China faces an unprecedented chip shortages, and homegrown chipmakers can address their slow capacity expansions by seeking breakthroughs in mature specialty process nodes and pursuing international cooperation or overseas acquisitions, according to academic and industry experts speaking at the just-concluded SEMICON China 2021.

China's IC production could meet only 15.7% of demand in the country in 2019 fueled by smartphone, consumer electronics, EV and AI applications, and the rate is estimated to grow to only 20.7% in 2024, said Wu Hangming, dean of Zhejiang University's School of Micro-Nano Electronics.

Wu said China lags far behind overseas chipmakers in advanced process nodes such as 5nm and 3nm, but it can easily achieve breakthroughs in mature specialty processes such as 55nm. He continued that industry, academia and research sectors can join forces to set up public technology platforms leveraging mature processes to develop generic technology for chips manufacturing.

Chen Nanxiang, co-president at Tsinghua Unigroup, said global supply-demand imbalance will become a new normal for the semiconductor sector, and a supply chain-sharing system in terms of chips supply and advanced process nodes development will be a possible solution.

Chen advised Chinese chipmakers to seek acquisitions of overseas semiconductor firms to better allocate global resources. He also noted that good yield rates and cost structures are essential to determining the performance of specialty process nodes.

Gu Wenjun, chief analyst at Shanghai-based consultancy ICWise, said global semiconductor shortages are expected to gradually ease in 2022, and an oversupply may be seen in some processes or product offerings in 2023.