PCB News - 2018 China Integrated Circuit Industry Development Seminar was held in Wuxi

On September 13, the 2018China Integrated Circuit Industry Development Seminar and the 21st China Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Annual Conference were held in Wuxi. Enterprises from the integrated circuit industry chain such as wafer manufacturing, equipment, and materials gathered. Li Zhi, executive vice president of SMIC, said at the meeting that the company's 14nm is at the customer introduction stage and will be mass-produced in the first half of next year.

Li Zhi analyzed that the global pure wafer foundry revenue continued to grow. IHS data showed that the pure wafer foundry revenue in 2017 was 52 billion US dollars, and the revenue growth rate in the next five years will reach 8.9%. The demand for 8-inch foundry continues to be strong., Driven by advanced technology, 12-inch foundry demand will continue to grow. At the same time, we can also see the positive correlation between the development of the semiconductor industry and the development curve of world GDP. With the development of 5G, Internet of Things, automotive electronics and cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence, semiconductors will have greater opportunities.
SMIC continues to expand its production capacity and lay out its industrial chain. According to reports, SMIC has increased its monthly production capacity by nearly 160,000 in the past three years, an increase of 64%. In 2017, R&D investment exceeded 500 million U.S. dollars, accounting for 17% of sales, and capital expenditure was approximately 2.5 billion U.S. dollars.

In the distribution of sales revenue technology nodes, 150nm and 180nm accounted for 37.1%, 55nm and 65nm accounted for 24.2%, 40nm and 45nm accounted for 17.5%, and these three contributed more than 78% of the revenue share.
Accelerate investment in new factories. On October 13, 2016, SMIC Shanghai’s new 12-inch integrated circuit production line plant was launched and the groundbreaking ceremony was held.
On January 30, 2018, SMIC, a subsidiary of SMIC, signed a joint venture contract and a capital increase agreement with the National Large Fund and the Shanghai Integrated Circuit Fund to increase its registered capital from US$210 million to US$3.5 billion, accelerating the introduction of advanced Manufacturing process and products.
In terms of research and development, accelerate the independent research and development of advanced technologies of 14 nanometers and below. SMIC's 14-nanometer patent applications rank fifth in the world. In the second quarter of 2018, the first generation of 14-nanometer FinFET technology entered the customer introduction stage, and will enter mass production in the first half of next year.
Li Zhi said that the challenges facing industrial development come from fierce competition, rising costs, bottlenecks in process technology, shortage of talents and technical barriers. In terms of talents, SMIC actively introduces industrial talents. Currently, SMIC has a total of about 17,800 employees and nearly 550 foreign employees in China. Except for front-line employees, 80% of them have a bachelor degree or above. It has a senior R&D team with about 2,000 employees, 5 experts in the "Central Thousand Talents Program", 1 expert in the "Shanghai Thousand Talents Program", 2 experts in the "National Ten Thousand Talents Program", and 1 "National Ten Thousand Talents Program" expert. People" experts.
Whether in China or abroad, SMIC has been favored by customers. At present, 70% of domestic design companies are willing to choose SMIC as their first-generation partner. Since 2018, sales in China accounted for more than 50%. Top 10 customers, 4 Chinese customers, 4 North American customers, 2 Eurasian customers. Communication and consumer electronic product application terminal sales accounted for more than 80%.

SMIC has also strengthened vertical integration in actively improving the layout of the industrial chain. For example, the establishment of SMIC Changjiang has strengthened the linkage and vertical integration of the industrial chain, and realized the overall industrial chain layout of "manufacturing + bump + packaging".