The integrated circuit industry and voice chip will usher in a period of growth inflection point

In recent years, driven by the National IC industry investment fund, the semiconductor IC industry has attracted a wave of investment boom. Industry analysts believe that China's integrated circuit industry and voice chip will usher in a growth inflection point driven by three factors: strong national support, import substitution of domestic chips and demand growth brought by emerging industries such as artificial intelligence, driverless and wearable devices.
At present, China's electronics industry with semiconductor as the core is entering a period of great development. According to the statistics of China Semiconductor Industry Association, the sales of the semiconductor industry in the first half of this year reached 220.13 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.1%. It is understood that China has become one of the most dynamic regions of the integrated circuit industry in the world, and has gradually formed industrial regions such as Beijing Tianjin Bohai Rim region centered on Beijing, Yangtze River Delta region centered on Shanghai and Pearl River Delta region centered on Shenzhen. The sales revenue of the three industrial clusters accounts for more than 90% of the whole industrial scale.
Among them, Shanghai's integrated circuit industry achieved double-digit growth in 2016, and its sales revenue exceeded the 100 billion mark for the first time, reaching 105.3 billion yuan. The three industrial clusters also have their own priorities: the Bohai Rim region focuses on chip R & D, the Yangtze River Delta focuses on chip manufacturing and sealing test, and the Pearl River Delta focuses on chip design. Today, a number of integrated circuit enterprises with certain international competitiveness have emerged in the three industrial clusters, such as Hisilicon, ZTE microelectronics, Huada semiconductor, Shilan micro, Datang semiconductor and Beijing Zhongxing microelectronics.
At the same time, the semiconductor industry has also become the focus of the capital market. In the past three years, driven by the investment fund of the integrated circuit industry, the integrated circuit industry has attracted a long lost investment boom. The data show that there are more than 20 listed IC design companies, 70 A-share listed companies in the semiconductor and component industry, and many listed companies take advantage of the A-share market to carry out overseas mergers and acquisitions.
Institutional investors account for more than 35% of the equity of semiconductor companies, and some are even higher. It is worth noting that large funds investing in the whole IC industry chain have played an important role in this round of investment boom. On September 24, 2014, the large fund (national integrated circuit industry investment fund) was jointly initiated and established by CDB finance, China tobacco, Yizhuang state investment, China Mobile, Shanghai Guosheng' target='_blank' style='color:#ff0000;'>Shanghai Guosheng, China Electronics Technology, Ziguang communication and Huaxin investment. After its establishment, the large fund has successively signed investment agreements with China micro semiconductor, SMIC international, Ziguang group, San'an optoelectronics, Beidou Xingtong, Shilan micro and other companies.
While increasing investment at the national level, the support of local governments has accelerated the full outbreak of semiconductor industry capacity. It is reported that at present, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hefei, Xiamen, Wuxi, Shijiazhuang, Kunshan, Fujian, Hubei, Anhui, Shaanxi, Guangdong, Sichuan, Liaoning and other places have established tens of billions of integrated circuit industry investment funds. The total scale of large funds has reached 138.72 billion yuan, and the cumulative scale of enterprise and local industrial funds has exceeded 500 billion yuan. With the help of multiple factors, the semiconductor industry has entered a stage of rapid development.
According to Wang Yanhui, founder of jiwei.com, if the past five years are the five years for the growth of Chinese mobile phone concept stocks, IC (integrated circuit) concept stocks will usher in a huge outbreak cycle in the next five to ten years. However, in view of the surging industry investment boom, Chen Datong, chairman of Huachuang Investment Committee, called on the industry to remain calm. He said that the problem in the semiconductor industry is not a simple acquisition, but how to digest production capacity and localization, but the capital market lacks experience and motivation.
Therefore, the power of capital is far from enough. For example, Chen Datong said that Huachuang investment acquired a company, which can be packaged and listed to make money. However, without the "leg" of localization, the local market and supply chain cannot do well, and the market will certainly not rise. "The only way is to cooperate with domestic leading enterprises. Our integration is not to cash out in the capital market, but to find a suitable enterprise to integrate with it and promote the integration of the two." Chen Datong said that the real thing PE should do is to do the localization of enterprises.
In addition, the industry is also worried that competing for the layout of the integrated circuit industry in many places will lead to vicious competition. In this regard, Zhang Rujing, founder of SMIC international, said that the semiconductor industry is an industry with high investment, high risk and slow return. Local governments need to develop the semiconductor industry calmly and rationally. He suggested that all kinds of semiconductor industry investment funds should be effectively organized to promote coordination, resource integration and information sharing among industry capital by building an efficient cooperation platform, realize resource optimization, complementary advantages, information exchange, rational regional layout, avoid vicious competition, enhance the overall advantages of China's semiconductor industry capital and avoid resource dispersion.
In the view of Wang Huilian, general manager of Xiamen semiconductor investment group, the semiconductor industry "has serious deficiencies in R & D investment and capacity." he said that China's integrated circuit industry has become one of the most dynamic regions in the world. Semiconductors seem to stand in the tuyere, but the R & D investment of enterprises is seriously insufficient. In addition, in the case of limited scientific and technological resources, the chip industry is still supported by traditional means and methods, lack of structural breakthrough and weak resource planning ability.
Zhang Rujing agrees. He believes that the biggest problem in the semiconductor industry is not capital, nor the lack of market and government support, but talent. "In the short term, China will have a large number of semiconductor chip factories to start. Where do talents come from?" Zhang Rujing said that if we dig corners from other chip factories in China, it is an act of "digging east wall to make up west wall", which will cause personnel instability, unable to accumulate experience, difficult to inherit technology, and no guarantee of product quality.
He suggested that enterprises should use self-developed processes from the beginning and protect themselves with sufficient patents and authorized IP. In addition, although there are a large number of domestic semiconductor enterprises, they are small and fragile. Experts said that from the perspective of the whole industrial chain, the earliest development was only asset light design companies. Therefore, we should strengthen the application and design with advantages, and supplement the shortcomings in materials.

Commax-Tech Electronic Co., Ltd      Electronic component specialist

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