Integrated circuit defense the chip self-sufficiency rate less than 10, the talent gap 400000

Source：Updated：2018-06-29 09:09:40

On June 12, the U.S. department of commerce website raised the specific content of zte released agreement: including fines paid $1 billion and $400 million deposit within 30 days to replace all the members of the board of directors or the U.S. department of commerce selected compliance team to supervise the enterprise for 10 years, etc. For zte: the $1.4 billion settlement, plus $892 million in fines paid last year, amounted to $2.92 billion, nearly three times zte's 2017 net profit. More than two months, zte most of the production line production losses and drop stop, the market value of shares and the management of change, the uncertainty of goodwill damage brought about by the development, zte is really casualties. To make matters worse, the settlement is merely a suspension of previous penalties, and the us has the right to reactivate the ban at any time in the next decade.

We are not only heartbroken that such a once excellent enterprise is facing a disaster but is helpless, but also worried that it reflects the crisis of China's integrated circuit industry development

It turns out that you really need to be beaten if you lag behind
Once the ban was announced, zte's supply of components leaving the us had to stop production. Whether it's a network device or a smartphone, the core components depend on U.S. suppliers, and there are no domestic alternatives.

We have a complete integrated circuit industry chain, but lack the ability to design, manufacture and produce "core" products. Not one of the top 10 companies in the global semiconductor rankings released by Gartner in 2017 is a Chinese company. We have done well in some areas, such as wafer foundry smic, which ranks fifth in the world, but its annual operating income is only one-tenth of TSMC's. Acc has mastered 7nm technology in the technology stage, while smic is still struggling to improve the yield of 28nm technology, which will take some time to break through 14nm. Huawei hasi, an integrated circuit design company, has made its mark in the world, but it can only achieve self-sufficiency in huawei's manufacturing. In storage chips, servers, personal computers, programmable logic devices and other fields, our domestic chip self-sufficiency rate is almost zero.

China is also the world's largest integrated circuit consumer market, with less than 10 percent of domestic chip supply, and its reliance on imported chips is self-evident. Zte's reality tells us that backwardness leads to dependence, which can be beaten.

China's core IC domestic chip share China's core IC domestic chip share

The ban was accidental, and perhaps inevitable
Some might say zte was hit by accident. If zte had not broken us laws, there would not have been such a dismal outcome. But if you look at the history of the United States, trade wars have always been an important means to reduce the huge trade deficit and protect American interests such as high-tech industries and intellectual property rights. Japan was an important U.S. ally against the Soviet union in the 1980s, and its rapidly growing economic power put pressure on the United States. At the time of the United States government on the grounds that the us-japan huge trade deficit with China, super 301 survey on Japan was carried out, finally forced Japan signed the plaza accord, agreed to a huge rise in the yen against the dollar, the subsequent chain reaction caused a huge impact on Japan's economy.

Today's sino-us trade status with the America and Japan have many similarities: both has a huge trade deficit with the United States, to the United States have obvious dependence, and its total economic output and momentum towards the United States.

Our imports of chips are highly dependent on the United States, and the new generation of chip-based information technology has been listed as a major competitor in the United States. Similar zte incidents may yet emerge.

How is the integrated circuit defense battle going?
The zte incident has sparked national determination to accelerate the development of integrated circuits. If 2018 years ago, the integrated circuit industry investment is a national thing, since this year, especially in the near future, including Internet giant, home appliance giants, risk investment, the capital of all stripes have increased the investment of domestic chip industry. For one thing, investing in integrated circuits seems like a patriotic act. On the other hand, many companies are big users of chips, and zte has shown them a huge crisis.

"When we went to see a chip project a few years ago, very few people were interested in it, and there were even investors jumping in. These two years, especially since this year, people rushed to the chip, chip area, such as very hot now AI AI chip companies such as Thomson science and technology, the Cambrian since this year has carried out several rounds of financing, and valuation is very high."

It was widely believed that the integrated circuit industry had high investment, long research and development, slow results, and social capital was reluctant to get involved. At present, the development of domestic electronic industry, such as mobile phone, has multiplied the demand for integrated circuit products. The zte incident, like a tipping point, has stirred up enthusiasm and hope for capital investment in integrated circuits. Almost every few days there is big news about the investment in the integrated circuit industry.

It can be said that investment in integrated circuits led by the state and participated by all the capital of the society is flourishing everywhere. The ring drum of an integrated circuit defence has been drummed by the zte incident.

China integrated circuit industry sales and supply situation China integrated circuit industry sales and supply situation

Look forward to the victory rally
To win a battle, there must be no shortage of tactics or provisions.

From a strategic point of view, it is mainly to clear the main attack direction. At present, the United States is leading the integrated circuit industry in almost all directions, especially with a large number of patents and industry standards. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan of China, some European countries and other leading advantages are also obvious. Although some people think that Moore's law is close to the physical boundaries, integrated circuit technology overall progress slowed, but for more backward of China's integrated circuit industry, to catch up with the advanced level or a comprehensive mission impossible in the short term, so have to find a main direction and focus on the breakthrough, thus obtained in local advantage, in exchange for dialogue.

I think two directions can be considered. One is to solve the neck sticking problem, and the other is to solve the shortage of high-end products of general motors.

The so-called bottleneck problem is the high degree of dependence on foreign countries and the big constraint on industrial development. For example, high purity polishing paste, lithography machine, polishing machine and other materials and equipment. These materials and equipment are one of the most important conditions in wafer manufacturing. At present, they are mainly imported and expensive.

The so-called shortage of high-end products of general motors refers to the domestic vacancy of high-end chips needed for large-scale and large-scale products. For example, smart phone chips and the artificial intelligence and Internet of things chips that may be used in large quantities in the future. Research and development and production closely combined with product and market demand can achieve breakthrough and industrialization faster. "Made in China 2025" report: its self-sufficiency rate of China chips to reach 40% by 2020, reaching 50% in 2025, the objective requirement of our integrated circuit breakthrough direction to face the big market, big demand.

Look from grain grass basically is capital and talent
Funds should be not only adequate but also efficient. After the establishment of the state large fund in 2014, by the end of 2017, a total of 49 enterprises had been invested, 67 projects had been invested in effective decision-making, and 81.8 billion yuan had been actually invested. Intel, qualcomm and hynix are among the top 10 global semiconductor companies in r&d spending for two consecutive years in 2017, according to research from IC Insights. Intel spent the most, spending $13 billion on research and development in 2017 and $1.7 billion on hynix, the no. 10 company. In this view, we still need to increase the amount of capital investment.

Efficiency mainly refers to the contribution of capital input to output. Although our drum roll has been rung, IC investment heat rising, but industry characteristics determine the IC investment should not only have a "war" for a long time to prepare, and large-scale and specialization. In recent years, various regions have responded positively to the national strategy and built their own industrial bases for integrated circuits. According to statistics, there are more than 1380 integrated circuit design enterprises in 2017, and the number is still growing. Too many companies fail in the research and development process because they cannot continue to invest.

In order to make capital more abundant and efficient, the country should standardize the investment direction and entry threshold, let the market play more role and let more professionals participate together.

Talent is key. We can see how important talents are to the defense of the integrated circuit industry by looking at the leading domestic enterprises. Zhongxing micro, zhanxun communication, lanqi science and technology are all enterprises founded when overseas technical talents return home. The development of zhongxin international and ziguang group is also inseparable from the role of technical experts. But the reality is that we are in a serious shortage of both entry-level and high-end talent.

On the one hand, the total number of talents is seriously insufficient. According to the white paper on China's integrated circuit industry talents (2016-2017), the total number of employees in China's integrated circuit industry is less than 300,000. According to the calculation of the total output value, the total amount of talent training is seriously insufficient, and there is an urgent need to fill the gap of 400,000 talents. Compared with developed countries in Europe and the United States, our integrated circuit enterprises have fewer employees with more than 10 years of working experience.

On the other hand, due to low pay factors, integrated circuit talents change to more. According to the white paper, research and development professionals in integrated circuit companies earn nearly 300,000 yuan a year, while manufacturing professionals earn nearly 200,000 yuan. Some people say, "the salary competitiveness of China's integrated circuit industry is not strong, which is the fundamental reason for the lack of talents. But graduates from top universities such as tsinghua and Peking universities are joining more competitive industries such as artificial intelligence, finance and the Internet.

Talent development takes time. In order to solve the problem, it is necessary to introduce overseas high-end talents to bring enterprises closer to the world's leading enterprises in management and technology. At the same time to activate the domestic integrated circuit talent enthusiasm. Recently, xiamen, wuxi, wuhu and other places have issued specific introduction methods and preliminary plans for professionals of integrated circuit, and made efforts to improve the treatment of talents. In the long run, it is still necessary to speed up the development of local integrated circuit talents. In colleges and universities, research institutes of the curriculum, the research direction, in combination with the practical need of integrated circuit, train more electronic information engineering, communication engineering, electrical engineering and its automation and other inter-disciplinary talent.

Point of view, we need more top-level design integrated circuit resistance and hay, need to "plan and market, introduction and independent, the government and enterprise" three rounds of push forward, to look forward to the assembly of victory sounded as soon as possible.