Excerpt from China Business News | Release Date December 12, 2020
Under the influence of the epidemic, the demand for home office has increased. Notebook computers, cloud applications including cloud storage and cloud computing, and the development of the game industry have greatly increased the demand for semiconductors.
In 2020, the global sales of electronic products will drop by about 3%, but the semiconductor industry is expected to grow by 7%, and the Chinese market will grow faster than the industry as a whole.
Ju Long, President of the International Semiconductor Industry Association (SEMI) China, disclosed the above data at the 14th “The Bund Finance·Shanghai International Equity Investment Forum” (2020 SIPEF) held on December 11.
The semiconductor industry reached its peak in 2018, with an output value of US$470 billion, with China accounting for about 13%. The industry as a whole fell by 12% in 2019 and returned to a 7% growth this year.
Why did the semiconductor industry grow against the trend? Julong believes that under the influence of the epidemic, the demand for home office has increased, and the development of notebook computers, cloud applications including cloud storage and cloud computing, and the development of the game industry have greatly increased the demand for semiconductors. In contrast, demand for smartphones and desktop computers has shrunk this year.
Regarding the development prospects of the semiconductor industry in the next five years, Julong believes that the entire industry will continue to achieve positive growth. “In addition to the demand for basic disks, the demand for some smart applications has contributed to the continued growth of semiconductors, especially the strong demand in the Chinese market.” Ju Long said.
The semiconductor industry chain includes EDA (Electronic Design Automation), equipment, materials, chip manufacturing, design, memory, packaging and testing. Julong believes that the most pleasant surprise is in the field of equipment. The forecast in this field at the beginning of the year is relatively pessimistic, but the data in the first ten months of this year shows that the global semiconductor equipment market has grown by 21%.
Regarding the material market, Julong said that China’s semiconductor material market growth is expected to reach 7% in 2020, and a substantial growth of 12% in 2021, and the market scale will reach a new high.
“China’s semiconductor materials market is dominated by packaging materials, but with the increase in the number of fab projects in China and the development of technology, the proportion of fab materials will continue to increase. It is expected that this proportion will reach 45% in 2021. “Ju Long said.
According to estimates, the global wafer materials market is expected to decline by 0.4% in 2020 to 32.66 billion U.S. dollars, but it is expected that this situation will be reversed in 2021, with a growth rate of 7.2%, and the market size will hit a record high.
Julong believes that at present, the problem facing China’s domestic semiconductor materials is that there is a large gap between supply and demand. After deducting the export value, the self-sufficiency rate of China’s integrated circuit materials in 2019 is about 10%. This is both a challenge and an opportunity. Among wafer manufacturing materials, silicon wafers are the largest, accounting for about 37% of the global wafer materials market share. China still has many opportunities in the field of material market segmentation.
China is the world’s largest semiconductor market. According to statistics from China Customs, China’s IC imports in 2018 exceeded US$300 billion for the first time. The new infrastructure will increase the Chinese market’s demand for chips, memories, processors, and sensors.
On August 4 this year, the State Council promulgated the “Several Policies to Promote the High-Quality Development of the Integrated Circuit Industry and Software Industry in the New Era”, proposing in fiscal and taxation, investment and financing, research and development, import and export, talent, intellectual property, market application standards, and international cooperation. And other eight aspects of policy measures.
“The first phase of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund (large fund) raised 138.7 billion yuan, and the second phase may exceed 200 billion yuan to support the development of the semiconductor industry.” Ju Long said.
上海国有资本运营研Luo Xinyu, director of the Shanghai State-owned Capital Operation Research Institute, believes that supporting the development of core technologies, coping with technical problems, and helping the country’s scientific and technological innovation are the missions of the state-owned funds at this stage.究院院长罗新宇认为，支持核心技术的开发、应对技术卡脖子问题、助力国家科技创新是现阶段国资基金的使命。
