Native name | 中芯国际集成电路制造有限公司 (中芯国际) |
---|---|
Company type | Public; State-owned enterprise |
SSE: 688981 (A share) SEHK: 981 (H share) | |
Industry | Semiconductors |
Founded | April 3, 2000 Cayman Islands (legal domicile) |
Founder | Zhang Rujing |
Headquarters | Shanghai, China |
Key people | Haijun Zhao (Co-CEO) Liang Mong Song (Co-CEO) |
Revenue | US$7.27 billion (2022) [1] [2] |
US$1.818 billion (2022) [3] | |
Total assets | US$36.1 billion (2021) |
Number of employees | 17,354 (2020) |
Website | www |
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is a partially state-owned publicly listed Chinese pure-play semiconductor foundry company. It is the largest contract chip maker in mainland China.
SMIC is headquartered in Shanghai [4] and incorporated in the Cayman Islands. [5] It has wafer fabrication sites throughout mainland China, offices in the United States, Italy, Japan, and Taiwan, and a representative office in Hong Kong. [6] It provides integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing services from 350 nm to 7 nm [7] process technologies. The Financial Times reported that SMIC is expected to offer 5 nm process-node IC manufacturing services in 2024. [8]
State-owned civilian and military telecommunications equipment provider Datang Telecom Group as well as the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund are major shareholders of SMIC. [9] [10] [11] [12] Notable customers include Huawei, Qualcomm, [13] [14] Broadcom, [15] and Texas Instruments. [16] [13] SMIC is a major shareholder and supplier to Brite Semiconductor. [17] In response to US sanctions on the Chinese chip industry in the early 2020s, SMIC started on a wave of expansion in the form of joint ventures with China's state semiconductor fund. [18] As of 2024 [update] , it is the world's third largest contract chip maker. [19]
SMIC was founded on April 3, 2000, and is headquartered in Shanghai. [4] It was incorporated in the Cayman Islands as a limited liability company. It quickly built a fully-owned plant in Shanghai, acquired a Motorola plant in Tianjin, and then began to build a fully-owned plant in Beijing. [5] SMIC also became involved in two projects in Chengdu and Wuhan, which reversed a common pattern in Chinese development of government building, operating, then transferring industrial projects, such that SMIC operated the company, but the capital costs were borne by municipal government, relieving SMIC of the major cost of its fab plants. [20]
In September 2003, SMIC raised $630 million in funding from investors, including: Walden International (a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California), Oak Investment Partners, Temasek and others. [21] Israeli Venture Capital fund 'Vertex Israel' also participated in the funding round. [22]
On June 23, 2015, Huawei, Qualcomm Global Trading Pte. Ltd., IMEC International, and SMIC announced the formation of the SMIC Advanced Technology Research & Development (Shanghai) Corporation, an equity joint venture company. [23]
On October 14, 2016, Ningbo Semiconductor International Corporation was jointly established by China IC Capital (the wholly owned investment fund of SMIC), Ningbo Senson Electronics Technology Co., Ltd, and Beijing Integrated Circuit Design and Testing Fund with a registered capital of RMB355 million, equal to US$52.8 million. SMIC holds 66.76% of the ownership interest. NSI will develop analog and specialty semiconductor process technology platforms in the areas of high-voltage analog, radio frequency, and optoelectronics. These developments will support customers in IC design and product development for applications in smart home, industrial, and automotive electronics, new generations of radio communications, augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, and other specialty systems. [24]
In 2018, SMIC had gross profits of $747 million and net profits of $149, with $3.6 billion in revenues. [13] It apparently spend around $550 million on research and development, or about 16 percent of sales. [25] On 9 March 2018, SMIC and the government of Shaoxing established a joint venture, United Nova Technology. [26] On May 18, 2018, ground was broken on the manufacturing base for SMIC in Shaoxing. SMIC was building a plant that would be the first in China to use 14-nanometer production technology. [27] The company said it would increase its investment capacity by 20% in February 2019. [28]
Current[ when? ] co-CEOs are Zhao Haijun and Mong Song Liang. Zixue Zhou serves as chairman of the board. [29] In May 2019, it was said that SMIC's co-chiefs, Zhao Haijun and Liang Mong-song were at odds over how to focus the company. [30]
On May 24, 2019, SMIC announced it would voluntarily delist from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), citing low trade volumes. Along with low US trading volumes, the company named the high administrative cost of maintaining the NYSE listing.; [31] it joined the exchange 15 years before. [32] [33] [31] And following Huawei blacklisting by the United States government. [32] [34]
In 2019, Qualcomm, Huawei, and IMEC were still minority shareholders in SMIC's R&D arm. [13]
In May 2020, in support of the country's Made in China 2025 program; the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund and the Shanghai Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund invested a combined US$2 billion, gaining, respectively, 23.08% and 11.54% ownership of SMIC. [35] In July 2020 SMIC issued 1,685,620,000 shares at 27.46 yuan per share on the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, raising 46.28 billion yuan ($6.62 billion). [36]
On July 21, 2022, the company established 7 nm technology. [37] This technology was achieved in two years. [38]
The company was the target of a lawsuit brought by TSMC, accusing SMIC of misappropriating TSMC intellectual property. [39] [ failed verification ] The first round of litigation ended in 2005 with a $175 million settlement. A second round was opened in 2006. The liability phase of the lawsuit began on September 9, 2009, in Oakland, California, [40] and the jury found SMIC liable on 61 out of 65 claims. [41] SMIC entered into a settlement agreement with TSMC to resolve all pending lawsuits between the parties. [42]
In September 2020, the United States Department of Commerce declared SMIC a military end-user and required that American technology companies dealing with it obtain a license. [11] The action elicited a rebuke from China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian. [43]
On 4 October 2020, SMIC stated that the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security had informed some of SMIC's suppliers that according to U.S. export control regulations they must apply for an export license in advance before supplying SMIC with some American equipment, accessories and original products. [44] In December 2020, the United States Department of Defense named SMIC as a company "owned or controlled" by the People's Liberation Army and thereby prohibited any American company or individual from investing in it. [45]
In December 2020, the United States Department of Commerce added SMIC to the Bureau of Industry and Security's Entity List. [46] [47]
On 6 September 2023, Huawei launched its new Mate 60 smartphone. The phone was powered by a new Kirin 9000s chip, made in China by SMIC. [48] This processor was the first to use the new 7 nanometer SMIC technology. TechInsights had stated in 2022 that it believed SMIC had managed to produce 7 nm chips, even though faced by a harsh sanctions regime, by adapting simpler machines that it could still purchase from ASML. [48] Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said that this showed that the US sanctions might have had the effect of sending China's chip-making industry into overdrive.” [49] In 2023, with the release of Huawei's Mate 60 Pro, a phone that contained a chip that may violate current trade restrictions, U.S. Congressman Mike Gallagher said that, "U.S. Commerce Department should end all technology exports to Huawei and China's top semiconductor firm following the discovery of new chips in Huawei phones," and that, "this chip likely could not be produced without US technology and thus SMIC may have violated the Department of Commerce’s Foreign Direct Product Rule." [50]
Node | Q3 2021 | Q3 2020 | Q3 2019 | Q3 2018 |
---|---|---|---|---|
FinFET/28 nm | 18.2% | 14.6% | 4.3% | 7.1% |
40/45 nm | 13.9% | 17.2% | 18.5% | 18.7% |
55/65 nm | 28.5% | 25.8% | 29.3% | 21.0% |
90 nm | 3.1% | 3.4% | 1.3% | 1.4% |
0.11/0.13 μm | 5.4% | 4.4% | 6.6% | 8.7% |
0.15/0.18 μm | 27.9% | 31.2% | 35.8% | 39.5% |
0.25/0.35 μm | 3.0% | 3.4% | 4.2% | 3.6% |
On 14 November 2019, SMIC announced that volume production of 14 nm FinFET had begun. [53]
N+1 is the follow-on to SMIC's 14 nm process, and is targeted for inexpensive chips. [54]
SMIC ordered an EUV step-and-scan system from ASML Holding for $120 million in 2018. [55] The order was blocked after the US government pressured the Netherlands and ASML. [56]
In February 2024, the Financial Times reported that SMIC is on track to mass-produce logic chips equivalent in performance to the 5 nm process node later in 2024; additional reports speculated that the 5 nm chips will be manufactured via stockpiled ASML "deep ultra-violet" (DUV) immersion lithography machines. The new chips are expected to be produced at SMIC's new Shanghai production lines for lead customer HiSilicon (Huawei's chip designing arm). It is likely that SMIC's new 5 nm-node processors will be employed for AI-training and to power smartphones. [59] [8]
According to a Chinese patent granted in late 2023 to a company working with Huawei Technologies, certain transistors and interconnects feature sizes seen on chips in the 5 nm-node can be obtained using DUV immersion machines and a technique called "self-aligned quadruple patterning" (SAQP). [60]
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. is a Chinese multinational conglomerate technology corporation headquartered in Longgang District, Shenzhen, Guangdong province. It designs, develops, manufactures and sells digital telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, smart devices, distributed operating systems, electric vehicle autonomous driving systems, and various rooftop solar products. The corporation was founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, a former officer in the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semiconductor company, the world's largest dedicated independent ("pure-play") semiconductor foundry, and its country's largest company, with headquarters and main operations located in the Hsinchu Science Park in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Although the central government of Taiwan is the largest individual shareholder, the majority of TSMC is owned by foreign investors. In 2023, the company was ranked 44th in the Forbes Global 2000. Taiwan's exports of integrated circuits amounted to $184 billion in 2022, accounted for nearly 25 percent of Taiwan's GDP. TSMC constitutes about 30 percent of the Taiwan Stock Exchange's main index.
ASML Holding N.V. is a Dutch multinational corporation founded in 1984. ASML specializes in the development and manufacturing of photolithography machines which are used to produce computer chips.
Alchip is a fabless semiconductor company founded in 2003 and headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. Alchip specializes in the design and manufacture of digital CMOS ASICs.
GlobalFoundries Inc. is a multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Malta, New York. Created by the divestiture of the manufacturing arm of AMD, the company was privately owned by Mubadala Investment Company, a sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates, until an initial public offering (IPO) in October 2021.
In semiconductor manufacturing, the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems defines the "5 nm" process as the MOSFET technology node following the "7 nm" node. In 2020, Samsung and TSMC entered volume production of "5 nm" chips, manufactured for companies including Apple, Huawei, Mediatek, Qualcomm and Marvell.
In semiconductor manufacturing, the "7 nm" process is a term for the MOSFET technology node following the "10 nm" node, defined by the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS), which was preceded by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). It is based on FinFET technology, a type of multi-gate MOSFET technology.
HiSilicon is a Chinese fabless semiconductor company based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province and wholly owned by Huawei. HiSilicon purchases licenses for CPU designs from ARM Holdings, including the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore, ARM Cortex-M3, ARM Cortex-A7 MPCore, ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore, ARM Cortex-A53, ARM Cortex-A57 and also for their Mali graphics cores. HiSilicon has also purchased licenses from Vivante Corporation for their GC4000 graphics core.
ChangXin Memory Technologies is a Chinese semiconductor integrated device manufacturer headquartered in Hefei, Anhui, specializing in the production of DRAM memory.
In semiconductor manufacturing, the 3nm process is the next die shrink after the 5 nm MOSFET technology node. South Korean chipmaker Samsung started shipping its 3 nm gate all around (GAA) process, named 3GAA, in mid-2022. On 29 December 2022, Taiwanese chip manufacturer TSMC announced that volume production using its 3 nm semiconductor node (N3) was underway with good yields. An enhanced 3 nm chip process called "N3E" may have started production in 2023. American manufacturer Intel planned to start 3 nm production in 2023.
In semiconductor manufacturing, the 2 nm process is the next MOSFET die shrink after the 3 nm process node.
The semiconductor industry, including Integrated Circuit (IC) manufacturing, design, and packaging, forms a major part of Taiwan's IT industry. Due to its strong capabilities in OEM wafer manufacturing and a complete industry supply chain, Taiwan has been able to distinguish itself as a leading microchip manufacturer and dominate the global marketplace. Taiwan’s semiconductor sector accounted for US$115 billion, around 20 percent of the global semiconductor industry. In sectors such as foundry operations, Taiwanese companies account for 50 percent of the world market, with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) the biggest player in the foundry market.
Between 2020 and 2023, there was a worldwide chip shortage affecting more than 169 industries, which led to major price increases, long queues, and reselling among consumers and manufacturers for automobiles, graphics cards, video game consoles, computers, household appliances, and other consumer electronics that require integrated circuits.
The Chinese semiconductor industry, including integrated circuit design and manufacturing, forms a major part of mainland China's information technology industry.
Zhang Rujing, alternatively known as Richard Chang Ru-gin, is a Taiwanese businessman and entrepreneur known for founding the largest contract chip manufacturer in mainland China, the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC). In mainland China, Zhang is known as "the father of China's foundry industry" and China's "godfather of semiconductors".
Shanghai Biren Intelligent Technology Co. is a Chinese fabless semiconductor design company. The company was founded in 2019 by Lingjie Xu and others, all of whom were previously employed at NVIDIA or Alibaba or ST. Biren has advertised two general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs), the BR100 and BR104. Both cards are aimed at artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.
Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (Group) Co., Ltd. (SMEE), is a semiconductor manufacturing equipment company based in Shanghai, China. The company is involved in the research, development, manufacture and sale of lithography scanners and inspection tools to the semiconductor manufacturing industry; it also provides support services to its customers.
Piotech is a publicly listed Chinese company that manufactures semiconductor chip production equipment.
Liang Mong Song is a Taiwanese electronic engineer. He is the co-chief executive officer of the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation. He was previously an engineer at TSMC and Samsung Electronics.
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