中国半导体行业历史及现状

The semiconductor industry

16 A change of pace for the semiconductor industry? ● The process of increasingly specialising on specific tasks has led to the emergence of companies which focus on back-end processes such as testing and packaging (assembly and test). Open-market assembly and test service providers are based mainly in South-East Asia, particularly in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, drawn by the low labour costs. The degree of automation in these back-end processes is not as high as in other areas of semiconductor added value. Semiconductors are broken down into discrete semiconductor elements, such as diodes, thyristors and transistors, and integrated circuits that connect numerous discrete semiconductors and thus provide a high degree of functionality. Integrated circuits include memory, micro and logic families (see Figure 2). Most sales are attributable to memory modules (approximately 18% of the worldwide semiconductor market), microprocessors and microcontrollers (approximately 21%) and logic semiconductors (approximately 29%).2 Digital integrated circuits accordingly account for virtually 70% of the worldwide market volume. The standard products consist mainly of memory products, which face fierce competitive and price pressure. With application and customer-specific products, price pressure is less pronounced because of the focus on specific application aspects or specific customers.

Fig. 2 Product families of integrated circuits Effective entry barriers to competitors are customer contracts, earned through a design tender procedure, and intellectual property rights for certain application characteristics. Product development and chip design in line with the needs of customers are extremely important to be successful in design tender procedures; they accordingly constitute factors of success. 2 Source: PwC, figures for 2008