Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) said it has no plans to provide foundry services for Chinese clients amid growing speculation that China would work with Taiwan to build its own DRAM capacity.
As China has clearly shown its determination to strengthen its role in the worldwide semiconductor industry by establishing a 120 billion yuan (US$18.4 billion) state fund to build a full semiconductor supply chain in China, investors are closely monitoring Beijing’s moves.
“We hope to participate in the [Chinese] market. China is an important market for us, but we only play the role of [DRAM] supplier. Nothing more,” Nanya president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told reporters on Tuesday.
On top of that, Nanya does not plan to participate in any mergers or acquisitions initiated by Chinese companies, Lee said.
As Beijing is aggressively seeking partners to build its chip capacity to reduce its reliance on imports, investors are concerned whether China will pose a threat or an opportunity to Nanya.
The Nikkei recently reported that former Elpida Memory Inc president Yukio Nakamoto has established a new company, Sino King Technology Ltd, in Hefei, China, to develop next-generation memory chips employing Japanese and Taiwanese technology.
Sino King plans to design low-power DRAM chips used for Internet of Things applications, with mass production set to start in the second half of next year at the earliest, the report said.
Earlier this month, US IC designer Integrated Silicon Solution Inc announced that it would sell all of its shares to a Chinese consortium of investors led by Summitview Capital (武岳峰資本) for about US$640 million.
“The impact [to Nanya] will be very minor,” as Integrated Silicon has no DRAM manufacturing experience or intellectual property, which is crucial to produce DRAM chips, Lee said.
Separately, Nanya’s board yesterday agreed to distribute employee bonuses totaling NT$670 million (US$20.3 million) and pay a cash dividend of NT$2.8 per common share based on last year’s net profit of NT$17.13 billion, or NT$7.07 per share.
The payout represents a dividend yield of 6.75 percent, compared with Nanya’s closing price of NT$41.50 yesterday.
The company also said it expects to book NT$19.94 billion in a one-time asset gain by selling all of its shares of Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技) to Micron Technology Inc in exchange for a stake in the US company. The transaction is expected to be completed in the middle of this year.
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