At the 2019 World Manufacturing Conference held in Hefei, Anhui from September 20th to 23rd, Changxin Storage announced the commissioning of its DRAM production line. This marks a major breakthrough in the field of memory chips in my country. Hefei will rely on Changxin Storage to introduce chip design, packaging and testing, equipment materials, and smart terminal projects to build an airport integrated circuit supporting industrial park.

Many experts at the conference said that the integrated circuit industry is a strategic, basic and leading industry that supports economic and social development and guarantees national security. With the gradual maturity of technologies in 5G, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing and other fields, my country''s integrated circuit industry will usher in a broad space for development. At present, the proportion of the "three industries" (packaging and testing, design, and manufacturing) of China''s integrated circuit industry is approaching reasonable, and is adjusted to the golden ratio of 3:4:3. It is expected that my country''s integrated circuit market will maintain steady growth in the next three years.

Major breakthrough

According to reports, at the 2019 World Manufacturing Conference held in Hefei, Anhui on September 20, the Changxin storage memory chip (DRAM) self-manufacturing project with a total investment of about 150 billion yuan was announced to be put into production, which is 10nm-class synchronized with international mainstream DRAM products. The first generation of 8Gb DDR4 was unveiled for the first time. On September 2, YMTC, a subsidiary of Ziguang Group, announced that it has begun mass production of China''s first 64-layer 3D NAND flash memory based on the Xtacking architecture to meet the needs of mainstream market applications such as solid state drives and embedded storage.

DRAM is a dynamic random memory chip, which is a main memory (memory). As a common system memory, DRAM has the characteristics of high capacity, large bandwidth, low power consumption, short latency, and low cost. It is widely used in PCs, mobile phones, servers and other fields. It is the single chip category with the largest proportion of integrated circuit industry output value. . The external memory NAND Flash is mainly used for code storage and data storage, etc., and is widely used in consumer electronics, mobile communications, network communications, personal computers, servers and other fields.

The production of Yangtze River Storage and Changxin Storage is of great significance and is expected to break the monopoly of overseas manufacturers in the memory market. DRAM exchange data shows that in the global DRAM market in 2018, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron accounted for 44%, 29%, and 22%, respectively, and the combined global market share of the three companies reached 95%; despite the concentration of the global NAND storage market The degree is lower than that of the DRAM market, but it is still controlled by leading companies. The market share of Samsung, Toshiba, Micron, Western Digital, SK Hynix, and Intel are 35%, 19%, 13%, 15%, 10% and 7% respectively, and the total global market share of the six companies is 99%.

Chuancai Securities pointed out that in the classification of my country''s integrated circuit imports in 2018, memory is still the largest imported product, accounting for 36%. At present, my country''s integrated circuit market is still dominated by imports, and the localization rate is low, especially for DRAM, NAND memory, and computer, server CPU, etc. The localization rate is almost zero. With the development of the integrated circuit industry, my country will have a significant improvement in the high-end field of integrated circuits, and the future of the integrated circuit industry will have a huge market for import substitution. Guosheng Securities said that the explosive growth of data is the core grasp of the growth of the storage industry, and the source of data growth is the growth of the number of device connections and the number of devices generated. This will drive data processing capacity-corresponding to the demand for DRAM, and the amount of data storage corresponds to the demand for NAND Flash. In the past five years, the growth in the number of device connections has mainly come from consumer electronic devices such as smartphones. In the next stage, IoT devices and cars will be the core drivers of the number of device connections. According to IC Insight''s forecast, the fastest compound growth segment from 2018 to 2023 is still memory chips, with a growth rate of 7.8%, which is 1 percentage point higher than the overall semiconductor market.

Vast space

Experts said that the world''s largest market demand is my country''s advantage in developing the integrated circuit industry. As new technologies such as 5G, Internet of Things, AI, and cloud computing empower the manufacturing industry, my country''s memory chip industry will usher in a broad space for development. According to the data disclosed by the General Administration of Customs, from 2014 to 2017, my country’s annual imports of integrated circuits were US$217.6 billion, US$229.9 billion, US$227 billion and US$260.1 billion respectively. In 2018, the import volume exceeded US$300 billion for the first time. 312.058 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 19.8%.

In recent years, the growth rate of my country''s integrated circuit market has led the global market. According to statistics from the China Semiconductor Industry Association, in 2017, 2018 and January-June 2019, the sales of China''s integrated circuit industry reached 541.13 billion yuan, 653.2 billion yuan, and 304.82 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.8%, 20.7% and 11.8 respectively. %. According to data from the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics Association (WSTS), the global semiconductor market reached 412.2 billion US dollars in 2017, a growth rate of 21.6%; in the second half of 2018, affected by factors such as the decline in memory prices, the global semiconductor market grew by 13.7% year-on-year To 468.778 billion U.S. dollars. According to data released by SIA, the global semiconductor market fell by 14.5% year-on-year in the first half of this year.

A senior integrated circuit analyst told a reporter from the China Securities Journal, "The Chinese semiconductor market will maintain a high growth trend, faster than the global market. This industry (mainly the design field) has shifted to the Chinese market significantly. The domestic downstream terminal market demand is good, including Smartphones, computers, security, etc."

Xu Tao, chief analyst of CITIC Securities Electronics, said, “The semiconductor market demand is mainly concentrated in the fields of smartphones, high-performance computing, automobiles, and the Internet of Things. From the perspective of the terminal situation, it is expected to be driven by the release of new 5G machines and the demand for replacement. It is a big year for consumer electronics; from the perspective of the cloud situation, cloud manufacturers’ capital expenditures in the second quarter rebounded from the previous quarter, and the second half to 2020 is relatively optimistic. 2020 is probably a big year for data center hardware performance; in addition, demand in the fields of automotive electronics and the Internet of Things It is expected to grow rapidly, and the boost in demand will drive the semiconductor industry back to the growth track."

Coordinated development

At present, there are some weak links in my country''s integrated circuit industry that need to be strengthened. For example, the self-sufficiency rate of core equipment and key materials is low, the process has to be caught up, and some core components cannot find ideal alternatives for the time being.

Ding Wenwu, president of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co., Ltd. pointed out at the above forum that my country''s integrated circuit industry has developed well in recent years, but there is still a gap between the industrial scale and technological level of the international advanced level. A supply system for the integrated circuit industry chain should be built, and each link is organically integrated with users, especially domestically-made equipment and materials.

Ren Aiguang, deputy director of the Electronic Information Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the next step of the development of the integrated circuit industry needs to do the "four persistences." First of all, we must persist in improving the innovation capability of the integrated circuit industry and promote the high-quality development of the industry. Continue to improve the upstream and downstream collaborative innovation capabilities of the industrial chain, and actively build a complete industrial system from basic research, supply technology, equipment and materials to complete machine application. Promote the high-quality development of the integrated circuit industry. Second, we must persist in stimulating market vitality and promote the integrated development of industries. Focus on traditional markets with a large volume and a wide range, grasp emerging markets such as cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things, and accelerate the formation of an integrated circuit industry innovation system with enterprises as the main body, market-oriented, and in-depth integration of production, education, research and application, and further stimulate market vitality. Construct a new pattern of industrial integration and development. Third, we must persist in improving the construction of the industrial chain and comprehensively enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of the industry. Further promote the optimization and improvement of the overall level of the integrated circuit industry, drive the large and strong integrated circuit enterprises and the rapid development of small and medium-sized enterprises, promote the integrated development of the integrated circuit industry to the cluster development, and comprehensively enhance the international competitiveness of the integrated circuit industry. Finally, we must persist in optimizing the business environment and jointly build a sound industrial development order. Further strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights, and promote the accumulation of industrial elements such as the talent market, technology, and capital.

Ding Wenwu pointed out that since 2014, the development of the integrated circuit industry has been very enthusiastic. But there may be some duplication, especially low-level homogeneity competition. It is recommended that relevant ministries and commissions strengthen management in this area and make overall planning. As for the training of integrated circuit talents, Ding Wenwu said, “There is a shortage of talents, and there is a shortage of high-end talents. Companies are digging for talents with each other, and the cost of digging is getting higher and higher. The key is to improve the quantity and quality of talents.