In order to better protect the security of communication information and enable China to get rid of the status quo of dependence on imports in the field of chips, first analyze the basic situation of the chip and chip supplier pattern adopted by smart phones, and then analyze the mobile phone from the aspects of chip design and chip manufacturing. The development process of chip localization pointed out the current problems and made judgments on the future development trend.
introduction
A chip is a general term for a semiconductor component product, and is a carrier of an integrated circuit, which is divided by a wafer. In 1960, Fairchild Company of America produced the first practical single-chip integrated circuit. The chip we are talking about now is an outstanding representative of the development of VLSI. According to Gartner's forecast, the global semiconductor industry's total revenue in 2017 will exceed the $400 billion mark [2]. According to income statistics, IC Insights announced the 2016 global semiconductor ranking TOP20 [3], the United States has 8, Japan, Europe, Taiwan, China each have 3, South Korea has 2, Singapore, China is not yet There are companies on the list. Among them, there are 3 pure chip foundries and 5 chip design companies, and the rest have the ability to design and manufacture chips. This list basically reflects the global distribution of the leading competition in the chip industry. 10 nm and its subsequent 7 nm, 5 nm, 3 nm manufacturing processes, 4G+/5G communication technology, high-performance low-power mobile chip platform, large-capacity memory chips, Internet of Things, and car networking are the focus of the chip industry. IP, Intellectual Property, advanced manufacturing/packaging technology, key equipment/materials, and advanced technical talent are the main barriers to competition.
According to statistics from relevant departments, in 2016 China's IC imports amounted to US$227.1 billion [4], and external dependence remained at a high level. In recent years, under the guidance of national policies, the development of the domestic integrated circuit industry has steadily improved. This paper sorts out the localization of the smart phone chip industry chain in the development of domestic integrated circuits, analyzes the current situation and existing problems, and The development trend is judged.
National policy support
The chip has an important position in the smart phone industry, is one of the cutting-edge areas of manufacturing, and is one of the representative industries of advanced technology. In view of the importance of the chip industry and China's backward reality in this field, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology promulgated the National Integrated Circuit Industry Promotion Program in 2014 [5] (hereinafter referred to as the “Outlineâ€), which outlines global development trends and China's industrial status quo, put forward the main tasks and development priorities of the development of the integrated circuit industry, namely, focus on the development of integrated circuit design industry, accelerate the development of integrated circuit manufacturing, enhance the development level of advanced packaging and testing industry, and promote key equipment and materials related technologies of integrated circuits. Breakthrough.
The medium and long-term development goals of China's chip industry have been formulated in the outline. By 2020, the gap between the integrated circuit industry and the international advanced level will gradually narrow. The annual growth rate of sales revenue of the whole industry will exceed 20%, and the sustainable development capability of enterprises will be greatly enhanced. The integrated circuit design technology in key areas such as mobile intelligent terminals, network communication, cloud computing, Internet of Things, and big data has reached the international leading level, and the industrial ecosystem has taken initial shape. The 16/14 nm manufacturing process achieves mass production, packaging and testing technology has reached the international leading level, key equipment and materials have entered the international procurement system, and the integrated circuit industry system with advanced technology, safety and reliability has been basically established. By 2030, the main links of the integrated circuit industry chain have reached the international advanced level, and a number of enterprises have entered the international first echelon to achieve leapfrog development.
In order to cope with the development of the integrated circuit industry, a number of industrial funds, national integrated circuit industry investment funds, and Beijing, Hubei, Hefei, Shenzhen, Guizhou, Hunan, Shanghai, Xiamen, Sichuan, Liaoning, Guangdong, and Shaanxi have been established from the central government. The target scales of local funds such as Nanjing, Wuxi and Kunshan [6] have exceeded 300 billion yuan, and various local governments have introduced corresponding policies to promote the implementation of relevant projects in the local area.
Mobile phone main chip and mainstream supplier
Smartphones are more complex electronic devices that integrate a wide variety of devices. At present, the main chip used by smart phones is shown in Figure 1:
Figure 1 Smartphone hardware block diagram
As can be seen from Figure 1, the main chips used in a smart phone at this stage include the main chip (application processor, AP), baseband chip, radio frequency chip, memory chip, camera chip, display/touch chip, fingerprint recognition. Chip, power management chip, connection chip (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.). In addition, some smart phones will also be equipped with dedicated audio chips, DSP chips for image processing, iris recognition chips, light-sensitive chips, and co-processing chips. The main chips and suppliers of mobile phones are summarized in Table 1:
Table 1 Main mobile phone chips and suppliers
From the aspects of technology, patents, market performance, etc., foreign chip suppliers are in the leading or leading position in the field of major mobile phone chips, such as SoC, storage, camera, etc. It is gratifying that domestic chip companies have realized in many fields. The breakthrough of zero is rising to catch up with the industry.
Figure 2 Schematic diagram of regional distribution of mobile phone chip industry chain
From the distribution of the global mobile phone chip industry chain in Figure 2, mainstream suppliers are mainly concentrated in the United States, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, but the mainland China has already laid out layouts in most aspects and fields.
Progress in localization of mobile phone chips
There are two business models [7] and three types of enterprises commonly found in the semiconductor chip industry.
The first business model is IDM (Integrated Design and Manufacture), which has all functions from design to manufacturing, package testing and marketing, and represents Intel. The second business model is the vertical division of labor, which is mainly divided into two types of enterprises (design companies and foundries). Among them, the chip design company only designs, there is no factory (namely Fabless), and the representative manufacturers include Qualcomm, MediaTek, and NVIDIA. Foundry is mainly engaged in foundry manufacturing services. Representative manufacturers include TSMC, Grofund, and SMIC. There is also a group of companies focusing on the IP design field, providing various types of IP for Fabless vendors, representing ARM, Imagination and so on.
Under the great tide of economic globalization, the concept of localization has been weakened to some extent, but the localization of chips still has important strategic significance for the national economy and national security. Before this paper sorts out the localization of mobile phone chips. The definition of “domesticization†is to have independent intellectual property rights and master core technologies. Domestic companies have wholly owned or controlled shares and master the actual operations of enterprises. Next, we will analyze and analyze the localization of mobile phone chips from the aspects of chip design and chip manufacturing. The chip manufacturing part includes package testing.
Chip design
As an extremely important part of the semiconductor industry, chip design has relatively low R&D costs and technical barriers. It is a relatively easy link to break through, and is also true in the mobile phone chip industry chain. Table 2 is a representative domestic manufacturer in the field of mobile phone chips and its position in the industry, reflecting the level of localization of chips to a certain extent.
Table 2 Representative domestic mobile phone chip manufacturers and their industry status
The power consumption, cost and other reasons have led to an increase in the integration of mobile phone chips. The modules included in the SoC are becoming more abundant and the technical threshold is improved. In addition, in order to achieve better platform performance, SoC manufacturers will also provide RF chips (Transceiver), power management chip PMIC, etc., to improve business income and deepen contact with downstream mobile phone manufacturers. Objectively, it helps the leading manufacturers to maintain a competitive advantage. At the same time, domestic low-end SoC manufacturers such as Spreadtrum encounter greater challenges in the mid-to-low-end technology breakthrough and the development of more customers.
Due to the particularity of the memory chip, its design and manufacture are generally completed by the same manufacturer, the technical and capital threshold is higher, and the industry has already formed an oligopoly pattern, and it is difficult to make a breakthrough. Domestic manufacturers have a certain scale market in the field of other functional chips of mobile phones, but they are still in the stage of technology research and development and construction in the field of memory chips. At present, the existing memory chip projects in China are shown in Table 3:
Table 3 Domestic Major Memory Chip Projects and Their Progress
In summary, in addition to the SoC (and related RF, power management chip) field of Heis (Haisi Qilin 970 in the industry to introduce the neural network processor NPU into the SoC), the fingerprint identification field of the summit (Sunrise big data display, sink The top shipments of 104.2kk, which is close to the industry leader FPC's 123KK), are close to the industry's advanced level. Other manufacturers of mobile phone chip design are still in the low-end, niche or starting stage, and the overall strength is relatively weak, catching up with the international advanced level. There is a long way to go.
Chip manufacturing
Compared with the chip design field, the threshold for the localization of chip manufacturing is higher. SMIC is a prominent representative of domestic chip manufacturers. In 2016, SMIC's revenue was 2.9 billion US dollars [12], a record high, ranking fourth in the foundry market in IC Insights' 2017 McClean report. Its chip manufacturing business covers logic chips (SoC), image sensor chips, NOR Flash, power management chips, etc., providing a variety of process services from 0.35 μm to 28 nm. Spreadtrum, HiSilicon, Qualcomm, Gecom Micro, etc. are all in the middle. Core International customers.
With the support of local governments, SMIC has multiple wafer foundries in Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Tianjin, Shenzhen, etc., but the gap between the advanced process and the industry's advanced level is still large, 2 to 3 generations behind. So far, in order to ensure the competitiveness of the products, HiSilix handed over the main mobile phone chip to TSMC.
SMIC goes hand in hand in the advanced process and the characteristic process. It cooperates with Qualcomm and Huawei to develop the “14 nm†process and provides one-stop service for process, manufacturing and chip design in the field of Internet of Things.
Another important aspect in the field of chip production is the test and testing. Through the acquisition of Xingke Jinpeng, Changdian Technology has broken through the bottleneck that has been difficult to enter the supply chain of world-class customers, and has successfully entered the top three positions in the world of packaging and testing [13]. After the latest equity adjustment, SMIC became the largest shareholder of Changjiang Electronics Technology. As a result, the two leading enterprises in domestic chip manufacturing and packaging and testing have achieved strong alliance. In the first half of this year, the Fan Out and SiP packaging businesses of Changjiang Advanced Technology Technology expanded smoothly, and the proportion of high-end packaging market continued to increase.
Tongfu Microelectronics and Huatian Technology are two other representative companies in the field of packaging and testing. They acquired two subsidiaries of AMD and FCI of the United States, respectively, and ranked among the top 10 global orders [13]. Domestic enterprises have initially formed a group layout in the field of packaging and testing, and will continue to catch up with the industry in advanced technology and emerging fields.
Problem Analysis and Future Prospects
Problem
The problems existing in the current stage of localization of mobile phone chips are mainly reflected in the following five aspects:
(1) Individuals only break through in some areas, and the gap between the overall level and the advanced level is large.
Among the domestic mobile phone chip related companies, from the perspective of industry influence, only a few companies have made breakthroughs in some areas, such as HiSilicon's Kirin chip, Huiding's fingerprint identification chip, etc. Most companies still play in their respective fields. The role of low-end products or service providers is generally far from the industry's advanced level. These companies are also struggling to develop in the fierce market competition of technology and capital-intensive semiconductor industries.
(2) The overall strength of the industrial chain is still weak, and the upstream key equipment and raw materials still rely on imports.
If domestic companies still have a layout in the field of chip design and manufacturing, then in the upstream raw materials and raw materials markets such as silicon wafers, the domestic market is basically blank. The key equipment and raw materials market is mainly dominated by several oligarchs such as ASML, American Applied Materials, and Japan Shin-Etsu. However, China's first 12-inch silicon fab, Xinsheng Semiconductor, is about to be mass-produced [14], and it is expected to gradually improve the current 99% dependence on imports of 12-inch silicon wafers, which is an important step in establishing an independent supply chain.
(3) Core technology (patent), lack of talent
Due to the late start, the lack of core technology (patent) and talent is the biggest flaw in the development of the semiconductor industry, including the mobile phone chip industry. The core IP of CPU, GPU, communication, etc. is firmly grasped by international leaders. Most domestic companies mainly carry out corresponding product development by obtaining the authorization of international manufacturers. Some design companies and Foundry mainly rely on digging technical talents from Japan, Korea, Taiwan and other places to carry out related business at the beginning of the business, facing certain patent litigation risks, and the leading manufacturers in the above regions are also responsible for brain drain and technology. More security and deployment have been done for confidentiality.
The domestic talent pool of various types of chips is seriously insufficient, and the talent gap that supports the rapid development of the industry is large. If we calculate the output value of one trillion yuan in 2020, the required personnel size is 700,000 people, but the current talent reserve is less than 300,000, and the gap is large [15]. Higher education is relatively weak in terms of integrated circuits, and there is still much work to be done in terms of specialization, systemization, integration of industry and education, and introduction of innovative talents.
(4) Low-level, high-frequency competition is not conducive to sustainable development
Most domestic mobile phone chip manufacturers started late, and the business started from the low-end market that international manufacturers gradually gave up. This determined that they must adopt a strategy of small profits but quick turnover in market competition, and price war became the most common means. For example, in order to compete with MediaTek for the market, Spreadtrum launched a high-profile price war, which led to a sharp decline in gross profit margin in 2016 [16]. Low-end products, low prices, low gross margins, such a business model is not conducive to the sustainable development of the capital and technology-intensive chip industry. Product launch may face oversupply in the market, and with high capital investment, it may lead to shrinking profits or even losses.
(5) International giants broaden their layout in China
ARM, TSMC, Qualcomm, Intel, Samsung, Hynix, Groffont, etc. have increased their domestic investment and broadened their layout to maximize the sharing of IC credits in the Mainland. Table 4 shows the status of international companies' investment projects in China:
The expansion of international giants in the Mainland is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it brings tax and GDP to the local area, and at the same time brings employment and industrial chain support, which is also good for talent cultivation. On the other hand, international giants have adopted sole proprietorship or joint ventures in the mainland to control core technologies and company operations, which has enhanced their global operations to a certain extent, which is not conducive to the growth of local national chip companies.
Table 4 Distribution of some international companies in the mobile phone chip industry in the Mainland
Future prospects
The "National Integrated Circuit Industry Promotion Program" has pointed out the development direction and goals of the chip industry in terms of industrial policies. Domestic manufacturers need to steadily advance under the government's overall planning. In addition to meeting consumer and industrial needs, it is also necessary to balance developments in communications and information security, and reduce reliance on international semiconductor companies.
In terms of talent training, the Ministry of Education, in 2016, and other departments issued the "Opinions of the Ministry of Education and other seven departments on strengthening the training of integrated circuit personnel" to lay the foundation for the education and training system to solve the chip talent gap.
Under the national unified strategic deployment, we will coordinate and coordinate the resources input of various regions, concentrate on supporting a number of leading enterprises in the industry, actively participate in the global chip industry division of labor, and support the construction of complete industrial chains from raw materials and equipment to design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, etc. On the basis of technology, we have achieved market superiority in some areas, and strive to achieve the high self-sufficiency of domestic chips in the field of smart phones.
Conclusion
Under the background of the country's vigorous promotion of the development of the integrated circuit industry, this paper uses the smart phone chip as an entry point to sort out the progress of localization of mobile phone chips. Starting from the chip used by mobile phones, the global distribution of major suppliers of various chips is summarized. Then, from the two dimensions of chip design and chip manufacturing, the localization process of chips is discussed, including the main participating manufacturers and their links in the industry chain. The status of China has been summarized and summarized. Finally, the main problems in the process of localization of mobile phone chips are summarized, and the future development is prospected.
Limited by research resources, this paper mainly conducts research and analysis from the perspective of macro and qualitative, and can further carry out detailed and quantitative research from the perspectives of key technologies/intellectual property, market performance and resource input. On the basis of building models, You can try to research and release quantitative results such as "Mobile Phone Chip Localization Index".
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