中国半导体行业历史及现状

Summary

Peter Bauer

CEO

Infineon Technologies AG

12 A change of pace for the semiconductor industry? Guest article by Peter Bauer, CEO, Infineon Technologies AG Growing with energy efficiency, communications, and security The year 2009 will enter the history of the semiconductor industry as a ‘black year’. Following many years of growth, the worldwide economic and financial crisis resulted in a huge downturn in sales in the industry. Although it will take some time for the market to return to the level of 2008, the semiconductor industry is and will continue to be a growth industry. In future, it will continue to be the case that many innovations will only be possible with the aid of semiconductor products. This is applicable particularly to three key challenges of our modern society: energy efficiency, communications and security. Energy efficiency – green technologies on the advance The increasing global demand for energy, the limited availability of natural resources, rising energy prices and the threat of climate change require solutions for enabling energy to be handled more efficiently. In order to meet the requirements of climate policy, for instance for reducing CO2 emissions, it is necessary to increase efficiency throughout the entire chain of utilisable energy – that is, for the production, transmission and consumption of energy. Innovations from the semiconductor industry are playing a key role with regard to implementing these objectives. The requirement for more energy efficiency will have a positive impact particularly on demand for power semiconductors in the course of the next few years. This is applicable specifically to renewable energies, as well as for example to motor drives in industrial applications and in household products. With regard to power semiconductors for renewable energies, market researchers are assuming average annual growth rates of 18% in the course of the next years.1 Solar and wind power will continue to be two of the main growth drivers. Power semiconductors are the core of rectifiers in photovoltaic and wind power installations, and are a key component for efficiently supplying power to the network. In the automotive industry, the requirement for low-consumption and low-emission cars will also result in stronger demand for semiconductors in the long term, particularly for the drive train. With expected annual growth of around 9%, this is the area of application with the second highest growth rate for automotive semiconductors behind the safety segment.2 This is due to the higher demand for powerful semiconductors for improved regulation of engines, and also the increased production of hybrid drives, which have a much higher semiconductor content than conventional drives. Additional opportunities are developing in the field of electric vehicles. In order to meet the requirements with regard to limiting pollutant emissions, carmakers around the globe are preparing for the mass production of hybrid and electric cars. Overall, despite the sales crisis affecting the car makers, the market for automotive semiconductors is expected to achieve annual average growth of 8% until the year 2013.3 As the long-standing market leader for power semi-conductors and the worldwide number two in the overall market for automotive semi-conductors, Infineon will benefit from these trends. Communications – transmission of data, everywhere and at all times More and more people are wanting to have full access everywhere to the telephone, e-mails and the Internet at all times, with high transmission speeds. The mobile phone industry is working on setting up data networks with even higher speeds. Although mobile phone sales this year will decline for the first time since 2001, the manufacturers are developing new devices in order to be in a position to meet the expected long-term growth. Ultra-low-cost mobile phones and smartphones are two segments which are reporting considerable growth rates even this year despite the recession. With anticipated annual growth of approximately 20%, these fields will continue to be the segments which will report the strongest growth in the worldwide mobile phone market in the course of the next few years.4 1 IMS Research, August 2009, CAGR 2008-13 2 Strategy Analytics, July 2009. CAGR 2008-13 3 Strategy Analytics, July 2009, CAGR 2008-13 4 iSuppli, July 2009, CAGR 2008-13