China to fall short of 2025 chip self-sufficiency goal

China’s locally produced integrated circuits (IC) will represent only 19.4% of its IC market in 2025, according to market research firm IC Insights.

This falls short of the country’s Made in China 2025 goal of 70%, the firm said.

Last year, China-produced ICs accounted for 15.9% of the country’s IC market worth US$143.4 billion, up from 10.2% in 2010.

However, of the US$22.7 billion worth of ICs manufactured in China last year, China-headquartered companies produced only US$8.3 billion (36.5%), accounting for only 5.9% of the country’s US$143.4 billion IC market.  

There rest were produced by foreign companies such as TSMC, SK Hynix, Samsung, Intel, UMC and others with IC wafer fabs located in China.

IC Insights said it estimates that of the US$8.3 billion in ICs manufactured by China-based companies, about US$2.3 billion was from integrated device manufacturers and US$6.0 billion was from pure-play foundries like SMIC.

If China-based IC manufacturing rises to US$43.2 billion in 2025 as IC Insights forecasts, China-based IC production would still represent only 7.5% of the total forecasted 2025 worldwide IC market of US$577.9 billion., the market research firm said.

Even after adding a significant markup to some of the Chinese producers’ IC sales (many Chinese IC producers are foundries that sell their ICs to companies that re-sell these products to the electronic system producers), China-based IC production would still likely represent only about 10% of the global IC market in 2025, IC Insights added.

China announced its Made in China 2025 goal back in 2015 and announced that it would fund semiconductor projects in the country to secure core technology and produce chips on its own. The goal set then was to have locally produced semiconductors to account for 40% of its market and 70% by 2025. 

The country had invested in companies such as Huawei, ZTE, Tsinghua Unigroup and SMIC to reach the goal. The country and these companies have also attempted to acquire foreign semiconductor companies.

US sanctions against China has dented this goal. In May, US imposed trade restrictions on Huawei that required companies supplying the Chinese tech giant with goods made with US technology to gain the approval from the Department of Commerce. SMIC was added to US’ Entity List in December.

The sanction will dent hopes for Chinese companies to catch up to market leaders in semiconductor technology. TSMA and Samsung Electronics can make chips smaller than 10nm, while SMIC had so far secured 14nm. To make chips smaller than 10nm, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) equipment from Netherlands’ ASML is required. But SMIC will need to gain approval from the US Department of Commerce to import them.