The world has become a serious shortage of silicon wafer, semiconductor factory revenue growth bottlenecks, and the subsequent war threatens to further expand, semiconductor industry sources, Japan silicon wafer maker Sumco NOR Flash, decided to cut the plant of Wuhan new core silicon wafer orders, preferred supplier to TSMC, Intel (Intel), micron (Micron) and other manufacturers NORFlash, not only aggravate the shortage of Japanese suppliers obviously biased Taiwan factory, let fear, into a silicon wafer of semiconductor development shortage dilemma.
The silicon wafer has become the key material of semiconductor industry, silicon wafer production capacity over the past 10 years are in the state of silicon wafer is now pile up in excess of requirement, and has been facing shortage, lack of influence to production line of semiconductor factory operation, especially the 12 inch silicon wafer specifications, including DRAM, NAND foundry, Flash and NOR Flash factory and other parties troops plunkett.
Supply chain manufacturers said, in the face of this wave of silicon wafer shortage tide, Japan's two largest silicon wafer factory Sumco and ShinEtsu future production priority supply to the Toshiba, fear Intel, micron, GlobalFoundries, TSMC, UMC and other semiconductor manufacturers, and special support for DRAM and 3D NAND suppliers, because of the soaring price of 3D memory, NAND single output as high as 5000 to 6000 dollars, is NOR Flash to catch up, which also makes the mainland industry most affected.
The basis of the semiconductor industry - Wafers
In the news of semiconductors, the size of the wafer factory, such as 8 inch or 12 inch wafers, is always mentioned, but what exactly is the so-called wafer?
Wafer (wafer) is the basis for manufacturing all kinds of computer chips. We can compare chip manufacturing to building a house with Lego bricks, stacking it with layers and layers to achieve the desired shape (that is, various chips). However, if there is no good foundation, the house that is built out will be crooked and crooked. It is not in order to make a perfect house. It needs a stable substrate. For chip manufacturing, this substrate is the next wafer to be described.
Market status of semiconductor materials in Japan
Japan's material industry has an absolute advantage in the world. Japanese companies in silicon wafer, photoresist, wire bonding, molding resin and lead frame and other important materials occupy a high share, we can say there is no Japanese materials enterprise, global semiconductor manufacturing can not be achieved.
It is understood that even in the recent appreciation of the yen, the Japanese enterprises in the global semiconductor material market share (in dollar terms) has reached about 52%. While North America and Europe accounted for about 15% respectively, it is obvious that Japanese enterprises are in monopoly. Its historical background is that the semiconductor capacity of Japan is very high. Japan is now a big market, second only to Taiwan in the first place, and, like South Korea, spend more than $7 billion a year on semiconductor materials, accounting for 15% of the total.
12 inch wafers still dominate the world
On the other hand, we have noticed that the major supplier of the Japanese market has stopped the order of 12 inch wafers. Then, what is the status of the 12 inch wafer in the semiconductor industry chain?
According to IC Insights's latest report, by the end of 2015, 12 inch wafers accounted for 63.1% of global wafer capacity, and by 2020 it will increase to 68%. The proportion of 8 inch wafers in global wafer production will be reduced from 28.3% in 2020 to 25.3% in 2015, but 8 inch wafer capacity will continue to grow in the next few years. The 6 inch (150mm) wafer capacity growth during the forecast period is relatively flat.

The number of the 12 inch wafer factory global operation in 2020 is expected to continue to increase, but most of the 12 inch plant will continue to produce large amounts of goods only, types of elements, such as DRAM and flash memory, image sensor, power management unit, and the IC of large size, complex logic and microprocessor; and some foundry the factory will be combined with different sources of orders to fill the 12 inch wafer factory capacity.
As of the end of 2015, there are 95 global production level with a 12 inch wafer fab (around the world there are a lot of wafer fab production plant and a 12 inch wafer, but not in the IC Insights column Statistics); there are currently 8 12 inch wafer factory is expected to open in 2017, following the 2014 single year high the number after the opening of the 9 fab.
IC Insights is expected by the end of 2020, there will be another 22 12 inch wafer factory began operation, when the number of global 12 inch Fab total will reach 117; the agency expected, 12 inch FAB (production level) the peak number will fall about 125, while the number of the highest peak of the 8 inch wafer factory it is 210 (as of December 2015, the number of global 8 inch factory 148).
Silicon wafer suppliers are on the decrease
Silicon wafer manufacturing is challenging, but manufacturers do not benefit much. Over the past twenty years, silicon wafer vendors have merged from more than 20 into 5 major players. These mergers and acquisitions have removed several major problems in the industry. First of all, the silicon wafer factory needs a huge scale to compete with other competitors, so small manufacturers can't keep pace with the first formation.
In 2015, 76 million wafers of 300mm silicon wafers were produced on the semiconductor market, but the market only consumed 57 million pieces. Therefore, from the current market view, if the silicon wafer factory capacity fully open, the production of silicon wafer can meet all the production needs of Fab. But according to surveillance, in 2016, only 74.6% of Fab was put into operation.

The biggest challenge for silicon wafer producers, however, is the increasing demand for silicon wafers, but price increases are difficult. Silicon wafer suppliers need to persuade customers to accept price adjustments. This is a signal that, in the age of good chip manufacturers, it would be an inspiration for silicon wafer manufacturers if they could adjust their prices.
The market forecasts that the silicon wafer market will reach $7 billion in 2016, down 1% from 2015. Shipments of silicon wafers in 2016 will be as high as 10 billion 800 million square inches. There was a slight increase over last year.
Domestic 12 inch wafer distribution
Chinese has now become the world's largest chip market, while China's annual imports of oil imports in the chip and spend the same amount of money (about $200 billion), China local chip makers in technology and productivity are far behind.
In 2017, the whole world has completed 300mm IC production line a total of 8, domestically, the use of 300mm wafer about 420 thousand per month, plus research and development, testing, control plate and the retaining plate, with about 50-55 million per month, the shortage of demand.
2017-2020 currently is to build a number of advanced semiconductor chip factory: 2020 domestic 300mm upcoming new demand is expected to be approximately 630 thousand pieces per month, plus research and development, testing, control plate and the retaining plate and at least 700 thousand / month. Demand for 300mm wafers will reach 1 million 100 thousand to 1 million 200 thousand tablets per month in 2020.
The actual wafer output of the global 300mm wafer accounts for about 65% of the wafer output, and the output is almost zero at present. This is the most scarce link in the industry chain.
The development of the global semiconductor industry in the past in the United States and Japan, then gradually to Asia, Taiwan and South Korea Mobile; now China will "Chinese manufacturing" also stipulates the development policy of the semiconductor industry, although the country is still in development, but this emerging "Chinese manufacturing power, will cause the diversion plate to the global semiconductor industry the mainland.

Even Intel has always been proud to China down, announced a $five billion and five hundred million, decided to build twelve inch factory in mainland China, NAND flash production for mobile phone and the Internet of things (NAND Flash).
Prior to Intel, South Korea's Samsung and SK Hynix had already set up 12 inch factories in Xi'an and Wuxi to produce NAND, Flash and DRAM.
So, how important is the semiconductor in Japan for the world market?
In the middle of 80s of last century, the world share of semiconductor in Japan exceeded 50%. Since then, although the decline, but in 2010 the world share of semiconductor production in Japan still accounted for 20.8%. The other 80% came from Asian manufacturers in the United States, Europe, South Korea and Taiwan, china.
In the field of materials, the overall share of semiconductor materials in Japan is over 66%. Of these 19 materials, Japan has more than 50% of the share of materials, accounting for 14!
On the other hand, from the point of view of production equipment, the total share of semiconductor manufacturing equipment in Japan is 37%. From the share of each device, Japan has 10 market monopoly equipment of more than 50%.

China's semiconductor industry must rise

China, policy support for the semiconductor industry money is not soft, according to SEMI (International Semiconductor Association) pointed out that since last year there were 20 Jianyuan crystal factory plan, this year's spending is doubled than last year exceeded $4 billion in 2018, Chinese, Fab scale of capital expenditure will reach 10 billion; from the global capacity share the mainland, global market share at 18% capacity in 2020, while Taiwan is currently in the global production capacity accounted for 2.
Under the support of the mainland semiconductor production capacity will grow significantly in the next two or three years, estimated by 2019, wafer production capacity will account for more than 18% of the global wafer production capacity, and the Taiwan area, the gap between Japan marked; from the scale of capital expenditure, will from $7 billion this year, a breakthrough 10 billion that is equivalent to TSMC annual capital expenditure.
Overall, foreign investment in the mainland is still more than the local Fab funds also high, is expected next year the proportion of them will be close to 2019, local funds can be estimated in 2019, more than foreign capital; core international investment amount will be possible in wafer ranked first, don't Samsung, Intel, UMC and TSMC for the other two to five right.
However, in the face of the increasingly fierce market competition and the growing application market, Chinese enterprises must rise in order to win an invincible position in the world market and win more market discourse!

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