Two 8-inch production lines of China Resources Micro are fully loaded with Chongqing Plant to expand production by about 10%.

SMM News: "8-inch fab production capacity shortage" has become the consensus of the current semiconductor industry. Citic Securities recently pointed out that the current industry 8-inch wafer production capacity increment is very limited, but with the recovery of downstream consumer electronics, automotive electronics, industrial control and other industries to drive the demand for MOSFET, PMIC and other products, 8-inch mature process demand is strong, resulting in tight production capacity of 8-inch wafer factories, and some companies have raised prices for 8-inch wafers.

A reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily learned that at present, among the domestic enterprises with 8-inch production lines, there are both OEM and IDM models. Among them, Science and Technology Innovation Board listed company 688396.SH is the leading semiconductor IDM enterprise in China, with two 8-inch lines with full capacity. Wuxi's 8-inch line will slightly expand production, and the equipment is already in place, while the 8-inch wafer production capacity in Chongqing has now reached 57000 pieces per month. The company plans to further increase to 62000 tablets per month, an expansion of about 10%.

In addition, China Resources Micro has three 6-inch production lines and a 12-inch production line under construction, and the company's 6-inch production line currently has a capacity utilization rate of more than 90%. In July this year, China Resources Micro 6-inch SiC production line announced mass production, which is the first 6-inch silicon carbide wafer production line in China to achieve commercial mass production, with a planned production capacity of 1000 wafers per month at this stage.

A flexible price strategy will be adopted.

It is understood that China Resources Micro's 8-inch production capacity is mainly used for the production of power devices (including MOSFET, IGBT, diodes, etc.) and power IC,. For power devices, the performance of the product requires a close combination of the design end and the manufacturing end, so the IDM mode has stronger advantages.

A reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily learned that at present, China Resources Micro has two 8-inch wafer production lines, of which Chongqing 8-inch production line mainly serves the company's own products. According to the prospectus, the production line has groove and plane MOS, groove and plane SBD, IGBT, GaN power devices and other manufacturing technology, mainly power devices.

Among the many power devices produced by the 8 billion production line, MOSFET is one of the most important products of China Resources Micro. At the same time, the company is the MOSFET manufacturer with the largest revenue and the most complete product range in China. It is understood that MOSFET is a kind of field effect transistor which can be widely used in analog and digital circuits. It has the characteristics of high frequency, simple drive, good penetration resistance and so on. Its application scope covers many fields such as power management, computer and peripheral equipment, automotive electronics and so on. According to the forecast of YOLE, the global MOSFET market will reach about 8.7 billion US dollars by 2024.

At present, China Resources Micro can provide a full range of low, medium and high voltage MOSFET products in the range of-100V to 1500V. "from the downstream market, the demand for medium and low voltage MOSFET products in the consumer electronics field is more exuberant."

In terms of the price of MOSFET products, due to the current bottleneck in 8-inch wafer production capacity, many domestic MOSFET manufacturers using the Fabless model are facing the pressure of increasing wafer foundry costs, and some MOSFET manufacturers have also begun to raise product prices. For example, an insider of Jetty Micro Electric previously told Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily that the company's MOSFET products began to increase prices in August.

For China Resources Micro, which is basically different from Chongqing's 8's line, about 85% of its Wuxi 8's line is used for external contract manufacturing. The company told Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily that for the price of MOSFET products, the company will adopt a flexible price strategy according to the market situation and the specific conditions of customers, while for the 8's production line, it will adopt a flexible price strategy according to changes in the market situation. In view of the customer structure, product line terminal application and other situations, comprehensively consider the corresponding price strategy to improve the tight supply situation.

Layout of IGBT whole industry chain

In addition to MOSFET products, IGBT is also the core product of Huarun Weibo.

It is understood that IGBT is a typical product of the new generation of power semiconductors. It is a compound fully controlled voltage-driven power device composed of bipolar transistor BJT and MOSFET. It is incomparable to other power devices in terms of high voltage, high current and high speed, and is known as "CPU in power electronic devices".

At present, 8 inches in international IGBT manufacturers has become the mainstream production line. Infineon even mass-produced IGBT, on the 12-inch wafer production line. China's first 8-inch IGBT chip production line was built before the CRRC era in China, but generally speaking, no matter it is 6 inches or 8 inches, there are few domestic production lines that are really capable of producing IGBT products.

At present, there are two main types of domestic manufacturers who can do IGBT chips, one is China Resources Micro, BYD, Shilan Micro, CRRC Times and other IDM manufacturers, and the other is Star Semiconductor, Shanghai Land Core and other chip design companies, the chips are produced by SMIC, Huahong Hongli and other processing plants.

Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily reporter learned from China Resources Micro that its IGBT builds the whole industry chain, that is, product independent research and development, with its own research and development team, wafer manufacturing process and its own sales team. At present, China Resources Micro's IGBT products have been gradually transferred from the 6 'line to the 8' line for production.

It is worth noting that from the supply side, the IGBT market is mainly monopolized by international manufacturers such as Infineon and on Semet, but affected by the epidemic, manufacturers who originally used imported IGBT gradually turned their attention to domestic suppliers because of insufficient supply; on the demand side, IGBT is one of the core components of electric vehicles, and the great increase in production and sales of new energy vehicles is also driving the demand for IGBT modules.

According to the public information of China Resources Micro, in the first three quarters of this year, its IGBT revenue maintained rapid growth compared with the same period last year, and its gross profit margin also increased compared with the same period last year. At present, the voltage range of the company's IGBT products covers 600V IGBT 3300V, which is mainly used in home appliances and industrial control fields, and the company is also actively entering the automotive electronics field. "the company IGBT is also developing 1700V, 3300V and other high-power products in Synchronize. At the same time, IGBT products are transforming from a single tube to a module.

Although there is a huge space for domestic substitution for IGBT, China Resources Micro faces the gap between IGBT products and international manufacturers, "there is still a certain gap between China Resources Micro and other international well-known enterprises in terms of technical capability, process accumulation, product line richness, enterprise scale, brand awareness and other international well-known enterprises. In the face of fierce market competition, the company still needs to further increase investment in scientific research, improve the ability of independent innovation, and enrich product structure and competitiveness. "

Three characteristics of SiC 6 production line

China Resources Micro has three 6 'production lines, and its main products are power semiconductors such as bipolar, MOS and Schottky, as well as smart sensors such as MEMS. As of June 2020, China Resources Microwafer has a production capacity of 2.47 million wafers per year, of which 50 per cent are for self-use and 50 per cent for contract manufacturing.

With the development of semiconductor industry, the third generation semiconductor materials have been formed, the most important of which are SiC and GaN. Because of its high critical magnetic field, high electron saturation velocity and extremely high thermal conductivity, SiC will replace Si as the material of most power devices (not completely, because digital chips are not suitable to use SiC to replace Si).

In July this year, China Resources Micro 6-inch SiC production line has now begun mass production. It is understood that this is the first 6-inch silicon carbide wafer production line in China to achieve commercial mass production, with a planned production capacity of 1000 wafers per month. The product is mainly used in solar inverters, communication power supplies, servers, energy storage equipment and other fields.

According to a reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, the company's SiC 6-inch special production line has three major characteristics: first, to complete the accumulation of technology at a lower cost; second, to complete the construction of the production line with less investment, using the rich work experience of Si-based semiconductors to purchase special equipment to complete the production line; third, to promote the industrialization of scientific research achievements by using the mode of industry-university-research cooperation with universities.

It is worth noting that the international 600-1700V SiC SBD and MOSFET have achieved industrialization, but in terms of the production line, the domestic production line is still mainly 4-inch line, and some enterprises have no problem making 4-inch + 6-inch diodes, but making MOS devices is not up to the technical requirements.

In addition, although SiC MOSFET has excellent performance, there are still three major factors restricting the development of Synchronize up and down the industry chain.

One is the whole process of SiC substrate development: equipment / process / processing / cutting, etc. Because SiC substrate is very different from traditional silicon ingots, everything from equipment, process, treatment to cutting needs new development, so SiC substrate is one of the bottlenecks that domestic companies are trying to solve.

The other is that the cost is high due to low yield / shipments: compared with silicon devices, silicon carbide devices are relatively new products, and the price is relatively high because of production and production capacity. this is one of the main obstacles in the road of commercialization.

The third is wafer materials, that is, there may be uneven quality and risks in supply. In the past two or three years, the shortage of wafer supply has been one of the major bottlenecks restricting the development of SiC industry.

Because SiC is mainly used in power semiconductors, IDM mode can ensure product yield and control cost. At present, in large international companies, Italian Semiconductor, Infineon and other companies have also adopted the IDM model to develop the third generation semiconductors.

It is reported that SiC MOSFET, a new product produced by the company based on the SiC 6-inch special production line, is expected to release samples this year and launch it to the market next year, with the future focus on the industrial control and automotive electronics fields.

At the same time, China Resources Micro is laying out the silicon carbide industry chain, "the company SiC diode in the customer sample delivery stage, the market has a process of acceptance of new products, there is no large-scale start, the future will consider whether to expand production according to the demand of the market."

Fixed increase closed test business supporting Chongqing 8-inch and 12-inch production line

Due to the current shortage of semiconductor production capacity, not only the front wafer generation production capacity is in short supply, but also the rear closed test capacity is also seriously out of stock, affected by this. Recently, the closed test giant Sun Yueguang Semiconductor issued a notice that the unit price of closed test increased by 5% to 10% in the first quarter of 2021.

According to the China Resources micro-prospectus (registration draft), the company has semiconductor packaging and testing production lines in Wuxi and Shenzhen, with an annual packaging capacity of about 6.2 billion. But at the same time, about 90% of the company's power device closed tests are outsourced.

A reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily learned that compared with outsourcing, the cost of self-owned packaging is lower, and in the future, power semiconductors will use packaging technology to improve product performance, so as to improve product profitability.

In October this year, China Resources Micro released a plan to raise no more than 5 billion yuan for China Resources Micro Semiconductor closed Test Base project and supplementary liquidity. Among them, the company plans to build a new power semiconductor closed test base in Chongqing Xiyong Microelectronics Industrial Park, which is mainly used for packaging and testing standard power semiconductor products, advanced panel-level power products, and characteristic power semiconductor products. In the future, it will integrate the resources of the company's existing packaging and testing links, on the one hand, increase the existing production capacity through the construction of an advanced closed test base to meet the growing market demand; on the other hand, help the company to improve the process in the later manufacturing field of semiconductor packaging and testing of power devices, and enhance the innovation ability and technical level of the company's products and services.

Zou Lanlan of Great Wall Securities believes that the semiconductor packaging link is downstream of the contract manufacturing link, which directly benefits from the tight production capacity of the contract manufacturing link. With the expansion of contract manufacturing capacity, the closed testing industry will usher in further expansion.

It is reported that at present, a number of closed test companies are increasing closed test production capacity, while some chip design companies are also building self-sealing test production lines. For example, domestic CMOS chips are building COM closed test production lines and some test production lines.

Step Rixin, executive director of Chuangdao Investment Consulting, previously said that it is not a particularly common phenomenon for chip design companies to build their own packaging and test production lines. In general, self-built packaging production lines are designed to ensure production capacity and prevent products from running out of stock in the case of insufficient production capacity.

The professional OEM mode has the advantage of large-scale production for products with standardized production, single use and large consumption, but in analog IC, MEMS and other industries that require multi-variety and small batch production, self-built closed test production line will obviously become the mainstream mode. "the company will revolve around the core advantages in the field of power semiconductors to meet the growing demand in the field of closed testing of power semiconductors".