Semiconductor overcapacity, should we plan ahead?

semiconductor The supply of chips has been insufficient since last year, which has brought a lot of trouble to downstream enterprises. Since this year, the automobile, mobile phone, home appliance and other industries have also issued the sound of insufficient chips.

A relevant person told reporters that the shortage of chips led to a reduction of more than 30% in the production of GL8 and other popular models; TCL mobile phone manufacturers said that display driver chips and decoding chips are the shortest in the mobile phone industry chain; Make complaints about Lu Weibing's lack of core mobile phone, but lack of it.

But in a panic, Texas Instruments, as one of the world's largest chip manufacturers, warned that the surge in investment is exacerbating the overcapacity in the semiconductor industry, the industry's capacity will increase significantly in the next few years, and the profits will be impacted by the decline in demand. In March this year, Depu capital also said that the global semiconductor investment boom may lead to overcapacity and industry collapse. In the second half of last year, the national development and Reform Commission also issued similar warnings to local investment chip projects, requiring local governments to strengthen risk awareness of major project construction.

According to the reporter's investigation, in the semiconductor industry chain, the wafer factory at the upstream manufacturing end has a long construction time, and the production capacity is difficult to expand rapidly. With the release of downstream new energy vehicles and intelligent terminals, the demand for chips continues to rise, and the problem of insufficient chip supply is becoming more and more prominent.

Among them, automobile manufacturers are most affected by the shortage of chips. At present, general motors, Ford and other companies have reduced or even stopped the production of some models, and domestic automobile companies have also been affected. The impact of chip shortage is still spreading in mobile phones, smart appliances and other fields, and the news of home appliance chip shortage, price increase, extension of delivery time and so on continues to spread.

Song Jiahe, director of the two integration collaborative innovation center of the Institute of mechanical industry economic management of SASAC, and Song Jia, director of the collaborative innovation center, told reporters that in this round of global semiconductor long-term prosperity cycle, due to the double impact of the extension of the global industrial supply cycle and the rapid development of semiconductor application demand, semiconductor production capacity is structurally tight, which is difficult to solve in the short term.

Wu Quan, founding partner of Huaxin Jintong (Beijing) Investment Fund Management Co., Ltd., told the Securities Daily that the problem of chip supply shortage is that the investment efficiency is not enough and the supply capacity and industrial capacity have not been formed. Externally, semiconductor, as a field with a high degree of globalization and division of labor and cooperation, is affected by epidemic and other factors, resulting in supply chain interruption, extended delivery date and insufficient production capacity, resulting in global chip shortage, that is, the so-called core shortage tide.

In the context of tight chip supply, many enterprises even hesitate to cross-border layout chip projects to expand production capacity. In recent years, some domestic places and enterprises have high enthusiasm for investment in chip projects. According to the statistics of the national development and Reform Commission, in the first half of last year alone, nearly 20 places in China signed or started building compound semiconductor projects, with a total investment of more than 60 billion yuan. Therefore, the national development and Reform Commission warned all localities to invest in chip projects and reported to those who caused major losses or risks according to the principle of who supports who is responsible.

According to an Guangyong, an expert of the credit management committee of the global M & A Association, the current lack of core is also due to a large number of goods. The storage of goods exacerbates the lack of core, promotes the rise of chip prices, and triggers a vicious circle of increased supply by chip manufacturers, which may eventually lead to chip overcapacity.

A large number of new capacity will be released in 2023.

Today, wafer capacity is in short supply and manufacturers are expanding. With the release of expanded capacity, new changes will take place in market demand, and periodic overcapacity may occur.

At present, there is a shortage of wafer capacity. Wafer manufacturers and capital are supporting the expansion of production, resulting in a rush. If the demand can not keep up with the speed of capacity expansion in the next few years, there will be overcapacity. If the overcapacity exceeds 10%, it is very likely to accelerate the elimination of industries and cause a waste of resources.

Other institutions predict that the shortage of semiconductor capacity may be alleviated next year, and then some processes and products may have relative overcapacity. Recently, TSMC said that the shortage of chips in the automotive industry will be solved first. At present, the company is giving priority to the production of automotive chips. By the first half of 2021, the output of MCU chips for TSMC vehicles will increase by 30% year-on-year and is expected to increase by 60% in the whole year.

Wu Quan believes that ti's warning of overcapacity deserves the attention of the industry. As an old semiconductor enterprise, Ti has a personal feeling and deep insight into the law and periodicity of the semiconductor industry. A large number of new entrants may disrupt or destroy the ecology and supply chain of the semiconductor industry.

Even new entrants to the semiconductor industry are also wary of overcapacity in the future. The relevant person in charge of LGD display company told the Securities Daily: we have also independently developed a micro display driver chip. In recent years, such chips are in great shortage. At present, it is mainly OEM. In order to prevent surplus, we will control production capacity to a certain extent.

The reporter learned that there is a time difference between chip investment and capacity release. It takes about 12 to 24 months from commencement, testing, trial production to the improvement of capacity utilization. This year, the global chip shortage has led to global capital focusing on the semiconductor industry. Relevant companies have invested in a large number of new production capacity, and the production capacity release time is concentrated in 2023. Some organizations predict that a large number of chip capacity will be released in the second half of 2023, and there may be overcapacity at that time.

Technological progress promotes the outbreak of core demand.

In the context of uncertain market prospects, the strategy of industry giants is uncertain, which also makes the semiconductor chip industry from the previous cooperation is greater than competition to competition is greater than cooperation. Under this framework, the semiconductor industry will have both advantages of insufficient capacity and disadvantages of overcapacity. Huawei cloud MVP Ma Chao said in an interview with Securities Daily.

Based on the industrial accumulation in the past few decades and the improvement of national comprehensive strength, China's semiconductor industry has entered a new development stage of repeated upgrading. Under the loose policy, capital and market environment, Chinese semiconductor enterprises strive to change lanes and overtake. While accelerating the configuration of current mainstream silicon chips, they also actively configure cutting-edge technologies such as carbon chips and quantum chips.

Whether there will be a surplus crisis of silicon chips depends on the progress of carbon chips and even quantum computing. We have made good progress in both areas. For example, high-density and high-purity semiconductor array carbon nanotube materials have been successfully prepared. On the basis of 8 inches, the purity of the materials can reach 99.999%. In addition, graphene materials prepared by chemical vapor deposition have proved to have excellent electrical properties. This means that carbon based integrated circuits have initially laid the foundation for industrialization, and the "carbon era" is coming. Ma Chao said.

From the downstream of the market, China's new energy vehicles and the Internet of things are developing rapidly, and the value of chips is becoming more and more important. At the same time, with the development of the third generation semiconductor, automatic driving and artificial intelligence technology, the demand for related chip products will still be enlarged in the future.

Strong demand is driving the rapid rise of Chinese chip enterprises. Wang Haoyu, managing director of Yixin wealth and head of capital market, believes that the main problem of China's chip industry chain is the low localization rate of upstream materials and equipment. He said: China's strength in many segments of chip design is not weaker than that of overseas giants, but there is still a long way to go in the key links upstream of the chip, such as photoresist and lithography machine. Even if we have a foundry with 28 nm mature technology, chip production is limited.

Zhang Cuixia, chief investment adviser of Jufeng investment, told the Securities Daily that the global production capacity of semiconductor chips is growing at a rate of about 1% to 3% every year, but the demand for chips is based on the progress of science and technology. The expectation of overcapacity is often based on the prediction of current market demand, without considering the chip demand of more intelligent industries in the future.