Hi, First post.
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"10 years behind China Semiconductor Technology, Samsung and TSMC"
The Financial Times of the U.K. reported on Tuesday (local time) that China's semiconductor technology will take another 10 years to catch up with global leaders such as Samsung Electronics and TSMC.
Although Huawei, a Chinese telecommunication equipment company, introduced its newly developed semiconductor business this month and started to display it as a "punctual development," FT pointed out that even this was designed in China and had to rely on Taiwanese companies for manufacturing.
Experts in the semiconductor sector say that despite the Chinese government's huge financial support, China's rise in electronic device hardware, and improved capabilities in semiconductor technology, China's semiconductor technology is far behind the world's top companies.
Experts point out that the development of the semiconductor industry is slow due to Chinese companies' failure to efficiently utilize government-funded funds, and that the boundary of Western countries is a barrier to China's overseas technology and manpower acquisition.
It is expected that the gap between China and the global leaders will widen as the semiconductor sector develops more advanced and R&D costs will increase.
TSMC, the world's largest foundry (a company specializing in production that specializes in manufacturing semiconductors), said it will invest 8 to 9 percent of its annual sales into R&D. Based on last year's calculation, it is worth $2.9 billion (about 3.2872 trillion KRW). On the other hand, SMIC, China's largest chipmaker, invested 16 percent of its sales in R&D last year, but the amount was only $550 million.
"It will be extremely difficult to produce semiconductors at the highest level," said Jim Fontanelli, senior analyst at Atletric. There is no shortcut. "In order to develop high-tech semiconductors, we need abundant R&D funds and basic real estate of excellent engineers." "There are both TSMCs and SMICs, but neither do they."
Due to difficulties in developing state-of-the-art technologies, Global Foundry of the U.S. and United Microelectronics, the world's second and third largest semiconductor foundries, are giving up on developing state-of-the-art semiconductors and focusing on reducing the size of semiconductors.
Experts say that although the U.S. is concerned about China's technology, China is far behind, and Samsung has already developed 14-nano-meter chips, which are being tested for mass-production this year with SMIC's state-of-the-art technology, in 2014.
China is also in a situation where it has to rely on overseas production facilities, which have already begun working with global leaders to prepare for next-generation semiconductors. In 2012, Samsung, TSMC, and Intel had already acquired shares of Dutch ASML in order to develop next-generation EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) that are necessary for producing 7-nano-meter semiconductors.
"There is no question that China will eventually become the best in the world," said Bain & Company partner of Belo. However, it is impossible within a year or two, and it will take five to 10 years."
We want to differentiate Huawei with state-of-the-art equipment. We still have to rely on Samsung or TSMC for semiconductor technology. |
