China's provinces have invested in semiconductors in a big way, but there are some places that do not have an industrial foundation, talents, technology, and products are lacking, and it is easy to build factories, but where are the products? Where is the technology?
After the factory was built, the troubles followed. Is technology and people buying? The development of domestic semiconductors has advanced by leaps and bounds, and the treatment given by the industry is also quite generous, and a large number of senior technical personnel have been recruited by both hard and soft, including many heavyweights, such as TSMC's former chief operating officer Jiang Shangyi as SMIC's independent director. However, the presence of personnel does not mean that production can be carried out smoothly, and Jiang Shangyi's appointment condition is that he will not help SMIC poach TSMC's existing employees, nor will he advise SMIC to do something unfavorable to TSMC.
In 03, TSMC accused SMIC of employing more than 100 employees and asked them to provide TSMC's relevant trade secrets, and the final result was that SMIC paid TSMC $175 million for settlement.
Technology is even more impossible to buy. Since it cannot be acquired, how much is the gap between the current technology and foreign countries? Conservatively speaking, at least 2 generations behind foreign countries, mentioned above that although the factories invested by large domestic funds, such as Yangtze River Storage, Fujian Jinhua, Hefei Changxin, etc., are in full swing, the technology is still backward and has not pulled into the gap. Freezing three feet is not a day's cold, the domestic is currently said to be a semiconductor rush, but still stay in the field of consumption, the real manufacturing field is only entry-level, and the gap with foreign countries is still huge, although the recent strong support of the state to promote several acquisitions, narrowed a lot of gaps, but the situation is still grim. Even if the country has money, it can spend hundreds of billions of dollars on this project, and there is really no shortage of money at a glance at the local tyrants, but the success of an industry depends on whether there is a mature industrial chain, from basic equipment to the cultivation of talents, each link can actually not share much money, not to mention foreign investment for decades. So thousands of dollars of investment is really not much, not to mention the lack of strategic deployment and planning at the national level over the years, China's semiconductor start is already very late. Although it is a little frustrating, but this kind of thing is really not urgent, the gap of decades is not a year or two can catch up, more importantly, the country has positioned the development of semiconductor mastery of core technology as a national strategy, from the national level to promote, is the most suitable development strategy for China. Just as the old beauty can be upgraded to a threat to national security with a little wind, the country must also have such awareness and develop its own semiconductors. In general: the future is bright, and the road is tortuous.