Chapter 180 [The difficulty of semiconductors is not only a lithography machine]

At present, in the global competition pattern of EDA software, the first echelon of the head has formed a three-legged pattern of Synopsys, Jiangteng Electronics, and Siemens.

After more than 20 years of development, these manufacturers have achieved full coverage of chip design and manufacturing, and in some subdivided fields, each of these three manufacturers has its own advantages, or unique skills.

In the EDA software industry, if you want to occupy this industry and become a leading enterprise in the industry, you need not only a breakthrough in a single technical point, but also the coverage of the entire process.

EDA software can be divided into analog circuits, digital circuits, and applications on wafer packaging and testing and the entire system.

What is certain at present is that the domestic investment in EDA software can almost be described as "neglected". The annual research and development scale invested may not even reach 100 million nationwide.

It means that no one pays attention to what people say.

Fang Hong opened the computer search engine and searched. At present, there are only a few domestic companies involved in the EDA software business.

After searching for a long time, Fang Hong found only a few companies.

Core Vision, established in 2002, focuses on IC analysis and design, with a small amount of EDA business; Guangliwei, established in 2003, is a provider of EDA software and wafer-level electrical testing equipment; in 2004, Silicon Core is engaged in digital circuit chips Prototype verification; Established in 2006, Lichuang Software is a PCB design software.

There is also Huada Jiutian, which was established in June this year. The company produces analog circuits, flat panel display circuits, full-process EDA, digital circuit EDA, and wafer manufacturing EDA tools.

At present, there are only a few manufacturers related to EDA in China. Among them, Huada Jiutian has not been seen yet, and it will take a month to see the establishment of the company.

It is worth mentioning that Fang Hong is so keen on the semiconductor industry. In addition to the future prospects of this industry, there is another more important factor. This kind of high-end manufacturing industry, one is the indispensable cutting-edge technology, and the other is the physical industry. bring about huge employment.

To put it bluntly, industrial capital is related to the jobs of countless people and the stability of the economy, especially high-end industries. At that time, not anyone who wants to use Qunxing Capital will be able to move it. Like a fat sheep or a toothless tiger.

After Fang Hong finished the documentation of the EDA software, he created a new subcategory and began to edit it—semiconductor equipment.

If the core of semiconductor materials is purity, then the core of semiconductor equipment lies in its precision and yield.

The yield defect of equipment will produce huge accumulation and amplification in hundreds of thousands of production process steps. When the single-step yield rate is 90%, the final yield rate is 0%; when the single-step yield rate is 99%, the final yield rate is 0.7%; single-step yield 99.9%, final yield 60.6%; single-step yield 99.99%, final yield 95.1%, single-step yield 99.999%, final yield 99.5%.

It can be seen that only when the single-step yield rate reaches 5 n, the final yield rate can reach the level of 99.5%, which is also the difficulty of semiconductor equipment.

In the manufacturing process of semiconductor equipment, it can be divided into front-end wafer equipment manufacturing, packaging equipment and testing equipment.

One of the most critical is the front process equipment.

This is also the highest proportion of capital expenditure. After removing the delivery room and acceptance, the investment in front-end process equipment accounts for about 70% to 80% of the total. If the process precision is higher, this proportion will be even higher. For example, when When it reaches within 16 nanometers, it will reach 85%, and it will be higher if it is below 7 nanometers.

The process flow of the front-end equipment is further divided into: oxidation diffusion, photolithography, etching, ion implantation, thin film deposition, polishing, wafer inspection and other links.

In the current competitive landscape of global semiconductor equipment, leading companies in all major links are monopolized by foreign oligopoly companies, and domestic companies basically cannot reach the shadow of the first echelon. This is a very real problem.

There are three major barriers to semiconductor equipment.

The first is the barriers at the technical level. The first is that semiconductor equipment is a complex system composed of thousands of parts, and these parts are organically combined to achieve the desired precision at the nanometer level. .

The second barrier is to ensure the ultra-high yield rate on the basis of these nanoscale operations. You must know that even if the yield rate is 90%, the yield rate of the final product is zero.

The third barrier is to ensure the continuous and stable production of the equipment on the basis of ensuring the accuracy and yield of the equipment, which has also led to the natural formation of an oligopoly in the industry.

From the perspective of customer verification, because of the complexity of the semiconductor equipment itself and the production line, the yield and stability of a single device will have a cumulative effect on the entire system, resulting in potentially huge losses. The reason why wafer fabs have extremely strict requirements for upstream equipment verification and acceptance.

Once the requirements of the manufacturer are met, it is difficult to replace the equipment of other manufacturers. The reason is that changing the equipment manufacturer will face huge risks and time costs for acceptance. This has resulted in a global oligopoly of semiconductor equipment. There is a high probability that companies will continue to cooperate after reaching a cooperation, and they will not easily change partners unless it is absolutely necessary.

In the semiconductor front-end process manufacturing equipment, Fang Hong is also very clear about the proportion of major equipment in the total capital expenditure. After all, he has been deeply involved in this industry in his previous life.

Etching equipment accounted for 22%, thin film deposition equipment accounted for 22%, and photolithography machines accounted for 20%.

These three semiconductor equipment accounted for more than 60% of the total investment.

Then there are testing equipment accounting for 11%, cleaning equipment accounting for 5%, coating and developing equipment accounting for 4%, polishing equipment accounting for 3%, heat treatment equipment accounting for 2%, ion implanter accounting for 2%, degumming equipment accounting for 1%, and others Equipment combined accounted for the remaining 8%.

Among the many semiconductor equipment, Fanghong mainly values ​​ten key equipment, namely: lithography equipment, etching equipment, thin film deposition equipment, testing equipment, cleaning equipment, coating and developing equipment, polishing equipment, heat treatment equipment, Ion implanter equipment, glue removal equipment.

Qunxing Capital must overcome these ten major devices, and must control them to achieve complete autonomy.

When the chip was stuck in the neck by foreigners and caused public opinion and heated discussions to attract the attention of the public, the general public outside the industry almost focused on the lithography body, thinking that as long as the lithography machine technology is overcome, the semiconductor This mountain can be climbed over.

In fact, in order to achieve true domestic autonomy without being stuck, the difficulty of semiconductors is not limited to a lithography machine?

From materials to equipment, if any link is stuck, it will not work, and the final chip will not be produced. This is the particularity and harshness of the semiconductor industry.

It is necessary to fully integrate materials and equipment in order to achieve autonomy in a true sense without being stuck, especially in the future global competition. In the context of technological warfare, opponents will use all means to suppress and block.

Fang Hong finished editing the material documents of the top ten semiconductor equipment, and the core framework of the entire semiconductor investment has been set up, and the corresponding capital expenditures are also clearly listed in the files.

Regardless of whether it is semiconductor materials, EDA software, or these semiconductor devices mentioned in the document, Qunxing Capital must be deeply involved in it. Only in this way can we truly achieve autonomy and not be stuck by others.

Where does the money come from?

Of course, it is harvested from capital markets such as the stock market, mainly to harvest profits from peripheral markets to nourish the development of the semiconductor industry.

Where do talents come from?

Compared with capital, talent is the most critical, but it is not unsolvable for Fang Hong. On the one hand, it is natural to recruit existing semiconductor talents on a large scale, and another big killer is Fang Hong using his own reputation system The prop card creates cutting-edge talents to overcome this series of technical barriers.

...