
At the same time, due to the suspension of production and production caused by the epidemic, the supply of semiconductors outside mainland China has been slow to fully recover.
In October last year, several STMicroelectronics factories in Europe launched a general strike. The fire at the wafer fabs of Japan's Asahi Kasei Group caused another severe damage to the originally tight supply chain.
Since the second half of 2020, SMIC, the largest chip foundry in mainland China, has been continuously sanctioned by the United States, which has exacerbated global chip production tensions.
Looking back at this ongoing trend of "core shortage", it is not difficult to find that the epidemic is an important reason, and the unreasonable suppression and containment of Chinese companies by the United States is tantamount to "exacerbating the situation."
After sixty years of China’s chip industry, "lack of cores and less souls" is still a predicament
A small chip is never easy.
Hundreds of millions of transistors are precisely arranged on a silicon wafer the size of a fingernail. After nearly 5,000 processes, each iteration will always have a profound impact on the industry pattern in the semiconductor field.
Qian Xuesen once said with emotion: "In the 1960s, we did two bombs and one star, and we got a lot; in the 1970s, we didn't engage in semiconductors, and we lost a lot." After more than 60 years of trials and hardships in China's chip industry, "lack of cores and less souls" is still the industry A big dilemma.
In 1953, semiconductors were included in the key research projects of the first five-year plan.
Since then, due to changes in the domestic and international situation, the project had to be suspended.
After the reform and opening up, people's livelihood issues were put in the first place, and it was not until the "908 Project" was released in 1990 that my country made plans for the microelectronics industry for the first time.
In 2014, the state established a 100 billion-scale integrated circuit investment fund to support the development of Chinese enterprises.
After the US ban, the fund played an important role by injecting capital to support the domestic chip industry to tide over the difficulties.
Anbang think tank believes that different industries have different degrees of marketization and globalization, and the effects of "national power" are also completely different.
The "two bombs and one star" and the "Beidou system" are all strategic industries, and their marketization is not high.
Strictly speaking, there is only one direct customer of these strategic industrial systems-the country.
This means that the relevant industrial system is closed, and there is no need to consider costs and market competition, which is relatively easy.
But for the semiconductor industry, what is involved is a market-oriented and open industrial system.
From chip infrastructure, IC design, chip manufacturing to packaging and testing, semiconductor equipment, key materials, etc., the semiconductor industry chain is the most globalized industry chain, and the industrial goal must be achieved through cooperation.
The key core technology is not available, can not be bought, can not be negotiated, can only be obtained through independent innovation, independent and controllable channels
In many industrial fields such as high-speed rail and home appliances, we have successfully achieved a leapfrogging and surpassing. Why can't we see such a scene in the chip and other aspects?
Why are people "stuck neck" repeatedly?
"Because we have shortcomings." Ni Guangnan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said frankly. These shortcomings include basic software such as chip design and manufacturing, large-scale industrial software, and mobile operating systems.
"Practice has repeatedly confirmed that key core technologies cannot be obtained, bought, or negotiated, and can only be obtained through independent innovation, independent and controllable channels."
Use light as a knife to project the designed circuit diagram onto the silicon wafer-lithography is a key step in chip manufacturing.
According to "Moore's Law", the number of components that can be accommodated on an integrated circuit doubles every 18 to 24 months.
The chip manufacturing process shrinks, and the performance will also leap accordingly.
The lithography machine must lead the chip design and complete the innovation first.
"If we can't hand over EUV, Moore's Law will stop there." ASML, the world's largest lithography machine equipment manufacturer, once said so.
After the "ZTE Incident" in 2018, SMIC urgently ordered a US$120 million EUV lithography machine from ASML, which is almost equivalent to the total profit of the largest domestic chip processing company in 2017.
On the evening of March 3, SMIC issued an announcement stating that it had signed a purchase agreement worth US$1.2 billion with ASML, and the delivery period was until December 31 this year.
High-priced equipment, you can’t buy it.
The industry has long reached a consensus: EUV lithography machine must be used to enable domestic chips to enter the 7nm or even 5nm era and reach the international advanced level.
The main shareholders of ASML are the three most advanced chip manufacturers-Samsung, TSMC and Intel.
The company's annual output of lithography machines is only a few dozen, and priority is given to supplying these three shareholders.
Chinese companies have to queue up for orders. The delivery period is nearly two years. After delivery, the production line is debugged for about one year. At least three years later, China has fallen behind the most advanced chip manufacturing process by more than one generation.
History has proven time and again that there is no shortcut to make up for the "short board", only hard work, continuous innovation, and step by step to catch up.
The crisis exposed global chip supply contradictions, and it is urgent to solve the supply chain security issues
The demand for semiconductors is huge, and the upstream manufacturers' capacity is insufficient-this contradiction is particularly prominent in this round of "core shortage" crisis.
Relieving the pressure on the supply chain and enhancing the security of the supply chain have become urgent issues before the government and enterprises.
On February 24, the United States announced the launch of a 100-day evaluation of the supply chain of four key products, including semiconductor chips, and will promote Congress to allocate 37 billion US dollars to support the development of the US chip manufacturing industry.
Some analysts pointed out that this move may be to get rid of dependence on overseas suppliers.
On December 7th last year, 17 European countries also issued a joint statement, proposing to strengthen the European electronic and embedded system value chain from two aspects: one is to strengthen the processor and semiconductor ecosystem, and the other is to expand the industry in the entire supply chain. Influence, in order to deal with key technical, safety and social challenges.
Taking automobiles as an example, electrification, connectivity, and intelligence have become the development trend and trend of the automobile industry, and semiconductors are the key to supporting the upgrade of the “three modernizations” of automobiles.
Qiao Yueshan, director of the Department of Electronic Information of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the overall demand for the automotive industry by domestic semiconductor companies, and the lack of experience in the development and promotion of automotive semiconductor products, has not yet formed a systematic supply capacity in the automotive field.
Since the fourth quarter of 2020, the shortage of chip production capacity has highlighted the problem of insufficient supply capacity of automotive semiconductors.
Improving the autonomy and controllability of the chip industry supply chain has been put on the agenda.
In response to the tight supply of automotive chips, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Department of Electronic Information and the First Division of Equipment Industry guided the China Automotive Chip Industry Innovation Strategic Alliance to prepare and release the "Automotive Semiconductor Supply and Demand Docking Manual".
It is reported that the "Handbook" contains 568 products from 59 semiconductor companies, covering 10 categories and 53 subcategories of computing chips, control chips, and power chips, accounting for 80% of the 66 subcategories of automotive semiconductors.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stated that it will actively guide and support the development of the automotive semiconductor industry. At the same time, it will strengthen the construction of the supply chain through the automotive semiconductor supply and demand docking platform, increase production capacity allocation, and provide strong support for the stable and healthy development of the industry.
Focus on manufacturing shortcomings and strengthen China's "core" with independent innovation
The chip is a key component of the information industry and a shortcoming of China's technological development.
Under the current external challenges, it has also brought the pain of "stuck neck" to the Chinese people, and its importance is self-evident.
The "14th Five-Year Plan" and the 2035 long-term goal outline propose that the strategy of making the country strong, speed up the completion of basic parts and components, basic software and other bottlenecks and shortcomings, and promote the innovation and development of integrated circuits and other industries.
At present, China is the world's largest integrated circuit market with the fastest growth rate.
Based on oneself, continuously strengthen the technological innovation in the related fields of integrated circuits, and improve the technological innovation ability and the quality and autonomy of industrial development are the indispensable meanings of achieving high-quality development.
For the chip manufacturing link, China has already begun to make efforts.
A few days ago, the equipment sub-group of China Electronics Technology successfully realized the localization of the full spectrum of ion implanter products, which can provide global chip manufacturing companies with one-stop solutions for ion implanters, accumulatively forming 413 core invention patents, and realizing the full range of chip manufacturing in my country. The independent innovation and development of the lineage ion implanter is expected to alleviate the problems of broken links and short links in the field of chip manufacturing in my country.
Independent innovation is the key to improving the security and controllability of the industrial supply chain, but this does not mean "decoupling" from the global market.
"Our thinking should be to increase the technological gold content of China's industrial chain, master more core technologies, and form a balance to avoid abuse of technology sanctions tools by other countries." Li Wei, a professor at the School of International Relations of Renmin University of China, suggested: "In the final analysis, we need Create a good environment that encourages technological research and development and promotes technological upgrading, encourages resources to gather in high-tech fields, creates conditions for scientific researchers to sit on the bench and engage in technological research and development with peace of mind, and guide enterprises to seek greater economic benefits through technological upgrading."
In today's world, no matter who wants to build a technological wall to stop competition and cut off technological exchanges, it is ultimately futile and will only accelerate the technological progress of the other party.
For the most important chip manufacturing industry, the severe challenges faced in the short term should become our driving force to do a good job in core manufacturing.
(Our reporter Guan Xiaopu Chai Yaxin)