As we all know, as the core of modern technology, the manufacture of chips involves many devices and materials. In the past, any fab needed to source equipment and materials from all over the world to manufacture chips, because no single country or region could complete the chip industry chain independently. However, with China's breakthrough in chip technology, some countries have begun to contain and blockade China's chip equipment, hoping to limit China's development in logic chips, DRAM technology and NAND technology. Faced with this situation, China has to accelerate the breakthrough of the industrial chain, improve the self-sufficiency rate of semiconductor equipment, and carry out domestic substitution to reduce dependence on foreign equipment.
In recent years, China has made a series of breakthroughs, the sales of domestic semiconductor equipment have continued to reach new highs, and the self-sufficiency rate has gradually increased. According to statistics, the self-sufficiency rate of domestic semiconductor equipment will reach about 18% in 2021. According to the statistics of professional institutions, the overall self-sufficiency rate of new semiconductor equipment in 2022 will be about 30%, a new high. So, what will be the self-sufficiency rate of domestic semiconductor equipment in 2023?
According to statistics, the bidding of major domestic wafer factories from January to November 2023 shows that Hua Hong Semiconductor, Jita Semiconductor and SMIC are among the top three. Among them, Hua Hong Semiconductor, Jita Semiconductor and SMIC have the largest bidding volume. In addition, in terms of the number of equipment, these manufacturers won the bid for a total of 875 equipment, mainly etching, testing machines and gas-liquid system equipment. It is worth noting that the proportion of winning bids for domestic equipment is about 47%, which is higher than 30% in 2022 and a new record.
Further analysis of the data, it can be found that domestic equipment has achieved 100% domestic production rate in some fields, such as epitaxial oxidation equipment, PECVD equipment and silicon wafer regeneration equipment. The domestic production rate of these equipment has reached the level of comprehensive replacement of imported equipment. However, in terms of some cutting-edge equipment and high-end technology, domestic equipment cannot completely replace imported equipment, which is also a shortcoming in the field of domestic semiconductor equipment.
From a process point of view, the current process level of major domestic semiconductor equipment is mainly concentrated in the 28nm and 14nm stages, and only a few devices have reached 5nm, indicating that there is still a lot of room for improvement in advanced technology. Among them, the lithography machine is the shortest shortcoming of all semiconductor equipment, and it is still in the 90nm stage.
It is worth mentioning that although the proportion of domestic equipment is increasing, if calculated according to the amount, because the current domestic equipment is mainly concentrated in the low-end market, compared with high-end equipment, the proportion of winning bids may decrease. But in general, China has moved away from dependence on imported equipment in many areas and no longer worries about bottlenecks.
The progress of China's chip industry is encouraging, however, there are still many challenges and opportunities. First of all, China still needs to speed up the research and development of advanced processes and further improve the technical level of semiconductor equipment to better meet market demand. Secondly, it is still necessary to increase R&D investment to provide a steady stream of innovation power for the chip industry. In addition, strengthening international cooperation and sharing experience and resources with other countries is also an important way for China's chip industry to move to a higher level.
In conclusion, China's self-sufficiency rate of chip equipment continues to increase, and although it still faces some challenges, China has made significant progress in the field of semiconductor equipment. This not only enhances China's voice in the chip industry chain, but also lays a solid foundation for the development of China's chip industry. In the future, with China's continuous efforts in chip technology and industrial chain, it is believed that China's chip industry will usher in a more brilliant future.