中国半导体行业历史及现状

The semiconductor industry

Semiconductors are extremely

important in virtually all areas of life.

They are vital for many consumer

products.

Demand for semiconductors is driven

mainly by the end markets in

communications, data processing,

consumer electronics, the automotive

industry and the industrial sector.

14 A change of pace for the semiconductor industry? B The semiconductor industry The semiconductor industry has changed society in uncountable ways. Semi-conductors are installed in virtually all technical equipment, ranging from dish-washers, microwave ovens and flat screens to machine tools. The use of semi-conductors in cars, trains, aircraft and ships is constantly expanding. Mobile telephones consist mainly of chips. PCs, servers and pocket calculators owe their existence to the development of semiconductors. The world would be different without semiconductors and would surely be slower. And semi-conductors have also laid the foundation for worldwide networking through the Internet. The development process continues to move ahead. Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel, formulated what came to be known as Moore’s law in the late 1960s: the number of transistors that can be placed on a standard processor will double every 18 to 24 months. This law remains valid today and helps explain the tremendous pace of innovation. However, progress is expensive, particularly in the semiconductor industry. Manufacturing processes and product development are based on the latest technologies, which require substantial levels of investment. Continuous research and development work is necessary, and the capital needs of the industry are accordingly high. 1 Market structure The semiconductor industry forms part of a complex interaction among various industrial sectors. In general, demand for semiconductors does not emanate directly from end users, but rather is determined by the related end-customer markets. Most sales (around 38%) are generated by data processing, followed by communications (26%), consumer electronics (18%), industrial accounts (approximately 10%) and the automotive industry (approximately 8%).1 Suppliers to the semiconductor manufacturers provide the raw silicon that is processed into wafers (see the related discussion) and develop installations for manufacturing semiconductors. The semiconductor manufacturers can have various business models and can be classified as integrated device manufacturers (IDM), fabless, licensing, foundry and back-end processes (assembly and test, packaging). The business models differ in their value creation. Figure 1 shows the way in which the various sectors interact. 1 PwC analysis, figures for 2008