Communication revelation

Recently, the Netherlands banned the sale of some high-end DUV lithography machines to China, causing an uproar. However, it is not all pessimistic news in China's semiconductor industry, as is the case with China's domestic silicon wafers.

First of all, according to statistics, South Korea imported 74.882 million US dollars worth of silicon wafers from China in January this year, which means that China has changed from importing a large number of silicon wafers to exporting silicon wafers.

Second, how important is silicon wafer?

Wafer refers to the silicon wafer used to make silicon semiconductor circuit, and its original material is silicon. The original raw material of the silicon wafer is sand, which is directly melted and then purified into silicon ingot products, and the purity of the whole silicon ingot product is an astonishing 99.999999999%.

High-purity polysilicon is dissolved and mixed with silicon crystal seed, and then slowly pulled out to form cylindrical monocrystalline silicon. After grinding, polishing and slicing, the silicon wafer is formed, that is, the wafer. Domestic wafer production lines are mainly 8 inches and 12 inches.

In other words, the production of a chip must first have a wafer, and then cut the wafer.

In other words, the production of a chip must first have a wafer, and then cut the wafer.

Previously, China could only produce 6-inch and 8-inch wafers, while 12-inch wafers were basically blank. However, data show that China plans to add 25 12-inch fabs by 2026.

In terms of 6-inch wafers, China has more than 500 manufacturers, with at least 60% + of the world's production capacity.

Previously, the top five semiconductor wafer manufacturers in the world were Shinyue Chemical and Shenggao of Japan, Taiwan Global Wafer of China, Siltronic of Germany and SK Siltron of South Korea, accounting for more than 85% of the global semiconductor silicon wafer market.

But Chinese mainland fabs now account for 15.3 per cent of global capacity and are about to overtake Japan, which ranks third with a market share of 15.8 per cent.

All these show that China's wafer production capacity will be completely independent and will no longer be stuck.