China's IC industry may develop back to IDM mode

The IDM model may be a period of time in the future and is suitable for the development mode of China's IC industry. It should adjust the development ideas in due course.

In the face of an application market where waves and waves appear alternately, it is necessary for IC manufacturers to accelerate technological R&D and process adjustments, seize opportunities, and launch products that meet market demand. More importantly, at present, the global semiconductor industry is in a critical period of development. Chinese enterprises must adapt to the context of the development of the times and adjust development models in due course.

The relationship between Foundry and Fabless is being readjusted. “In the 1980s, the semiconductor industry was dominated by the IDM model, but as the industry subdivided, it gradually formed a horizontal development structure for foundries and design companies. But in the future is not it always going along this pattern? "The Global Semiconductor Alliance Asia-Pacific Chief Executive Wang Zhili asked questions.

With the development of "Moore's Law", a series of new technologies for semiconductors have emerged, and fewer and fewer manufacturers have the ability to continue to follow laws. One of the results is that the role of the Foundry Plant has become increasingly important. Although the global semiconductor industry has barely hovered around 300 billion U.S. dollars in the past two years, the industry has created one after another miracle. When global semiconductor growth was less than 1% in 2012, OEM sales reached 34.57 billion U.S. dollars. Compared with the $30.7 billion, the growth rate was 12.6%.

In the decades of development of the IC industry, China’s IC industry has also followed the subdivision model of foundries and Fabless. However, every process node in the future will have to pay a great price for its progress. The number of chip outputs required to achieve financial balance is huge, and it is almost impossible to find several compatible products on the market. Therefore, the economic aspect facing the industry in the future The pressure will increase. In addition to shrinking lines, there are still many technical challenges in the industry that need to be overcome. For example, 450mm silicon, TSV 3D package, FinFET structure, and III-V channel material, all require substantial capital investment and upstream and downstream technologies. . "The Chinese IC industry should perhaps consider in due course what kind of business model is the most suitable mode for enterprise development in the future." Wang Zhili said, "The IDM model may be the development model suitable for China's IC design companies for a period of time." ”

In 2013, despite the pressure from the economic environment, driven by the growth of mobile terminals and consumer electronics, China’s IC industry still achieved rapid growth. From January to September, the industrial scale reached 181.38 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.7%. . This fully demonstrates the active use of high-speed growth and demanding application market for the semiconductor industry. At the 2013 China International Semiconductor Fair and Summit held in Shanghai on November 13-15, 2013, IC China 2013 focused on “application leads and common development” as the theme to discuss the opportunities and approaches in the growth of China’s semiconductor industry. Among them, the ideology of demand traction, innovation-driven, focused focus, and open development are particularly emphasized.