Internet of Things Drives Continuous and Strong Growth in Global Semiconductor Industry

The global semiconductor industry has been slightly hiccuped since its growth of 32.5% in 2010. The more consistent view in the industry is that the semiconductor industry has matured and it is difficult to have more than double digit growth. However, according to data released by the WSTS, the global semiconductor industry grew by 9.9% to reach US$335.8 billion in 2014. It has set a record high for two consecutive years, which has caused the industry to fail. The largest increase in 2014 was in the Americas with an increase of 12.7%, followed by the Asia Pacific region with an increase of 11.4%, and the third was Europe, with an increase of 7.4%.

Memory is the vane of the semiconductor industry. From the SIA’s impressive 2014 sales figures, sales of memory products increased by 18.2% in 2014 to 79.2 billion U.S. dollars. The highest growth rate of these products was DRAM, which was a 34.7% increase over the previous year. In addition, power transistors increased by 16.1% to 11.9 billion U.S. dollars; discrete devices increased by 10.8% to 20.2 billion U.S. dollars; analog devices increased by 10.6% to 44.4 billion U.S. dollars.

How far can the law go?

The mainstream view is that when the industry presents a turning point, the cost of each transistor does not drop, but instead increases.

Intel's contribution to the industry consists of three main areas: First, SiGe technology for silicon at 90nm, Second, high-k metal gate (HKMG) technology at 45nm, and 3D finFET technology at 22nm.

It is well-known that the fundamental reason for pushing down the size is that when it comes to next-generation process nodes, their transistor manufacturing costs can continue to be reduced by nearly 50% (with almost constant power consumption). However, when the size was reduced to 28 nanometers, different voices appeared. The mainstream opinion in the industry believes that the industry has begun to show a turning point, and thus the cost of each transistor has not decreased but has increased. Due to differences in process processes and chip manufacturers, the view that the cost of transistors at 28 nm is rising is not consistent. For example, Intel believes that transistor costs can continue to decline.

But the question of how far the law can go is already on the agenda. Until now, due to the repeated delays of EUV lithography equipment, the industry has put its 193nm immersion lithography technology to the limit as much as possible. In the 20-nanometer process, traditional optical lithography has reached its limit and must be supplemented by two-graphics exposure technology, leading to a rapid increase in lithography manufacturing costs. Originally thought to be a 14nm process node, the optical method will shrink to the end, but the industry has passed without confidence. From today's point of view, there are no major obstacles for the industry to cross 10 nanometers. At most, it has increased to three or even four graphics exposures.

Intel's Yan Borodovsky put forward a report that the use of a pattern spacing separation technique (multiple-pattern exposure technology) may extend Moore's Law to 5 nanometers, and believes that Intel has been able to compensate for the increase in the cost of lithography in the reduction of the size of the graphics. In addition, at the 2015 SPIE Advanced Lithography Annual Conference, ASML stated that TSMC has exposed more than 1,000 silicon wafers on its NXE 3300B EUV lithography equipment on a single day. This indicates that the EUV lithography machine may soon enter mass production applications, that is, the light source power exceeds 90 watts to expose more than 1022 silicon wafers within 24 hours. Although EUV lithography technology continues to advance, there are still problems with light sources, photoresists, and masks.

Three giants upgrade process competition

Intel, Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. are in an evenly contested state in the process technology competition.

Looking at the top three giants in the world, Intel, Samsung and TSMC are showing signs of weakness in the shrinking competition. It should be acknowledged that Intel has temporarily taken the lead from the 22nm finFET, which is now the second generation of finFET technology at 14nm.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. took a unique and dangerous move, transitioning from a 20-nanometer process to a 16-nanometer process, and then stepping to 10 nanometers. The key now is whether its 16-nanometer finFET process cost has an advantage. According to industry sources, TSMC's Chinese wafer fabs will have 90,000 wafers at the end of 2018, using 10 nanometer nodes or more advanced process technology.

Samsung surprised the industry and unexpectedly advanced the 14nm finFET off. At this year's ISSCC conference, Samsung has already demonstrated its first 10-nm finFET process in the world. Samsung also introduced the 14nm Exynos7420 processor this year. Apple plans to use its own A10x processor on its Mac laptops. The A10x will use a 10-nm finFET process, which is expected to be in volume production in 2016. Samsung may receive 100% of orders.

The future 10-nm process will also be applied to DRAM and 3D V-NAND chips. Samsung will not give up any opportunity to become a storage overlord in the mobile space. Samsung stated that it may not be able to mass-produce a 10nm process temporarily before 2016 or 2017. In other words, the first smartphone with the Exynos 14nm chip, the Galaxy S6, will have an advantage in advanced technology for two years. For this reason, Samsung's investment of $13.6 billion in Line 17 will begin in June this year.

In addition, at the ISSCC conference this year, Samsung also revealed surprising news. It confirmed the start of the development of the 3.2nm FinFET process. The so-called EUV extreme-ultraviolet lithography technology, four-times-exposure technology, and exclusive channels were used to achieve a more subtle process. Samsung high-profile pointed out that it will continue to advance to the 5nm process process, because they think "no difficulties at all", but further refinement may soon be achieved.

In any case, Intel, Samsung, and TSMC have surpassed each other in the process competition. The current situation is evenly matched. They all claim to enter the 10-nanometer production process in 2017. For the 7-nanometer manufacturing process, the current specific process technology line is not yet a good answer for each company.

Future growth will continue strong

The main drivers of the future global semiconductor market will shift to the Internet of Things, mobile devices and wireless connectivity.

Although Moore's Law is approaching the limit, the major drivers of industrial growth in recent years, such as smart phones and tablet PCs, are still weak, but the growth trend of the global semiconductor industry continues to be strong. The major promoters of the future market will shift to IoT and mobile devices. And wireless connection.

From the perspective of investment, according to the latest forecast of VLSI, the global semiconductor fixed asset investment is expected to reach 73.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2015, an increase of 3.7% year-on-year. Moreover, the degree of concentration of investment increased again, and the proportion of the top seven was 71%, compared with only 56% in 2010. Research Institute IC Insights estimates that from 2009 to 2019, benefiting from the Internet of Things, mobile devices, and wireless devices sharing data, the global compound IC will grow at a CAGR of 4.1%. It is predicted that the global semiconductor market will grow in 2015. 3.4%.

"The digital revolution has only just begun. The next five years will be seven to eight times more than the past 40 years. What will happen to the great revolution in the next five years? One is cloud and big data. The storage of data, along with the data mining and understanding it brings, will bring a tremendous revolution. The second is the Internet of Things and the Internet of Things. In the next five years, PCs, mobile phones, tablets, wearables, and connected TVs and cars will add up to 40 billion devices.

The semiconductor godfather Zhang Zhongmou believes that if the semiconductor industry can grasp the following three key technologies, it will be able to grasp the Internet of Things market. The first is advanced system-level packaging technology. Because the Internet of Things emphasizes the lightness and the shortness more than the mobile phone, it is necessary to package the wafers with different processes and functions in a stack and reduce the size. Therefore, it is expected to benefit greatly from the packaging and testing companies that can provide complete system packaging and system module integration capabilities. Second, IoT products such as wearable devices require lower power consumption, power consumption must be 1/10 of the smart phone, and it is best to charge only once a week, so ultra-low power technology should be developed. Once again, with various situations such as health management, home care, security monitoring, and automotive networking, various sensors are commonly used to measure human body temperature, blood pressure, pulse, sense the ambient temperature and humidity or the safety distance between vehicles, and so on. Sensor-related technologies and process development.

In addition, in the Internet of Things industry chain, the most profitable is not necessarily a semiconductor company, but may be able to manage the entire ecosystem of companies, including Google, Amazon, Apple, Tencent, Alibaba, Huawei, Cisco, etc., or innovation Business model of industry man.