Overcoming the influence of global epidemic situation and accelerating the development of smart chip industry in China

Chips, especially smart chips, are the core of supporting new economic development and new infrastructure investment. The global epidemic of COVID-19 epidemic is a great test of the completeness and competitiveness of the industrial chain of smart chips in various countries, and further highlights the importance of smart chips in the global economic development. China should further overcome the global epidemic, grasp the "window period" to further promote the development of smart chip industry, accelerate the layout of industrial chain, further build a relatively perfect smart chip industry system, and support the high-quality development of China's economy and society.

The COVID-19 epidemic has delayed the recovery of the global smart chip industry, and even led to further contraction of the industry. Affected by the slowdown in demand for solid-state storage, mobile phones, PCs and other terminals and global trade frictions, the global semiconductor market sales in 2019 was US$ 412.1 billion, down 12.1% year-on-year, and the growth reached a new low in 10 years. With the worldwide epidemic of COVID-19 epidemic, generally speaking, due to the epidemic, although the proportion of smart chip industry will increase in structure, the probability of overall scale decline is extremely high. IDC, an international research organization, predicts that the possibility of global semiconductor industry revenue shrinking sharply in 2020 is close to 80%.

The impact of the epidemic on the main links of the global smart chip industry chain shows high heterogeneity. The epidemic situation has greatly affected the normal international trade and resource circulation, and also caused a huge impact on the smart chip industry with a highly subdivided industrial chain.

(1) Upstream equipment manufacturing enterprises are dragged down by downstream demand, and the order quantity and operating income are affected. For example, the Dutch lithography equipment giant ASML lowered its revenue forecast for the first quarter of 2020, reduced its revenue forecast by about 1/4, and cancelled its stock repurchase plan of $20 billion. Material suppliers are greatly affected, especially American and Japanese enterprises in control position in this field, which should not only resolve the impact of the epidemic on transportation and demand, but also face the impact of Japan-South Korea trade friction and Sino-US trade friction. Some Japanese enterprises have relocated around the world to consolidate their position in the industrial chain.

(2) Chip design enterprises are less affected by the epidemic, and telecommuting after home isolation reduces the impact of the epidemic to some extent; Because the manufacturing enterprises need a clean environment, which is highly compatible with the living environment required by the epidemic, the industry production is relatively smooth. However, with the global epidemic, the isolation and flow restriction policies generally adopted by various countries affect the transportation of materials such as silicon wafers, photoresists, masks, electronic gases and wet chemicals, and the continuity of production of related enterprises will be greatly affected; Packaging and testing enterprises belong to industries with relatively high human investment in the smart chip industry chain, which will be more obviously affected by the epidemic situation and will have a systematic impact on the supply cycle of smart chips. Generally speaking, the design-manufacturing-sealing and testing chain is pulled by the front-end design enterprises, and the counter-cyclical investment of design enterprises is restricted by the financial ability of enterprises under the condition of insufficient short-term demand.

(3) The terminal consumer goods manufacturing enterprises are most directly affected, and the economic slowdown and personnel and traffic control have affected both demand and supply. For example, Apple and Samsung have delayed the release of new products.

The epidemic situation not only affects the global smart chip industry chain, but also further highlights the importance of the chip industry in economic and social development. China should make use of its leading time advantage in epidemic prevention and control, increase policy support, accelerate the layout of industrial chain and technological breakthroughs in key areas, achieve overtaking in corners of some industrial links, and enhance the degree of autonomy of industrial chain.

(Article source: China Social Science Network)