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.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS