The wave of AI and artificial intelligence is driving significant growth in the global semiconductor industry
2024-08-22
The wave of AI and artificial intelligence has propelled the global semiconductor industry out of the "haze" and ushered in significant growth, as evidenced by recent industry data disclosures. However, looking at the global development pattern of the semiconductor industry, the pace of development varies in different regions. The wave of semiconductor expansion in Europe and America is facing resistance, while the Southeast Asian market continues to rise. The global semiconductor market is mixed, with opportunities and challenges coexisting, and there are still plenty of highlights.
AI driven, semiconductor market enters growth cycle
Recently, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) released data showing that the global semiconductor industry's cumulative sales in the second quarter of this year reached $149.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 18.3% and a month on month increase of 6.5%. Among them, the monthly sales in June this year reached 50 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 22.9% and a month on month increase of 1.7%. The industry points out that this is the highest global semiconductor growth rate since April 2022. The booming development of generative AI has driven an overall increase in demand for the semiconductor industry.
The two major industries of memory and wafer foundry, driven by AI, are showing a positive development trend.
In the field of memory, the application of AI generative large models brings benefits to both DRAM and NAND Flash: AI applications require the use of high-performance GPUs, and the demand for HBM related to it is skyrocketing. The latest survey by TrendForce, a global market research firm, shows that with the iteration of AI chips, the HBM (high bandwidth memory) capacity carried by a single chip has also significantly increased. Driven by the growth of AI chips and single-chip capacity, there has been a significant increase in the overall consumption of HBM in the industry. It is estimated that the annual growth rate will exceed 200% in 2024, and HBM consumption will double again by 2025.
AI also requires flash memory products with higher storage capacity, and the attention to enterprise grade solid-state drives continues to increase. Jibang Consulting stated that due to the significant increase in demand for AI, AI server related customers have further requested suppliers to add Enterprise SSDs (Enterprise Solid State Drives) in the past two quarters. It is expected that the procurement capacity of AI related SSDs will exceed 45EB this year, and in the next few years, AI servers are expected to drive an average annual growth rate of SSD demand exceeding 60%. In order to meet the supply of SSD in AI applications and accelerate process upgrades, upstream suppliers have begun planning to launch 2YY products, which are expected to be mass-produced by 2025.
In terms of wafer foundry, due to the increasing popularity of AI big model applications, the demand for AI chips is soaring, and advanced processes have become a "hot commodity", ushering in a wave of price increases and production expansion. At the beginning of this year, TSMC informed customers that the price of 5/3nm process products would increase in 2024. In late July, TSMC issued notices to multiple customers that the prices of 5/3nm process products would increase again from January 2025. Depending on different investment plans, products, and cooperation relationships, the increase would be around 3-8%.
The booming development of advanced processes has attracted wafer fabs to accelerate the layout of 2nm, 1nm and other updated products. At the beginning of this year, TSMC informed customers that 5/3nm process products will increase in price in 2024. TSMC and Samsung plan to mass produce 2nm chips by 2025, while Rapidus plans to start trial production of 2nm chips in the same year. In addition, the industry is expected to see mass production of 1nm level chips from 2027 to 2030.
Mixed emotions, global semiconductor development pace varies
The development of the global semiconductor industry is fluctuating, with the current pace of semiconductor expansion in Europe and America slowing down due to factors such as subsidies and insufficient labor resources. At the same time, the semiconductor industry in Asia, represented by Southeast Asia, is accelerating.
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Large factories face obstacles in expanding into the European and American markets
The semiconductor projects of major companies such as TSMC, Samsung, and Intel in the European and American markets have been postponed. TSMC's first wafer fab in Arizona, USA, which was originally scheduled for mass production this year, has been postponed to the first half of 2025; The second local wafer fab is scheduled for mass production in 2026, but has been postponed until 2028.
Intel will build two new cutting-edge wafer fabs in Ohio and plans to begin chip manufacturing in 2025. Due to the sluggish market and delayed subsidy payments in the United States, Intel has postponed the chip project. After adjustment, the Fab1 and Fab2 factories of Intel's Ohio One project will be postponed until 2026-2027 for completion, and will be officially put into operation around 2027-2028. In addition, Intel invested 30 billion euros to build Fab 29.1 and Fab 29.2 wafer fabs in Magdeburg, Germany, which were originally planned to start construction in the second half of 2023. However, due to the delayed confirmation of EU subsidies and the need to remove black soil from the construction area, Intel has postponed the start date to May 2025.
Samsung's first wafer fab located in Taylor, Texas, was originally scheduled to start production in 2024, but media reports this year have postponed the production of the fab to 2026. According to the latest media reports, Samsung has proposed a large-scale investment plan to establish a storage chip factory in Texas, USA. However, the Office of Semiconductor Support Act of the US Department of Commerce has decided not to provide financial support related to this plan. Industry analysis suggests that this is equivalent to refusing Samsung's establishment of a storage chip factory in the United States.
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The semiconductor industry in Southeast Asia is gradually rising
The semiconductor industry in Southeast Asia has begun to take shape in the Asian market and is showing a rapid development trend. Malaysia and Singapore are typical representatives, while Vietnam is a new force.
Malaysia plays an important role in the global semiconductor industry chain's packaging and testing end. According to incomplete statistics from Global Semiconductor Watch, about 50 semiconductor companies have successively set up back-end packaging and testing factories in Malaysia, including Intel, Micron, Texas Instruments, NXP, Sunlight, Anson Semiconductors, Infineon, Huatian Technology, Tongfu Microelectronics, Suzhou Gude, Renesas Electronics, Anson, Ankao, STMicroelectronics, etc.
In May of this year, Malaysia announced a National Semiconductor Strategy (NSS), which will focus on the development of integrated circuit design, advanced packaging and manufacturing equipment, and storage chip fields.
Singapore is a major semiconductor production hub in Southeast Asia, with a complete semiconductor industry chain covering design, manufacturing, packaging, testing, equipment, materials, distribution, and other aspects. Many semiconductor companies, including Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Infineon, Micron, GlobalFoundries, TSMC, UMC, Vanguard, and Sun Moon, have set up branches or expanded factories in Singapore. Among them, wafer foundry leaders such as TSMC, Gexin, UMC, and World Advanced have built factories here, involving 8-inch and 12 inch factories.
The semiconductor industry is one of the nine national level products in Vietnam and has been listed as one of the national development priorities for the next 30-50 years. According to the Draft Development Strategy for Vietnam's Semiconductor Microchip Industry, Vietnam plans to become a design, packaging, and testing center for the global semiconductor chip industry by 2030. At present, Vietnam has attracted foreign-funded enterprises such as Intel, Sunlight, Samsung Electronics, AnKou, Qualcomm, Anson, Renesas, TI, NXP Minmetals, Xinsi Technology, Hengnuo Microelectronics, Amperex, etc.
The latest news shows that Vietnam has recently established the National Semiconductor Industry Development Guidance Committee. The main tasks and functions of the steering committee include assisting the Prime Minister and the government in researching and guiding, and cooperating in resolving important and cross departmental affairs related to promoting the development of Vietnam's semiconductor industry; Research, consult, and suggest directions and solutions to promote the development of Vietnam's semiconductor industry; Guide the cooperation among various departments, government agencies, relevant institutions, and organizations to effectively promote the development of Vietnam's semiconductor industry.
Ministry of Education: Support universities to lay out majors such as integrated circuits and artificial intelligence
2024-07-31
Recently, the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education stated its support for universities to lay out majors such as integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, and AI. The Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education recently released a notice on the establishment of undergraduate majors in ordinary higher education institutions in 2024, which proposes to increase the adjustment of undergraduate majors and focus on optimizing the professional structure and talent training structure that are compatible with the new development pattern.
The Notice clearly supports universities to lay out relevant majors in key fields such as integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, quantum technology, life and health, energy, green and low-carbon, foreign-related rule of law, international communication, international organizations, and financial technology, and to cultivate national strategic talents and urgently needed talents in a targeted manner. Support universities to deepen the construction of new engineering, new medicine, new agriculture, and new humanities, transform existing majors, cultivate emerging interdisciplinary majors, and create characteristic and advantageous professional clusters.
Integrated circuits are the cornerstone of the development of the electronic information industry, and have extremely important strategic significance for enhancing national comprehensive strength and ensuring national security. Artificial intelligence (AI), as an important driving force for a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, has already exploded in popularity worldwide.
In order to further promote the development of integrated circuits and artificial intelligence industries, major universities have established new colleges to provide advanced talents for the country.
In terms of integrated circuits, Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng has previously stated that the Ministry of Education will cultivate a number of major scientific and technological projects around strategic, fundamental, and leading industries such as integrated circuits, industrial mother machines, instruments, and biomedicine, concentrate efforts on scientific research and further solve the problem of core technology bottlenecks.
In order to cultivate high-precision talents in the industry and solve the bottleneck problem of core technology, many well-known universities in China have successively established integrated circuit colleges in recent years, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Sun Yat sen University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Guangdong University of Technology, Shandong University, Anhui University, Jiangsu University, Zhejiang University, South China University of Technology, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, and Hunan University Semiconductor College (Integrated Circuit College).
In terms of artificial intelligence, more than 10 artificial intelligence colleges have been established in China since the beginning of this year, such as the School of Artificial Intelligence at Hunan University of Science and Technology, the School of Artificial Intelligence at Guangzhou University, the School of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at the University of Science and Technology of China, the School of Artificial Intelligence at Harbin Institute of Technology, the School of Artificial Intelligence at Tsinghua University, the School of Artificial Intelligence at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the School of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, the School of Artificial Intelligence at Beijing Forestry University, and the School of Artificial Intelligence at Shandong University. Among them, Yao Qizhi, a world famous computer scientist, Turing Prize winner and academician of the CAS Member, served as the first president of the School of Artificial Intelligence of Tsinghua University.
In fact, in recent years, many colleges and universities in China have established AI colleges, research institutes or cross research centers, such as the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing University, Peking University, etc. It is worth mentioning that strong universities such as Xi'an Jiaotong University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology have also established artificial intelligence colleges.
Huawei Shanghai Qingpu Park has been fully completed
2024-07-17
According to the official website of the Shanghai Municipal Government, on July 9th, the Huawei Shanghai Qingpu project was fully completed and officially named the "Huawei Lianqiu Lake R&D Center". At present, the R&D center is divided into multiple areas, with internal roads, small train tracks, elevated overpasses, etc. all connected. The bridge project spanning Lianqiu Lake is undergoing final work.
According to Liberation Daily, in September 2020, the Shanghai Municipal Government signed a deepening strategic cooperation framework agreement with Huawei and held the groundbreaking ceremony for the Huawei Qingpu R&D Center project. According to the framework agreement, the two sides will strengthen cooperation in technology research and development, demonstration applications, integrated innovation, etc. in the fields of integrated circuit, software and information service industry, Internet of Things, Internet of Vehicles, industrial Internet, smart city demonstration applications, expand Huawei's business scope in Shanghai, promote the innovative development of Shanghai's information industry, and promote the construction of new infrastructure and smart city.
According to previous reports, Huawei's Shanghai Qingpu R&D Center covers an area of 2400 acres with a total construction area of 2.06 million square meters. The R&D center will be built into a composite industrial community that integrates enterprise office, R&D pilot, technology incubation, production services, and supporting residential areas. It will combine modern workplaces with high-tech elements and green ecology to create Huawei's global innovation base.
RISC-V: The Effort and Destiny of a Spare Tire
2024-06-05
Article Source | Yuanchuan Technology Review
Author | He Luheng
TOB， Still a hot spot in the primary market.
In July 2019, Pingtouge, a semiconductor company under Alibaba, officially released the Xuantie 910, with the slogan of "one of the strongest RISC-V processors in the industry", claiming to have performance comparable to the Arm v8 architecture Cortex A7X series.
The onlookers cheered and asked each other, 'What is RISC-V?'?
The essence of a CPU is a chip that integrates different functional circuits. To use these functional circuits, the CPU needs to call the corresponding instructions, which are binary numbers composed of 0s and 1s. The thing used to specify instruction formats is called instruction set architecture (commonly referred to as architecture), and different architectures reflect designers' different implementation ideas for the same function. RISC-V is one of the top three instruction set architectures in the world.
However, these 'top three in the world' are full of moisture. In the other two instruction sets, the x86 architecture led by Intel is applied to the vast majority of PCs and servers; The Arm architecture of British company Arm is used in over 99% of smartphones worldwide.
In contrast, although RISC-V ranks closely behind, its actual share is still a fraction of the top two.
And these three architectures respectively represent three business models:
The x86 architecture is firmly controlled by Intel and AMD, and other chip companies cannot use it even if they want to;
Although the Arm architecture is owned by Arm Corporation, it is licensed and open, requiring payment for purchase;
RISC-V is the most unique and does not belong to any institution or country. It is open source and free, and can be used whenever you want. The operating costs are all supported by the brothers of the foundation.
In this context, the significance of RISC-V for Chinese companies in 2019 is not difficult to understand.
At that time, the domestic semiconductor industry was experiencing sanctions for the first time, and the RISC-V Foundation happened to relocate its headquarters from the United States to neutral Switzerland, due to concerns about possible geopolitical damage. Its free and open-source nature meant that no one could use "national security" as an excuse to restrict others from using RISC-V.
At the beginning of RISC-V's establishment, the only Chinese members of the Foundation were Alibaba, Huawei and the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. By 2022, chip enterprises in Chinese Mainland will occupy 12 seats among the 19 senior members of the Foundation.
The spring breeze is like a drum, urging the RISC-V spare tire to turn positive. However, four years have passed, and RISC-V still seems to have not overcome the dilemma of a spare tire.
Foreign media: US chip hegemony is beginning to crumble
2024-05-30
Because semiconductors originated in the United States, the US has a great advantage in the field of chips, possessing many semiconductor basic technologies and patents. Basically, global chip companies cannot do without American technology, which is why chip sanctions can be implemented.
The United States not only imposes chip restrictions on us, but also imposes chip sanctions on Russia after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which is called the hegemony of American Core. However, news from Russia, SMIC, and Nvidia suggests that the dominance of American chip manufacturers is beginning to crumble!
Under the call of the United States, Russia has been completely blocked, and many technology giants have announced supply cuts. American giants such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle have stopped providing services, while chip giants such as Qualcomm and Intel have stopped supplying chips.
Semiconductor manufacturing giants such as TSMC and Samsung have also stopped chip manufacturing in order to make chips unusable in Russia.
Photolithography giant ASML is no exception, despite the backwardness of domestic wafer foundry in Russia, which reportedly only has two chip manufacturing companies - one with a maximum production capacity of 65nm and the other with only 90-250nm - they cannot do without lithography machines.
Photolithography machines are crucial for chip manufacturing, but currently only four companies from three countries in the world can produce lithography machines for chip manufacturing, namely ASML from the Netherlands, Nikon and Canon from Japan, and Shanghai Microelectronics from China.
But the highest process of Shanghai Microelectronics in our country is only 90nm, so lithography machines are purchased from ASML, Nikon, and Canon.
However, after the US imposed sanctions on Russia, both Dutch and Japanese companies are unable to export advanced lithography machines to Russia, and even cannot provide after-sales maintenance. In this situation, Russia can only solve the chip problem by developing its own lithography machine.
Russia naturally understands this very well, as there have been reports indicating that they have started developing lithography machines. Recently, Russian media reported that the situation is indeed the case. Russia has not only made up its mind to develop its own lithography machine, but also completed its first lithography machine.
Russian officials have stated that the first domestically produced lithography machine has been manufactured and is currently undergoing testing to ensure the production of 350nm chips. Although it is only a very mature process, it can still meet the needs of some automotive, energy, and communication industries.
Not only that, Russia also plans to achieve 130nm lithography machines by 2026, followed by 65nm lithography machines.
The reason why Russia is developing lithography machines from 350nm to 65nm is because the demand for chips in this range is still high, accounting for about 60% of the entire market, and the demand for such lithography machines in the global market will be high for at least 10 years.
Besides us, Russia has also joined the competition for lithography machines, causing the situation of lithography machines controlled by the United States to begin to crumble.
Speaking of the second piece of news, recently authoritative market institutions released a global wafer market research report, in which the ranking of wafer foundry giants has changed. TSMC still ranks first in the world, Samsung ranks second, and SMIC ranks third.
For many years, SMIC ranked fifth globally, with occasional changes in third and fourth place for UMC and Gexin. However, in the first quarter of this year, there was a significant change as SMIC's market share suddenly increased, entering the top three globally for the first time.
In terms of revenue, TSMC increased by 12.9% year-on-year in the first quarter, Samsung increased by 2% year-on-year, and SMIC increased by 19.7% year-on-year. SMIC's growth is due to the recovery of the domestic market, and Chinese enterprises are more inclined towards domestic manufacturing.
It is worth mentioning that SMIC has surpassed American company Gexin, indicating that US restrictions cannot stop our chip development.
The third news is that Nvidia has encountered a downturn in the mainland market due to poor sales of the H20 series AI chip specially designed for the mainland market, forcing Nvidia to lower its prices. This is because the US continues to increase restrictions, and Nvidia has modified its AI chip for the second time.
The first modified A800 and H800 had good sales due to their decent functionality, but were soon restricted from shipment by the US. The H20 series, which has been modified again, is not being accepted by mainland manufacturers due to excessive feature castration.
On the one hand, mainland manufacturers are increasing their self-developed AI chips, and on the other hand, they are beginning to purchase domestically produced chips, especially the Huawei Ascend series.
The key point is that the price of the Ascend 910B is similar to that of the Nvidia H20, but its performance is actually better. Therefore, there are not many people interested in buying the H20, and instead they rush to buy the 910B. As a result, the global AI giant Nvidia has had to lower its prices.
From the above three messages, it can be seen that the US chip restrictions have not only failed to achieve their goal of obstruction, but have also aroused the determination of many regions to independently develop breakthroughs. Russia's lithography machines have broken through, and our chips have rapidly risen, while American companies have suffered more losses.
Regarding this, some foreign media directly commented that the dominance of American chips is beginning to crumble, and the restrictions on American chips will ultimately end in failure!
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