Semiconductor technology: To be small but also to be deep

There are two major driving forces for the development of integrated circuits, one is the logic process driven by Moore dividend, and the other is the characteristic process driven by market segmentation. Previously, Jita Semiconductor characteristic process production line officially moved into the first lithography machine, Xiamen Shilan 12-inch characteristic process production line capped and put into production. On the one hand, the world's top ten wafer foundries have a layout for the characteristic process, and the competitive pressure cannot be underestimated; On the other hand, the long tail effect of the characteristic process is obvious, the market is fragmented and the capacity is large, which brings development opportunities for China's semiconductor enterprises.

There is no shortage of competition among strong players

Compared with the logic process based on line width, the competitive ability of the featured process is more comprehensive, including multiple dimensions such as process, product, service and platform. Lu Penghao, an analyst at CCID Consulting, said the competition for specialty processes lies in the maturity and stability of the processes, the diversity of process platforms, and the richness of product categories. Industry insider Wang Xiaolong said that the featured process mainly competes with the technical experience, service ability and specialized development ability of the manufacturer.

Old IDM manufacturers are often superior in product design capabilities. For example, Infineon's IGBT has achieved 650V, which is used in power grids, high-speed rail vehicles and other fields, with higher voltage blocking capability and stability. Many domestic IGBT manufacturers are difficult to achieve the same voltage blocking capability, focusing on the consumer electronics field below 650V but with lower added value. Similarly, for wafer foundries, the ability to make components with the same performance at lower linewidths determines the process capability of the manufacturer. Although the characteristic process does not pursue the line width, the lower the line width, the more you can control the cost of mass production.

Among the top ten wafer foundries in the world in 2019 announced by Topology Industry Research Institute, TSMC, Samsung and so on, which ranked 12th, have all laid out their feature processes. Ranking third and fourth, GLC and UMC stopped further development of process nodes at 7nm nodes and 12nm nodes, respectively, because they were unable to catch up with the pace of advanced processes, and turned their focus to characteristic processes. High tower, Eastern High technology, the world's advanced focus on the characteristic process, the current high tower RF-SOI, RF-CMOS and other RF components, as well as BCD, CIS has progressed to 65nm process.