Demand for smart terminal chips rises

The 2012 China IC Design Industry Development Report released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Software and Integrated Circuit Promotion Center (CSIP) shows that demand for smart terminal chips will continue to grow, and consumer electronics products will become the main battlefield for domestic chips.

The smart phone market is a huge and potential market. IHS analysis predicts that the capacity of smart phones in China is expected to reach 181 million in 2012. By 2015, smart phones in China's mobile phone market will account for over 85% of the market share. The report forecasts the market capacity of various formats of Chinese 3G mobile phone chips. The report analyzes that TD-SCDMA chip will reach 120 million in 2014, and WCDMA chip shipments are expected to reach nearly 200 million in 2014, taking into account the huge capacity of WCDMA in the global market and the user's international roaming demand, while supporting TD - SCDMA and WCDMA multi-mode terminal chip market opportunities.

In terms of home appliances, with the increase in the level of intelligence in white goods and small home appliances, and the continuous upgrading of product structure, the demand for main control chips for domestic white goods and small household appliances will continue to grow, and its growth rate will be significantly higher than that of the world. Level. The survey found that the current demand for white goods in the white goods is the largest air-conditioning products, a typical market mainstream air-conditioning products will use 8 chips, including 2 MCU as the main control chip; in white household appliances and small household electrical appliances All MCUs are used as the main control chip; the proportion of total chip costs for white goods and small household appliances in the total cost of the whole machine is below 5%.

According to a survey conducted by a sample of key integrated circuit design companies, the product types of integrated circuit design companies in China basically cover all types of chips. Nearly 60% of companies surveyed are developing SoC chips, followed by power ICs and MCUs.

The report pointed out that integrated circuit products designed by local companies in China cover a wide range of fields such as mobile terminals, network communications, digital television, computers and peripherals, automotive electronics, industrial control, security monitoring, medical electronics, and intelligent identification. Among them, communications, consumption, and industry are major consumer markets for domestic chips. Especially for consumer products such as mobile phones, tablet PCs, multimedia players, and e-books, domestic chips are highly competitive. The manufacturing process reaches 40nm or even 28nm. Mobile phone SoC chips, power management chips, etc. have entered the international arena such as Samsung. Factory supply chain.

According to the CSIP survey, the two areas that China’s integrated circuit companies have designed for product use are consumer electronics (including mobile phones) and industrial applications. The proportions of these products have reached 34% and 24% of the total number of survey samples, followed by communications, For data processing and military use, the proportions are 20%, 15%, and 7%. The breakdown of survey data in the two most-used areas shows that mobile applications such as mobile phones, PMPs/PDAs, and MP3/MP4 account for 35% of the total number of survey samples in consumer applications. It is the largest application area. Mobile products are still hot in the past two years.

According to the analysis of the report, the impact of mobile Internet on semiconductors is favorable to a new and huge market. The global semiconductor industry and related industries are moving from PCs to mobile communications and wireless. According to statistics, the semiconductor industry dominated by the PC market has gradually lost its dominant position in the past, and ARM-based processors with smart phones and tablet PCs as the main application areas are becoming popular in the market, and major companies around the world are actively deploying them. Grab the growing mobile internet market. Gartner expects that global mobile phone sales will increase by 7.5% in 2012, and tablet PC sales will increase by 63%. Smartphones and tablets will support the growth of the global semiconductor industry in 2012.

Another advantage of mobile Internet for semiconductor companies is that the industry chain is relatively open. Relative to the PC era, WinTel has firmly formed alliances, forming market monopolies and closed interests. The current mobile Internet industry chain dominated by the dual-A camp (ARM and Android) is liberalized. This has lowered the threshold for many new entrepreneurial enterprises that have entered the market and provided opportunities for growth.

Domestic IC manufacturers should firmly seize this industry opportunity, better integrate with China's domestic applications, tap potential and distinctive markets in China, combine the current trend of mobile Internet development, and integrate China with the backbone of the mobile Internet industry. The circuit design industry developed rapidly and continuously narrowed the gap with the international advanced level.