Chinese semiconductor industry

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FairAndUnbiased

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Is it true that China is import dependant for these goods? If so, does anyone here know whether it's because foreign players are more established/reliable or because of actual technology bottlenecks?
example of a seal: an o-ring. It's a ring made of synthetic fluorinated rubber. There's hundreds of companies of this sort. Most buy the raw polymer and mold them into an o-ring shape.

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o-ring manufacturers compete to get orders. Its not like ASML where companies have to book years in advance and only select customers can even talk to ASML sales.

vacuum valves and pumps: these are high tech, but China has vacuum valve and pump manufacturers.
 

latenlazy

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example of a seal: an o-ring. It's a ring made of synthetic fluorinated rubber. There's hundreds of companies of this sort. Most buy the raw polymer and mold them into an o-ring shape.

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o-ring manufacturers compete to get orders. Its not like ASML where companies have to book years in advance and only select customers can even talk to ASML sales.

vacuum valves and pumps: these are high tech, but China has vacuum valve and pump manufacturers.
That said sometimes you need very specific kinds of compression or elasticity specs for O-rings, and also tolerance ranges, and that might require some more specialized manufacturing expertise or materials (I know this now because we’ve had a few O-ring related issues at my workplace). But at the same time there are indeed a lot of Chinese producers for these of parts and some of them have more advanced operations than others.
 

tphuang

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Hantiancheng announced the mass production of 8-inch SiC epitaxial wafers, and has signed a long-term order of 129 million US dollars​


Hantiancheng Electronic Technology (Xiamen) Co., Ltd. announced that the R&D team has completed the technical development of the 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxy process with independent intellectual property rights. Hantiancheng
Recently, Hantiancheng Electronic Technology (Xiamen) Co., Ltd. announced that the R&D team has completed the technical development of the 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxial process with independent intellectual property rights, and Hantiancheng has officially possessed the mass production capacity of domestic 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxial wafers .

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It is reported that Hantiancheng completed the signing of a number of long-term contracts (LTAs) last week, including an 8-inch contract worth more than 192 million US dollars. The quality of the 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxial wafers produced by the company has reached the international advanced level, that is, the thickness non-uniformity is less than 3%, the concentration non-uniformity is less than 6%, and the yield rate of 2mm*2mm die reaches more than 98%.
This technological breakthrough marks that my country has mastered the commercialized 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxy growth technology, further promoted the localization process of silicon carbide epitaxy materials, and greatly enhanced my country's international status in the field of silicon carbide epitaxy.
According to Dr. Zhao Jianhui, chairman of Hantiancheng Company, in the semiconductor field, increasing the chip size is the best way to improve the competitiveness of semiconductor products. Taking a die with a size of 2mm*2mm as an example, through the exact same process, the chip (device) output of an 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxial wafer is 1.8 times that of a 6-inch wafer, which is 4-inch wafer output. 4.3 times. It can be seen that the introduction of 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxial wafer products will effectively reduce the cost of device production, which has far-reaching significance for promoting the development of the silicon carbide semiconductor industry.
Hantiancheng is currently the world's largest manufacturer of silicon carbide semiconductor pure epitaxial wafers, and it is a national-level specialized special new key "little giant" enterprise (the first batch in the first year). The company was established in Xiamen Torch High-tech Zone in March 2011. In March 2012, Hantiancheng became the first company in China to provide commercial 3-inch and 4-inch silicon carbide semiconductor epitaxial wafers. The products have reached the international advanced level and filled the gap in China. In April 2014, Hantiancheng completed the first commercial 6-inch silicon carbide epitaxial wafer order, becoming the first domestic and the fourth global manufacturer to provide commercial 6-inch silicon carbide epitaxial wafers. At present, Hantiancheng has reached the world's leading level in all product technical indicators. Based on the newly developed technology, Hantiancheng's high-uniformity product indicators can provide absolute competitive advantages for companies that produce automotive-grade main drive MOSFETs. This competitive advantage makes the 2023 annual order signed by Hantiancheng more than three times the annual production capacity of the original global leading company.
Hantiancheng's orders in hand (350,000 pieces) in 2023 will account for as high as 43.7% and 32.7% of the world. It is understood that most of Hantiancheng's Diamond Class epitaxial production capacity in 2024 has been locked by the LTA long-term contract. Hantiancheng serves the vast majority of silicon carbide semiconductor device companies in the Greater China region, and is the only epitaxial wafer manufacturer in the Greater China region that has entered the supply chain of international giants in large quantities. It also serves Infineon, STMicroelectronics, ON Semiconductor and Wolfspeed is the three international giants among the four global silicon carbide Top 4. The rapid development of Hantiancheng has also greatly promoted and improved the competitiveness of domestic silicon carbide semiconductor substrates in the international market.

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btw, Epiworld's achievement is quite impressive here. It seems like they are the largest SiC wafer supplier of the world and supplies wafers to Infineon, ST, Onsemi & Wolfspeed

This has to be looked at as part of China's effort to dominate SiC supply chain since it is the largest consumer of it

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BYD's 6-inch SiC wafer production line will meet the demand of 1 million to 1.2 million vehicles after its mass production in 2024-2025. GTA Semiconductor (积塔半导体) and SMIC will continue to provide support before that.

In terms of modules or devices, related providers include ASI (国联万众), NCI (中电科15所), Sanan IC (三安集成), Hestia Power (瀚薪科技), Astsic (爱仕特), Starpower (斯达半导), AccoPower (芯聚能), Silan Micro (士兰微), GPT(泰科天润), and CR Micro (华润微). The former five are BYD’s current suppliers.

Substrates and epitaxial wafers are currently in tight supply in SiC production capacity. Suppliers including SICC (山东天岳), Tankeblue (天科合达), Synlight (同光晶体), CISRI (中科钢研), Epiworld (瀚天天成) and TYSiC (天域半导体) may benefit from the growing demand for SiC.

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SICC and Tankeblue back in early May signed deal to supply SiC wafer and ingot for Infineon. Again, they are not only players. But once you have this many Chinese SiC wafer suppliers, the competition gets rough for everyone else

starting off with 6-inch (double digit% of Infineon demand) and eventually migrate to 8-inch wafers

Because companies like Infineon want to be big in China, they manufacture their SiC products in Asia to be cost competitive and source from Chinese companies for wafers

All have to be looked in the context of China eventually becoming dominant SiC player throughout the supply chain
 

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A couple of good analysis here on domestic SiC production vs abroad. Seems like Wolfspeed (aka Cree) is the market leader here. But China does have advantage as the largest market, so domestic customers can help domestic SiC wafer manufacturer and downstream customers become larger players

根据晶升股份招股说明书,预计北方华创占国内碳化硅厂商采购份额 50%以上,晶升 股份市占率约为 27.47%-29.01%,二者占国内长晶炉超 77%。
interesting Naura accounts for 50% of domestic crystal growth furnace market for SiC manufacturers and Jingsheng accounts for 27 to 29%. So these top 2 players account for about 80% of domestic market here
 
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tphuang

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SICC has Long term contracts with both Infineon and Bosch for supplying Sic Substrates

碳化硅器件的成本构成中,衬底、外延、前段、 研发费用和其他分别占比为 47%,23%,19%,6%,5%,
In Sic costs breakdown as
substrate, epitaxy, front-end, R&D expenses and others accounted for 47%, 23%, 19%, 6%, 5%, respectively.

so it's especially important to be able to produce cost effective substrates and epitaxy wafers

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在新能源汽车、5G通讯、光伏储能等终端应用的发展推动下,以碳化硅(SiC)、氮化镓(GaN)等为代表的第三代半导体材料的热度节节攀升。北方华创在SiC装备领域布局广泛,各类装备均在国内主流生产线实现规模应用,可为客户提供全面的SiC产品解决方案。其中,SiC长晶炉累计订单数量超2000台,SiC外延炉累计订单数超100台。
From Naura, they accumulated orders for 2000 SiC crystal growth furnaces as of Sep 2022, but only 100 orders for Sic epitaxial furnaces. The latter is still a field dominated by Japanese and Europeans. So this is surely an area for Naura to grow into
 

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More article I saw on silicon carbide

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168856682114078805a221a988e79ef3f42d7c5bfd418.png


Really nice table just showing the vast amount of capacity expansion from Chinese SiC substrate makers. Most of this is in 6-inch, although they are getting into 8-inch finally.

This is a market Wolfspeed has dominated, so good to see Chinese players adding capacity and gaining shares

Sanan has this 6-inch project as well as a 480k wpy project to supply wafers for its 8-inch JV with ST Micro, a project that will surely help Sanan gain knowledge of higher voltage SiC production.

Overall, just share # of Chinese startups in this sector is surprising. Of course, they are probably mostly using equipments for Naura, Jingsheng & other domestic SMEs.

168856649539178805a221a988e79ef3f42d7c5bfd418.png

I keep looking at this and wonder how can China not gain market share. 70% of the cost is in substrates and epitaxy. So you are obviously going for the cheapest wafers, which will end up being Chinese suppliers.

Wolfspeed had over 50% market share in both upstream processes just 2 years ago. I think it will have a fraction of that going forward
 

FairAndUnbiased

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That said sometimes you need very specific kinds of compression or elasticity specs for O-rings, and also tolerance ranges, and that might require some more specialized manufacturing expertise or materials (I know this now because we’ve had a few O-ring related issues at my workplace). But at the same time there are indeed a lot of Chinese producers for these of parts and some of them have more advanced operations than others.
For semiconductor sealing, you really need only need chemical resistance and low outgassing. But that's materials selection, and we already know the material type - fluoroelastomer or soft metal. And for the most demanding applications, perfluoroelastomer or anti corrosion soft metals (i.e. nickel gaskets in VCR fittings for deposition).

The mechanical side stuff isn't so bad because the seals aren't dynamic seals. Even for the seals on the gate valves, they're only momentarily loaded and unloaded. Motion that feeds through the chamber walls is rarely done with O-rings but with magnetic motion feedthroughs/generated internally.
 

latenlazy

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For semiconductor sealing, you really need only need chemical resistance and low outgassing. But that's materials selection, and we already know the material type - fluoroelastomer or soft metal. And for the most demanding applications, perfluoroelastomer or anti corrosion soft metals (i.e. nickel gaskets in VCR fittings for deposition).

The mechanical side stuff isn't so bad because the seals aren't dynamic seals. Even for the seals on the gate valves, they're only momentarily loaded and unloaded. Motion that feeds through the chamber walls is rarely done with O-rings but with magnetic motion feedthroughs/generated internally.
Yeah I guess the mechanical characteristics are more important when you’re dealing with fluidics. I almost want to say you guys dealing with gases have it easy on this front!
 
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