Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際) is to build a US$2.35 billion plant with funding from the Shenzhen City Government, the first major project to emerge from China’s master plan to match the US and become more self-reliant amid a global chip shortage.
SMIC yesterday said that shortages could worsen this year and next, harming Chinese businesses if the country does not immediately increase domestic capacity.
In the joint venture with Shenzhen, the company has agreed to develop and operate a manufacturing facility that can produce chips using 28-nanometer technology, it said in a stock exchange filing.
Photo: AFP
The partners aim to attract third-party investment, begin production by next year and eventually produce 40,000 12-inch wafers per month.
“The shortage in chip manufacturing capacity is very real, and the situation could deteriorate in 2021 and 2022 if Chinese companies don’t speed up expansion,” SMIC senior vice president Zhang Xin (張昕) told the SEMICON China conference in Shanghai.
Beijing is moving swiftly to cut a dependence on the West for crucial components such as chips, an issue that became more urgent after a global shortage of semiconductors worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Washington has also blacklisted major Chinese tech firms, including SMIC, cutting it off from US technology, while severely impairing its ability to procure the equipment it needs to make chips.
It remains unclear whether US President Joe Biden’s administration might allow US firms to resume selling to SMIC on a large scale, or ease up on pressuring allies in Europe and elsewhere to boycott the Chinese company.
Mergers with the government might prove essential to achieving the country’s ambitions. Chinese chipmakers aim to progress past the more mature 28-nanometer nodes — now used in industries from automaking to TVs — but need billions of dollars and years of research to produce more sophisticated semiconductors for gadgets such as smartphones.
Much of China’s hopes rest on making headway in burgeoning fields such as artificial intelligence and third-generation chips: Mainly made of materials such as silicon carbide and gallium nitride, they can operate at high frequency and in higher power and temperature environments, with broad applications in 5G, military-grade radar and electric vehicles.
SMIC’s Shenzhen project would mark one of the few plants in the country focused on larger 12-inch rather than 8-inch wafers, which save on cost because more chips can be sliced from it, but are far more difficult to fabricate.
SMIC operates fabs in four cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. It would own 55 percent of the planned factory, with a government-owned entity owning up to a 23 percent stake.
“Silicon wafer is a fundamental raw material in semiconductor manufacturing, yet it is also one of the areas in China’s semiconductor supply chain that has the lowest level of local production, especially 12-inch silicon wafers,” Li Wei (李煒), executive vice president of the National Silicon Industry Group (矽產業集團), a state-backed wafer manufacturer, told the conference on Wednesday.
Apple Inc’s iPhone 13 debut was met with a stock slump on Tuesday, keeping with a tradition of poor share price performance on the day new devices are unveiled. Shares of the technology giant sank after Apple executives, including chief executive officer Tim Cook, presented the new lineup of phones and other devices. The stock fell 1 percent to close at US$148.12 in New York trading. Prior to Tuesday, Apple’s shares fell on three-quarters of the days Apple unveiled new iPhones, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. Excluding Apple’s 8.3 percent rally on the day cofounder Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone in
BEATING SCHEDULE: Government plans are for nacelle assemblies to be totally local from next year, but Orsted Taiwan said that it was going ‘above and beyond’ Wind turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA yesterday inaugurated Taiwan’s first nacelle assembly plant at the Port of Taichung, its first assembly facility for offshore nacelles outside Europe. Vice Premier Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津), a long-time champion of Taiwan’s ambitions to become a regional hub in the offshore wind farm industry, described the plant as a “milestone” at a ceremony at the plant. “The completion of Siemens Gamesa’s nacelle assembly plant is a milestone for the development of the offshore wind farm industry in Taiwan and a step toward localizing the supply chain,” Shen said. “This is only the beginning. My great hope
ROBUST DEMAND: 5G, AI and Internet of Things technologies are driving growth and employment, as the company plans a new plant in Hsinchu County Contract electronics manufacturer Wistron Corp (緯創) plans to invest about NT$11.1 billion (US$400.58 million) in Taiwan, in line with its global deployment strategy, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Friday. The company’s investment is also a demonstration of robust demand for 5G, artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things applications, the ministry said in a statement. Wistron, spun off from Acer Inc (宏碁) in 2001, is a notebook computer original design manufacturing partner to major PC brands. The company, which is based in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖), also produces servers, data storage devices, game consoles and communications products for brand clients
POEMA TIE-UP? A merger would value the combined company at US$1 billion or more, with an announcement possible as soon as this week, the unnamed sources said Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), a Taiwanese manufacturer of electric scooters that specializes in battery-swapping technology, is in talks to go public through a merger with Poema Global Holdings Corp, a blank-check firm, people with knowledge of the matter said. The deal is set to value the combined company at US$1 billion or more, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. An announcement could come as soon as this week, they said. Terms might change and, as with any deal that is not finalized, it is possible that talks could fall through, they said. A representative for Gogoro said that
RSS