Global Semiconductor Industry Event in 2011

2011, which has just passed away, is a year full of changes, hardships and surprises. During the year, the sudden earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the flooding in Thailand ravaged the global electronics industry. Nokia abandoned Intel and put it into Microsoft's embrace. Google took huge amounts of money to acquire Motorola Mobile. Jobs’s death made the world awkward and Sony Ericsson’s mobile phone became history. In this vigorous year, what events in the global semiconductor industry will have a huge impact on future industries, and what else is worth reviewing? The following are the 2011 international and domestic semiconductor industry events (in no particular order) compiled by the editorial department of this journal.

International Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Impact Global Semiconductor Industry Chain March 2011 The 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami in Japan shook Japan and the entire world. The earthquake and tsunami not only hit the Japanese economy, but also hit the global semiconductor industry supply chain. One of the hardest-hit areas in northeastern Japan is where many semiconductor fabs are located. Toshiba, Sony, Renesas Electronics, Texas Instruments, Freescale Semiconductor, and Fujitsu, and other important semiconductor suppliers have all been affected to varying degrees, resulting in passive components and optical components. , logical processors, key semiconductor materials and other supplies are tight. The great earthquake also caused a panic in the industry. Many upstream channel companies took the opportunity to raise prices, which led to the continuous soaring prices of memory and digital cameras. After more than three months, the market finally stabilized.

Semiconductor M&A Frequent M&A In 2011, there were numerous mergers and acquisitions in the semiconductor industry, which involved huge amounts of money and involved multiple industry leaders. Mobile phone chip giant Qualcomm acquired Athoros, a WLAN chip manufacturer, for $3.1 billion. Texas Instruments purchased 6.5 million US dollars in national semiconductors for power management and power ICs. Broadcom subsequently acquired NetLogic for $3.7 billion. Murata also acquired MEMS sensor giant VTI, Apple acquired Israeli flash memory technology company Anobit, and so on. In order to quickly gain greater market competitiveness, the giants have embarked on the road to mergers and acquisitions, hoping to establish their unassailable advantage through the power of "combination boxing," and the semiconductor industry is increasingly showing a pattern of "stronger stronger players."

Intel introduces 3D transistors in 22nm process, Moore's Law is expected to open a new chapter The practical application of 3D transistor technology is the most important innovation in semiconductor technology in 2011. Intel released the world's first three-dimensional transistor “Tri-Gate” in May. The three-dimensional transistor is similar in structure to the Fin FET. Gate electrodes are provided on both sides of the channel and in the upper three directions for auxiliary current control. . Intel claims that the 22nm 3D Tri-Gate can deliver up to 37% performance improvement over 32nm planar transistors and cut power consumption by half in equal performance. In fact, as early as 2002, Intel announced a three-dimensional transistor design, but it has only been truly mature until now. The key to this breakthrough is that Intel can use it for mass production of microprocessor chips, not just at the experimental stage. It seems that Moore's Law is also expected to open a new chapter from this point.

FPGA enters 28nm era, the two giants break into the MPU market The FPGA market has been surging in the past year. First, the two giants Altera and Xilinx released FPGA engineering samples using the latest generation of 28nm technology at the same time, marking the beginning of the formal entry into the 28nm era. Then both sides invariably integrate the dual-core ARM processor in the FPGA, each launching the FPGA+ARM Cortex-A9 embedded processor product, and breaking into the general-purpose MPU market. Altera's approach is to add SoC FPGAs to its prestigious Cyclone V and Arria V families, and Xilinx is simply creating a new product line, Zynq. Although the products are slightly different, they are directly aimed at the traditional MPU market and challenge the general DSP and MPU.

NVIDIA launches Tegra 3, mobile processor ushered in quad-core era With NVIDIA's launch of Tegra 3, the world’s first quad-core processor, mobile processors have begun to usher in an exciting quad-core era. Tegra 3 project code Kal-El (Superman), based on ARM architecture mobile platform SoC technology, using TSMC 40nm process, single-core up to 1.4GHz, CPU performance up to Tegra 2 5 times, in addition to its internal integration 12 The GeForce GPU has a performance that is three times that of the Tegra 2, and supports 3D stereoscopic display. At the same time, the quad-core processor consumes less power than the dual-core Tegra 2. This processor is known as "up to the PC level and catching up with the Core 2 Duo T7200." With the launch of Tegra 3, there may soon be many high-performance quad-core or even more nuclear tablets and mobile phones, let us wait and see.

Since Broadcom, Intel, and CSR withdrew from the TV chip market to enter 2011, Intel, Broadcom, and CSR have withdrawn from the digital TV chip market, and the market positions of the two major digital TV chip suppliers in Taiwan, Morningstar and MediaTek, have further consolidated. The digital TV chip market is fiercely competitive. In the low-end TV market, there is a huge demand for cheap TV chips. Taiwanese suppliers have an absolute cost advantage. In the high-end TV market, Japanese and Korean brands such as Samsung, Toshiba, Sony and Panasonic are often used. The chip solutions of its own internal design have caused the European and American suppliers to suffer from their enemies.

TSMC begins construction of a 450mm wafer production line and narrows the distance from Intel. Taiwan’s chip foundry firm TSMC announced a new project worth US$10 billion in early 2011. It will build a new 450mm wafer production line. According to its plan, the project will be officially put into production in 2013, and by 2015 will be based on this new R & D 20nm manufacturing process and soon into mass production. If the project can be completed in accordance with the established plan, then its leading position in the chip manufacturing industry will surpass Samsung and GlobalFoundires, and the gap between Intel and Intel will be greatly reduced, and the entire chip manufacturing business will also undergo some subtle Variety.

The giants such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments lowered their positions and attacked the low-end market as the high-pass mobile phone chip industry. In the face of the rapid growth of local market competitors, especially the ultra-low entry barriers and incredible low prices of Chinese chip makers, it is clear that Some can't sit still. In the low-cost smartphone market, Qualcomm launched a QRD ecosystem plan for turnkey solutions for mass smartphones in 2011 to help terminal companies develop mass-market smartphones at a lower cost and in less time. This also means that the giants put down their positions and started to hit the low-end market. Similarly, Texas Instruments also opened its doors to ordinary small and medium-sized users. In November, the company announced the launch of a Sitara AM335x microprocessor based on the ARM Cortex-A8 with a mass price of only 5 US dollars, which is about the same processor of domestic IC manufacturers. Half of the price, and they also launched the ultra-cheap $ 89 easy-to-use open source hardware platform and free software development kit, which shocked the industry.

Samsung Launches 20nm Process Memory Chip Production Line to Consolidate Its Leading Position Samsung Electronics announced in September 2011 that it is launching a new 20nm process memory chip production line, and stated that the new production line is the world’s largest and most advanced memory chip production facility, although this The process will increase the production cost by about 50%, but it can integrate more circuits in one chip, thus reducing the chip area and price, and improving the performance and energy efficiency of the chip. The industry believes that the start of the production line may exacerbate the oversupply situation in the semiconductor market and hit smaller competitors. However, Samsung has always been ambitious in the flash memory market and it is most important to consolidate its position as the boss.

Intel's four major departments were merged to form a new mobile communications division. The chip maker Intel was making important structural adjustments to the mobile Internet market in 2011, merging the mobile communications, netbook/tablet, mobile wireless, and ultra-mobile business units to form a new one. The purpose of the mobile communications department is to strengthen the company's strength in the smartphone and tablet market and transform its future development strategy. At present, Intel's processor has a global PC market share of about 80%, but it can still do nothing in the fast-growing smartphone and tablet market. Now it is finally ready to make a fortune in the mobile Internet market, and it is going strong for competitors. Counterattack.

In the new article No. 18 in China, the IC industry has increased its support and helped integrated circuits enter the era of mergers and acquisitions. In February, the State Council issued a series of policies to further encourage the software industry and the integrated circuit industry, which the industry called “New 18th Edition”. 》(National Development (2011) No. 4). The document further clarified the important position of the integrated circuit industry. While continuating the preferential policies of the original No. 18 document, it also determined seven policy measures including taxation, investment and financing, research and development, import and export, human resources, intellectual property, and markets. In particular, increased support for the integrated circuit industry. Experts believe that one of the highlights of the new “No. 18 Document” is to guide mergers and acquisitions and reorganization of enterprises and to rapidly cultivate large enterprises with international competitiveness. In the first year of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, the implementation of the new policy will undoubtedly create a more relaxed industrial environment for the development of China's integrated circuit industry in the next decade.

China's first phase-change memory chip with independent intellectual property rights was successfully developed, breaking the foreign monopoly of phase-change memory chips April 17, China's first phase-change memory (PCRAM) chip with independent intellectual property rights in Shanghai Microsystems and information of Chinese Academy of Sciences The technical institute has been successfully developed and its industrialization prospects are promising. According to reports, compared with the traditional memory using the charge form for storage, phase change memory mainly uses the reversible phase change material crystalline and amorphous conductivity differences to achieve storage, known as the "manipulation of the atom arrangement and storage" new Memory. At present, Intel, Micron, Samsung and other well-known international semiconductor companies have made effective progress in the process of PCRAM industrialization. Among them, Micron has a number of products that replace NOR Flash. Samsung has developed a PCRAM test chip with a maximum capacity of 512Mb, and has invested a large amount. Production.

SMIC injects US$1 billion to end the history of Wuhan Xinxin Custody On May 12, SMIC International Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and Hubei Science and Technology Investment Group Co., Ltd. signed a joint venture contract in Han, and within two years SMIC invested US$1 billion. Together with the latter, it operates the Wuhan Xinxin 12-inch wafer production line project. At this point, Wuhan Xinxin bid farewell to 5 years of hosting history, officially became the only large-scale integrated circuit chip manufacturer in Central China with "parents." In 2006, the governments of Hubei, Wuhan, and Donghu High-tech Zone invested in the establishment of Wuhan Xinxin to build the first 12-inch IC production line in the central region and commissioned SMIC's operations and management. In September 2008, Wuhan Xinxin completed and put into operation the first phase, with a total investment of 10 billion yuan. It has not been profitable so far. According to Xiao Hua, director of the Planning Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Wuhan Xinxin, a joint venture, is a major event for the national integrated circuit industry. Wuhan is expected to become a domestic high-end chip production base.

China's largest IGBT industrial base is under construction, with an annual output of 120,000 chips. On May 25th, CSR's high-power IGBT industrialization base was laid, marking the official launch of China's first 8-inch IGBT chip production line project. China South Locomotive has also become the only company in the country that has mastered the IGBT chip design, chip manufacturing, module packaging, and system application complete industrial chain, filling the gaps in domestic related technology fields. The total investment of the construction project is 1.4 billion yuan, and it is expected to be put into production in 2013. After completion, the base will have the capacity to produce 120,000 8-inch IGBT chips and 1 million high-power IGBT devices annually, with an annual output value of more than 2.5 billion yuan. The products meet the needs of rail transportation and electric vehicles, wind power generation, solar power generation, smart grids, high-voltage frequency conversion, industrial transmission, and other industries, becoming China's first fully independent capacity building, the largest scale of design, the strongest technical strength, and product spectrum. The most complete high-power IGBT industrialization bases, changing core technologies are subject to the unfavorable situation of people and products relying on imports, and make important contributions to building a resource-saving and environment-friendly society and promoting the rapid and healthy development of the national economy.

Beijing Jun is listed on the GEM. At the end of the year, it released the world's first Android 4.0 tablet. On May 31st, Beijing Junzheng successfully landed the entrepreneurial version and became a domestically listed IC design company. Beijing Jun is one of the very few local companies that have mastered independent embedded CPU technology and successfully marketed. The company is based on the XBurst CPU core technology of independent innovation and has launched a series of cost-effective products for portable consumer electronics, education electronics and other fields. 32-bit embedded CPU chip products, and in order to support the application and promotion of CPU chip products, at the same time provide an operating system software platform running on these chips. In December, the company and MIPS announced the launch of the world’s first Android 4.0 (codenamed “ice cream sandwich”) tablet PC with a retail price of less than US$100. The launch of the Tablet PC in a single environment for portable consumer ARM architecture In the industry caused great repercussions.

Huaxin built China's first memory IC packaging and testing production line On December 16, China's first high-end memory IC packaging and testing production line was put into production in Jinan, and Huaxin Semiconductor Co., Ltd. became the only one with integrated circuit design, R&D, and packaging and testing at the same time. Manufacturing capacity of the company. The production line adopts the world-class fine-pitch ball grid array (FBGA) packaging technology, which is based on the acquisition of Qimonda China R&D Center by Huaxin, and is based on Qimonda’s second-order acquisition of assets. With this acquisition, Huaxin has gained world-leading high-end integrated circuit packaging manufacturing capabilities, and initially established a complete memory integrated circuit industry chain including chip design, chip manufacturing and chip applications, which will change the long-term memory capacity of China's large-capacity memory chips. Relying on the foreign situation to meet the growing domestic market demand, it also provides strong support for Huaxin itself in the continued development of the memory IC industry.

The world-leading FBGA packaging technology used in this production line is currently one of the world's leading IC packaging and testing technologies. The production capacity of the production line will reach 60 million high-end memory chips with an annual output value of more than US$100 million. In the next five years, Huaxin will speed up the construction of a specialized integrated circuit industrial park in the Jinan Export Processing Zone, plan a total investment of 3 billion yuan, and establish a world-class IC R&D center and a large-scale chip production base, which will effectively strengthen China’s The independent controllability of the memory industry chain has gradually established a complete IC industry chain.

Local chip manufacturers continue to make efforts in the field of TD and launch a number of innovative solutions In 2011, local chip design companies achieved rapid development in the TD field. In January, Spreadtrum announced the world's first 40nm low-power commercial TD-HSPA/TD-SCDMA multi-mode communications chip, the SC8800G, which will significantly reduce the price of TD-SCDMA terminals and be comparable to the price of 2.5G products. The support of diverse 3G services provides a more solid platform. The SC8800G will play an active role in promoting the development of technologies and industries in areas such as smart cities, the Internet of Things, mobile Internet, and the integration of three networks. In April, Lianxin Technology introduced the industry's smallest TD baseband chip, including a TD wireless modem chip LC1711 and a low-cost TD mobile phone chip LC1710. Both chips use a 55nm process, and the chip package size is 10mm × 10mm, reducing Terminal cost. In May, the company made persistent efforts to introduce the first TD-SCDMA/TD-LTE dual-mode baseband chip. The chip can achieve a download rate of 100Mbps and an upload rate of 50Mbps, which will accelerate the overall process of TD-LTE terminal development. The horn of the TD-SCDMA industry's smooth evolution towards TD-LTE was sounded.

In 2011, the IC design industry in Mainland China soared and the industrial scale ranked the third largest in the world. China's IC Design Industry Development Report released in December by the China Electronics Industry Science and Technology Exchange Center (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Software and Integrated Circuits Promotion Center) in December. According to the report, in 2011, the industry-wide sales of the IC design industry in mainland China is expected to reach 68.681 billion yuan, an increase of 25.08% over the previous year. The industry scale is second only to the United States and the Taiwan region of China, ranking third in the world. According to statistics from IC Design Branch of China Semiconductor Industry Association, a total of 534 companies and institutions have IC design capabilities in mainland China. China's integrated circuit industry is facing major opportunities for development.

The local chip industry has entered a new era of mergers and acquisitions. Integration M&A is a major move taken by semiconductor manufacturers in response to market development. In 2011, there were also many corporate mergers and acquisitions in China. In June, Spreadtrum announced that it would control the acquisition of WCDMA solution provider MobilePeak. In the future, it will use WCDMA/HSPA+ technology to enter the global 3G and LTE 4G markets. In July, Spreadtrum again shot up and announced the acquisition of Telegent chip maker Telegent. In August, Solomon Tech’s US$9 million subscription of 24% interest in Beijing Shituo Ding; Shanghai Qiqi completed the acquisition of Motorola’s Hangzhou chip design department in the same month, acquiring a number of core technologies in the field of digital TV set-top boxes; in September, wafer manufacturers Hua Hong and Grace signed a merger agreement. After the merger, China will create an OEM company with an 8-inch wafer production capacity of about 140,000 units per month. It is estimated that annual sales will reach approximately 600 million U.S. dollars, and its annual profit will reach approximately 100 million U.S. dollars; In December, Inspur Group exchanged 100 million yuan in exchange for Qimonda's high-end (FBGA) IC packaging and testing production line worth 500 million yuan. This is Inspur's “bottom-bargaining” after the acquisition of Qimonda R&D center in 2009. Acquisition; in the same month, Angpo will invest in a 55% equity stake in MCU manufacturer Xinmao International Technology at NT$11.43 per share through its subsidiary Angpo Taiwan, which will hold a total of 79 in Xinmao International. .2% equity.