$7.4 billion 4 wafer fabs, foreign media lamented that SMIC finally unveiled its cards
As we all know, TSMC is currently the world's leading semiconductor foundry, with 3nm process chip foundry technology, and is currently beginning to develop mass production technology for 2nm process chips.
Compared with TSMC, SMIC is still in the mass production technology of 14nm process wafers, which is a big gap, but in the face of the current market, foreign media exclaimed: SMIC has a showdown!Why?
First of all, we must mention the current demand of the semiconductor market, 28 nanometer process chips can meet more than 80% of the needs of the semiconductor chip market, and it can be applied to the 4C industry, smart grid field, information and communication equipment and other fields.
The most important of these is the field of new energy, for new energy vehicles that have appeared on the market, as well as smart cars and other industries that have been put on the market, the demand for 28nm process chips is the largest.
On the contrary, in terms of advanced process chips, although SMIC cannot mass produce chips, it only occupies less than 20% of the chip market, among which smart phones, tablets, PCs and other devices that use advanced process chips and are closest to people's lives are smartphones, tablets, PCs and other devices.
Overall, the proportion of mature process chips is obviously higher, which also means that the market demand is large. In 2019, SMIC began to target the 14nm process and expand the production of chips on the 28nm process.
As of 2022, SMIC has expanded production of four wafer fabs, namely SMIC Shenzhen in Shenzhen, SMIC Beijing in Beijing, SMIC Oriental in Shanghai, and SMIC Xiqing in Tianjin, all of which are aimed at 28nm process chips.
SMIC Beijing, SMIC Oriental and SMIC Xiqing can produce 100,000 wafers per month, while SMIC Shenzhen can produce 40,000 28nm process wafers per month, for a total of 340,000 wafers per month.
The total planned investment in the four plants is 263$200 million, or about 17,864.8 billion yuan, a lot of investment.
But this is only an investment in factory projects, and the investment in semiconductor manufacturing equipment is not counted, according to data released by SMIC, the investment in semiconductor equipment in the four foundries alone has theoretically reached $7.4 billion.
The investment in green semiconductor equipment is even higher, plus the expenditure on the purchase of DUV lithography equipment, totaling nearly 40 billion US dollars, which can be said to be not much less than TSMC's investment in building a factory in the United States.
On the other hand, as previously established factories, SMIC South and SMIC North are not positioned differently, the former focuses on the mass production of sub-14nm process chips, and the current monthly production capacity is about 350,000 pieces.
The latter mainly produces chips with 28nm and above processes, with a monthly production capacity of 120,000 pieces.
The total monthly production capacity of the six wafer processing plants has reached the level of 495,000 pieces, and all of them are mature process chip production capacity, so the annual production capacity will reach about 5.94 million pieces.
Of course, compared with TSMC's 14.18 million pieces in 2022, SMIC still has a big gap, but in terms of 28nm process chip production capacity, SMIC has effectively narrowed the gap with TSMC.
At the same time, SMIC's further increase in production capacity has undoubtedly effectively improved the self-sufficiency rate of China's chips, which is undoubtedly good news for China's semiconductor development.
However, even if China has the production capacity of 28-nanometer chips, it must not relax in the mass production and research and development of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, but it must further achieve independent and controllable to avoid being controlled"Scoop it away"！
What do you think about SMIC's future development?Please leave a message in the comment section!