In the 25000 square meter factory building of Lingang New Area in Shanghai, dozens of heavy-duty trucks are sliding on the ceiling at high speed. These equipment, known as “overhead cranes”, precisely pause between each expensive crystal square production equipment, quickly realizing the actions of objects and shelving, promoting the high-speed flow of each process.
The production line is equipped with high-quality sensors, including cameras, and each key image and data will be displayed on a huge screen in the factory office. Less than five people just need to stand in front of the computer to notice almost all the achievements in the process of childbirth.
This is the scene that Shanghai Dingtai Jiangxin Technology Co., Ltd., the first 12 inch automotive grade semiconductor wafer factory in China, is performing every day. Countless pieces of thin and large silicon wafers are processed into product chips during this process, and ultimately sent to various industries.
In 2022, this crystal square factory named Dingtai Jiangxin was built in the Lingang New Area of Shanghai. One of the major projects in Shanghai, Dingtai Jiangxin has a total investment of 12 billion yuan, covering an area of 196 acres, and a production capacity of 120000 pieces per month.
Dingtai Jiangxin 12 inch automotive grade crystal square factory has been successfully put into operation in the first quarter of 2023, which can provide a variety of negative manufacturing process choices for various technical nodes, mainly producing high crime rate devices such as MOSFETs, Power ICs, and integrated circuit products.
Crystal square is the fundamental material for chip manufacturing. Its size determines the number of chips that can be cut on each crystal, as well as the functionality, cost, and production capacity of the chips. 12 inches is currently the largest crystal square size, with larger crystal square silicon wafers. There are more chips that can be cut on a single silicon wafer, and the cost of a single chip is also lower. Therefore, it is possible to produce more complex and high-performance chips.
With the rapid growth of fields such as 5G, AI, and automotive electronics, various industries have further increased their demand for high-performance and low cost chips, making 12 inch wafers the focus of their efforts.
Tian Chunjiang, General Manager of Dingtai Jiangxin, stated that the reason for establishing Dingtai Jiangxin is due to the huge demand for automotive semiconductors, especially in Chinese automotive malls. As he said, while new power vehicles have exploded, the automotive electronics industry has also experienced an unprecedented structural transformation. The previously silent Chinese semiconductor manufacturers have played a more active role in this transformation.
The key components of conservative fuel vehicles are the engine, chassis, and gearbox, while new power vehicles are independent of batteries, electric drive, and electronic control systems. Correspondingly, the latter’s focus device for energy quality transformation and transmission has significantly increased the crime rate of semiconductor quality. According to calculations, the crime rate of conservative fuel vehicles is only 10%, hybrid vehicles account for 40% higher, and pure electric vehicles account for 55%.
For a long time, the criminal rate semiconductor property was dominated by European, American, and Japanese manufacturers, such as Infineon from Germany, Ansemy from the United States, and STMicroelectronics from Italy and France. With the rapid growth of new power vehicles and semiconductor assets in China, the production of crime rate devices needs to increase rapidly in order for domestic semiconductor production to progress rapidly and reach the first level domestically.
Dingtai Jiangxin is one of them. In March 2023, Dingtai Jiangxin passed the ISO quality management system certification; Passed the IATF16949 vehicle level quality management system standard in June; The first batch of over 40 products imported in October passed a 2000 hour non reliability certification and entered the formal quality production stage in November. At present, the factory has passed all major Tier 1 and automotive customer certifications.
“It is quite difficult for a factory to obtain these certifications in such a short period of time, which proves that not only can the factory be recognized in terms of hardware strength, but the software can also reach the domestic standard.” Tian Chunjiang, the general manager of Dingtai Jiangxin, told Interface News.
Tian Chunjiang introduced that Dingtai Craftsman has established its own technical moat. The self-developed major crime rate plan can significantly improve the reliability of the product, with the characteristic of accurately integrating the warping degree of the crystal during the delivery process through the back thin film process. The minimum thickness of the thin film is only 50um. In addition, the BCD deep groove cutting DTI technology, which is leading the industry, can effectively enhance the anti leakage motor performance of the device, and make the chip trend towards miniaturization and intensification.
Third party shopping mall research firm Omdia once speculated that the scope of global automotive grade semiconductor shopping malls would reach $64.1 billion in 2023, an increase of 14.3% year-on-year, with an estimated Chinese shopping mall scope reaching $17.7 billion. In 2025, the scope of automotive grade semiconductor shopping malls will reach 80.4 billion US dollars throughout the year, and the scope of Chinese shopping malls will reach 21.6 billion US dollars, with semiconductor crime rates exceeding 30%.
Due to the earlier structure of overseas manufacturers, the overall localization rate of Chinese automotive grade semiconductors is still below 10%. But with the efforts of a few domestic manufacturers, the crime rate semiconductor has become the highest level of localization in the automotive grade chip industry. In the world’s most dull new power car mall, domestic automotive grade semiconductor manufacturers are entering a new period of growth.
