Semiconductor cycle and Moore's law essay

The cyclical cycle of the global semiconductor industry is shown in the Figure 1 curve. Its main characteristics are: Average every five years of a cycle, every 10 a big trough.

Moore, one of Intel's founders, wrote an article in 1968 to commemorate the 35 anniversary of the American Journal of Electronics, making a bold prediction that "the number of components on a chip increases by one times every 18 months, which means that the cost of components may fall by half." This prediction allows the global semiconductor industry to continuously increase the integration of chips, reduce prices. 40 years later, advances in semiconductors and computers have transformed human life, just as the 1995-Year-old President Bush gave Mr Moore the Presidential Medal of Freedom to fully affirm Mr. Moore's great contribution to humanity.

Moore's law, like a beacon, shines through the global semiconductor industry, with every microbicides technology moving towards a new level. Suppose that 1968 years each transistor is a dollar, that today is already 50 million transistors a dollar.

More high-performance devices, such as 1Gb Flash, are forcing the chip-making industry to adopt a higher level of technology such as 0.11 micron or 0.09 micron Technology, which will lead to a yearly increase in global wafer capacity.

However, the market demand can not always be linear upward trend, the product has a life cycle. 2000, due to the millennium bug problem, people worried about computer function problems, so in 2000, the world set off a computer purchase climax. In this impetus, the semiconductor investment in fixed assets increased by more than 60%, the construction of a number of chip production lines. After entering the 2001, the market demand dropped abruptly, resulting in the chip production capacity utilization rate decreased, the manufacturer's profit fell, the semiconductor industry went downhill. began to enter the descent cycle.

Fig. 1 cyclical cycle of the global semiconductor industry

2001 and 2002, the semiconductor industry has been depressed for two years, people look forward to the rapid industrial recovery in 2003, but the beginning of 2003, the United States and Iraq war and SARS attack delayed the semiconductor industry again, until the October 2003 semiconductor industry really into the eighth cycle of the rising period.

In the final analysis, the semiconductor industry cycle is caused by the imbalance in market supply and demand, market demand for end products is cyclical, leading to changes in the semiconductor industry, the trend is expected to continue.

Factors in the cycle change of semiconductor industry

Many market research firms forecast sales forecasts for the 2004 semiconductor industry as shown in table 1.

For the global semiconductor industry, equipment industry and even the mask manufacturing companies, based on their own materials and judgments, will also make forecasts, the result is not the same as inevitable. For example, when the semiconductor cycle will decline, the optimistic view is 2006, the more cautious view is the middle of 2005. The most common international factors that determine the cycle of the semiconductor industry are:

Orders reflect the industry's prospects. Normally, the delivery time of semiconductor equipment is 6 months. So orders can reflect at least 6 months after the industrial Outlook, sales reflect past performance. The semiconductor industry has been taking the bsend ratio to reflect the industry's boom, with more than or close to 1 indicating that industry is rising, less than 1, indicating that industry is going downhill.

Capacity utilization of chip production line

It means that the ratio between the production capacity of the chip line and the actual order is almost 100%, and less than 60% may lose money.

Capital spending

The investment in fixed assets reflects the confidence of the semiconductor industry in the future, and the general chip production line can not be put into production until at least 16 months after construction. In addition, any production line also has a stable stage to achieve mass production. So from the angle of return on investment, the fastest reflect 24 months after the market.

Around 70% of the world's investment in semiconductor fixed assets is spent on 2002-2004 years of global fixed asset spending, as shown in the table below, where 2004 of the fixed assets invested amounted to 41.525 billion dollars, up 38.9% from the previous year.

ASP (Average Selling Price) Average selling prices

Take DRAM for example. has been down for a long time ASP, the recent 256MDRAM ASP has started to rebound, reflecting the market situation is good, the ASP continued to fall, reflecting oversupply, market weakness.

Inventory

This is also an important indicator of industrial prosperity, inventory below the average level, reflecting the market sources of tension, the recent global IC products such as flash below the average level, Intel, Samsung and other manufacturers have expanded production to meet market demand.

Of the above five basic parameters, bsend and capacity utilization reflect the real time boom of the semiconductor industry, while capital expenditure reflects the boom of the semiconductor industry cycle (24 months or so). In addition, there are venture capital funds and products, such as the supply cycle, and some companies have special measurement index such as Semicoindex, but, in the final analysis, all this is only a forecast.

The semiconductor industry market, at any time, can not ignore the most basic aspects, that is, the end product market, such as PC, mobile phones, networks and consumer electronics products. Each type of product contains a certain amount of device, called silicon content. The first 300 dollar TV, which IC about 30 U.S. dollars, and now the digital TV each 500 U.S. dollars, IC about 100 U.S. dollars, which can be sold from the annual number of digital television machines to calculate the consumption of IC, and so on, but also the basic method of semiconductor market forecasts.

The current industrial situation bsend close to 1, chip production capacity utilization rate reached more than 90%, the global fixed asset investment surge and inventory decline, and other comprehensive factors, the semiconductor industry is sure to be in the rising cycle, can fall, at least now there is no unified understanding. For example, the Anglo Marvell Market consultancy, April 30, claims to have seen the outlook for the semiconductor equipment industry to be bad, with only a 12-month rise.

Silicon material due to its own physical characteristics of the limitations of the chip size can not be unlimited system to continue to shrink. According to the International Semiconductor Technology Roadmap (ITRS), 2004 into the 90nm node of the device production, 2007 65nm,2016 years for 22nm. However, even in the current transition to 90nm-node devices, many problems have been found, which are believed to be related to the limit of approaching Moore's law.

April 26 U.S. IN-START/MDR believe that the semiconductor market pattern will change dramatically, the 90 's PC and mobile phone that killer products have not, the current market presents a number of products, such as DVD, Player, Digital camera, Digital TV and so on are difficult to become killer products, but also faced with the standardization of competition and falling prices and other issues.

May 4 Electronic Times news, said the past IC design start-up companies only need to invest 1000~1500 million dollars, after a few quarters to achieve the balance of payments; now the money needed to increase to 4000~5000 million dollars, raising the threshold for start-up IC design companies.

The chip size continues to shrink in the itrs push, the chief technology executive of IBM's CTO said May 3. IBM believes there are strong obstacles to entering the 130nm and 90nm. This situation is very similar to the 80 's medium-term CMOS process replacing bipolar technology. Because the thickness of the gate oxide layer is only 5 atoms, the leakage current increases dramatically and the transistor's properties are completely different. Power-only contradictions are difficult to overcome. If the circuit is really 17nm, the wafer per square centimeter has 500 billion components, and the computer can only work at the liquid helium temperature.

Many reports say Moore's law can last for 15 or even longer. In fact, many years have no practical significance. The development of chip can not always be doubled every 18 months integration level to continue, all things in addition to possible, more important is the market acceptance. It is believed that before the next step of the semiconductor industry is discussed, there will be new materials to replace silicon or silicon material. After some change, and then continue to survive, the development of things in the world is always endless.