Semiconductor industry chain and industry market status analysis

1. Overview of semiconductor industry chain

As the basis and driving force for the rapid development of modern information technology industry, the semiconductor industry has become a basic, strategic and leading industry for social development and the national economy, and is highly permeated and integrated into various fields of economic and social development. At present, the level and scale of semiconductor related technology has become one of the important symbols to measure the national industrial competitiveness and comprehensive national strength.

The basic situation of the upper, middle and lower reaches of the semiconductor industry chain is as follows:

(1) The upstream of the semiconductor industry chain mainly includes semiconductor materials and semiconductor equipment. Among them, semiconductor materials mainly include substrate materials (such as silicon), process materials (such as photomask, photoresist, target, etc.) and packaging materials, semiconductor equipment mainly includes etching machine, lithography machine, film deposition equipment, welding machine, testing machine, cleaning equipment, etc.

(2) The middle reaches of the semiconductor industry chain include design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, which can be divided into four branches according to product functions: integrated circuits, discrete devices, optoelectronic devices and sensors.

Integrated circuit refers to a circuit system on a semiconductor substrate, which uses oxidation, etching, diffusion and other methods to interconnect and integrate active devices such as transistors and diodes and passive components such as resistors and capacitors on a semiconductor chip according to a certain circuit and is packaged in a shell to complete a specific logic function and achieve pre-set circuit functional requirements. Generally divided into analog integrated circuit, digital integrated circuit.

Discrete device refers to a single function of the semiconductor component, with a single electronic characteristic function and can not be split, mainly used for power electronic equipment power conversion and control of high-power electronic devices, is the core device for electrical energy (power) processing, weak current control and strong current operation between the bridge, with the ability to deal with high voltage, high current. Power devices are an important part of discrete devices, which can be further subdivided into MOSFETs, IGBTs, diodes, thyristors, etc.

Optoelectronic devices refer to functional devices made of light-electron (or electric-photon) conversion effects, and the main categories include light-emitting diodes (leds), laser diodes (LD), photodetectors and photoreceivers.

The sensor is a detection device that can feel the measured information, and can transform the felt information into an electrical signal or other required form of information output according to a certain law to meet the requirements of information transmission, processing, storage, display, recording and control.

Integrated circuits, discrete devices, optoelectronic devices and sensors have completely different functional characteristics and application conditions, and together form the basis of the semiconductor industry.

(3) The downstream applications of the semiconductor industry chain are quite extensive, including consumer electronics, automotive electronics, industrial control, network communications, household appliances, lighting, medical, military and other fields.

2. Basic situation of semiconductor industry

(1) Global semiconductor industry overview

The semiconductor industry is the pillar industry of global economic growth. In recent years, with the pace of global scientific and technological progress, the scale of the semiconductor industry around the world has basically maintained a continuous expansion trend. Driven by the demand for smartphones, data centers, automotive electronics, flat panels, TVS and other factors, the sales scale of the global semiconductor industry increased from $291.56 billion in 2012 to $574.08 billion in 2022, with a compound annual growth rate of 7.01%, and the overall trend of fluctuation is rising.

Following the significant year-on-year growth of 26.23% in the global semiconductor industry sales in 2021, the global scale further increased by 3.27% in 2022. According to the WSTS 2023 forecast, the global semiconductor market sales will decline in 2023, but will resume growth to a record high of $576.0.0 billion in 2024.

From the perspective of regional distribution, China has become the world's largest semiconductor consumer market for many consecutive years, and the Chinese market will account for 34.4% in 2020. North America, Europe, Japan and other markets accounted for 21.7%, 8.5%, 8.3% and 27.1%, respectively (source: WSTS collation). In 2021, the market size of China increased by 27.1% year-on-year, the market size of North America increased by 27.4% year-on-year, the market size of Europe increased by 27.3% year-on-year, the market size of Japan increased by 19.8% year-on-year, and the market size of other markets such as the Asia-Pacific region increased by 25.9% year-on-year.

In the future, with the development of emerging fields such as new energy, automotive electronics, servers, industrial control, and the Internet of Things, the global semiconductor industry is expected to maintain steady and good growth.

(2) Overview of China's semiconductor industry

In recent years, with the continuous development of the domestic economy and the strong support of the semiconductor industry at the national strategic level, China's semiconductor industry has achieved rapid development and continuous breakthroughs in scale and technology.

From the perspective of supply, China's local semiconductor manufacturing is still in the growth period. According to the statistics of China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA), the sales volume of China's semiconductor industry increased from 354.85 billion yuan in 2012 to 1456.37 billion yuan in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 16.99%.

From the perspective of demand, China's semiconductor market demand continued to expand, from 124.43 billion yuan in 2014 to 2321.98 billion yuan in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 9.83%. China has become the world's largest semiconductor consumer market for many years in a row, and the proportion of the global market still maintains an upward trend. Although in order to narrow the gap between supply and demand in the domestic semiconductor market, the state has introduced a series of industrial policies to encourage and support, there is still a large gap between the current domestic semiconductor market demand and supply.

It can be seen from the relevant data that the self-sufficiency rate of China's semiconductor industry is still low, and the import dependence is more significant.   According to the relevant statistics of the General Administration of Customs, the total import of semiconductor chips in China in 2021 and 2022 exceeded $400 billion for two consecutive years.

The full version of the feasibility study report is based on the relevant laws, regulations and standards of national departments and local governments, in line with the principles of objective, realistic, scientific and fair, and on the basis of available information and data. This paper mainly studies and demonstrates the project construction background, demand analysis and necessity, feasibility, construction scale and content, construction conditions and schemes, project investment and capital sources, social benefits, economic benefits and environmental protection of project construction, etc., so as to determine the economic rationality and technical feasibility of the project. Provide reference for decision-making of project investment subjects and competent departments. This report is excerpted by Sihan.