In the past year, due to the shortage of automotive chips, car manufacturers have stopped production and business, and the price of chips has risen. At present, my country's automotive chips mainly rely on imports, while the epidemic continues to spread abroad, and the production of automotive fabs has been suspended. According to the current market situation, it is not feasible for domestic car manufacturers to fill the gap of car gauge chips through the international market. Since foreign production lines cannot meet market demand, only by accelerating the development of domestic substitution can the supply problem of the industrial chain be alleviated.

Due to the global shortage of cores and limited automobile production capacity, domestic companies with wafer production lines such as SMIC, China Resources Micro, Wingtech, and Hua Hong Group are also increasing production lines to meet market demand.

SMIC is the only company that ranks among the top five companies in the world's top ten wafer foundry revenue in Q2 this year. SMIC currently has 8 fabs, 4 12-inch production lines, 4 8-inch production lines, and 4 wafer production lines. The foundry business is distributed in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Zhejiang. Among them, the 8-inch wafer fab in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, with a total investment of 5.88 billion yuan, was officially put into production in January 2020. The production line is mainly used to produce wafers for automobiles and home appliances. The annual production capacity is 500,000 8-inch wafers, and 2 billion pieces of packaging have been completed. The specific products cover MEMS, IGBT, MOSFET, RF, etc.

In July, the media reported that SMIC's 8-inch wafer production line in Shaoxing had been debugged. By then, the 8-inch wafer production capacity would be increased by 70,000 wafers, and the wafer yield rate would increase to 99%. . At present, SMIC has maturely mastered the 14nm wafer manufacturing process, and most of the automotive chips on the market also use the 14nm or 28nm process. The market demand is not very tight.

As a leading company in the semiconductor industry that adopts the IDM production model, China Resources Micro has several 6-inch and 8-inch wafer production lines, of which the 6-inch wafer production line has an annual production capacity of 2.48 million wafers and an 8-inch wafer production capacity of 1.44 million wafers per year. China Resources Micro's 8-inch wafer manufacturing line in Chongqing is mainly used for the production of power devices and analog integrated circuits for automotive electronics, consumer electronics and other fields. The production line has an annual output of about 600,000 pieces.

Now, there is a serious shortage of automotive chips. On January 8 this year, China Resources Micro stated publicly that the company's future focus will be on the field of automotive electronics. Prior to this, China Resources Micro had invested 7.55 billion yuan to build a 12-inch power device wafer production line. In August this year, China Resources Microelectronics Holdings Co., Ltd. (China Resources Micro) added an additional 4.2 billion yuan to manufacture 12-inch power device chip production lines. According to the announcement issued by China Resources Micro, the product is expected to be mass-produced next year. Its production line process is 90nm process, and the monthly output of 12-inch wafers exceeds 30,000 pieces. It will be used in industrial control and automotive electronic wafer manufacturing in the future.

Wingtech Technology, a large domestic foundry company, has greatly increased its chip production capacity after acquiring Nexperia. As one of the three largest chip manufacturers in the semiconductor industry in the world, Nexperia has always occupied a leading position in the automotive electronics industry. Now it has been acquired by Wingtech Technology. It can be seen that it is very optimistic about the development of the automotive industry.

Wingtech mentioned in its reply to investors recently that Wingtech's gallium nitride and silicon-based gallium nitride power devices have passed vehicle-level certification and have achieved mass production. As for the automotive-grade wafer production line, Wingtech Technology has been planning a new automotive-grade production line since 2020, with a total investment of 12 billion yuan for 12-inch car-grade production capacity in Shanghai. It is expected to be 2022 -ic/" title= "2022 Model">2022-ic/" title="2022 Model">2022-ic/" title="2022 Model">2022-ic/" title="2022 Model">2022-ic/" title="2022 model">2022-ic/" title="2022 model">2022-ic/" title="2022 model">2022-ic/" title="2022 model">2022-ic/" title="2022 model" >2022-ic/" title="2022 model">2022-ic/" title="2022 model">2022-ic/" title="2022 model">2022-ic/" title="2022 model">2022 -ic/" title="2022 model">2022-ic/" title="2022 model">2022-ic/" title="2022 model">2022-ic/" title="2022 model">2022-ic /" title="2022 model">2022-ic/" title="2022 model"> put into production in 2022. According to Wingtech, the fab can complete functions such as chip design, wafer manufacturing, chip packaging and testing, etc. According to the plan, the Shanghai automotive-grade wafer production line has an annual production capacity of 400,000 12-inch automotive-grade wafers, with an annual output value of 3.3 billion yuan.

As a domestic foundry company, Hua Hong Group, like SMIC, has a pivotal position. Hua Hong Group currently has 6 wafer production lines, three 8-inch production lines, and three 12-inch production lines. Among them, Hua Hong Hongli (Huahong No. 1 Factory, Hua Hong No. 2 Factory, Hua Hong No. 3 Factory) three production lines and Hua Hong No. 3 Factory passed the IATF16949 automotive quality management system certification.

Hua Hong Grace’s three production lines are all 8-inch wafer production lines. Hua Hong’s first factory uses a 95nm process technology. In 2020, the company uses an 8-inch wafer production line with a 95nm process technology. ; The average monthly production capacity of the factory in 2020 is 60,000 pieces; Hua Hong’s third plant adopts 90nm process technology, the monthly production capacity of this production line in 2020 is 53,000 pieces, and the total monthly output of the three production lines is 178,000 pieces.

Hua Hong Wuxi production line is a production line capable of producing 12-inch wafers with 90-65/55nm process technology. The production line was originally planned to have a monthly production capacity of 40,000 wafers, but the production line was originally planned to have a monthly production capacity of only 40,000 wafers.

On this basis, Hua Hong Group's automotive wafer production will reach 8 inches and 12 inches, and the total production capacity of the four automotive production lines will reach 198,000 wafers. According to Hua Hong Group's 2020 annual report, the industrial and automotive industry revenue was US$204 million, accounting for 21.2% of total revenue, down 4.0% from the same period last year. This year's Q1 industrial and automotive industry achieved revenue of $60 million, an increase of 19.8% over the same period last year.

Epilogue

At present, the production capacity of domestic automotive-grade wafers cannot meet the market demand, and some production lines of automotive-grade wafers are also in the layout stage. According to the plan, mass production will be achieved in 2022, and there will be core shortage problems in the short term. The lack of this specification in the automotive industry has prompted domestic manufacturers to quickly deploy production lines and accelerated the development of domestic substitution.