Analysis of the impact of Japan's strict export of key semiconductor materials on the global semiconductor industry

According to CINNO Research, industry Research on overall investigation of semiconductor supply chain, Japan and South Korea for the second world war, compulsory acquisition problem of migrant workers cannot reach consensus, and properly handle, the Japanese government will offer a series of export control measures: the first phase will start for south Korean companies implementing semiconductor and export restrictions of OLED panel material, in the past, Japan's exports of key materials to the export of the convenience of south Korean companies shall have a one-time application will cease to exist.Since July 4, Japanese suppliers of relevant materials have to apply for export licenses on an order by order basis. However, it takes about 90 days for the application, review and approval of export licenses.The second phase, in which the Japanese government plans to list South Korea as a "white list" of 27 friendly exporters from Japan starting in August, has shaken up Korean semiconductor manufacturers and OLED panel makers, as well as potentially disrupting the semiconductor supply chain.

And the affected material for Fluorinated polyimide (Fluorinated Polyimides), photoresist (Photo Resist) and etching gases of High Purity Hydrogen Fluoride (High - Purity Hydrogen Fluoride) and so on three important items, and according to our information from interviews of supply chain, in terms of production of Japanese manufacturers in polyimide, photoresist and High Purity Hydrogen Fluoride market leading position in the world,With photoresist for Japan's main suppliers for the letter should be the chemicals industry, chemical industry, JSR, Tokyo Fuji electronic materials, while Japan's leading suppliers of high purity hydrogen fluoride for the morita chemical, showa denko and Stella Chemifa, according to understand other countries providers on the quality reliability and stability of supply to Japanese manufacturers still have a large section of gap, so Japan although in semiconductor manufacturing the market also affect sexual continues to decay, but in the key of master ability is still a world-class semiconductor materials.

For to analyze the internal force influence of semiconductor industry, samsung and hynix in photoresist etching and high purity hydrogen fluoride gas inventories are less than 2.5 months, so if considering starting from July 4, limit the export of export and 90 days to apply for and review period, and the two key materials of other manufacturers can replace sex is extremely low, the precision of the semiconductor process and to the strict requirement of material certification to semiconductor manufacturers cannot easily transform process or replace supplier, so if not timely solve the conflict between the two countries, the risk of production will rise quickly.

Samsung and hynix if there are production risk in the short term, with a portfolio of the two companies, the first one of the most potential impact sex is the product of DRAM and NAND Flash memory, and because this part is likely to benefit from more companies will belong to the Korean system of DRAM and NAND Flash suppliers such as meguiar's (factory is located in the United States, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan), Toshiba (factory) is located in Japan and western data such as container manufacturer located in the United States and Japan;Fingerprint identification chip is almost all in Taiwan, united power single, the impact is also very small;As for the panel driver chip, LCD display driver chip and capacity of mobile phone use TDDI mostly in TSMC, umc, power semiconductor giant crystal crystal + (force) and advanced in the world, and this part of the impact on the industry is not high also, but only on the OLED driver chips, samsung on OLED panel of rate of more than 85%, the city of the samsung OLED panel driver chip is using his home was designed and produced in their own fabs, so this part and if the impact of production risk, direct influence is samsung OLED panel shipment,For the second half of this year with samsung's flagship model kinetic energy delivery of OLED panel may have a risk, this part of the alternative would be other OLED panel factory and drive chip factory a breakthrough point, we think will help the boe, cigna, tianma has been imminent OLED panel manufacturers such as the original import into a line of mobile phone brands or upgrade the city the opportunity to share, it will also help drive with OLED driver chip industry such as poems, rui ding accelerate the certification process.

In the long term, due to the global semiconductor supply chain under the global instability outside fragile, in this case, South Korea for many years in the OLED display and semiconductor market share while the world's leading position, but to master the key components in other countries, production and shipment of life and death power cannot own master, and other countries with semiconductor industry groups also began to think seriously about gradually realize localization of key components and the localization of the production process, to reduce the risk of operation.In short, although the Japanese in polyimide, high purity hydrogen fluoride almost appear the phenomenon of monopoly, but in the photoresist part is the space that can replace with other manufacturers, so we think the event will also accelerate the semiconductor factory for the Japanese system of semiconductor materials company certification more openness, and potential, promote the development of Chinese mainland semiconductor material space.

Samsung and hynix are aircraft carriers of South Korea's semiconductor industry. Their process technology represents the international competitiveness of South Korea's semiconductor industry, while samsung and hynix have already established the leading position in the storage industry.

At the current running production line distribution to observe, samsung has five 12 inches of DRAM production line (all in Korea), four 12 inches of NAND Flash (three home is located in South Korea, a seat in xian), on the wafer foundry production line has a 8 inches (in Korea), and 3 12 inches production line a seat in the United States (Texas);Hynix has three 12-inch DRAM production lines (one in wuxi, China), four 12-inch NAND Flash production lines (all in South Korea) and one 8-inch fab production line (in South Korea).Eastern gaoco and Magnachip have two 8-inch fab lines in South Korea.

In the global semiconductor competition, samsung and hynix together account for nearly 60% of global DRAM production capacity and 50% of NAND Flash production capacity. In the field of wafer foundry, samsung, hynix, eastern hi-tech and Magnachip account for about 15% of the market share, which is also not to be overlooked.

Limit the Japanese export strategy of the integrated circuit especially in the short term storage industry will be relatively minor, the influence of the main reason is that currently contains the DRAM memory companies, NAND Flash, inventories are more than three months, if add access customer material and semi-finished products inventory levels more than six months above the level of inventory level is in a state of a history of high-grade, so in the short term for the semiconductor industry structure to have immediate reversal is extremely difficult.

But for storage industry, Toshiba/western digital electronics is located at the end of June NAND Flash factory electricity jumping events in Japan, in the production line should be in July 15 to completely under the condition of normal work, estimates that about nearly a month of NAND Flash capacity loss, if the the limit the impact of the key semiconductor materials exports to South Korea Japan and since the beginning of each memory makers to speed up the production speed and expand the scale of production, since the fourth quarter of this year will have the opportunity to dramatically reduce storage inventory levels, will help the storage industry situation of serious supply exceeds demand in the next year is expected to get better.