Exceed expectations! It is reported that SMIC has been approved by 14nm to further improve the visibility of domestic semiconductor production expansion.

After Monday (1) trading, the industry vertical media micro-network reported that SMIC had obtained supply licenses from some US equipment manufacturers, mainly covering semiconductor equipment for mature processes, according to the supply chain.

Later in the day, the electronic team of Societe Generale Securities Research Institute (hereinafter referred to as "Xingzheng Electronics") issued a report confirming the above news, saying that some of SMIC's suppliers had obtained the relevant licenses after being verified by its industry chain.

Among them, among some suppliers in the United States, Company A has obtained the relevant license, and Company L and Company K are still waiting for the result, judging that they will also get the license one after another, which takes 10nm as the demarcation point, 14nm and above process-related products are licensed, and 10nm and the following nodes do not get the license.

In fact, at the end of last year, it was reported that SMIC had obtained a mature process license in the United States. affected by this news, SMIC's H shares rose by 10% on that day.

Subsequently, a reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily exclusively confirmed on January 4 this year that SMIC's key supply of mature processes had been licensed. The reporter learned that those who obtained the license included EDA, equipment and materials, and so on.

The 14nm license exceeds expectations and SMIC is expected to continue to enjoy long process node dividends.

Xingzheng Electronics pointed out that according to the previous judgment, SMIC has a strong certainty that SMIC will get a mature process license, that is, 28nm and above nodes will get a license, and now it is seen that 14nm also gets a license, which means that SMIC's development in the field of advanced process will continue, and the company will continue to enjoy the dividend of 14nm as a long process node.

According to SMIC's disclosure at the end of last year, the company's 14nm process has been in mass production in the fourth quarter of 2019, and the yield has reached the industry's level of mass production, while the second generation FinFET has entered a small trial production. According to the financial report, according to the classification of technology nodes, SMIC 14Compact 28nm accounted for 14.6% and 5% of its revenue in the third and fourth quarters of 2020, respectively.

Influenced by the increased demand for mature processes and geopolitical factors, Zhao Haijun, SMIC's co-chief executive officer, said at a conference call in the fourth quarter of 2020 held in February this year that the company's ideas for advanced processes in 2021 are mainly three points:

The first is to ensure the continuity of production, and the company will continue to promote the application for export license with suppliers; the second is to expand production cautiously; by the end of last year, the company has completed the target of 15000 pieces of installation capacity, but it is still far from the scale of economy, and if we need to further expand production, we also need to go through the export license application process; third, the company will consider strengthening the components developed by the first-and second-generation FinFET multiple platforms, and expand the reliability and competitiveness of the platform.

In addition, SMIC expects capital expenditure of US $4.3 billion in 2021, most of which will be spent on expansion of mature processes and a small portion on advanced processes.

Xingzheng Electronics believes that as far as SMIC itself is concerned, with other relevant US suppliers getting licenses one after another, and under the current industry background of tight global production capacity, SMIC believes that the expansion of 14nm and above process nodes will exceed the previous planning, and the company's long-term contract manufacturing market space will be further opened.

"sticking neck" is in progress. These companies have made breakthroughs in 14nm.

On the other hand, as far as the industrial chain is concerned, SMIC's license event means that the future expansion visibility and certainty of domestic fab storage plants will be further enhanced, and continue to be optimistic about the long-term development opportunities of equipment and materials in the industry chain of fab storage plants.

It is worth mentioning that in recent years, the national policy level has repeatedly mentioned to speed up the capture of advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes and other "sticking neck" technologies, and its demand for localization is becoming stronger and stronger. Driven by the policy, with the accumulation of technology, China's industrial chain has made great progress in the field of equipment, materials and wafer manufacturing.

In terms of equipment, North Huachuang's silicon etching machine that can be used in the 14nm process has entered the production line for verification; Micro-16nm etching machine has achieved commercial mass production, and 7-10nm etching machine has reached the world's advanced level; Yitang Semiconductor degumming and rapid annealing products have a second market share in the world; Shanghai microelectronic lithography machine application level is 90nm, it is expected to deliver 28nm immersion DUV etching machine in 2022.

In terms of materials, Anji Technology TSV polishing fluid is at the leading level in the industry and has achieved small-scale mass production at 14nm nodes; Shanghai Silicon Industry 12-inch wafers have been certified by customers for more than 50 product specifications, and 8-inch and below wafers have passed the certification of more than 550. the products have been recognized by many chip manufacturers, such as TSMC, SMIC, Huarun Micro and so on.

In terms of wafer manufacturing, SMIC has continuously increased its R & D investment in advanced processes in order to shorten the gap with the world's most advanced processes, and has successively completed the research and development of 28nm HKC+ process and the first generation 14nm FinFET process and achieved mass production, while the research and development of the second generation FinFET process is also in steady progress and has entered the customer introduction stage.

At the same time, the chips made on wafers using the company's advanced FinFET technology have been widely used in smart phones, tablet computers, set-top boxes and other fields, and the R & D expense rate of the company is higher than that of comparable listed companies about 12pct. It is expected that the gradual increase in downstream demand for high-end mobile phones such as AP/SOC, baseband chips, CPU, GPU, mining machine ASIC will provide a stronger driving force for the further narrowing of the advanced process gap.