It is no secret that China has been investing huge amounts of money for some time to achieve its technological independence, a very ambitious goal that, obviously, It goes through semiconductors. For China, it is vital to continue advancing in the semiconductor industry in order to meet all its objectives, a reality that was already clear after the United States sanctions on large Chinese companies, and that has become even more evident after the impact that had the COVID-19 pandemic in that industry.
However, becoming a giant in the world of semiconductors is not something that can be achieved overnight. We are talking about a very complex sector that requires large investments, and that is precisely what China is doing, inject a lot of liquidity so that its semiconductor industry can continue to grow.
The analyst Mario Morales, from IDC, has commented in an interview with CNBC that China has invested many billions of dollars to boost its semiconductor industry, and that thanks to this said country will be only three generations behind the leaders of the sector. If we put this in context, it means that China is capable of cooking semiconductors in 14nm process (and earlier). For comparison purposes, TSMC already produces chips in 5nm, while Intel uses the 10nm node, albeit with a higher transistor density.
Obviously, China is still working to make the leap to more advanced processes. Your next move should be the transition to 10nm, and later at 7 nm. That would be two generations, which means that, to reach the level of TSMC, they only need, as we have said, three generations.
According to the source of this news, the semiconductors that are manufactured in China are mainly used in applications such as power management, the creation of microcontrollers, sensors and also in other segments related to the general consumer market.
With the sales of these semiconductors, China obtains a very valuable income that will allow it to upgrade its semiconductor manufacturing equipment in a broad sense, both at the hardware and software levels, and this will facilitate those leaps to more advanced processes.
If we focus on time, Mario Morales believes that China will take approximately about 10 years to reach the level that the current giants of the semiconductor market have, provided that everything goes according to plan, obviously.
