Xie Kang, vice president of China Semiconductor Industry Association

Editor's note: novel coronavirus pneumonia is coming suddenly, and the semiconductor industry will inevitably be affected. With the continuous promotion of the process of returning to work and production, "disturbance in the short term and good in the long term" has become the general trend of the industry development. How should semiconductor enterprises deal with labor shortage and logistics problems in the short term? How to turn crisis into opportunity and long-term layout? Xie Kang, vice president of China Semiconductor Industry Association, expressed a series of views on relevant issues at the invitation of China electronic news.

Reporter: does the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak have great impact on China's semiconductor industry?

Yu Xiekang: just as China and the global economy are showing signs of stabilizing and rebounding, the outbreak of new coronavirus pneumonia in China will definitely have an impact on China's economy, including the semiconductor industry, in the short term. But overall, the novel coronavirus pneumonia impact on the semiconductor industry is temporary.

First of all, there is a strong demand for semiconductor products in the domestic market. With supply chain demand returning to moderate, inventory digestion and silicon cycle recovery, global semiconductor production capacity rapidly recovered in the fourth quarter of 2019 and January 2020, and 8-inch OEM capacity of TSMC, liandian, and world advanced enterprises was fully loaded. In the fourth quarter of 2019, SMIC's sales volume was $839.4 million, up 6.6% year-on-year, and its gross profit was $199.4 million, up 48.7% year-on-year. The revenue of Huahong will reach a record high in 2019, reaching $932.6 million. With the vigorous market demand, even during the Spring Festival holiday, most domestic manufacturing enterprises operate 24 hours a day, except for some factory renovation. It is understood that SMIC international, Huahong group, Changjiang storage, Wuhan Xinxin, China Resources Microelectronics, SK Hynix (Wuxi), TSMC (Nanjing), Hejian technology, Changdian technology, Tongfu micro power, Jingfang technology, energy semiconductor, Shennan circuit, runma electronics and other enterprises did not stop work during the Spring Festival holiday, but still adopted the shift system to maintain the normal operation of production lines, Some production lines are urgent to return to work ahead of schedule.

Secondly, the novel coronavirus pneumonia also brings some market opportunities. On the one hand, in the epidemic prevention and control, in addition to medical supplies, there are also a lot of testing equipment demand surge. For example, hand-held thermometers, infrared imaging monitors, etc., have been in short supply, and the demand for Uncooled Infrared MEMS sensor chips has increased dramatically. Under normal circumstances, this kind of chip is a cold product in the market, but recently it has become a popular product for epidemic prevention and control. China Resources Microelectronics, Huatian technology and other units have received urgent orders for temperature chips of key instruments and equipment for epidemic prevention and control, such as thermometers, ventilators and oxygen generators. During the Spring Festival, they actively allocate production capacity to ensure product supply. On the other hand, in this invisible war, the new generation of information and communication technologies, represented by 5g, big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc., are playing an important role. 5g promotes remote consultation and remote visit, big data becomes the "artifact" of epidemic analysis, AI helps to shorten the time of case diagnosis, UAV becomes a special propaganda and transportation tool, Sterilization Application of deep ultraviolet LED, blockchain makes public information more transparent, and many medical electronic products need to be upgraded to develop and innovate. These market opportunities are in front of us. We need our colleagues in semiconductor companies to think deeply and explore them.

Finally, the market opportunities brought by industrial upgrading and transformation. Because of the impact of the epidemic, people's consumption concept and lifestyle have been fundamentally changed, thus speeding up the industrial upgrading and transformation has become a new starting point of China's economic upgrading. It is mainly reflected in the upgrading of modern governance system, lifestyle adjustment and online behavior substitution, specifically reflected in smart city, traffic management, medical system, industrial supply chain, logistics efficiency, emergency disaster recovery, information traceability, etc. This will bring a lot of changes to the industry, including catering culture, medical exercise, humanities and social networking, health care and other industries.

Reporter: how should enterprises and relevant government departments respond?

Yu Xiekang: to deal with the epidemic situation, seize the development opportunities, and give suggestions for the development of semiconductor industry: first, to prevent and control the epidemic situation and win the war of resistance. Prevention and control is still the most important work focus at present. Semiconductor enterprises should, on the premise of ensuring that epidemic prevention measures are in place, coordinate material supply and staff rework according to the enterprise's own situation, strive to return to work as soon as possible, and take effective measures to ensure that the epidemic does not appear in the factory workshops and research and development institutions. Encourage the upstream and downstream enterprises of the industrial chain to carry out more project cooperation and tide over difficulties together.

Second, the state and governments at all levels should speed up the audit progress of enterprises returning to work, and help the industrial chain enterprises to return to work and production as soon as possible. Conditionally reduce traffic control, so that the passenger transport, logistics transportation as soon as possible to meet the needs of enterprises to resume work. For some enterprises that have pressure to pay employees' wages, we should provide stable job subsidies, loan interest discount and other policies as soon as possible to support the enterprises' full resumption of work, accelerate the tax rebate of fixed assets investment in 2019, reduce or accelerate the tax rebate of import and export links, periodically exempt enterprise value-added tax and surges, real estate tax and urban land use tax, delay the payment of social insurance premium and enterprise tax; For the transaction contract that cannot be fulfilled due to the influence of the epidemic situation, the government helps to provide proof of force majeure, etc.

Third, government departments, industry associations and industrial investment institutions should strengthen the analysis and Research on the impact of major emergencies on the semiconductor industry, and do a good job in coordinating services.

Reporter: after the epidemic, what are the expectations for the future development of the semiconductor industry?

Yu Xiekang: with the progress of science and technology in society, we have been in the era of "core" everywhere. The epidemic prevention and control has made the public deeply feel that e-commerce platform and Internet are indispensable. Further research and development of e-commerce and Internet application technology, innovation of e-commerce and Internet development new mode and business form will certainly open up a broader market space. The further development in these fields will promote the semiconductor industry to win more development space and opportunities.

Through epidemic prevention and control, all walks of life in China will accelerate the process of industrial Internet and intelligent manufacturing. The semiconductor industry should seize this opportunity to actively provide solutions for "Internet plus manufacturing", vigorously promote the integration of information technology and traditional industries, and form new formats and expand new space.

The extensive and in-depth application of new generation information technology and products in the field of health care and health will be accelerated step by step. China's medical information infrastructure will be d rapidly, and technologies such as auxiliary decision-making and auxiliary medical treatment will emerge more quickly, including intelligent medical system and medical data security. All these will provide a difficult opportunity for semiconductor industry to further expand the market in the field of health care and health informatization.

In addition, China's achievements in globalization are obvious to all. China has the most efficient and complete industrial chain cluster in the world, the most cost-effective manufacturing system in the world, and a huge consumer market. China's integrated circuit market is the most open and competitive market in the world. China's integrated circuit industry has long been integrated into the world's most full market competition, and has a place in this market competition. Therefore, we must seize the opportunity, give full play to our own advantages, and take the initiative to find our proper position in the world market system.

In a word, China's economy has entered a new stage of innovation driven development. The development of semiconductor industry is the key to promote the transformation of China's economy to high-quality development. Although the epidemic has brought short-term negative impact on the semiconductor industry, the rapid development and long-term good situation of the industry will not change. Seizing the new development opportunities can achieve better and faster development.