Opinions from People’s Daily:“Chip Shortage" Push Chip Self-Supply Optimizing

By Yu Jianbin 08:17April 2, 2021, | Source：People’s Daily-Opinions                             

Recently, some auto makers face a short-term disruption to production due to the global chip shortage, including smart phone industry, which is also affected by the lack of chip production. The “chip shortage”once again made people realize the critical role of chips and have a stronger sense of urgency to enhance the chip productivity.

With the beginning of the intelligent era, the small chip has become increasingly important, and its role as "industrial food" and "oil in the digital era" is becoming more outstanding. In particular, especially on the background of accelerating 5G and industrial Internet and other emerging infrastructure, and promoting the digital transformation of existing infrastructure, chips have become an indispensable cornerstone for the development of 5G, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, auto-driving, industrial Internet.

As we all know, in China chip is a typical "bottleneck of core technologies and industries”, especially for the integrated circuit industry, the short of chip core technology has been a "core disease", which lasts for a long time. Nowadays, a large number of chips depend on imports. For the recent industrial chain, apart from chip design ability, there is still a big gap in equipment production , chip raw materials and software design, especially in the field of top-quality chips,  Domestic enterprises is still weak-competitive.

On the other hand, challenges are also opportunities. For the development trend, China's integrated circuit industry during the 13th Five-Year Plan delivered bountiful outcomes generally, and the industrial scale keeps growing. According to the calculation of China's semiconductor industry, China's integrated circuit sales revenue will reach 884.8 billion yuan in 2020, with an average growth rate of 20%. Technological innovation achieve breakthroughs, manufacturing technology, packaging technology, core equipment materials keep fast-growing, design, manufacturing, sealing and testing and other industrial chain also emerged a number of new leading enterprises. In addition, the development of the chip industry is driven by demand and application, and the rapid development of the digital economy has provided a very broad market for the development of the chip industry, which has also attracted many domestic enterprises to focus on independent research and development of chips, in an attempt to fundamentally solve the "lack of chip" dilemma.

The development of high-quality chip is key point for future development. To build a strong chip independent supply chain can not be achieved overnight, but based on science and technology independently. Not only laying a solid  foundation but also to enforce industry chain. Chip involves many basic subjects, from material, process, equipment, to software and other development tools, only through strong base can the chip industry keep innovative. As the principal of Science and Technology Department emphasized, it is necessary to focus on top-developed chips, integrated circuits, software, core technology and leading basic research of new-generation semiconductor., as well as improve integrated circuit innovation environment, platform construction and talent cultivation.

At the same time, we need to enhance the R&D and manufacturing capabilities of small- and medium-sized enterprises. upgrade the industrial base and modernize the industrial chain by strengthening and supplementing industry chains, so as to ensure that no chain is "lost".

It should be pointed out that the integrated circuit and semiconductor industries marks the highest degree of globalization of the industrial chain, the chip manufacturing process is increasingly complex, and also highly dependent on the global supply chain.To achieve  the chip industry more healthy and sustainable development, we need to strengthen global cooperation and jointly build the chip industry chain.To this end, while strengthening the ability of independent research and development, we should also push international cooperation with enterprises, universities, research institutions and other innovation subjects actively , to improve the scientific and technological innovation ability in the field of integrated circuits.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Source : People’s Daily

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Translator : Emmy