Diode raw material chip is the most attention this year is also the most missing. The chip industry as a weak industry in China, in recent years under the leadership of the relevant national policies, is trying to catch up. Industry estimates, 28 nano will be a new starting point for 100% domestic chips, and domestic 14 nano chips will be expected to achieve mass production this year and next year respectively.
Relevant experts believe that the development of 14nm chip has overcome many technical problems: etching machine, film deposition, and other key equipment to achieve from scratch, batch application in the production line; A breakthrough in 14-nanometer process research and development; The technical achievements of post-packaging integration have achieved mass production; Polishing agent and sputtering target materials and other hundreds of key materials through large production lines into batch sales. These achievements have basically covered the whole industry chain system of China’s integrated circuit, reversing the passive situation of the introduction of a complete set of technology before.
The rapid development of 14nm and even 28nm chips means that we adopt a retreat strategy to meet the needs of general chips with mature processes. We do not blindly pursue high manufacturing processes but pay more attention to design and packaging optimization, exchange time for semiconductor applications, and the autonomy of the whole industry chain.
The production line of 14-12nm is very key in the current semiconductor. The 14nm process and above can meet the needs of 70% of the current semiconductor manufacturing process. The 12nm process is used to locate the mid-end 5G chips. In addition, 14nm can basically meet the needs of the domestic desktop CPU manufacturing process.
For the world’s large chip manufacturers, the technology for 28nm chips is very mature, and there is already some excess capacity. At the other end of the spectrum, the sub-10nm technology is so cutting-edge that the only players left are TSMC, Samsung, and Intel at the top of the pyramid. Somewhere in the middle, 14nm has clearly become the backbone of most mid – to high-end chips.
Statistics show that in the first half of 2019, the size of the entire semiconductor sales market is about $200 billion, of which 65% of chips use 14 nm process, only 10% of chips use 7nm, and 25% of chips use 10nm and 12nm. It can be seen that 14nm has become the most widely used and valuable manufacturing process at present. It has great development potential in AI chips, high-end processors, automobiles, and other fields. Its main applications include high-end consumer electronics, high-speed computing, low-order power amplifiers, fundamental frequency, AI, automobiles, etc.
China’s 14nm technology has developed vigorously and has made remarkable achievements, but it is not possible to achieve catch-up overnight if we want to strike after ourselves. Leading manufacturers in the industry have many years of production experience on 14nm, and the depreciation of the production line has been completed. Therefore, Chinese enterprises have no advantage in cost competitive with other manufacturers. Therefore, there is a generation gap between us and the world’s first-class OEM enterprises in terms of technology catch-up. If we want to catch up later, we need to invest more manpower, financial resources, and time costs.
At present, although there is still a certain distance from the domestic chip factory, hope has been seen