Semiconductors have become the most important product

- Compared to any product in international trade

- Synopsis d. Bhatt

- Part-7

- China to start a campaign at home to become self-sufficient in semiconductors

- The trade war between America and China in the field of advanced chips production is increasing

If Chang was bringing the advanced technology of semiconductor fabrication to China, the Chinese government itself was against religion or atheist, but the government compromised in this principle.

However, it was not an easy task for Chang to take the lead against Taiwan's TSMC, the leader in chip making.

The 1990s and 2000s saw major changes in the geographic locations of chip fabrication production. For example, in 1990, 37 percent of the world's chips production was made in America, but in 2000, it decreased to 19 percent and in 2010, it ore decreased to only 13 percent...!

It is not just the US that has seen this decline, Japan's share of chip making has also declined significantly.

On the other hand, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, these three countries have poured more and more funds into their chip industry, so that chip making has increased rapidly. Let's look at the example of Singapore.

In partnership with Texas Instruments of America, Hewlett-Macard and Hitachi of Japan, the Singapore government provided large funds to open chip design centers and set up chip fabrication facilities, due to which the semiconductors sector there became dynamic.

The Singapore government also created a foundry called Chartered Semiconductor by copying Taiwan's TSMC, but it was not successful like Taiwan's TSMC.

South Korea's semiconductor industry performed better than this.

In the 1990s, China lagged far behind Taiwan and South Korea in terms of chip manufacturing.

Chip fabrication is not the only problem facing China, China relies heavily on foreign technology at almost every step of the semiconductor production process, and a major headache for China is the foreign chip companies it has to depend on. , those companies are located in China's arch-enemy countries - such as Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and the US.

Software tools used for designing chips are largely made by American companies.

China's share of the world's software tools market is less than 1 percent, according to figures obtained by scholars at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technologies. In other areas of chips fabrication, China's share is barely 2 percent.

Only 4 percent of the total production of silicon wafers in the world is made in China. China makes only 1 percent of the tools used to make chips. China's share of the chip design market is barely 5 percent.

The type of chips designed and manufactured in China does not require any advanced technology. Those chips are cheap and not very advanced, so China can make those chips, the work of making memory chips that can be said to be very sophisticated and fine in the measurement of nanometers is still beyond China's reach.

Taking into account chip designing, intellectual property, tools, fabrication and other factors, Chinese companies account for only 6 percent of the semiconductor supply chain, compared to 39 percent for the United States, 16 percent for South Korea, and 12 percent for Taiwan, according to Georgetown University. This is the conclusion of the researchers.

China still has to rely on American software and American designers for advanced logic, memory, and analog chips, and without Dutch, Japanese, and American machinery, China's work is at a standstill. Also, China has to stay close to Taiwan and South Korea for manufacturing.

And that's why Chinese President Xi Jinping is worried. More worrying is the fact that China's tech. As companies move into cloud computing, autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence, they will increasingly need semiconductors, increasing China's dependence on the US, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea; There is no doubt about it.

The more China strives to become an artificial intelligence (AI) superpower, the more it will have to rely on foreign chips, unless China innovates in chip designing and manufacturing.

The Chinese government has formulated the "Made in China-2025" plan, in which it is planned to gradually reduce the import of chips from 85 percent in 2015 to 30 percent by 2025.

The details of how important semiconductors are in the global trade sector are now to be seen.

In 2017, China imported chips worth 260 billion dollars. China's chip import figure of $260 billion is much higher than Saudi Arabia's $1 billion oil exports or Germany's $1 billion car exports. Compared to the amount of aircraft import-export trade worldwide, China spends more money on importing the chips it needs.

Semiconductors have become the most important product in international trade than any other product.

China's drive to become self-sufficient in semiconductors at home, if successful, would not only take a big hit to the profits of US Silicon Valley companies, but also have the potential to create huge gaps in the incomes of most of China's neighboring countries, whose economies are export-led. .

(gradually)