The existence of semiconductor industry is reasonable

From today's point of view, due to the emergence of many ambiguous concepts in the semiconductor industry's new environment, it shows that under the conditions of a market economy, everything is reasonable, and it is difficult to completely explain it with yes or no. Explaining or reinterpreting the original definition will take time.

Fabless

Usually defined as a no-crystal garden plant, its wafer output is through outside collaboration, including OEM and IDM plants. However, companies like Avago also have small production lines. Therefore, IC Insight gives a quantitative concept that the self-produced chip output value does not exceed 10% of its total sales. The fabless they implement can be used for chip design, IC design, etc., can also be outsourced and become the general contractor of the product.

IDM

IDM is a vertically integrated device factory. The traditional concept is from chip design, manufacturing, to packaging all completed by themselves. Typical examples are Intel, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Renesas, Infineon, NXP and others. At present, IDM is in a trend of polarization, and super makers focus on producing general-purpose products with leading technology, such as microprocessors, dynamic memories, and flash memory. The other is to take market segments and produce very mature but unique products. There is also a tendency for system product vendors to integrate brands, and the chip manufacturer, as one of its subsidiaries, produces exclusive products.

The following are some of the new business cooperation models and phenomena that have emerged recently in the semiconductor industry.

(1) IDM as a contract manufacturer As announced by Intel Corporation and Achronix Semiconductor Corporation on November 2, 2010, both parties have reached an agreement to use Intel's 22nm process line to manufacture high-performance FPGA programmable gate array chips for Achronix. This is the first time that Intel has opened its most advanced manufacturing process technology to other manufacturers. In other words, Intel also started the foundry business.

Another example is Samsung's use of the A4 processor for Apple's iPhone, which has long been known. In addition, Toshiba recently outsourced its SoC logic chips to Samsung foundry.

(II) IDM's Outsourcing Cooperation IDM has undergone many changes. It can implement the fab lite strategy, that is, outsourcing the chips to the foundry, and can also conduct outsourcing cooperation with the fabless. Some people call this complex hybrid model the IDMS model. However, what exactly is the strict definition of IDMS does not yet have a unified understanding. I think most of the companies in the IDMS model work outside the company and only produce a small part of themselves.

(c) IDM becomes fabless

The phenomenon that companies in the industry have changed to the fabless model company after the IDM model has taken place is one example. AMD is an example. However, there is no single fabless model company that has successfully evolved into an IDM model company. However, we will wait and see in the future.

The strategy of Fab lite's new interpretation analog chip maker, Texas Instruments, is very practical. It has announced plans for its fab lite, that is, under the 32-nanometer process, it will adopt external cooperation and will no longer invest in Jianjingyuan Factory. . On the other hand, for the analog chip process with a silicon wafer size of 6-12 inches and a process line width of 1.0-0.18 microns, Texas Instruments is actively expanding its production. In June 2009, Texas Instruments built the world's largest analog chip packaging/testing plant in the Philippines. In September 2009, Texas Instruments purchased a 300mm production line from Qimonda in Dallas, USA, becoming the world's first 300mm analog production plant. . Not long ago, Texas Instruments has acquired Spansion's two wafer fabs in Japan's Aizu, plus the recent acquisition of Chengdu's "Censein". From March 2009 to now, Texas Instruments has added new sales due to expansion. It reached $4.5 billion. Compared to other companies in the analog device industry, Texas Instruments may be unique. So it's a question of people's wisdom to think of Texas Instruments as fab lite or IDM.

Foundry and IDM's mixed-type annual sales of around 300 million US dollars, the Korean foundry Magnachip both for OEM, but also produce their own proprietary IC products, so it is both IDM, but also a foundry.

Conclusion In the long history of the semiconductor industry in the past 50 years, the operating model has evolved continuously with the advancement of technology. What is more important is that the emergence of the industrial model in the 1987 period led to the separation of the industry's four industries - design, manufacturing, foundry, and packaging. The rise of the fab lite model in the recent manufacturing industry has led to more favoritism for the industry. The root cause of all this is the homogenization of manufacturing processes for CMOS logic chips, and the gap in technology between IDM and fabless continues to shrink. Therefore, all kinds of new hybrid cross business models presented so far have the rationality as long as they can survive under the market mechanism. Whether fables, IDM, or foundry are all required, it is only a means. Any listed company's ultimate concern is the stock's surplus. Relying on a huge consumer market, the semiconductor industry has much room for growth. What is gratifying is that not only is technology continuously improving today, but more importantly, the operating model is also constantly deepening, such as Apple's iPhone and iPad, so it can be expected that the combined forces of these changes will push the semiconductor industry to one The height of the update.