The golden decade of China's semiconductor industry has just begun!

On May 31st, the German Merck Group signed a contract to open a semiconductor materials base in Zhangjiagang City, Jiangsu Province, China. This is its largest single electronic business investment in China. The new 69-acre site will house production plants, warehouses and operation centers for thin film materials and electronic specialty gases.

The president of Merck China said in a statement, "China is the largest semiconductor end market, with more than half of the global chip production flowing to China." Given the unprecedented capacity investment and expansion by domestic chip manufacturers in China, China is currently also the world's fastest-growing semiconductor manufacturing market. We believe that the golden age of China's semiconductor industry has only just begun.

China's demand for chips is extremely huge, and even in terms of imports, it exceeds the demand for oil. In 2021, the import volume of chips in China had reached 635.5 billion. The amount it spent on importing chips also reached 440 billion US dollars, which is equivalent to 2.8 trillion yuan. Such import expenses are extremely huge. It should be noted that in 2021, the total amount spent on importing crude oil and soybeans was not as much as the cost of importing chips.

Nowadays, semiconductor chips are as important as oil. In the future, whoever masters advanced semiconductor manufacturing will become even more crucial, and it may even turn into an opportunity for overtaking on a curve. Today, we will sort out the semiconductor industry and focus on analyzing the sub-sector of semiconductor equipment.