Domestic chip companies have quietly risen. Can Apple escape the supply chain crisis by releasing the strongest chip?

In the early morning of October 19th, Beijing time, Apple’s second new product launch event in the fall came as scheduled. A new generation of MacBookPro equipped with M1Pro or M1Max chips was officially unveiled.

The new MacBookPro is divided into 14-inch and 16-inch sizes. The screen frame becomes narrower and becomes a “Liu Haiping” like the iPhone. It is equipped with a Liquid retina XDR screen and is also equipped with ProMotion adaptive refresh rate technology.

In addition, there are “super chips” M1PRO and M1MAX that have received much attention.

M1Pro is equipped with a 10-core CPU with up to eight high-performance cores and two energy-efficient cores, and a graphics processor with up to 16 cores. The CPU speed of M1Pro can be increased by up to 70%, and the graphics processor speed can be increased by 2 times. The M1Pro chip also provides a memory bandwidth of up to 200GB/s, which is close to three times the bandwidth of the M1, and can provide up to 32GB of high-speed unified memory.

M1Max chip performance is more powerful. M1Max has the same 10-core central processing unit as M1Pro, up to 32 graphics processor cores and a 16-core neural network engine, and its processing speed is up to 4 times faster than M1. M1Max also has a memory bandwidth of up to 400GB/s, which is twice that of M1Pro, nearly 6 times that of M1, and up to 64GB of high-speed unified memory.

[Apple encounters a supply chain crisis]

Although this “chip” is a surprise, the previously exposed supply chain crisis is still affecting Apple’s earnings. According to reports, Apple may reduce the output of the latest series of iPhone13 smartphones by up to 10 million due to chip supply pressure!

A month ago, Apple released the new iPhone 13 series, which attracted many customers to snap up. Statistics show that before the official launch on September 24, iPhone13 orders have exceeded 5 million units. On the day of the official launch, iPhone13 sold more than 800 units in one hour on JD Daojia’s e-commerce platform. As of 18:00 on the same day, the first day sales of iPhone13 were 470% higher than iPhone12.

However, according to the delivery time of the company’s official website, the waiting time for iPhone13 and iPhone13Pro models ranges from 3 to 5 weeks, making it the product series with the longest waiting time for users in recent years.

Some experts have analyzed that this delay may be mainly due to supply chain shortages and the global “chip shortage”. The A15Bionic chip used by iPhone13 and iPhone13Pro comes from TSMC, and other components also come from multiple suppliers.

Apple is one of the world’s largest buyers of chips, but even with strong purchasing power, the company is also struggling to deal with supply disruptions that have caused severe damage to various industries around the world. Major chip makers even claim that the situation where demand continues to exceed supply will continue until the whole year of next year or beyond.

In this regard, Apple CEO Cook said in the recent earnings conference that the demand for chips exceeds the company’s expectations, which may have a huge impact on the company, and its sales may be reduced by 3 billion to 4 billion US dollars.

[Domestic chips attract much attention]

Then, under such an international environment, the development of my country’s chip companies will naturally be affected slightly. In recent days, nearly a hundred companies listed on the Sci-tech Innovation Board intensively disclosed the September investor survey report, and many people paid attention to whether there was an impact on chip shortages.

XGIMI Technology (688696.SH) was asked about the current situation of the chip shortage? Is the supply chain tight? The company replied that since this year, due to multiple factors such as the epidemic, the supply of DMD chips used in the company’s products has continued to be tight, and there is a certain degree of delivery. Uncertainty, the company will actively communicate with suppliers and make every effort to cope with the current tight supply situation.

In response to the problem of the supply chain tension affecting the company’s production capacity, Lanqi Technology (688008.SH) replied that starting from the second half of last year, the company predicted that the entire production capacity will be tight this year, so it has made some plans in advance. As of now, the company The production capacity of main products is basically guaranteed, but specific products or models may still be tight. Remind investors to pay attention to investment risks.

Some chip design companies in the industry have established long-term agreements with foundries. Under the current capacity shortage, whether the company’s mass production capacity is guaranteed. VeriSilicon (688521.SH) stated that the company adheres to the principle of fab neutrality. Maintain close contact and long-term cooperation with various fabs.

In the long-term cooperation, VeriSilicon has established a good business reputation, which is more conducive to the scheduled production capacity. The tight production capacity of wafer fabs in the industry does have a certain impact on the company, but the company has actively responded to it. By maintaining a good cooperative relationship with many wafer manufacturers, purchasing in advance and booking capacity, hoping to reduce the production capacity as much as possible. The risk of ensuring that customers can meet the needs of normal chip production.

[Development status of domestic chip companies]

According to data from the company’s investigation, there are 86,400 chip-related companies in my country. In 2019, there were 6791 new chip companies and 20,900 new chip-related companies in my country in 2020, an increase of 207.39% year-on-year, which is three times the number in 2019.

2020 is the year with the largest number of new chip companies in the past ten years, and it is also the fastest year, far surpassing other years. Affected by the new crown epidemic in 2020, the price of chip raw materials will rise and manufacturers will stock up, making the shortage of chips intensified.

In the first September of 2021, there were 32,100 new chip companies in my country, a year-on-year increase of 153.39%. In the most recent September, 4328 chip companies were added, an increase of 76.94% year-on-year. On the whole, the number of registrations of chip companies in 2021 is still increasing, and the number of registrations in a single month is twice that of 2020. Among them, more than 4,000 chip-related companies were newly added in June, July and September.

From the perspective of regional distribution, Guangdong Province has the most chip-related companies with a total of 28,100. Jiangsu and Zhejiang have 11,800 chip companies and 6,100 chip companies respectively, ranking the top three. Followed by Shanghai, Shandong, Fujian and so on.

From the perspective of city distribution, Shenzhen has 15,800 chip-related companies, ranking first. Guangzhou has 7,949 chip-related companies, ranking second. Suzhou has 3397, ranking third. From then on, Xi’an, Nanjing, Hangzhou, etc. were successively followed.

The current surge in demand for chips can make a qualitative leap forward while satisfying the quantity of domestic chips, which will play a positive role in the development of the entire global market industry. I hope that the current prosperity of chips is just the beginning of domestic chips going to the world, let us wait and see.