Abstract:
The 26th China International Industrial Fair opened in Shanghai on October 12. At the Integrated Circuit Summit Forum held that afternoon, Yin Zhiyao, chairman and general manager of China Microelectronics Corporation, delivered a keynote speech and warned about the current AI investment boom.
Yin Zhiyao, the father of Chinese etching machines, said that the topic of AI is very hot now, and almost all conferences are talking about AI, but AI may have a bubble, which requires more attention. He reviewed the annual increase and decrease curve of capital expenditures in the global semiconductor industry from 1984 to 2026 and pointed out that the fluctuations were very dramatic.
Capital expenditures in the semiconductor industry are directly linked to equipment purchases, with 70% to 80% of corporate capital expenditures being used to purchase equipment. Yin Zhiyao pointed out that industry capital expenditures can increase by 100% in a year, or they can decline by 30% in a year, and there will be continuous declines.
Yin Zhiyao analyzed two reasons for the ups and downs. First, the peak of each boom is often driven by a single product, from electronic watches, electronic games, PCs, Internet to smartphones. The next round may be driven by AI, but it has not yet arrived. The second is the impact of the global macroeconomic environment. Once an economic crisis occurs, pressure will be transmitted upward along the industrial chain.
When it comes to the industry structure, Yin Zhiyao believes that industry consolidation is an inevitable trend. Compared with the United States, which has only a few dozen domestic companies left after multiple rounds of integration, the number of domestic semiconductor equipment companies is huge, with a conservative estimate of at least 500 and up to close to 1,000.
If we follow this pattern, only a few dozen domestic equipment manufacturers may survive in the end, which means that 90% of manufacturers will be eliminated.
Yin Zhiyao used a naval battle as an analogy. If the opponents are aircraft carriers and cruisers, and we are scattered small ships, we will not be able to win this competition. He believes that domestic leading companies need to transform from a single product to a platform company, and have etching, thin film and quality inspection capabilities at the same time, in order to provide customers with a complete set of solutions.
Yin Zhiyao also introduced the development plan of China Micro. In the next three to five years, AMEC plans to develop a total of 100 types of segmented equipment, with a total R&D investment of 13 billion yuan; by 2030, the overall coverage of integrated circuit equipment will increase to more than 60%, and the coverage of new architecture chip equipment will strive to exceed 70%.
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