Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) aims to spend US$8.87 billion to build a new plant on the outskirts of Shanghai, a major expansion in capacity at a time the nation is trying to build a world-class chip industry.
SMIC has signed an agreement to establish a 100,000 wafers per month fab in the Lin-Gang Special Area, a free-trade zone run by the city. The facility would focus on more mature technology of 28 nanometers or older, the company said in a filing.
It plans to set up a joint venture with registered capital of US$5.5 billion with Shanghai’s government to oversee the project, of which the company would own at least 51 percent.
SMIC shares jumped as much as 2.7 percent in Hong Kong and 4.8 percent in Shanghai.
The envisioned plant comes on top of a US$2.35 billion factory SMIC is planning in Shenzhen that would be able to make as many as 40,000 12-inch wafers per month. Together, the projects represent an effort to shore up its lead in domestic chipmaking while furthering the nation’s broader chip ambitions.
The Shanghai facility’s mature-node chips could be targeted at the automaking industry, which is struggling with an endemic shortage of the semiconductors it needs to power electric vehicles and in-car systems.
Shanghai-based SMIC is China’s best hope for gaining clout in advanced chips used in devices from smartphones to base stations. Its capacity and technical know-how are crucial to helping Beijing overcome a US-led effort to curb its tech ambitions.
However, the company has been unable to get key machinery to keep advancing its technology, after the US placed it under sanctions last year on national security grounds.
Beijing is moving swiftly to cut a dependence on the West for crucial components like chips, an issue that became more urgent after a global shortage of semiconductors worsened amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has tapped close confidante Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (劉鶴), the economic czar whose sprawling portfolio spans trade to finance and technology, to spearhead the development of so-called third-generation or compound semiconductor chip development. Liu is now leading the formulation of a series of financial and policy support for the technology, Bloomberg News has reported.
SMIC’s newest plant would be built in a free-trade zone in the southeastern suburbs of Shanghai, an enlargement of the tariff-free areas Xi originally approved to attract foreign investment and trade.
The company is expanding because its existing plants are running at or close to full capacity, and its executives are counting on being able to procure equipment to make chips based on more mature technologies, despite US sanctions.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
RSS