Since the beginning of 2021, there have been endless topics about chips, such as shortage of chips, rising prices of chips and core-making by large enterprises. So how long is the chip shortage expected to ease? How is the process of chip localization going?
In the intelligent era, chips are playing a more and more important role, but the sudden epidemic has broken the market with stable supply and demand. On the one hand, incidents of major chip suppliers reducing production capacity or shutting down factories have occurred one after another; on the other hand, with the rise of global home ecology, there is a large demand for electronic products. In addition, 5G, the Internet of things, smart cars and other new demand also make the shortage of chips extremely serious, the upstream corresponding to the shortage of wafers, lack of foundry capacity and other problems.
In terms of silicon wafers, more than 92% of the global market share is among the world's TOP5 enterprises, while domestic enterprises account for very little. And silicon wafer capacity expansion is not achieved overnight. It is understood that contract manufacturers and some semiconductor enterprises are making great efforts to expand their production capacity, and the demand for silicon wafers is increasing day by day, while the new production lines of silicon wafers need at least more than two years. Therefore, in the short term, the production capacity of global silicon wafer enterprises is also unable to meet the demand. Downstream, the prices of semiconductor products correspond to a substantial increase. But successive price increases have also failed to change the shortage of supplies.
In terms of contract manufacturing capacity, the major enterprises TSMC, UMC, and World Advanced have already reached full production, and the expansion of the production line requires sufficient capital investment and time cost, coupled with the lack of 8-inch wafer production equipment. therefore, the problem of capacity shortage can not be solved in the short term. SMIC, for example, expanded its production capacity by 10500 tablets in the fourth quarter of last year, and the capacity utilization rate immediately reached about 98 per cent.
So, do home appliance semiconductor enterprises also face the same problem? According to industry online, since the third or fourth quarter of last year, some IC design enterprises have shown strong regulation and control capabilities during the epidemic due to the relatively complete industrial chain structure and sufficient production capacity, and there are no major problems in supply; another part of enterprises begin to show slight defects in supply because of their weak comprehensive competitiveness, so they may be reshuffled. This reshuffle is only the tip of the iceberg, as is the case in other sub-areas.
It is worth mentioning that in recent years, with the promotion of frequency conversion of home appliances, the proposal of domestic substitution, and the arrival of intelligent life, the future is worth looking forward to for all household appliance semiconductor enterprises, but because the epidemic has accelerated the evolution of the industry, speed up the process of survival of the fittest, some semiconductor enterprises have also been "mistakenly killed". Insufficient production capacity is a pain point for many IC design companies at present.
In 2021, as expected, the lack of raw materials is becoming more and more serious. With the support of the state and the promotion of policies, on the one hand, a very small number of domestic home appliance semiconductor manufacturers ushered in the sustained growth of their own production capacity, on the other hand, due to the withdrawal of small manufacturers with insufficient competitiveness and the reduction of market share of foreign enterprises under the guidance of policies, it also brings them more survival and profit space. However, it is precisely because of the rapid withdrawal of small enterprises and the lack of silicon wafers that it is difficult for domestic enterprises to make up for the huge demand gap in a short period of time. In this case, some foreign-funded enterprises have sufficient supply capacity to make up for the short-term lack of production capacity. therefore, the speed of localization has been affected to a certain extent.
2021 will be an extraordinary year, the global wafer shortage is expected to remain for a long time, the semiconductor industry will usher in a fierce reshuffle, but also ushered in a period of rapid development, domestic enterprises need to aim at their own advantages as soon as possible. to create your own living space.
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