Not only is there a surplus of 7 nanometers, but also a surplus of 14 nanometers, and China's mature technology has become a market winner
In the past year, Samsung and TSMC are the world's most popular semiconductor manufacturers, but since the fourth quarter of last year, the 7 nm process has been in short supply, and the 14 nm process capacity has also been saturated.
It was previously reported that Samsung has reduced its 14 nm process by 10-20% in order to get more profits, because Samsung has invested a lot of money in 14 nm, so Samsung's 14 nm process has caused a large-scale rush around the world.
Taiwan's UMC and the United States' power supply have adopted the 14 nm process to reduce production costs, but TSMC is still holding a wait-and-see attitude, showing that the current production capacity of the world's chip industry has expanded from 7nm to 14nm process.
One of the important factors for the overcapacity of the global chip industry is that since last year, due to the sharp decline in demand for chips in various countries around the world, the inventory of chip manufacturers has surged, and the inventory of South Korean chip manufacturers has doubled, and the United States chip manufacturers have to cut the price by 19% due to high inventory, and have to reduce the order volume of chips to deal with inventory.
The second factor is that because the economic situation of the whole world is changing, the sales of PCs, mobile phones, TVs, automobiles and other products have declined, because they are more inclined to use mature processes to reduce costs, and mature processes can also play a lot of roles, and its production costs are far lower than advanced processes, so the world's chip industry has fewer and fewer requirements for advanced technology, but the requirements for mature technology are getting higher and higher.
As a result, China's semiconductor industry has been the biggest beneficiary, as China has built four fabs with 28nm processes in recent years, mainly using known processes such as 28 nm.
China's growing advanced process capabilities are also due to huge domestic demand, and China is the world's largest buyer, accounting for about 60% of the world's chipsThe chips required by China mainly come from chips with mature processes, 70% of which are made with mature processes, so China relies on the huge domestic market and can maintain the steady growth of the domestic chip industry.
Chinese chips themselves have a cost advantage, when a Chinese chip company claims that its chip performance is similar to that of the United States, but the price is only 1 4 in the United States, if China's chips rely on domestic chips, its cost advantage will become greater, because of the surplus of chips, the demand for mature process chips is also increasing.
Nowadays, China's chips can not only replace imports, but also can be exported overseas, and American home appliance manufacturers feel that China's chips are fully competent, and their prices are much lower than those in the United States, which forces the United States to revise the chip regulations, so that American electrical manufacturers can continue to use Chinese chips, which makes China's chips have a greater competitive advantage.
China's chip imports are also accelerating as China replaces domestic chips: in the first half of 2022, its imports fell by 15%, while in the first 2 months, it was **265%。China's chip importers are also grabbing territory abroad, which has further increased the production capacity of Samsung and Taiwanese chip manufacturers, and the latter is mainly from the United States chip orders, so it has also aroused their desire to grab orders and fight the first war.
From the early prosperity to the current cruel competition, the fundamental reason is that the United States has modified the design of integrated circuits, which has led to changes in the pattern of the semiconductor industry in the whole world, and before that, the production capacity of the semiconductor industry will be more serious, analysts believe that this year's world chip market may shrink by 1 4, and chip manufacturers may have to continue to struggle, and a more tragic ** war is about to start.