欢迎进入“紧晶圆(fab-tight)”时代

根据Future Horizons公司创始人兼首席分析师Malcolm Penn的看法，半导体厂商的心态现在有了一些转变。半导体厂商不再按需建立晶圆代工厂。“忘了轻晶圆(fab-lit)模式吧，紧晶圆(fab-tight)时代即将到来”Penn在自己的2011年前景预测中说道。

Penn对2011年芯片增长的预测在有些人看来或许稍显保守，只有6%。但Penn认为形势已经改变，这对于晶圆厂来说是好消息，对供应链下方的公司来说就不是那么好了。(相关研讨会推荐：可刻录式振荡器取代传统石英，解决质量及基座缺乏等问题）

芯片厂商和纯晶圆厂曾经争着建造基于最新制程工艺的晶圆厂。这样的模式带来了供过于求、产能过剩的风险。但最近一段实现，用于半导体设备的资本投资趋向保守。Penn表示这最终会导致供不应求的情况，增加平均售价，对没有能力控制生产的芯片公司造成打击。

Penn说：“芯片行业在过去三年里的的产能都处在最大输出状态。现在已经进入紧晶圆模式，芯片厂商按需建造晶圆厂。这改变了形势，业内尚未注意到这个问题。”

Penn将明年称为“还债之时”，预测台积电这样的顶尖晶圆厂会利用自己的优势地位提高晶圆成本。一些观察家也相信之前很多纯晶圆厂也会尝试进入市场，直接将芯片销售给OEM厂商。

Penn长期以来一直反对“轻晶圆”政策——成功的芯片厂商为节省开支将部分芯片生产业务外包给晶圆厂。一般来说都是尖端数字生产商让芯片厂商利用自己的老旧晶圆厂来生产数字芯片设计或模拟、混合信号设计。Penn一直将轻晶圆描述为一种无法长期持续的政策，最终会让芯片厂商放弃自己的晶圆厂。

点击进入第二页：用于半导体设备的资本投资已经崩塌

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现在呢？

成功的IDM(集成设备制造商)快速脱离芯片生产业务意味着用于半导体设备的资本投资已经崩塌。Penn表示，尽管半导体行业2010年的销售额依旧增长了13%，但这依然低于20%的长期趋势。“2011年产能过程6%-8%意味着这些公司已经开始倒退，2012年就没有富余的产能。”

“2010年第四季度将是六个季度以来第一次出现产能增长”Penn指出，尽管2010年第三季度芯片销售增长了13.2%，但芯片产能比起2008年第三季度的巅峰状态低了11.2%。

“曾经是无数的半导体公司兴建晶圆厂。现在是它们全都指望几家晶圆厂帮助自己完成所有生产。”现有的晶圆厂的主要投入都在性能升级上，偶尔为现有生产基地新增少量生产工具。

Penn指出尽管台积电每年60亿美元的市值看起来很高，但这不足以改变现状。台积电的整体产能利用率已经达到90%，其中尖端领域更是达到98%。“由于2010年的资本投资，2011年的产能利用率会有所降低，但这个数字依然会很高。”

台积电会抬高价格，他们倒不是阴险狡诈，只是认为现在是时候从自己的风险投资中赚回利润了。在台积电力争从每平方厘米晶圆获得4美元的时候，他们的客户可以从中得到9美元。

Penn还建议说晶圆厂会期望客户资助未来晶圆厂的前期投资。Penn说：“芯片产业的模式已经完蛋，它过度分解。”他说这就是一些公司开始走向垂直整合的缘由。

点击进入参考原文：Welcome to the 'fab-tight' era, says Penn

《电子工程专辑》网站版权所有，谢绝转载

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Welcome to the 'fab-tight' era, says Penn

Peter Clarke

Something has changed in the psyche of semiconductor manufacturers according to Malcolm Penn, founder and principal analyst with Future Horizons. They are no longer building wafer fabs in anticipation of demand. "Forget fab-lite, welcome to the fab-tight era," said Penn speaking at a one-day presentation on his forecast for 2011.

Penn presented what may seem like a relatively modest 6 percent growth figure for the chip market in 2011 but he feels that situation has changed. This will be good news for the foundries and not so good news for those further down the supply chain.

In the past chip makers and pure-play foundries have in the past tended to build wafers fabs in an attempt to be first with capacity at new manufacturing nodes. This has led to the risk of oversupply to the market and boom-bust cyclicality. But in the latest cycle capital spending on semiconductor equipment has been conservative, Penn said. This will inevitably lead to an undersupply situation, increasing average selling prices and problems for chip companies that do not have control of their own manufacturing.

"We've been running [manufacturing capacity] maxed-out for three years. We are now running in a fab-tight mode," said Penn "The chip makers are building fabs after the demand, and this changes the rules. The industry just hasn't realized yet."

Penn also described the coming years as "pay-back time" as he expects leading foundries such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) to use their strong positions to raise the cost of wafers. Some observers believe previously pure-play foundries may even be tempted to enter the market place and sell direct to leading OEMs.

Penn has been a long-time opponent of the so-called 'fab-lite' policy whereby established chipmakers have saved on capital expenditure by outsourcing some part of their chip manufacturing to foundries. This has usually been the leading-edge digital manufacturing leaving the chip companies to fill their older wafer fabs with less aggressive digital designs or analog, mixed-signal circuits. Penn has consistently described fab-lite as unsustainable in the long term and as just a way of describing a transition to fabless.

Where are the all the new shells?

But the rapid exit of established IDMs from leading-edge chipmaking means that capital spending on semiconductor equipment has collapsed. Even though it grew strongly in 2010 at 13 percent of sales revenue it is still well below the long-term trend of 20 percent of sales revenue, said Penn. "2011 capex at 6 to 8 percent means the companies are already throttling back. There will be no excess capacity in 2012, Penn said.

"The fourth quarter of 2010 will be the first capacity growth [for six quarters]," said Penn pointing out that 3Q10 global chip manufacturing capacity was still 11.2 percent less than the 3Q08 peak, despite IC unit sales being up 13.2 percent.

"You used to have myriad semiconductor companies building fabs. Now they are expecting a couple of foundries to do it all for them." And those chip manufacturers that are spending are mainly performing upgrades or squeezing a few extra tools into existing sites. "The number of new shells is near zero."

Penn pointed out that while TSMC's $6-billion annual capital may seem a lot but is not going to change the situation significantly, which has seen greater than 90 percent utilization across the board and 98 percent utilization at the leading edge. "Manufacturing capacity utilization will drop back in 2011, due to 2010's capital expenditure, but they will still remain high."

"TSMC have put their prices up. They are not being underhand or deceitful. They just think it is time they were paid full value for all the risk investment they have made. They are tired of being paid $4 per square centimeter of silicon when their customers get paid $9 per square centimeter.

Penn also suggested that foundries would likely expect customers to start funding future fabs up-front. "The chip industry model is broken. It is over dis-aggregated," said Penn arguing that this is why there are some companies making moves towards vertical integration.