Breaking the Deadlock and Reinventing: The "Triple Reconstruction" of the High-Performance Chip Industry and the Rise of Chinese Forces

Storm Unveiled: A Global Shock Triggered by a Chip Price Hike

In August 2025, Texas Instruments (TI) dropped a "depth charge" on the global electronics industry: the prices of over 60,000 chip models skyrocketed by 10% - 30%. The price increase of core components in industrial control and automotive applications exceeded 25%, and the unit price of automotive biosensor chips doubled overnight. The delivery cycle of industrial PLC modules was extended from 16 weeks to 52 weeks. This epic price hike instantly triggered a tsunami in the industrial chain: leading new - energy vehicle manufacturers were forced to cut their production capacity by 30% due to the supply shortage of BMS chips, and the construction of 5G base stations was largely halted due to the shortage of RF components.

This incident completely tore off the warm - hearted veil of the global semiconductor division of labor. When American giants monopolize 75% of the high - end market share, technological hegemony is being alienated into a weapon for supply - chain hijacking. After TI's gross profit margin dropped sharply from 68.8% in 2022 to 56.8%, the essence of its "profit - protection first" strategy is to shift all the costs of the U.S. manufacturing reshoring and the 125% tariff triggered by China's "new regulations on chip origin traceability" to downstream customers. A 60% gross profit margin is like the Sword of Damocles hanging over every industry that relies on imported chips.

The deeper crisis lies in the collapse of the rules system. The price hike is not only a cost shock but also an epitome of geopolitical games. The United States is reshaping the supply chain with tariffs, China is countering with domestic substitution, and giants like TI are reaping the dividends of pricing power in the rift. When the cost of an electric vehicle increases by 500 yuan due to the chip price hike, and when factory automation projects are indefinitely postponed due to delayed delivery, the cost of this game is being borne by global consumers. The ultimate contradiction between chip hegemony and industrial security has pierced through all disguises at this moment. It announces the end of the myth of the "globalized supply chain" and ignites the hottest spark for domestic substitution. Based on this, this article will conduct an in - depth analysis of the following aspects:

Market Storm: The core challenges currently faced by the high - performance chip market

Triple "Reconstruction": Reconstruction of supply - chain resilience, reconstruction of technological routes, and reconstruction of value distribution

Dynamic Game: The key role of Chinese manufacturers and the trend of market value redistribution

Eye of the Storm: Reconstruction of the Resilience of the High - Performance Chip Supply Chain

(I) Anatomization of the Vulnerability of the Global High - Performance Chip Supply Chain

While the U.S. Department of Commerce tightened the new regulations on chip export controls again in 2025, it exposed a suffocating reality: the global high - performance chip supply chain is essentially a precise edifice built on a fault line. The new regulations included high - performance chips such as the consumer - grade graphics card RTX 4090 in the control scope and also prevented Chinese enterprises from obtaining chips or cloud computing power resources through third countries. This policy is an embodiment of the weaponization of geopolitics, which directly led to an 8% plunge in NVIDIA's stock price and put Chinese AI enterprises' chip order deliveries in trouble.

The vulnerability of the supply chain goes far beyond political intervention and is more deeply rooted in the structural monopoly of key links. ASML monopolizes lithography machines below 7 nanometers, Japan's JSR controls 70% of the high - end photoresist market, and Shin - Etsu Chemical occupies 30% of the large - silicon - wafer market. China's dependence on imports of key materials for high - end chip manufacturing exceeds 80%. The U.S. export control on equipment below 14 nanometers in 2024 exposed the "Achilles' heel" of the supply chain, and the "TI power management chip price hike incident" in 2023 highlighted the loss of bargaining power in the absence of domestic substitution.

What's more dangerous is that sudden shocks are becoming the new normal. The lockdown of semiconductor testing and packaging factories in Malaysia during the pandemic caused a global shortage of automotive chips. The Red Sea shipping crisis in 2024 extended the transportation cycle of chip raw materials and skyrocketed the costs. After the Russia - Ukraine conflict, alternative bases in Eastern Europe are facing problems such as weak infrastructure and labor shortages. These factors combined to form a "complex crisis".

(II) Paradigm Shift of the Global Supply Chain and China's Strategic Awakening

When the "suffocating moments" are repeated, the reconstruction of supply - chain resilience has been upgraded from an enterprise option to a national strategic necessity. The U.S. "CHIPS and Science Act" offers $52 billion in subsidies to attract TSMC and Samsung to build factories in the United States, and the EU's "European Chips Act" allocates 43 billion euros to boost domestic production capacity. These measures all point to one goal: hedging geopolitical risks through geographical decentralization. The deeper change lies in the triple shift of the supply - chain paradigm:

① Near - shore outsourcing experiment in Eastern Europe: Central and Eastern European countries have become new variables in the global manufacturing landscape. Between 2022 and 2023, foreign enterprises promised to invest $82 billion in manufacturing in 15 "near - shore destinations" such as Poland and Hungary, a 62% increase compared to the pre - pandemic level. Chinese enterprises such as BYD and CATL are deploying in Hungary, and European enterprises such as BMW are asking Chinese enterprises to set up factories nearby because the shipping cost has exceeded the premium of local production. The attractiveness of Eastern Europe lies in its cost - difference advantage: the land cost is only one - third of that in Western Europe, the salary of engineers is 60% of that in Germany, and it enjoys the convenience of zero - tariff within the EU.

② Political screening in friendly - shore outsourcing: When "trust" becomes a more prioritized indicator than "efficiency", the semiconductor supply chain is being reorganized according to ideology. The United States is promoting "friendly - shore outsourcing" and transferring key industries such as semiconductors and new energy to its ally countries. The formation of this "value - based trading circle" enables the RISC - V open - source architecture to avoid the risk of patent politicization due to zero licensing fees. In 2024, its shipments exceeded 10 billion, with China contributing more than 50%, breaking the monopoly of instruction sets.

③ Critical breakthrough in domestic substitution: China's countermeasures in the market have shifted from passive response to active reconstruction. Data in 2024 shows that China's self - sufficiency rate of mature - process chips soared from 30% to 70%, and the U.S. chip export value to China dropped from $120 billion to $45 billion. In the new - energy vehicle field, the localization rate of automotive - grade MCUs increased from 5% to 12%, and the market scale exceeded 30 billion yuan; the domestic substitution rate of industrial FPGA chips reached 8%. The Kirin 9000S chip in Huawei's Mate 60 Pro verified that under the 7 - nanometer process limitation, flagship performance can still be achieved through Chiplet heterogeneous integration and algorithm optimization.

Wanchuang Investment Bank believes that the essence of the triple - paradigm shift of supply - chain resilience is shifting from the "Just - in - Time" zero - inventory model to the "Just - in - Case" defensive layout. As Morgan Stanley warned, no country can completely replace China's manufacturing. The rational choice is the "China + N" strategy, that is, retaining basic production capacity in China to serve the domestic market while establishing backup production capacity in Vietnam, Mexico, Eastern Europe, etc.

(III) China's Solution: The Path to Breakthrough through Agile Manufacturing and Ecosystem Collaboration

Facing the global wave of supply - chain reconstruction, China's high - performance chip industry is opening up a unique path through asymmetric innovation. Different from the United States' overwhelming advantage in cutting - edge processes, the core of China's solution lies in agile manufacturing capabilities and ecosystem collaboration efficiency, filling the gaps in the supply chain through multi - level innovation.

1. Rapid Iteration Paradigm of Characteristic Processes

When advanced processes are blocked by equipment embargoes, Chinese manufacturers choose to build competitiveness through optimization of mature processes and architectural innovation. What's more noteworthy is the breakthrough in the integration of characteristic processes and Chiplet technology:

In the field of AI chips, domestic enterprises have achieved efficient interconnection between CPU and GPU through Chiplet, reducing the inference cost of large models by 35% directly;

Domestic 5 - nanometer Chiplet packaging products have started mass production, using silicon interposers to achieve interconnection of tens of billions of transistors, with performance comparable to that of single 4 - nanometer chips;

Three - dimensional stacking technology has improved the performance - to - power ratio of 28 - nanometer chips to a level close to that of 7 - nanometer chips, providing "sufficient and reliable" solutions for scenarios such as intelligent cockpits and edge computing.

This strategy of "trading time for process" enables domestic chips to quickly penetrate fragmented markets such as AIoT and industrial control.

2. Intelligent Foundation for Flexible Capacity Scheduling

Manufacturing flexibility not only depends on process breakthroughs but also relies on the ability of dynamic capacity configuration. The deeper change lies in the vertical integration of the industrial chain. The Yangtze River Delta, with Shanghai as the center, gathers manufacturing giants such as SMIC and Huahong Semiconductor, forming a complete chain from EDA tool design to high - end packaging and testing, contributing 50% of the country's chip production capacity; The Pearl River Delta relies on the design industry cluster in Shenzhen to incubate the Huawei Ascend AI chip ecosystem; The Bohai Rim region links Beijing's R & D centers with Tianjin's material bases to build a "research - production integrated" network. In the first three quarters of 2024, the country's integrated - circuit production reached 315.6 billion pieces, a year - on - year increase of 26%, and the industrial sales revenue exceeded 1.5 trillion yuan. Behind this growth is the offset of supply - chain fragmentation by regional synergy effects.

3. Battle to Break through the Barriers in Ecosystem Collaboration

True supply - chain resilience is built on the basis of technological autonomy. China's semiconductor industry is shifting from single - point breakthroughs to systematic ecosystem construction:

In the IP field: The domestic NA900 has become the world's first RISC - V CPU IP to pass the ISO 26262 ASIL - B/D certification, with performance comparable to that of ARM Cortex - M7;

In the equipment field: Domestic enterprises' nanometer - level plasma etching machines have entered mass production, supporting the domestic equipment market share to rise from 15% in 2020 to 28% in 2024;

In the material field: Domestic photoresist has achieved mass production in the 248 - nanometer KrF process, and wet electronic chemicals have entered TSMC's supply chain.

Wanchuang Investment Bank believes that China's path to success is essentially the construction of a resilience triangle: forming a dynamic balance through in - depth optimization of mature processes, improvement of flexible manufacturing networks, and leading the open - source ecosystem. Excessive control has made U.S. enterprises lose the Chinese market, but unexpectedly provided China with the "most expensive lesson". In three years, China has spawned a complete industrial chain. Although there are still challenges to be overcome in areas such as EUV lithography machines and EDA tools, the era when "being restricted in a single technology means suffocation" is accelerating into history.

Innovation Breakthrough: Differentiation and Diversified Reconstruction of Technological Routes

(I) The Dusk of Moore's Law and the Rise of Diversified Technological Paths

Since 2025, the global semiconductor industry has faced a systematic collapse of the economic model based on Moore's Law. The construction cost of a 5 - nanometer wafer factory soared to $16 billion, and the R & D investment in the 3 - nanometer process reached as high as $7.8 billion. However, the revenue growth rate of global leading chip enterprises is generally lower than 5%. Physically, the quantum tunneling effect in processes below 3 nanometers has led to a 37% surge in power consumption when transistors are in the off - state, forcing chip manufacturers to reduce the operating frequency or turn off some cores to avoid overheating. Against this background, technological routes beyond Moore's Law have witnessed explosive growth, forming three core breakthrough paths:

Chiplet and Advanced Packaging: Breaking through the limitations of single - chip through modular integration. Domestic high - performance chip enterprises are increasing their investment in panel - level packaging and 12 - inch wafer - level fan - out technology. Zhongkexin has achieved through - silicon vias with a line width of 5μm and an aspect ratio of 10:1, supporting 1024 - bit/4.8mm high - speed interconnection and passing the reliability verification of 30W high - power consumption.

RISC - V and Open - Source Architecture: In 2024, the