Under the influence of U.S. export control regulations, another well-known semiconductor manufacturer was forced to "withdraw" from China. Recently, Teradyne, a leading semiconductor testing equipment company, said that it moved about $1 billion worth of manufacturing operations from China last year due to the disruption of the ** chain due to export controls.
In the eyes of some industry insiders, Teradyne's withdrawal is a good thing for domestic test equipment manufacturers, and domestic manufacturers will not be afraid of any supply interruption and withdrawal in the ATE field in the future. Despite the existence of market opportunities, domestic test equipment manufacturers still have to overcome many challenges and strive to consolidate their core competitiveness.
Sooner or later, we are not afraid of any interruption and withdrawal
In recent years, the application of new technologies and new products such as 5G, Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence and automotive electronics has brought a huge semiconductor market, and the demand for back-end test equipment, which runs through the entire semiconductor manufacturing process and is one of the keys to improving the level of chip manufacturing and yield management, has also risen. According to SEMI data, the global semiconductor equipment market size will be $107.4 billion in 2022, of which the test equipment market will reach 75$200 million; The test equipment can be divided into testing machines (ATE), sorting machines, and probe stations, of which ATE is the most important segment, accounting for more than 60%.
*: Teradyne's financial report.
In the field of semiconductor test equipment (ATE), Teradyne of the United States, Advantest of Japan, and Cohu of the United States occupy the main market share, and the top two together account for more than 80% of the share.
So, will the withdrawal of Teradyne's manufacturing business have an impact on the domestic semiconductor ATE market structure?
Zhu Jing, deputy secretary-general of the Beijing Semiconductor Industry Association, pointed out in his circle of friendsThe domestic ATE equipment is close to replacing the Teradyne 750J, and the domestic market should still rely more on Advantest 93K and Advantest TAfter all, in addition to SoC, there is also a demand for RF and memory markets. However, sooner or later, domestic manufacturers should not be afraid of any supply interruption and withdrawal in the ATE field.
Teradyne's business in the domestic market is becoming less and less," the person in charge of an overseas test equipment manufacturer told Jiwei.com,Therefore, the withdrawal of its manufacturing business from the mainland will not have much impact on the domestic industry and the ATE market structure"Now in the mainland market, it mainly competes with Advantest and several domestic manufacturers, but there is still a gap between high-end products and Advantest. ”
Mao Guoliang, deputy general manager of Hongtai Technology, a domestic semiconductor test equipment company, said that the retreat of Teradyne is good news for domestic test equipment manufacturers to a certain extent, because "the demand for localization is more urgent." He notedTeradyne has long been restricted to all sensitive customers in China, and the mid-range SOC testing machine can basically be localized, and the high-end is still blank, and it is expected that it will take 1 or 2 years to start to replace. Whether it is moved or not will not change the trend of localization, but to a certain extent, it will release talents and first-class chain resources, which is conducive to accelerating the process of domestic production.
Mao Guoliang also said that the current customer acceptance of domestic test equipment is higher than that in other fieldsAmong them, the acceptance of analog and discrete device testing machines is relatively high, and the acceptance of power devices, SoC, storage and other fields is relatively lowHowever, it is expected that the growth of SoCs and other products will be very fastThese market segments are also the main direction of domestic ATE manufacturers in the next few years.
In fact, in recent years, with the strong market demand and domestic substitution demand for equipment, the domestic ATE equipment market has also ushered in a period of vigorous development. According to incomplete statistics from Jiwei Network, there are nearly 20 domestic ATE equipment manufacturers, including Huafeng Measurement and Control, Changchuan Technology, Linkage Technology, Huaxing Yuanchuang, Yawei Co., Ltd. (participated in the acquisition of GSI Company, a South Korean memory chip testing machine manufacturer), Jingce Electronics (Wuhan Jinghong, Wintest), Shanghai Yudu (jointly invested and established by Advantest and Nantong Huada), Hongtai Technology, Yuexin Technology, Paige Measurement and Control, Xinye Measurement and Control, Hongbang Electronics, Shengyuan Chip, Luanqi Technology, Moore Elite (acquisition of Texas Instruments ATE chip test equipment team), Acceleration Technology, Guanzhong Jichuang, Pengwu Electronics, etc., have been listed Huafeng Measurement and Control, Changchuan Technology, Huaxing Yuanchuang, Jingce Electronics, Linkage Technology, etc., as well as Hongtai Technology has also opened the IPO counseling record.
The emergence of a large number of testing machine manufacturers has accelerated the process of equipment localization and made the original testing machine manufacturers feel the pressure. According to a test equipment manufacturer, "the company in the field of testing is not simply to provide the testing machine itself, but also includes supporting automated test units, in the mechanical part, the gap between the testing machine in Chinese mainland and the international head manufacturer has become smaller and smaller." ”
With the continuous progress of local semiconductor test equipment manufacturers' technology and products, the market share has gradually increased, and the market share of Huafon Measurement and Control and Changchuan Technology has entered the top six in the global market share, and they are expected to usher in a period of rapid development. The analysis points out that, firstly, the international ATE manufacturers are facing a cycle inflection point, and their R&D investment has shrunk; Second, domestic wafer factories and packaging and testing plants are developing rapidly, and the transfer of production capacity from Taiwan and other overseas regions to Chinese mainland has brought opportunities for domestic equipment manufacturers to rise; Finally, the downstream industry has entered the "post-mobile phone era", applications such as IoT and autonomous driving have become fragmented, the degree of test standardization has become lower, and domestic equipment with closer services, application-centric, and cost optimization is expected to be more favored.
Domestic testing equipment is growing rapidly, and more opportunities and challenges are coming
However, the iron still needs to be hard, and in the face of a clearly visible market prospect, the challenges to be overcome are also increasing.
First, since the second half of 2022, affected by cyclical fluctuations in the industry, test equipment has also entered a depression from a boom, and SEMI data shows that the sales of test equipment in 2023 are estimated to be 15A 9% decrease to $6.3 billion. The performance of major international giants and domestic enterprises has declined, and because the three domestic test equipment manufacturers are mainly concentrated in the field of analog and digital-analog hybrid and power semiconductor testing, the product structure is single, and it is difficult to enjoy the industry dividends brought by AI, and the decline in performance is far greater than that of overseas enterprises.
The good news is that Yole data shows that the test equipment market bottomed out in the second quarter of last year and has since ushered in**, with high-single-digit growth expected in 2024 and 2025. But even if the industry recovers, the need for test equipment will be delayed for some time.
Second, foreign manufacturers such as Teradyne, Advantest, and Kexiu still monopolize most of the market, especially in the fields of digital and SoC chips and memory chips with high testing difficulties. Even if the domestic ATE manufacturers are the first echelon, they are basically at the same level in terms of product technical indicators, and it is difficult to distinguish between them, and if you want to build a competitive domestic test platform that can really shake the foreign high-end SoC test platform, there is still a lot of work to be done in software and hardware development.
*: Teradyne's financial report.
Third, in addition to advanced manufacturing processes, the rise of third-generation semiconductor devices, chiplets, and advanced packaging has put forward more needs and challenges for test equipment, especially chiplet or 3D advanced packaging technology is facing multiple challenges in design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, one of which is the challenge of quality cost, especially when considering more complex test processes such as KGD (known good die) testing, final testing, and system-level testing. In an era where advanced packaging technology is the main theme, simply reducing defect escape rates is not the only way to optimize economic benefits. In the manufacturing process, the gap between design and test needs to be bridged, so that products can work seamlessly together from design to manufacturing, packaging and test engineering, so as to accelerate product development and mass production. In addition, the era of intelligent networked vehicles has also put forward higher output and higher quality testing requirements for on-board chips, which is an opportunity and a huge challenge for the industry.
Fourth, artificial intelligence and machine learning bring new opportunities and challenges to semiconductor testing. As chips continue to move toward advanced process node technologies and expand in design scale, the test space is experiencing unprecedented complexity and challenges. The use of advanced technology equipment has led to a sharp increase in the cost of ATE equipment, mainly due to the demand for high-performance test hardware for high pin counts, fast interfaces, and deep-mode memory. In addition, as the capabilities of chips continue to expand, there is also a need for more logic to be tested, which in turn requires more modes and tester memory, resulting in a continuous increase in test costs. In the face of complex semiconductor testing challenges, AI and machine learning have shown more and more value, and manufacturers such as Teradyne have begun to study their applications.
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