The price of the power chip is mainly determined by the hardware cost of the chip and the design cost of the chip.

The chip hardware cost includes four parts: wafer cost + mask cost + packaging cost + testing cost. A formula is written as chip hardware cost = (wafer cost + mask cost + packaging cost + testing cost) / final yield. Wafers are the raw materials for making chips, and the cost of wafers can be understood as the cost of the materials (silicon wafers) used for each chip. If the output is large enough and calculated in units of 100 million, the wafer cost accounts for the highest proportion of the hardware cost. The cost of the mask is the cost of using different processes. For example, the 40/28nm process is very mature. The mask cost of the 40nm low-power process is 2 million US dollars; the 28nm SOI process is 4 million US dollars; the 28nm HKMG cost is $6 million. But the most advanced process technology, that is sky-high price. When the 14nm process technology was first put into production in 2014, the cost of the mask was US$300 million; while the next-generation 10nm process technology, according to Intel‘s official estimates, the mask cost will cost at least US$1 billion. The packaging cost is to stack the substrate, the core, and the heat sink together to make the chips that everyone sees every day. The cost of this process is usually about 5%-25% of the hardware cost, but Some of IBM‘s chip packaging costs account for about half of the total cost, and the highest is said to have reached 70%. The test cost refers to the cost of testing the characteristics of each chip, such as the highest frequency, power consumption, heat generation, etc., and determining the chip level. For example, Intel classifies a bunch of chips as: I5 4460, I5 4590, I5 4690, I5 4690K, and then offer different prices. However, the proportion of the test cost is very small, if the chip production is large, it can even be ignored.

Factors affecting the cost of chip hardware:

The market price of raw materials fluctuates. The main raw material of chips is wafers. The market demand for wafers and the capacity of wafer fabs directly affect the price of silicon wafers themselves. For example, in the past 10 years, the price of semiconductor silicon wafers has been falling due to the oversupply of semiconductor silicon wafers. However, since the beginning of 2017, the situation has undergone a major reversal, and the shortage of supply has pushed up the price of silicon wafers soaring quarter by quarter. Looking forward to the future, with the continuous expansion of the production capacity of international wafer manufacturers such as Samsung, and the continuous mass production of mainland manufacturers such as Yangtze River Storage in the first half of 2019, the price of silicon wafers will continue to rise, and the orders of silicon wafer manufacturers have extended to 2020. It is understood that the supply of silicon wafers has been in short supply since the beginning of 2017, pushing up the overall quotation by about 20%. The main reasons for the price increase of silicon wafers are reflected in two aspects. On the one hand, the explosion of applications such as the Internet of Vehicles, Internet of Things, storage, AI and Bitcoin has pushed up the demand for semiconductors; on the other hand, the top five manufacturers in the world There is no plan to expand production capacity, which has caused the silicon wafer market to change from overproduction to short supply, driving quotations sharply higher.

Silicon wafers are the most important upstream raw materials for fabs. Silicon wafers can be mainly divided into large wafers (18 inches, 12 inches, 8 inches) and small silicon wafers (below 6 inches). Currently, 12-inch silicon wafers are the mainstream, while Silicon wafers under 6 inches are being phased out. Six major companies, including Shin Etsu, Sumco, Siltronic, MEMC, LG silltron, and SAS, control the vast majority of the global semiconductor wafer market. However, my country‘s existing silicon wafer production capacity is mainly in terms of small silicon wafers. Silicon wafers above 8 inches mainly rely on imports, especially for 12-inch silicon wafers. The capacity of wafer manufacturing companies and the start-up of new new wafer companies are also major factors affecting wafer cost.

Factors affecting the design cost of the chip:

The hardware cost is relatively clear, but the design cost is more complicated, which includes not only the engineer‘s salary, the cost of EDA and other development tools, equipment cost, site cost, etc., but also a large part of the intellectual property cost. The cost difference is huge. At present, the first few expenses have been at a stable level. There is little difference between companies. The biggest difference in the cost of chip design is the intellectual property fee. For example, MediaTek has to pay huge royalties to Qualcomm. He The cost is much higher than that of Qualcomm.

The price of the chip = the hardware cost of the chip + the design cost of the chip + the profit of the original factory. The international general chip pricing strategy is the 8:20 pricing method, that is, when the hardware cost is 8, the price is 20, and Intel‘s general pricing The strategy is 8:35, and AMD has historically reached 8:50. A chip adopts the 8:20 pricing method. In the case of production of 100,000, its price is $305; in the case of production of 1 million, its price is $75; in the case of production of 10 million , which sells for $52.50. It can be seen that to reduce the price of chips, the output is very important. If the chip is mass-produced in units of 100 million, such as Apple‘s chip, even if the mask cost is as high as 1 billion US dollars, the cost is only 10 US dollars if it is apportioned to each chip, but if the output of the chip is only 1 million, a The mask cost of a chip is as high as $1,000, which is obviously uncompetitive.

Factors affecting the cost of sales of chips:

The price of a chip is not only affected by its own manufacturing cost, but also has a lot to do with the original factory‘s sales strategy and sales channels. Most of the original factories use agents to market and sell their products, so they must leave a certain profit margin for the agents. This sales strategy invisibly drives up the cost of sales, which is also reflected in the pricing of the product.

Factors affecting supply and demand:

In addition to the R&D and manufacturing costs and sales costs mentioned above, the price of chips will also be affected by the relationship between market supply and demand, especially for some products that are in high demand in the market, such as capacitors and microcontrollers. When an industry experiences explosive growth, on the one hand, the original factory’s production capacity is limited. When demand surges, the manufacturer has no time to expand production, which will lead to longer delivery times and higher prices for the original factory; on the other hand, the market demand suddenly increases , the existing inventory in the market will become in short supply, rare goods will be available, and prices will skyrocket.