[Epoch Times, August 15, 2022](The Epoch Times reporter Xia Song comprehensive report) The Chinese Communist Party’s official media CCTV reported today (15th) that the supply of chips is oversupply, and the mobile phone factory has lowered its shipment target and cut orders to the chip factory. , chip prices are experiencing an “avalanche” decline.Some tech bloggers retorted that chip prices are returning to normal。
At the same time, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced last week that it would impose export controls on technologies such as EDA software necessary to design GAAFET structure integrated circuits, and the relevant ban took effect today (15th).
CCTV said the chip price avalanche, netizens refuted: return to normal prices
The Chinese Communist Party’s official media CCTV Finance reported on August 15 that due to the impact of the epidemic in the past two years, the supply chain of the chip industry has been disrupted, and chip prices have skyrocketed. Now there are price cuts in the chip market.
For example, CCTV said that an STMicroelectronics chip is the core component of the electronic control system. Last year, the market quotation rose to about 3,500 yuan, but this year it fell to about 600 yuan, a drop of more than 80%. Another type of chip, which cost about 200 yuan last year, is currently priced at only about 20 yuan each, which is only one-tenth of the highest price.
The report also said that since the beginning of this year, the market price of consumer electronics control chips has also continued to decline, from a high of 100 yuan to double digits. Taking mobile phones as an example, the decline in global mobile phone sales this year has led to an oversupply of electronic chips for mobile phones. Major mobile phone manufacturers have lowered their shipment targets and cut orders from upstream chip manufacturers.
Qualcomm is going through “order cutting” and has reduced orders for the Snapdragon 8 series by about 15%. By the end of this year, the prices of the two flagship mobile chips will be cut by about 40%. Samsung Electronics said that the stock of mobile phone memory chips is high, sales may weaken further, and the company is working to destock.
According to data posted by CCTV, global PC shipments in the second quarter of 2022 fell by 12.6% year-on-year, the largest drop in nine years. Global smartphone shipments in the second quarter of 2022 decreased by 9% year-on-year.
According to the report, Liu Xingliang, a member of the Information and Communication Economics Expert Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the Communist Party of China, said that the price drop of chips for panels and chips for communication is not small. Most of the prices have dropped by more than 20% in the past two months, and some chips have dropped by more than 80%.
Internet and information technology expert Bao Ran said that the global chip market is polarized. Chips related to mobile phones have been the most prosperous in the past decade. As the global economic uncertainty increases, it will affect the demand among various upstream chip industry chains.
The Weibo public account V “Technology Crazy Exchange” posted a blog post saying that it is not actually an avalanche, but that the previous surge is slowly returning to normal. Due to economic instability, the speed of updating products is gradually reduced.
“Shenzhen SEG Electronics Market Youshang Management Department” also posted a blog post saying, “It can only be said that it is a rational return, and the price of last year cannot be used as a reference! Now it is just a return to the price of previous years.”
The Central News Agency reported today that the demand for chips used in products such as automobiles, industrial automation, and AI big data is still strong.
Several production lines of a company that produces chips for automotive power controllers are running at high speed in the Xuzhou High-tech Zone in Jiangsu. Another chip packaging and testing production plant in Shenzhen, the person in charge said that orders from auto manufacturers are coming in one after another. In order to ensure delivery, the company has imported a lot of equipment to increase production capacity.
U.S. cuts off EDA supply, Chinese companies can’t design 3nm high-end chips
A new U.S. ban came into effect today (August 15) just as CCTV reported that some chip prices had plummeted. The U.S. Department of Commerce announced on August 12 that, in order to maintain national security, it will implement new export controls on technologies such as EDA software necessary to design GAAFET (full gate field effect transistor) structured integrated circuits.
At present, most Chinese chip design companies use imported EDA software. In the global market, Synopsys, Cadence, and Siemens EDA (formerly known as Siemens Mentor) account for 78% of the market; in the Chinese market, these three US companies account for more than 95% software sales.
According to Deutsche Welle, long before the release of this new regulation, some industry insiders pointed out that given the crucial role of EDA software in designing advanced chips, if the U.S. government restricts the export of EDA software, it can effectively delay the CCP’s advanced Chip development.
Hong Shibin, a mainland industry observer, told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily, “The U.S. EDA cutoff is to make the Chinese mainland have no tools to design high-end chips of 3 nanometers and below. The design is stuck at 5 nanometers, and the manufacturing is stuck at 7 nanometers. Then Pull the distance between China and the United States in high-speed computing, AI, etc.”
EDA is a software technology used to complete the design and verification of VLSI chips, and EDA tools run through the entire chip production process. Whether it is the design of the chip itself, or the research and development of related equipment, and even the final manufacturing, this kind of software is inseparable. EDA is called the “mother of chips” in the industry.
Responsible editor: Gao Jing#