"New demand" outbreak of domestic chips to meet the golden development period

The State Council recently issued the "Several Policies to Promote the high-quality Development of the Integrated Circuit Industry and Software Industry in the New Era" (hereinafter referred to as "several policies"), so that the already very hot domestic chip industry to add a heavy positive.

Industry insiders said that although there is still a big gap with foreign countries, under the policy support, under the "new infrastructure" and "new economy", the chip industry is expected to usher in a golden development stage.

"Expecting high growth, not a direct blowout"

"At the end of last year, our order growth has been very high, did not expect this year's domestic chip demand directly 'blowout', product supply is in short supply, and the phone call to urge goods is one after another." Speaking of the hot chip market this year, Dou Qiang, general manager of Tianjin Feiteng Information Technology Co., LTD., called it "far beyond expectations."

He told the "Economic Information Daily" reporter that the company's best selling chip was originally estimated to reach 1 million pieces by 2021, and did not expect shipments to break the million in August this year.

From the perspective of the capital market, integrated circuits are undoubtedly one of the most eye-catching sectors this year, and large investments are emerging in endlessly. Bi Ren Technology, A general intelligent chip design company, completed A round of financing totaling 1.1 billion yuan in just nine months after its establishment, setting a new record for A round of financing in the same industry in recent years. Share prices of many chip design, manufacturing, packaging and testing listed companies rose sharply.

"Although the global economy has encountered many difficulties, the chip market demand remains strong, driven by many new applications. At present, the company's capacity utilization is close to full load, and the product demand gap of mature process is particularly large. Especially after 5G related applications come up, the unit price of related categories will rise." Zhao Haijun, SMIC co-chief executive.

Smic's latest financial report shows that in the second quarter, the company's revenue and net profit hit a record high in a single quarter, achieving a net profit of 138 million US dollars, an increase of 644.2%. "The company has entered the growth period and will seize the dividends of rapid growth of advanced and mature processes." Zhao Haijun said.

Many enterprises have obviously felt that the industry has entered the "fast lane" of high-speed expansion. "Our revenue in the first half of this year has exceeded that of the whole of last year, and we expect to continue this growth momentum in the second half of this year to achieve revenue of more than 1 billion yuan for the whole year." Dou Qiang said.

"Localization + new infrastructure" set off strong demand

"It is no exaggeration to say that localization and 'new infrastructure' are expected to guide the chip industry into a new round of development cycle, detonating the new growth rate of the entire industry." Dou Qiang said.

Although the chip is small, it is the basis for mobile phones, computers, household appliances, automobiles and other industries to achieve information and intelligence.

On the one hand, under the increasingly complex international environment, the scientific and technological game has been an obvious trend, and domestic substitution has always been the main line of semiconductor industry development; On the other hand, the rolling wave of digital economy and "new infrastructure" has spawned strong demand for chips.

"After years of development, China has made great improvements in areas such as chips and operating systems. For a long time to come, the replacement of domestic hardware and software to the original market monopolists will be the new normal in the field of network information." Chinese Academy of Engineering, said Ni Guangnan.

As a world-renowned provider of chip design tools, Syrs has been rooted in the Chinese market for more than 20 years. According to Ge Qun, chairman and global senior vice president of Sinesco Technology China, China's chip industry is showing strong development momentum and potential.

"The number of chip design companies alone has expanded from 1,700 last year to more than 2,000 this year, which is impressive." Ge Qun believes that this is mainly due to China's vast market and application fields, digitalization and intelligence need more chip support.

The most critical thing is that under the combined effect of the external environment and internal technology improvement, domestic chips have accelerated trial and error, transformation, and improvement, and have changed from "unavailable" to "basically available" and then to "easy to use".

In the past, only office desktops, enterprise cloud platforms, power plants, high-speed rail, satellite navigation systems, and so on, some of the use of "China core"; Now, people's personal purchase of mobile phones, laptops, smart wearable devices, etc., has also partially realized the replacement of domestic chips.

Many industry insiders said that with the rapid development of big data, cloud platforms, and industrial Internet of Things, especially the arrival of 5G applications, the market size of the entire integrated circuit industry will exceed one trillion yuan.

China's chip industry must learn from each other to seize opportunities

"China has homegrown chips and operating systems, but there is still a big gap between China and developed countries in terms of technology and industrialization." Ni Guangnan bluntly, on the one hand, in some links of the industrial chain there are "short board"; On the other hand, due to the preconceived market advantages of developed countries, domestic chips still have a long way to go in industrialization.

He said that the integrated circuit industry has a fine division of labor and fierce competition, and it cannot rely only on the national system and government support. For a company to continue to grow, it must make money in the market, and then continue to invest in research and innovation to ensure continued leadership. Without a positive iteration of the market, it will slowly be eliminated.

"While bringing new opportunities, the 'new infrastructure' also poses four challenges to the entire integrated circuit industry in terms of computing power, collaboration, security and application, which complement each other and are indispensable." Dou Qiang said.

In response to the new problems and new changes in the stage of industrial development, the state has adjusted and upgraded again at the policy level. The recent "Several Policies" put forward eight new measures. "This time, the focus is to solve the problem of core technology being controlled by people. For the integrated circuit industry, which is highly division of labor and extremely dependent on ecology, the state will further support in investment and financing, talent and market implementation, and will actively promote the opening and expansion of enterprise financing channels, accelerate the linkage of the whole integrated circuit industry chain, and make the talent training system bigger and stronger." Dou Qiang said.

Experts said that in the face of international market uncertainties and supply chain security challenges, China's chip industry in self-reliance, efforts to "internal circulation" at the same time, but also must focus on the global, learn from each other and connect forces. "Several Policies" in particular, where the establishment of qualified integrated circuit enterprises in China can enjoy this policy, which will undoubtedly attract more talents for the industry, gather more strength.