Not long ago, Huawei HiSilicon released the world's first 10-nanometer technology AI chip. At the same time, the domestic third-generation Beidou chip achieves sub-meter positioning accuracy and chip-level security encryption. Prior to this, the supercomputer "Shenwei·Taihuzhiguang" equipped with domestic chips won the world's three consecutive championships in the field of supercomputing. These latest innovations demonstrate the tremendous progress my country has made in recent years in the field of integrated circuits to catch up with the world's advanced level.

　　 The fatal weakness of "lack of core and less soul"

　　 A few years ago, the overall scale of my country's communication network, Internet, and electronic information manufacturing industry had been among the top in the world, but the contradiction between large but not strong industries was prominent. The biggest weakness was "lack of cores and less souls." The "core" refers to the integrated circuit. For many years in a row, my country's chip imports have surpassed oil, becoming the largest imported commodity, with a total annual expenditure of more than 200 billion U.S. dollars. According to the estimates of the National Manufacturing Power Construction Strategy Advisory Committee, China's integrated circuit market accounted for one-third of the world in 2015, but more than 95% of the product supply came from foreign-funded enterprises.

　　 The integrated circuit industry is a strategic, basic and leading industry, an important support for the development of the digital economy, and its core position in the field of information technology is very prominent. At present, countries in the world, especially developed countries, are vying to seize the strategic commanding heights of the integrated circuit industry. General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly pointed out: "The control of core technology by others is our biggest hidden danger. No matter how large an Internet company is and its market value is high, if its core components rely heavily on foreign countries, the'life gate' of the supply chain is in the hands of others. , It’s like building a house on someone else’s wall foundation. No matter how big and beautiful it is, it may not stand up to wind and rain, or even a blow.” “We must firmly hold the core technology and independent innovation of the'bull nose', and break through the network development. With cutting-edge technologies and key core technologies with international competitiveness, we will accelerate the promotion of domestically-made independent and controllable substitution plans, and build a safe and controllable information technology system."

In order to implement the spirit of the important instructions of the General Secretary and accelerate the revitalization of my country's integrated circuit industry, in June 2014, the State Council issued a new programmatic document "National Integrated Circuit Industry Development Promotion Outline", which proposed to realize my country's integrated circuit industry in a relatively short period of time. The strategic goal of the leapfrog development of the industry. Then the "Big Fund" jointly invested by 15 companies including CDB Finance, China Tobacco, and China Mobile was established to provide financial support for key projects in the chip industry chain, such as design, packaging and testing, and wafer manufacturing. The initial planned scale of the "big fund" is 120 billion yuan, and the actual raised funds are close to 140 billion yuan. At the same time, the total scale of integrated circuit development funds established by local governments at all levels exceeds 200 billion yuan. Statistics show that in the next 10 years, the total scale of my country's new investment in integrated circuits is expected to exceed 1,000 billion yuan.

　　Policy funds dually drive the industry to accelerate

　　 After the establishment of the "Big Fund", it has successively invested heavily in a number of leading companies in the domestic chip field, including Ziguang, SMIC, ZTE, and Changjiang Electronics Technology. As of the end of 2016, the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund has made 40 investments, and the committed investment has also reached nearly 70 billion yuan, of which about 60% of the funds are invested in the field of semiconductor manufacturing. Driven by both policies and funds, the development of my country's integrated circuit industry has accelerated significantly. According to statistics from the China Semiconductor Industry Association, the sales of China's integrated circuit industry reached 433.55 billion yuan in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 20.1%. Among them, the chip design industry at the high end of the industry chain continued to maintain rapid growth, with sales of 164.43 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.1%. Ziguang and HiSilicon are among the top ten chip design companies in the world, and among the top 50 chip design companies in the world, Chinese companies occupy 11 seats. Take Spreadtrum as an example. Its shipments of mobile phone sets exceeded 600 million pieces last year, accounting for 40% of the global total annual shipments of mobile phone chips; Huawei has also successfully used a large number of HiSilicon Kirin chips in high-end models. , No longer controlled by others.

　　 As the "seed players" in China's integrated circuit industry, Unisplendour's Spreadtrum and RDA have become the key support objects of the "big fund". Its parent company, Ziguang Group, received a total of 30 billion yuan from the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund and the China Development Bank in February 2015, and another 150 billion yuan in investment and financing support in March 2016, helping Ziguang make full use of capital leverage in recent years , The frequent attacks on asset mergers and acquisitions have aroused great attention from the global science and technology community. Tsinghua Unigroup stated two years ago that it would surpass MediaTek within five years and become the second-largest design company in the global IC industry and the number one shipment. It is reported that Spreadtrum has formed a team of hundreds of people to accelerate the development of 5G chips, and the chips will be launched in the second half of 2018 at the earliest, determined to achieve greater breakthroughs in the 5G era. Spreadtrum CEO Li Liyou revealed at the Global Partner Conference held in Shenzhen this year that Spreadtrum invested 40% of its operating income in research and development last year, and its technical capabilities have been improved by leaps and bounds.

　　 With the initial investment in place one after another, my country's integrated circuit industry is currently entering a golden period of development. In addition to the design field, the packaging and testing field is also advancing vigorously. Changjiang Electronics Technology Co., Ltd. acquired Singapore Xingke Jinpeng, the world's fourth packaging and testing company, for 780 million yuan, which also received strong support from the "big fund." After the acquisition, Changjiang Electronics Technology Co., Ltd. jumped to become the third-largest packaging and testing giant in the world in terms of overall revenue.

　　The same is true in the field of wafer manufacturing. In March 2016, a national memory base with a total investment of approximately 160 billion yuan participated by the "big fund" was launched in Wuhan, and the "Yangtze River Storage" group was formally established four months later. The main product of YMTC is currently the most popular 3D flash memory. It will take the chip manufacturing link as a breakthrough, integrating memory product design, technology research and development, wafer production and testing, and sales. It is expected to form a monthly production capacity of 300,000 pieces by 2020. The production scale will form a monthly production capacity of 1 million pieces by 2030.

"Since the establishment of the IC Fund in 2014, my country has spent huge sums of money to build a chip power. This road is getting smoother and the ideal is getting closer. We have reason to firmly believe that China's ambitions in the independent chip industry will eventually be realized. "The words of Ding Wenwu, president of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co., Ltd., showed the firm confidence of my country's chip industry.