In the past few months, the Biden government has been fully engaged in "supply chain security". In late September, the US Department of Commerce requested more than 20 global chip companies, including TSMC and Samsung, to provide them with chip supply chain data in the name of solving chip shortage and curbing chip panic. The deadline was November 8.
After a series of struggles, relevant enterprises finally succumbed and submitted data before the deadline set by the United States, which involved all aspects of global chip production and manufacturing. What impact will the United States' blatant "blackmail" have on future chip manufacturers? Is this really just to ensure the safety of the chip supply chain?
The origin of the storm
All this can be traced back to the end of 2020, when the global chip supply chain shortage began to ferment. On December 6, 2020, according to domestic media reports, Volkswagen China faced the risk of production interruption due to the shortage of key components and chips. On January 24, 2021, the Taiwan media revealed that the governments of Germany, Japan, the United States and other countries requested the Taiwan authorities to provide assistance in semiconductor production.
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TSMC, the world's largest semiconductor foundry.
The economic department in charge of the manufacturing industry of the Taiwan authorities required the enterprises with strong semiconductor production capacity to take measures to increase production, and urged the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer, Taiwan Semiconductor Corporation (TSMC), and Lianhua Electronics (UMC), which ranked the fourth in the world in market share, to accelerate the measures to increase production of automotive semiconductors. Nikkei News commented that "this confirms the tension between the supply and demand of semiconductors caused by the combination of US sanctions against China and the rapid recovery of the auto market."
This round of global chip supply chain shortage has complex causes. In general, the last US government imposed sanctions on technology enterprises in China in the name of "national security", which destroyed the "tight balance" of the global chip supply chain under free market competition. As a result, the supply of chips could not keep up with the demand, and the price rose accordingly. Enterprises and speculative capital in various countries rushed to buy and hoard chips everywhere.
On the one hand, in order to obtain enough chips, Apple and other downstream enterprises have to place multiple orders with upstream suppliers. The purchase of one chip often takes three times the order. On the other hand, the shortage of chips has also spread from upstream to various branches in the middle and downstream, thus affecting the production of all intermediate products that need such chips, and the resulting market panic has further spread to the procurement that was not in shortage.
In order to ensure production, downstream enterprises have followed the trend and purchased chips needed for production in the coming months and even years at a time. The run effect is quite serious. The chip shortage gradually affected LCD screens, remote controls, network cards, etc., and then affected almost all consumer electronics products such as mobile phones, computers, digital cameras, etc. The product shortage continued to spread to its associated production lines in all industries. According to statistics, as of April this year, 169 industries in the world have been hit by the chip shortage to some extent, even steel, beer, soap, concrete and other industries that at first glance have nothing to do with chips have been affected.
To make matters worse, in June 2021, the United States Department of Commerce issued new regulations on chip export control, prohibiting all American companies from selling chips with a manufacturing process of less than 28 nanometers to the outside world, resulting in a shortage of advanced chips with a manufacturing process of less than 28 nanometers. Its impact on the global supply chain may take 1-2 years to fully manifest.
"Data blackmail", deadline 45 days
In the face of the chaos caused by the shortage of chip supply chain, the US government began to "rush to hospital". According to American media reports, in late September, the Secretary of Commerce of the United States, Gina Raymond, said in a speech: "There are allegations that some consumer companies have purchased 2-3 times the products they need and stockpiled them."
However, the statement of the United States Department of Commerce has not received a positive response from chip companies in various countries. On September 24, Raymond said again that the Biden government was considering invoking the Defense Production Law of the Cold War era to force companies in the semiconductor supply chain to provide chip inventory and sales information to the U.S. Department of Commerce within 45 days, in order to "ease the bottleneck that led to the idle production of American cars and the shortage of consumer electronics, and determine the possible hoarding".
This remark immediately triggered a global uproar. TSMC's attitude began to waver.
On September 30 and October 6, TSMC emphasized twice that "sensitive information will not be disclosed". However, on October 22, TSMC claimed that it would "hand over the data on time"; Three days later, they changed their language again, saying that "they will not 'completely hand in the data' as required by the United States, and will continue to protect customer confidentiality". At that time, South Korean enterprises such as Samsung and SK Hynix were at the forefront of the wave.
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The wafer used to make chips displayed by Samsung Electronics.
Samsung, like TSMC, has the technology to produce chips below 10 nanometers. It is said that the current market share is about 8%. According to South Korean media reports, Samsung had been in a dilemma for more than a month before the US Ministry of Commerce announced the relevant measures.
On the one hand, for South Korean enterprises, the Chinese market accounts for a considerable part of the profits of South Korean enterprises, which is hard to give up. Therefore, they must protect customers' trade secret data. Once Samsung is considered "unreliable", its business orders will also shrink. On the other hand, Korean enterprises cannot bear the consequences of being listed in the list of entities by the United States Department of Commerce. The manufacturing equipment and software required for its chip production are all from American companies. If they are included in the physical list, they will face the disaster of extinction.
On October 6, the Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Korea issued a statement expressing its concern about the United States' requirement that Korean chip manufacturers operating in the United States disclose confidential information related to the supply chain, and said that it was ready to help defend the interests of the two major local chip manufacturers. On October 13, the South Korean ambassador to the United States made it clear that Korean enterprises would not easily provide highly confidential information. But even so, due to the general framework of the US-ROK alliance, it is difficult for South Korea to say "no" to the US government (the subsequent development of the situation proves this).
In addition, there are many enterprises from other countries in the deadline action of the US Department of Commerce, including Infineon, Israel's Thar Semiconductor, etc., but the governments and enterprises of relevant countries and regions have kept silent. Some domestic media quoted insiders as saying that "the most important reason is the fear of retaliation from the United States". This fear of "shooting the birds in the head" is exactly the effect that the United States wants this action.
Finally, on the deadline (November 8), enterprises submitted relevant data. On November 29, Raymond said that more than 150 companies from all over the world had submitted data to the US Department of Commerce, and said that this exceeded her expectations with the Ministry of Commerce.
"Big politics" behind small chips
This chip "data blackmail" event shows that the United States will never let its global chip industry chain be threatened, even if it is a potential or possible threat.
In the 1970s, the United States built a global industrial chain of semiconductors through international cooperation, outsourcing manufacturing equipment, basic materials and production to South Korea, Taiwan and Europe. Today, the United States does not manufacture most of the world's chips, but its absolute control over the supply chain and industrial chain has not been weakened.
According to the data, in the global chip foundry market, TSMC's market share is 54%, Samsung's share is as high as 18%, while the United States accounts for 0% in semiconductor manufacturing with technology nodes below 10 nm. But this does not mean that the United States has lost control of the global chip industry. After all, the key sources of chip manufacturing industrial equipment are all in the hands of the United States.
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Although the latest extreme ultraviolet lithography machine is manufactured by ASML in the Netherlands, its light source for lithography is from the United States.
Although the latest extreme ultraviolet lithography machine is manufactured by ASML in the Netherlands, its light source for lithography is from the United States; The lithography machine contains a large lens group with a diameter of more than 1 meter, and its ultra-high precision polishing must also use equipment and software from the United States; The electronic design automation (EDA) software used to design the connection of tens of billions of transistor circuits on the chip cannot operate without the annual authorization of American companies.
Seeing this, it is not difficult to understand why the electronics giants such as TSMC and Samsung have to be soft in front of the United States - their technology buildings are built on the foundation laid by the United States.
overtones
Chip manufacturing is divided into mature process and advanced process. At present, the shortage of chips in the world is mainly concentrated in chips with mature manufacturing process above 28nm. It is ESP chips, ECM chips and MLCC chips that cause Volkswagen and Ford to face the risk of production interruption. The general manufacturing process is about 40 nm. However, in the list of major enterprises consulted by the US Department of Commerce, we can hardly find any low-end chip manufacturers. Instead, they are mainly advanced process chip manufacturers such as TSMC, Samsung and Intel.
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Chip manufacturing is divided into mature process and advanced process.
The combination of the two shows that the measures taken by the United States government to solve the global "core shortage" are actually "not drunk".
This can also be seen from the types of chip data required by the website of the US Department of Commerce.
According to the information on the website of the United States Department of Commerce, the data requested by the United States government include 26 aspects such as the order shipment, inventory, customer information, technical nodes, production plan, yield rate, material and equipment procurement of enterprises in the past three years. Three years ago, it was precisely at the time when the United States hit Chinese technology enterprises with the physical list.
At this time, the United States Department of Commerce forces relevant enterprises to provide chip production data, which is most likely to grasp the implementation of their entity list, and more deeply control the "supply chain data information", so as to further strengthen the effectiveness of the entity list sanctions, and prevent enterprises in other countries from secretly violating the entity list.
In addition, the US government is likely to seek asymmetric information advantages for relevant US technology enterprises through this move.
Chip type, technology node and yield rate are the core secrets of chip manufacturing enterprises. Once disclosed, the same industry can take this opportunity to see their strategic layout for the next generation, second generation and even third generation of chips - which is like knowing the other party's battle plan in advance on the battlefield. If the US government discloses this information to its own enterprises, it will win a huge advantage in the future chip competition.
rack one 's brains to
Although this round of "data blackmail" in the United States has achieved its goal in the short term, in the long run, the biggest victim will be the United States itself. First, further disrupt the global market.
Information such as chip inventory and yield is extremely sensitive to the global IT market, which not only directly affects the pricing of bulk commodities such as chips, but also has a feedback effect on the innovation investment of IT giants. In order to stabilize market prices, enterprise inventory information has always been highly confidential.
A series of data required by the United States includes a large number of such trade secret information that has never been disclosed. This may lead to greater fluctuations in the market, forming a vicious circle of more transparency and shortage.
Second, accelerate the "decoupling" of countries around the world from the United States.
In the 20th century, the United States was able to take advantage of a series of new technology applications, such as the Internet, home computers and smart phones, to stand at the top of the industry, not because of the mandatory measures of the government, but because of the free and open research and development ecosystem. It is precisely because this research and development ecosystem does not exclude any country or any enterprise that it has won the trust of science and technology enterprises from all over the world, built a technological innovation chain, and achieved results with the joint efforts of a generation.
Today, the United States is still the biggest beneficiary of this free and open ecosystem. However, at present, the practice of the United States Department of Commerce has completely run counter to this ecosystem, and governments and enterprises of all countries will re-examine the risks of cooperation with the US-centered global innovation chain.
Third, chip manufacturing cannot be returned to the United States.
Although the global chip supply chain is created by the United States, it has already formed a complex network in the long-term market economic cooperation of various countries. At present, the trend of digital innovation gradually shifting to Asia is not intentional by any government, nor is it "due to government subsidies" as the US policy circle said.
The United States has taken measures that violate the principle of fair competition in the global market economy, although it can benefit American chip companies in the short term, but in the long run, it is no different from a dose of chronic poison for American companies, making them "path dependent" and gradually losing their core competitiveness.
Finally, America's helplessness and panic in the face of the possible "technological stagnation" will be exposed.
In global chip manufacturing, "Moore's Law" was once considered to be an irrefutable truth, that is, "the number of semiconductors on the chip doubles every two years or so". However, as the circuits on the chip continue to shrink, this "false law" based on production experience has become increasingly difficult to sustain.
This is because semiconductors cannot be infinitely smaller. When the silicon material that makes up semiconductors is as small as a few atoms, the electrons that originally flow in the circuit and constitute the current will no longer be stopped honestly, but will pass through the semiconductor gate like a ghost, which is called "quantum tunneling effect".
At present, the most advanced chip manufacturing process developed by leading chip manufacturing enterprises such as TSMC and Samsung has approached 2 nanometers, which is equivalent to the length of six oxygen molecules side-by-side, which is enough to make the electron "quantum tunneling effect". In view of this problem, although there have been possible solutions such as full-ring gate and 3D stacking, it is no less difficult than developing a new chip manufacturing technology from scratch. Even the old technology empire of the United States has not found a way to break the situation.
The physical limit is in the way, and the emerging countries are catching up. The United States is very clear that since the obstacles ahead are difficult to break in the short term, only by preventing the latecomers from catching up can its leading position in science and technology be sustained. Ironically, choosing this path will further slow the pace of global scientific and technological progress and slow down the pace of American innovation. The United States wants to break through the physical limit, which is increasingly far away.