As the "hard to find one core" situation continues to spread in all walks of life, chip prices are rising. As a result, even the robbers began to look at the chips-according to Hong Kong's "Wen Wei Po" report, a robbery occurred in Hong Kong on June 16, when a logistics company transported high-priced chips worth about 5 million Hong Kong dollars. At present, major chip manufacturers have not only queued up to grab production capacity, but have also issued price increases notices.
Global chip prices have soared
Recently, German chip supplier Infineon issued a notice to customers saying that due to the recurrence of the global new crown epidemic and the Malaysian government's "Comprehensive Action Control Order", Infineon's production in Malaysia has been greatly affected. Infineon is preparing a new round of product price increases. Power semiconductors such as MOSFETs (Gold Oxygen Half Field Effect Transistors) will increase by 12%, which is expected to be implemented this month.
Infineon is the world’s largest company in power semiconductor shipments. It mainly provides semiconductors for automotive and industrial power devices, chip cards and security applications. Its revenue in fiscal year 2020 exceeds 8.57 billion euros. The current total market value is 44.3 billion euros.
In addition, global leading power semiconductor manufacturers such as ST Group and ON Semiconductor have also issued price increase notices. Among them, ST announced that the full range of products will begin to increase prices on June 1st; some of ON Semiconductor’s product prices will It will be adjusted upwards on July 10 this year.
The price hikes initiated by the international semiconductor giants have spread to the country, and some domestic power semiconductor manufacturers have also issued price increases.
The wave of chip expansion struck
MCU has a wide range of applications, such as remote controls, automotive electronics, industrial motors, robotic arms, etc., and the demand is huge. Affected by the decline in global wafer production capacity, the prices of some products have skyrocketed more than ten times. Due to the skyrocketing MCU price, small companies in various industries have been unable to bear it. As for when the price can come down, it depends on when the "core shortage tide" can end.
Lu Weibing, senior vice president of Xiaomi, once said that the global core shortage will affect the next year. The third quarter of this year is likely to be the most serious season of chip shortages.
On June 5th, Hubble Investment, a subsidiary of Huawei, took a stake in Beijing Keyi Hongyuan Company, which is controlled by the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The company's business involves the development of light source systems for lithography machines, which means that Huawei has officially entered the lithography machine. field.
On June 7, China Resources Micro issued an announcement that its wholly-owned subsidiary plans to establish a joint venture with the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Phase II Co., Ltd. and Chongqing Xiyong Microelectronics Industrial Park Development Co., Ltd. The registered capital is planned to be 5 billion yuan. Invest in the construction of a 12-inch power semiconductor wafer production line project.
The continued out-of-stocks and price increases of chips also prompted global fabs to start a large-scale expansion cycle. TSMC, Samsung, Intel and other international manufacturers have launched tens of billions of dollars in annual production expansion investment plans. SMIC, Yangtze River Storage, and Hefei Changxin are also continuing to expand their production.
Major fabs have expanded their production on a large scale, which has driven the rapid rise in demand for semiconductor equipment and materials. According to the media recently, a person in charge of a semiconductor equipment distributor said that the price of second-hand 8-inch semiconductor equipment has reached a record high, with a delivery time of more than 12 months. In terms of materials, the supply of photoresist in Japan has also been tight recently.
Domestic chip or "overtaking on curve"
In order to realize chip independence, the trend of "core-making" has also been set off in China. In the past two years, no matter whether it is core semiconductor equipment or advanced chip manufacturing technology, good news of breaking ice has been spreading continuously in China. Obviously, we are gradually narrowing the gap with the West until we catch up.
Now that the chip manufacturing process has entered a bottleneck period, Moore's Law has lost its meaning. As the process becomes smaller and smaller, the research and development cycle is getting longer and longer, and the need to invest huge amounts of money in research and development is not necessarily a breakthrough.
The 8-inch graphene wafer independently developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences last year caused a huge sensation in the global chip layout. The raw material of graphene may lead the emergence of the era of carbon-based chips, while the 8-inch graphene wafer of the Chinese Academy of Sciences The size or performance can be called top level.
Recently, good news came out again in China. Recently, the team of Academician Guo Guangcan of the University of Science and Technology of China published a paper on the development of China's photon quantum chip in an international journal, making breakthroughs in the field of photonic energy and Hall effect, and realizing the application prospects of photon quantum chips. Research.
According to public information, the scientific research team of Professor Guo Guangcan of the University of Science and Technology of my country has explored and mastered quantum interference technology, which has played a huge role in promoting China's research and development in the field of optical quantum chips and laid the foundation for the practical application of domestic quantum chips.
At present, only China can achieve "quantum interference technology", and even the United States, which has a strong basic technology, is beyond the reach.
The research and development of domestic semiconductors has always adhered to the "two-legged" strategy. The pursuit of traditional chip technology is very important because it represents the present; and the transcendence of the new chip field is even more critical, because it represents the future.
As the global chip market is facing a shortage of supply, my country's technological breakthrough in the field of optical quantum chips may become the key for my country's chip industry to achieve "curving overtaking" on the global track.