(The 4th CIIE) Depth｜What can China do to deal with the global "chip shortage"?

　　China News Service, Shanghai, November 7 (Reporter Wang Enbo) Under the repeated epidemic, the world has encountered a "chip shortage", and the development of the semiconductor industry has attracted attention.

At the 4th China International Import Expo being held in Shanghai, industry insiders pointed out that based on the two attributes of global production base and huge market, China is very important to the stability of the “two chains” of the global semiconductor industry, especially the role of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is worth looking forward to. .

　　At the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Semiconductor Industry International Cooperation Forum held during the China International Import Expo, Zhang Guanbin, deputy director of the Foreign Trade Department of the Ministry of Commerce of China, said that since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, home life, office, and education have further strengthened the interconnection of everything in various industries. The demand for more highlights the importance of the semiconductor industry.

At the same time, it has also put forward higher requirements for ensuring the stability and smooth flow of the industrial chain and supply chain, advancing the precise connection between supply and demand, and doing a good job in market expectation management.

　　Zhang Yujing, chairman of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, also said that since the epidemic, the demand for information and communication technology has increased, which has caused continuous supply of the upstream semiconductor industry. Due to the high division of labor in Europe, America and Asia, the local epidemic has caused a "shortage of cores". It has had a greater impact on the production and shipment of downstream industries such as automobiles and electronics.

　　China is a major manufacturing and trading country, and it is also an important production base and consumer market for the semiconductor industry.

Maintaining the stability of the global semiconductor industry chain and supply chain, China's role has attracted attention.

　　According to Zhang Guanbin, in 2020, the scale of China's integrated circuit industry will reach 884.8 billion yuan, and the average annual growth rate during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period will be close to 20%, which is four times the global growth rate over the same period.

Last year, China's integrated circuit imports amounted to 350 billion U.S. dollars and exports exceeded 110 billion U.S. dollars, making it the country's largest single-category trade product.

Among them, imports account for nearly one-third of the total global integrated circuit trade, providing a broad market stage for many international semiconductor companies.

　　"Semiconductor is a highly globalized industry. Strengthening international cooperation and promoting global product circulation is vital to the healthy and rapid development of the industry." Zhang Guanbin said that China has always maintained an open, supportive and encouraging attitude towards cooperation in the semiconductor industry. It is not only in the interests of China, but also in the common interests of all countries in the world.

Driven by emerging applications such as 5G, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and intelligent networked vehicles, China's semiconductor market still has broad room for growth.

　　In addition to the "two-chain obstruction" caused by the epidemic, the semiconductor industry itself also faces technical challenges.

The number of transistors that can be accommodated on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every 18 months-this Moore's law has been well-known in the development of semiconductors.

　　However, Pan Xiaoming, senior vice president of global chip giant AMD and president of Greater China, pointed out that Moore's Law is now slowing down, with transistor density only doubling every 3 years and energy efficiency doubling every 3.6 years.

Nowadays, it takes longer to ensure the maturity and stability of the process every time it enters a new process node, and the overall cost has also increased significantly.

　　The communications industry is the main driving force for the development of the semiconductor industry.

Huang Bing, technical director of the Technical Planning Department of ZTE Corporation, mentioned that the development of 5G technology that exceeds expectations has generated massive amounts of data. In particular, applications represented by artificial intelligence have continued to increase the demand for computing power, superimposed on the 5G high power consumption bottleneck, and highlighted the advanced Technology chips are indispensable, and personal information and data security also put forward more requirements for chip security.

　　The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is the largest consumer application market for China's chip industry, and is regarded as the “third pole” in addition to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Yangtze River Delta in the geographic structure of China's integrated circuit industry.

The region has high hopes in promoting industrial technological innovation.

　　Ma Hua, deputy director of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Commerce, said that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has a solid economic foundation, a complete industrial system, an active innovation economy, and a huge market scale and potential. More than 40,000 state-level high-tech enterprises have gathered here. The number of effective invention patents steadily ranks first in the country. PCT international patent applications account for about half of China's. It is not only a gathering base for scientific and technological innovation, but also a fertile ground for investment and entrepreneurship, and it holds huge opportunities.

　　Hou Mingjuan, global vice president of Qualcomm, also said that with strong economic strength, a complete industrial system and China's leading infrastructure network, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has obvious advantages in the development of the 5G industry.

The combination of 5G and artificial intelligence is accelerating the digital transformation of many industries. While empowering a new future of intelligent interconnection, it will strongly promote innovation in the semiconductor industry.

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