China's IC chip relies on imports 80%

Zou Shichang, an academician and materials scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "China's integrated circuit chips have been imported over petroleum," causing great concern for China's integrated circuit industry. Last week, the Cross-Strait Integrated Circuit Industry Cooperation and Development Forum was held in Shanghai in 2011. TSMC, SMIC, MediaTek and other industry leaders appeared at the forum. The development trend of China's integrated circuits has once again become the focus of attention.

Consumption of foreign exchange over oil There are media reports, Zou Shichang said that at present, 80% of China's integrated circuit chips rely on imports. In this regard, foreign exchange consumed more than oil, becoming the largest foreign exchange consumer.

At the cooperation forum, the speech of Wang Ningguo, president of SMIC [0.64 0.00%], answered the question in detail. Relevant data show that China is the world's largest electronics manufacturing industry base. By 2014, China's mobile phone production reached 1.115 billion units, accounting for 50% of the world's total production. China's notebook computer output reached 328 million units, accounting for 80% of the world's total production.

Taking iPad as an example, ICs account for 50% of the cost of the entire machine. Looking back at the industry scale of China's integrated circuits, although the share of China's integrated circuit industry in the world is also growing, its proportion still lags far behind that of end products. According to data from iSuppli, by 2015, China's IC industry has accounted for about 35% of the world's total, an increase of 3% over 2010.

On the one hand, the manufacturing links of terminal products such as mobile phones and computers are continuously transferred to China. On the other hand, the share of China's integrated circuit industry has grown relatively slowly. This shows that the reality of the massive import of integrated circuits in China will not change in the short term.

Jiang Shoulei, secretary-general of the Shanghai Integrated Circuit Industry Association, also told reporters that the absolute number of imported IC products in China is showing an expanding trend, so the situation of large imports in the short term cannot be changed. The main reason is that the pace of development of China's integrated circuit industry is still not keeping pace with market demand, so we must increase production capacity as soon as possible.