In 2016, China's IC design enterprises exceeded 1000; Four years later, the number doubled to 2,218. In addition, semiconductor enterprises operating in IDM mode have also been developed, and their growth has jointly driven the rise of the local semiconductor industry chain.
In terms of performance, taking the chip design sales data as an example, according to public information, after breaking the 100 billion yuan mark in 2014, the chip design sales successively broke the 200 billion yuan mark in 2017 and 300 billion yuan mark in 2019.
It can be said that the "tigers in the heart" of the domestic semiconductor practitioners have created the prosperity of the local semiconductor industry, and for the traditional enterprises in the semiconductor industry, their rise also means that there are more players to carve up the market. So, in the past few years of development, Chinese chip manufacturers have "taken" the foreign territory?
IPC Chip Wars
The development of security market is one of the opportunities for the development of domestic chip manufacturers. From the development of the security market, the security market has experienced analog monitoring, digital monitoring, network hd, and intelligent monitoring era. Foresight institute, research report pointed out that among the four stages of development, security market every update is rely on the algorithm of upstream of the industry chain, chips and components of the technological innovation and to promote the implementation, cost reduction and every upgrade and bring the function of security monitoring system to promote, application scenarios to broaden and broader about the industry.
The take-off of the domestic security market is to enter into 2001, with the continuous promotion of relevant policies, the leading domestic video security enterprises hikvision, Dahua Stock and so on have been developed. But at this time, there is no domestic chip companies can provide market demand. As a result, the market is dominated by foreign players, including TI and Amba.
According to relevant data, TI's representative DaVinci- DM3x ARM9 video processor solution is widely used in the security industry. Especially when the video surveillance in the security field develops from the analog stage to the digital compression processing stage, TI gradually establishes the dominant position in the security video compression field.
Around the year 2010, the network began to imagine the speed of development, users of video image quality, as well as the function of the network camera, put forward the higher request, the function of the network camera is not a simple security monitoring, users hope to get more features, through the network camera requires more convenient, more system management at the same time, as a result, IP Camera(network Camera) is favored by the security market, and its core is the video compression coding chip.
Amba, founded in 2004, is a technology leader in the HD video industry. According to relevant reports, they are the first in the industry to launch highly integrated SoC chips based on the latest H.264 video compression standard, which gives them nearly 90 percent of the MARKET for PROFESSIONAL H.264 broadcast coding equipment.
H.264 not only provides an opportunity for Anba to establish its market position, but also provides an opportunity for huawei, a domestic vendor, to enter the security market. Also founded in 2004, "Little Sea" saw the opportunity and launched H.264 video codec Hi3510 in 2006. Because H.264 was just rising at that time, Huawei stood on the same starting line with international manufacturers at this moment. Through close strategic cooperation with DAhua in research and development, In 2007, Huawei and DAhua signed a contract of 200,000 H.264 video coding chips, from this moment on, Huawei in the chip field officially set sail. Then came system-on-a-chip (SoC), and in 2010, Huawei managed to break into the supply chain of Hikon, the world's largest security camera maker.
At the same time, the status of Chinese security manufacturers is also rapidly improving, according to the Chinese Institute of Commerce and Industry, since 2015, China's video surveillance market has reached more than 40% of the global scale, becoming the largest global security video surveillance consumer market. This has also provided a foundation for Huawei, which has entered the security industry chain of giants such as Hikom and Dahua.
According to relevant data, in China's IPC market in 2016, Hisi's market share reached 62%, and now it has occupied more than 70% of the global market share, and more than 90% of the video recording market share. Many domestic agents rely on Huawei Hisi.
But in recent years, huawei's security chips have also faced a crisis due to a us ban. Therefore, there are a lot of manufacturers in trying to grab this market, and this time is different, in addition to old rivals, domestic chip manufacturers are not a few -- according to relevant reports, in addition to Huawei Hiss, Anba and other manufacturers to provide support for H.265 standard IPC SoC chip, Domestic security monitoring chip manufacturers, such as Fuhanwei, Guokewei, Beijing Junzheng, etc., are also constantly launching new products, and new players are continuing to enter the game.
Ant Tactics in power Management Chip Market
As one of the important segments of the semiconductor market, analog chips have undergone a lot of changes in recent years, notably mergers and acquisitions among the market giants. In order to expand their market presence, ADI acquired Linear, which is known for its power management chips, and Maxim, which also has a strong track record in power management.
Obviously, both acquisitions involved power management chip products, especially after the acquisition of Linear, ADI's weakness in the power management chip field was quickly filled, and its share of the power management IC market has greatly increased to the second in the world. As we all know, THE reason for ADI's acquisition is to close the gap with analog chip leader TI. On the TI side, with over 25,000 power management products to offer, TI is an absolute leader in the field.
Behind ADI's efforts to strengthen power management chips is the potential of this market. According to IC Insights, power management simulators are expected to account for 21% of all ics shipped in 2019, ranking first among all categories of ics. At the same time, with the development of the Internet of Things, new energy, artificial intelligence and other emerging application fields, the downstream market of power management chips ushered in new development opportunities.
This trend has also attracted the attention of domestic chip manufacturers, and make efforts in the field. According to the report of Zhiyan Consulting, the power management chip products designed and developed by domestic enterprises have gradually replaced the share of foreign competitors in many application markets, especially in the middle and small power segment of the consumer electronics market, and the import substitution effect has been significantly enhanced.
Local manufacturers such as Chipengwei, Shengbang, Jingfengmingyuan and Shilanwei all have layouts in the field of power management chips. Due to the variety of power management chips involved, it also makes domestic chip manufacturers can cut into the market from different aspects, so as to compete with international giants in the segmentation field.
Specifically, SAN Bang shares have announced that its regulator chip products and battery management chip products of the main competitors to the standard including MPS and TI and other companies. As the leader of LED lighting driver chips in China, Jingfeng Has launched power management products for intelligent LED lighting. According to relevant reports, the AC/DC power management chips for smart panels launched by Jingfeng in 2019 can achieve a no-load standby power consumption of less than 2 MMW. Far better than the us PI(Power Intergration) and other international well-known Power management chip manufacturers launched at the time of 5 milliwatts of standby Power consumption level, these technologies make them temporarily in the industry leader. The power management chips produced by Chipengwei are mainly for the field of home appliances, standard power supply, mobile digital field and industrial drive field, and realize the domestic replacement.
At the same time, the development of power management chip field in China has also received the attention of industrial funds, including the second phase of the big fund invested in power management chip supplier Powerchip; Haber, a wholly owned subsidiary of Huawei, invested in Jwater Microelectronics; Hubei Millet Yangtze River Industry Fund Partnership invested in Biyi Microelectronics and Nanxin Semiconductor.
These domestic power management chip manufacturers' breakthrough in the small and medium power segment of the consumer electronics market has forced overseas manufacturers to gradually fade out of the consumer market, and then to the automotive, industrial, military and aerospace high performance, high profit markets.
More markets are emerging
Throughout the chip industry in China, in fact, in many areas in the divide-and-conquer, such as simulation, including above, it comes to power management chip market, should be the hottest Chinese chip circuit, because analog chips, subdivision circuit demand is such as IGBT, and even the GaN and SiC has strong domestic demand. In addition, including radio frequency, CIS and other circuits, Chinese chips are also coming.
Take the isolator market as an example, the domestic also gave rise to many chip manufacturers, they even some well-known international giants "out" of the market.
In terms of market development, the market for digital isolators is projected to reach $767 million by 2024, according to market research firm IHS Markit, but it is still dominated by foreign players such as Silicon Labs, ADI and TI. Therefore, driven by localization, isolator has become a potential market. Including sichuan soil micro, rongpai, na Xin micro and other manufacturers in the field have a layout.
Specifically, chuanzhi, founded in 2016, has its own patent technology of volume isolation technology. A full series of digital isolation chips including channel to six channels have been mass produced. In terms of isolation pressure resistance, CMTI and other indicators, it has surpassed the imported chips of TI, Silicon Labs and other companies, and can realize high-quality import substitution.
The photocoupler designed by Rongpai using digital isolator technology is a functional replacement and has made ideal progress in the fields of electricity meters, smart home appliances and bicycles. Rongpai is the first company in China to launch a digital isolator in line with the standards of car regulations. It is understood that its products have been mainly responsible for the selection of new energy vehicle battery manufacturers in the industry, and successfully entered mass production. In addition, according to the semiconductor device application network reported that rongpai will launch the isolation drive products in the third quarter of this year to meet the current isolation drive demand in the industrial field and the smart home appliance field.
Nanochip's isolation products can cover standard digital isolators, isolated sampling chips, isolated driver chips, isolated interface chips and isolated power chips. According to relevant media reports, Since the end of 2017 after the mass production of standard digital isolation chip, Nano Chip has become the highest stability of the entire product, the highest performance of the manufacturer, to help many system manufacturers quickly realize the localization. Among them, the performance index of CMTI of nano core micro digital isolation products can achieve 200kV/μS, and the comprehensive performance can catch up with the level of international first-line manufacturers, and some performance indexes have been achieved beyond.
The rise of these domestic chip manufacturers has, to some extent, impacted the market of international giants. This was most evident when Silicon Labs announced the sale of its Infrastructure and Automotive business (I&A), which includes its technology portfolio and related assets in power, isolation, timing and broadcast products, to Skyworks for $2.75 billion. In terms of the market position of Silicon Labs, according to the report in 2019, Silicon Labs ranked first in the industry in the digital isolation product line of electric vehicles, with a total shipment of more than 30 million units. In 2017-2018, 7 of the top 10 Oems adopted Silicon Labs' isolation plan, which was widely cited in areas including BMS, traction drives, OBC, and charging piles. Silicon Labs chose to sell a business that accounts for 40% of the company's revenue, perhaps indicating the rise of competitors. Make its business can not guarantee the high growth of the past.
Write in the last
Under the thin sniff, domestic chip manufacturers in many areas to achieve domestic replacement, which shows that domestic chip manufacturers are strong rise. But like a coin, there are two sides to the coin. On the B-side, where domestic chipmakers have been stealing the market from foreign players, domestic chipmakers have often done so through cost-effectiveness. This also shows that international manufacturers still have a huge advantage in technology, which prompts them to enter the high performance, high profit market, and further consolidate their position in the market.
On the other hand, there is still a long way to go for domestic chip manufacturers, as international manufacturers are the first to enter these markets, which will also cause some challenges for domestic chip manufacturers to enter the high-end chip market.