The way in which the United States sanctioned a Chinese company - the "Chip War" between China and the United States, which had long been plunged into deep waters, suddenly started on the water.
On the 16th, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that it would prohibit U.S. companies from selling components to ZTE, possibly for as long as seven years.
How serious is this incident? One type of consensus from the industry is that under the reality that important components are heavily dependent on imports and that the pain of no “core†can not be resolved for a long time, the US’s ban on ZTE’s ban is almost “sword-blockingâ€.
On the 17th, ZTE Corporation announced the suspension of both A+H shares. On the evening of the 18th, ZTE announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that due to the need to evaluate the impact of the US Department of Commerce’s Industry and Security Bureau’s activation refusal order on the company, it will postpone the disclosure of 2018. In the first quarter of the year, stocks continued to be suspended.
In response to this, the spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce should issue a statement to express that the Ministry of Commerce will pay close attention to the progress of the situation and stand ready to take necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.
At this point, trade frictions between China and the United States have been upgraded to high-tech fields and all parties have entered an "emergency alert" state. At the same time, a discussion on the "life and death" of the Chinese chip industry is underway.
Intel: We must implement
On April 18, Qualcomm, a monopoly of the core chip technology, told the Beijing News reporter that it would not respond to this matter temporarily.
At the same time, Qualcomm is also applying to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce for approval of its $44 billion acquisition of NXPS semiconductors. However, the Ministry of Commerce has not yet done so. On Saturday, foreign media reported that with the escalation of trade frictions between China and the US, China is slowing its review of Qualcomm’s acquisition of NXP Semiconductors.
Industry sources said that the delay in the review may have caused Qualcomm to abandon its $44 billion acquisition of NXP Semiconductors. The outside world generally believes that this transaction is crucial to the future of Qualcomm.
In addition to Qualcomm, Intel, another chip giant, responded.
Intel China responded by saying that it is now the quiet period before the publication of the financial report. We already know the order of the US Department of Commerce and will abide by the requirements of relevant laws and regulations.
Yang Xu, Intel’s vice president and president of China, told reporters, “We are headquartered in the United States and we must implement it. We continue to pay attention to this matter.â€
According to foreign media reports, on April 18, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has already voted and passed a proposal. Although this proposal does not directly mention the name of the Chinese manufacturer, it will stop the purchase of any possibility. Federal subsidy funds are provided to telecommunications operators that pose a security threat to US national security equipment and network equipment.
Australian government agencies have decided to phase out Huawei's and ZTE's mobile phones in China. They will no longer use any of Huawei's and ZTE's products. Previous purchases, although still in use, will be cancelled later. Manufacturer's products replace them.
The outside world is generally concerned about how much reliance ZTE has on upstream U.S. companies. If this ban is fully implemented, it will have much impact on ZTE.
The "core disease" in China behind the ZTE crisis
One of the industry's classification methods is to divide the chip into mature and reliable base station chips and general consumer chips. The former is used by information and communication technology service providers such as ZTE, and the latter is mainly used in digital products such as mobile phones.
"(The two) can not be the same day, (base station chip) requires at least two years from the start of trial to mass use, the main players TI, ADI, IDT and other manufacturers" can be seen from the announcement released by China Merchants Electronics, High-end chips are basically monopolized by foreign manufacturers, which is also the crux of the Chinese chip manufacturing industry.
According to third-party reports, the core players in this market are all Qualcomm, and Qualcomm maintains its leading position in terms of share.
Gu Wenjun, chief analyst of the core consulting firm, once wrote that the seemingly huge Chinese electronics industry is actually at the bottom of the industrial chain. Even though ZTE has more patents, most of the major chips and components are from American manufacturers.
The data shows that ZTE purchased more than 10 billion yuan from its suppliers last year. ZTE Corporation's 2017 financial report shows that the purchase amount from ZTE to the largest supplier is 3.169 billion yuan, accounting for 5.46% of the Group's total annual purchase, and the total purchase amount of the top five suppliers is 106.12 yuan. It accounted for 18.28% of the Group's total annual purchases. However, ZTE did not disclose the supplier's name.
CICC analysts believe that in the core components of communication equipment, parts of the base stations are 100% from US companies, and ZTE has 1-2 months of stocking. Failure to reach a settlement within this time will affect ZTE's equipment. produce. This will have an impact on the telecommunications industry, especially the construction of China's operator networks, affecting future 5G construction.
Only chips have insufficient self-sufficiency in the three major application areas. In the three major application areas of ZTE, the block with the highest chip threshold is the RRU base station. It takes a long time to realize domestic substitution in this area.
Gu Wenjun said in the article that ZTE has as many as dozens of American chip suppliers in the area of ​​chips (not including a large number of components). Even more deadly, almost all segments in ZTE's almost all product areas. All links have American chips and few domestic chips.
Some industry analysts believe that ZTE is hard to find alternatives in a short period of time. Yang Jiang, analyst at StrategyAnalytics, believes that it is very difficult for Chinese manufacturers to skip Qualcomm in the short term and Qualcomm controls the terminal chips.
After ZTE was "locked throat"
Who will be the next one?
According to Gu Wenjun, chief analyst of the core consulting firm, this incident is a case under a special background. At this stage, both China and the United States are looking for a bargaining chip, any possibility will occur, and ZTE may be caught. The plea agreement should be complied with. This matter may eventually be resolved through negotiations and will not be expanded for the time being.
According to relevant media reports, Huawei has been repeatedly hit by walls since it entered the US market. Technology and asset acquisitions were rejected, (3com in 2008, 3Leaf and 2Wire in 2010, and Motorola's network division in 2011). The $6 billion Sprint operator orders received in 2010 were forced to cancel, not long ago with the operator AT&T. The sales contract for smartphones fell, and sales cooperation with retailer Best Buy was halted in advance.
A few days ago, Huawei Vice Chairman Xu Zhijun told the media that "some things have been laid down but it is easy", "The problem between China and the United States is not something I can say clearly and can be solved."
Jiang Jun, chief engineer of the Consultation and Planning Institute, believes that there may be 5G reasons behind the sanctions. Judging from the global deployment, China is more high-profile on 5G. European and American countries are more cautious and operators have their own plans. However, if we consider from the point of view of confrontation, there may be such a reason that China’s advancement will inevitably cause the United States to worry.
“While enterprises such as Huawei and ZTE are involved in the verification standard setting, the right to speak will be greater, but the specific standards to the stage of industrialization must certainly take into account many aspects such as product design, patents, and programs. Chips as the most upstream, from the current Understanding the situation, the main provider of chips or Qualcomm, if this time is restricted, unfavorable to Chinese manufacturers." Jiang Jun said.
Domestic "core" companies have a daily limit
There are several stars in combat effectiveness?
Or affected by the news that the US “blocked†ZTE, on April 18th, domestic chips appeared to stop at a rising tide. Infineon Micro, Wenyi Technology, Tianzhu Stock, Shenzhen Science and Technology, Ziguang Guoxin, Datang Telecom, Bingchuang Technology, and North China Chuang et al.
Sinopharm Securities believes that behind the trade friction between China and the US is the dispute between science and technology and strategic dominance. The ZTE event is not an independent event. The main goal of the United States is to attack China's expansion in the high-end manufacturing field. It is not excluded that other technology companies are subject to similar restrictions. Possible.
“In the long run, this will prompt China to accelerate breakthroughs in cutting-edge technology research and development and weak links. In the communications industry, 5G technology and high-speed optoelectronic chips, communications chips and other fields will accelerate the occupation of technological highlands and achieve localization substitution.â€
The development of the Chinese chip industry benefits from the government’s emphasis on information security. In the early days, high-end general-purpose chips were used as one of the "nuclear high bases" specialties, as well as major policies such as the National 863 Plan, and a large amount of government funds poured into the semiconductor industry. Loongson, Feiteng, Shenwei and other domestic companies have established projects. Entering the era of smart phones, Chinese companies based on Huawei and Violet have increased their input. Challenges from Qualcomm and Intel have been heard.
These companies have more or less tried on independent research and development, but research and development are progressing slowly. Under the support of funds from 863, 973, Natural Science Foundation, Knowledge Innovation Projects, and major special projects of the nuclear capital, the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences began to develop the Godson CPU in 2001. Until 2010, the company was transformed and established. The samples of the CPU developed by this calculation were completed. Usually, the development cycle of a chip is three years, and it takes only one to two years for Huawei Hass and Spreadtrum to purchase an ARM IP license.
Through the authorization of architecture, rapid design and R&D is a common mode in the semiconductor industry. Qualcomm and MediaTek benefit from this. In 2013, Huawei also obtained ARM architecture authorization, which means that Huawei can modify the original ARM design architecture and expand and reduce the instruction set.
Since then, Huawei has successively introduced 910 to 960 generations of products from Kirin, and incorporated its own technological innovation in the processor architecture. Although there is still controversy in the industry as to whether the self-developed architecture should be controversial, there is no breakthrough in the commercialization of a system chip that was used 10 years ago.
What is even more crucial is that Chinese manufacturers have been absent for a long time in key core areas. On the one hand, Chinese manufacturers stick to their markets and have no intention to break through.
A Spreadtrum staff member told the reporter that his products started from the baseband and have not touched Qualcomm's core patents, so he has not been able to support the CDMA standard for a long time, and the base station chips associated with communications are not touching. Another general-purpose chip manufacturer market staff said that the semiconductor subdivision is too fine, and has chosen the area covered by its own ability radius, and does not want to squeeze the market with other manufacturers.
At the same time, the scarcity of talents in the semiconductor industry in China, as well as disputes over the complete autonomy and “taking on the doctrine†have affected the progress of industrial development. According to Gartner analyst Sheng Linghai, research and development that has been invested for several decades have no results. It is not so simple to break through in a short time. ?
These reasons have caused China's semiconductor industry to remain in a “big but not strong†state. China's semiconductor industry is more concentrated in the back-end processes, and it will be rewarded by saving money, but it will be based on the upstream raw materials, semiconductor equipment, and core components. Many core chip technologies such as RF, FPGA, high-speed digital-to-analog conversion, and storage are still in the hands of foreign manufacturers. The industrial demand basically comes from imports.
According to data from the General Administration of Customs, the import volume of ICs has exceeded US$200 billion in recent years, and has even exceeded oil imports for a long time. In 2017, this amount reached US$260.1 billion, and the import and export trade deficit reached the highest value of US$193.26 billion.
Because of the high dependence on the outside world, the US's "lock throat" for ZTE has caused the entire Chinese semiconductor industry to feel a crisis.
Because China's industry is inherently short-circuited, the possibility of future chip wars between the two countries is not optimistic about the outside world, but Yang Guang said that the crisis will certainly stimulate the development of independent chip industry, but he wants to rely on domestic chips to help ZTE to survive the crisis. Hydrolysis is not nearly thirsty, and the chip industry is a long-term process that requires continuous investment and some necessary tuition fees are probably not passable. In the foreseeable future years, such as the beginning of 5G, I am afraid we still have to depend on the international market for supply.
However, Zou Ning, director of Intel’s communications technology policy and standards in China, told reporters that 5G is a leap forward to the previous generation of communication technology. From people-to-person communication to the introduction of people and things, there will be plenty of room for innovation. Future patent standards will It will not focus on the hands of a few manufacturers in the 3rd and 4th generations. This is undoubtedly a good news.
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