320 billion yuan subsidy from the European Union!The U.S. chip advantage is afraid of falling out of favor
Originally, in the world, the semiconductor industry has formed a relatively fixed industrial structure. However, in recent years, the United States has cracked down on China's semiconductor industry through "export lists" and other means, which not only damaged China's integrated circuit industry, but also affected the entire world's integrated circuit chain, including Europe.
The actions of the United States are a wake-up call in Europe. In April, the European side reported that the European Union had approved a 43 billion euro (320 billion yuan) investment plan aimed at making Europe reach 20% of the market share by 2030. As soon as this news came out, foreign ** said that the United States had lost its leading position.
The subsidy schemes in Europe and the United States are different.
The United States and other countries have joined forces to boycott China's chip industry, and the consequences are not only the chip supply chain, but also the Netherlands and other European countries. The subsidy to the semiconductor industry in the United States has also prompted many semiconductor companies to set up factories in the United States, increasing the production capacity of the European semiconductor industry, and putting it in a difficult situation. Today, Europe's share of the world's chip manufacturing industry has fallen to just 8 percent. All of this is a wake-up call for European countries to make plans for their chip industry. Not long ago, after a visit to China, Macron bluntly said in an interview that Europe should rely less on the United States.
In April, the European** subsidy was introduced. In the short term, Europe's chip production can not be greatly increased, and a "-for-tat" situation will be formed between the two, and the development and growth of Europe's semiconductor industry will inevitably make the United States' voice in Europe weak.
It is important to note that the European subsidy scheme is not the same as the US subsidy scheme. First of all, compared with the United States, Europe pays more attention to Europe's own chip industry, rather than attracting more foreign investment. Secondly, from chip design to production and packaging, from chip design to manufacturing, and then to packaging, it will be subsidized by the best in Europe.
There are giants in the semiconductor industry such as Infineon, ST, NXP, and ASML in Europe, but in general, they focus more on upstream design and equipment production, and are still at a disadvantage compared with Asia and the United States in terms of chip production and testing. The U.S. is a leader in telecommunications and computer devices, while Europe is a leader in automotive and industrial chips.
In addition, in addition to consolidating its own strength in automotive and industrial power consumption, the EU also plans to establish a European common integrated circuit research and development platform, integrate European EDA software, and aim at advanced process technologies such as 7nm and even 2nm. In addition, the European Union has also set up a chip industry supply inspection system to cooperate with the entire European semiconductor industry, and cooperate with Asia and the United States to jointly maintain the European chip chain.
The difficulty of financial assistance in the United States.
Compared with the subsidy program in Europe, the US plan is more "sweet". The United States has indeed passed a subsidy policy, and since August last year, it has successfully pulled companies like TSMC and Samsung into its camp. But when they came to the United States to open a factory, they found that the United States' support for them was not as good as they imagined, TSMC spent $4 billion and invested $40 billion to get a subsidy of $5 billion, the largest part of which is Intel in the United States.
In addition, the U.S. side also requires that after acquiring more than $150 million in companies, a small half of the earnings must be returned to the U.S., as well as some key information, such as the direction of capital flows, technical parameters, etc. TSMC, Samsung and other companies, after realizing this, immediately stopped funding **, and at the same time negotiated with the United States to get more funds or reduce some requirements.
The U.S.** grant was fraudulent from the start. They provide huge subsidies to foreign companies, but domestic companies in the United States receive real benefits. In fact, this method is like a disguised "** subsidy", which can not only obtain the most cutting-edge chip manufacturing process, but also hit its American counterparts.
Their real goal is to transfer the production of the semiconductor industry to the United States, and then monopolize all the semiconductor industries in the world. TSMC and Samsung have built a new factory in the United States and started research and development of the 3nm process. For the United States, with these advanced equipment, their strength in the field of semiconductors will be greatly improved.
But the United States is too simplistic about this. Although such subsidies have made large companies such as TSMC and Samsung excited, they have not fundamentally changed the lack of a complete semiconductor industry chain in the United States. In the 1990s, the U.S. semiconductor industry accounted for more than 30 percent of the world's market share, but today it is only about 10 percent. If they go to the United States, then their products will lose their original market, or even lose, because of the best products. This is a huge loss in the long run.
The rise of the European semiconductor chip industry is also an opportunity for China's semiconductor industry. Similar to Europe, China is also using the RISC-V architecture. China's chip industry is more likely to form a partnership with the European chip industry than to be suppressed by the United States. In fact, before the bill came into effect, the U.S. chip industry had already tasted its bitterness. TSMC and Samsung have both brought advanced production lines, but they cannot be exported to China, and they are also depressed by American companies, and it is unlikely that they will open factories in the United States. Moreover, the semiconductor industry in the United States has declined as a whole in the past year, and American companies have also suffered a huge blow in the Chinese market.
Some time ago, the European Union officially approved a chip subsidy program worth 320 billion yuan. Unlike the "subsidy trap" in which the United States finds itself, Europe** will work to increase the production capacity of the entire semiconductor industry and provide a common technical support for the whole of Europe. Foreign countries say that the chips of the United States have lost their competitiveness.