The Era Of Moore'S Law After 5G+: Where Is The Concurrence Of Semiconductor Industry?

As the first year of 5G, the particularity of the semiconductor industry in 2019 not only lies in the innovation of communication technology, but more importantly, Moore's law, which supports the rapid development of semiconductor technology for many years, is losing its momentum. But explosive data needs more advanced processing technology as a support. The industry is facing the test of double technology iteration.

This year is also a year when 5G's underlying communications technology continues to shrink. The old generation giant Intel abandoned the baseband chip business to sell to apple, and the other half conductor giant Broadcom announced its intention to sell its RF (radio frequency) related business recently.

Although "integration" will be the inevitable outcome of all industries going to a certain stage, will the integration of IC industry mean a cold winter or a new life?

Violet CEO, Chu Qing, defined this phenomenon as "life and death of semiconductor industry". In an exclusive interview with the economic news reporter in twenty-first Century, he pointed out that the semiconductor industry in the past few decades was in the spring, and everything was growing; and Moore's law was losing its momentum, so that the industry began to enter the era of post Moore's law and came to summer.

"There will be a lot of new chip companies coming out at this time, but these companies need to adopt a strategic framework that is consistent with the new law." Chu Qing said so.

5G era protagonist change

In the era of 5G, China has taken the lead in the world. In October 2019, the State Ministry of industry and Commerce announced that China officially launched the 5G business, and launched an accelerator for the nationwide network construction and business.

"There will be a comprehensive migration in the 5G era." Chu Qing told reporters that in fact, this is a natural result.

He once made a statistics, in the first two communications era, European operators spent a lot of money in the initial investment. In the era of 3G, the whole Europe spent more than 50 billion dollars to buy relevant spectrum permission. On the basis of this, there are capital expenditure and base station construction expenditure.

In the age of 4G, there has been little improvement. Chu Qing said that only the largest operator in Europe bought the spectrum permission in Europe, which cost nearly 50 billion euros.

According to this trend, the spectrum of 5G may be more expensive, but in some countries, the spectrum below Sub-6GHz has become a scarce resource.

From the perspective of current economic resources and spectrum resources, it is a great opportunity for China. "So we can think that this is the result of historical objective choice, and the industry should make good use of this opportunity." Chu Qing believes that 5G, as the most ambitious connection plan in human history, has created a huge platform, while AI is the most ambitious technological revolution of mankind. It is an opportunity for the semiconductor industry chain to make valuable things under the guidance of these two flags.

In the current 5G mobile phone baseband chip design plant, there are three "five tigers", which are backed by China. They are purple light exhibition, HUAWEI Hass and MediaTek. This is actually the result of decades of industrial endogenous development and fine division of labor.

Chu Qing analysis, mobile communications probably every ten years, until now GSM (2G communication system) boom period just in the past 30 years, chip manufacturers in the fierce market fight less and less, mainly because mobile phone chip is probably the most intense field of the chip industry.

Under the environment of the first generation communication system, the industry has experienced a process from scratch. At this stage, almost all manufacturers have comprehensive technology. Because of the first generation of communication, no chip suppliers could make mobile phones, and the early chip suppliers and mobile phone manufacturers were more suitable.

Until the emergence of the second generation of mobile communication technology, the division of labor began. In the era of 2G, mobile phones are no longer just talking tools, they also start playing music, sending and receiving mail, and so on. The first generation of mobile phone and chip business has been seriously hit. "Because their grasp of user habits is not as deep as that of a single chip manufacturer, and is no longer competitive." Chu Qing pointed out.

In this way, the division of labor is becoming more and more meticulous, and the requirements for chip designers in the mobile phone field are becoming more and more stringent.

At the same time, in the first four era, the global communication system is very different. It is another challenge for the design base of mobile phone baseband chip.

Detailed calculation, from 2G to 5G has accumulated 10 kinds of communication system, the baseband chip design factory must be tested and compatible with these standards, which is no longer the design factory that can follow the new generation desire.

"This means that we have tested all the 120 commercial networks in the world. This is a heavy historical burden, so there are hardly any new manufacturers in history." Chu Qing analysis, this has created the present pattern.

In the era of Moore's law

But there are some new phenomena in the era of 5G. Intel's cellphone baseband chip business has been sold to apple, which is the main business of the mobile phone. Vertical industrial chain integration seems to have begun.

In addition, Samsung Semiconductor has launched joint research and development with vivo, a domestic mobile phone factory, for the baseband chip, and the future relationship of the industry chain seems to have changed.

Chu Qing told reporters on twenty-first Century economic report that although the semiconductor industry is now full of stories about big fish eating small fish, it often takes tens of billions or even billions of dollars in acquisitions. This means that in the era of post Moore's law, it is necessary to embrace and warm up, but these mergers and acquisitions themselves have not produced value.

"All mergers and acquisitions are in this situation, 1+1 is less than 2." According to his analysis, this is strongly related to Moore's law.

It can be seen that most of the previous manufacturers were the most obedience to Moore's law, and they often ran very fast in catching up with technological nodes. But once the runway no longer exists, their footsteps must slow down.

"The advantages of these manufacturers are not sustainable, and the best option is to keep warm. Some of the great names in history disappeared. But the merger does not necessarily solve the problem of core competitiveness. Chu Qingxu said.

At the same time, he also pointed out that the road to the birth of new mobile phone chip manufacturers has basically broken down, especially in the field of modem. "If modem business is not gathered by three thousand people, there will be no significance in the history of 15 years. The simplest way is how to test the telecom operators in the world."

In 2019, the 5G mobile phone baseband chip design factory announced the launch of supporting NSA and SA dual mode chip products. The ubiquitous market is coming slowly, which will be a great opportunity for the communication world. Chu Qing pointed out that "from the past 4G era to the future, there will be no competition for other manufacturers."