The Chinese semiconductor industry, including integrated circuit design and manufacturing, forms a major part of mainland China's information technology industry.
China's semiconductor industry consists of a wide variety of companies, from integrated device manufacturers to pure-play foundries, fabless semiconductor companies and OSAT companies. Integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) design and manufacture integrated circuits. Pure-play foundries only manufacture devices for other companies, without designing them, while fabless semiconductor companies only design devices. Examples of Chinese IDMs are YMTC and CXMT, examples of Chinese pure-play foundries are SMIC, Hua Hong Semiconductor and Wingtech, examples of Chinese fabless companies are Zhaoxin, HiSilicon, Loongson and UNISOC, and examples of Chinese OSAT companies are JCET, Huatian Technology and Tongfu Microelectronics.
China is currently the world's largest semiconductor market in terms of consumption. In 2020, China represented 53.7% of worldwide chip sales, or $239.45 billion out of $446.1 billion. However, a large percentage are imported from multinational suppliers. In 2020, imports took up over 83% ($199.7 billion) of total chip sales. In response, the country launched a number of initiatives to reduce its reliance on foreign companies. [1] : 274 To reduce reliance on foreign semiconductor companies, CICF pools resources from state investors including the Ministry of Finance, China Tobacco, China Mobile, and China Development Bank. [1] : 274
In 2022, the country announced a Made in China 2025 goal of 70% domestic production. [2] [3]
China leads the world in terms of number of new fabs under construction, with 8 out of 19 worldwide in 2021. A total of 17 fabs were expected to start construction between 2021 and 2023. Total installed capacity of Chinese-owned chipmakers was also set to increase from 2.96 million wafers per month (wpm) in 2020 to 3.57 million wpm in 2021. [2]
The semiconductor industry in China began between a period in 1956, along with the country's first transistor produced in a state lab. In 1965, China created their first integrated circuit. From 1956 to 1990, the industry followed a Soviet-style system of industrial organization. [4] China's State Council prioritized semiconductor technology in its "Outline for Science and Technology Development, 1956–1967," leading to the establishment of semiconductor-related degree programs in five major universities. The Huajing Group's Wuxi Factory No. 742, operational from 1960, played a crucial role in training industry experts and supporting subsequent industrial strategies. [5]
In the mid-1960s through the late 1960s, China began a semiconductor program. [6] : 101
During the 1970s, China's semiconductor industry operated with research conducted in state labs and manufacturing in separate state-owned factories, hindering technology transfer. Most of the approximately 40 factories focused on producing basic diodes and transistors rather than integrated circuits (ICs). The Cultural Revolution from 1965 to 1975 further disrupted industry progress. However by 1972, China was producing third-generation computers. [6] : 101
Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms starting in 1978 initiated significant changes. By the early 1980s, under the sixth Five-Year Plan (1981-1985), the State Council formed a "Computer and Large Scale IC Lead Group" to modernize the industry. Despite importing 24 secondhand semiconductor lines by 1985, only the Wuxi Factory No. 742 met production targets. Efforts then narrowed to focus on five key firms, but cumulative setbacks left the industry lagging behind global leaders. [5]
In the 1990s, China adopted a strategy of concentrating resources on a few large firms to foster partnerships with foreign companies, aiming to accelerate technological advancement. [7] [8] Initiatives included joint ventures with Nortel, Philips, NEC, and ITT starting in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The eighth Five-Year Plan (1991-1995) focused on developing Huajing (operator of Wuxi Factory No. 742) into a leading integrated device manufacturer (IDM), [9] supported by significant funding and a joint venture with Lucent Technologies. [8] However, delays in implementation resulted in outdated manufacturing technologies and slower market entry. The ninth Five-Year Plan (1996-2000) introduced Project 909, aiming for a domestic firm, Huahong, to produce internationally competitive chips using Chinese intellectual property and engineers. [9] [8] While Huahong successfully partnered with NEC to enter production promptly, reliance on Japanese expertise limited knowledge transfer. Economic downturns in the global DRAM market by 2002 led to significant financial losses for Huahong, prompting changes in its partnership and operational strategies. [8]
In 2014, the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund was established in an effort to reduce dependence on foreign semiconductor companies. [10] : 274 In addition to the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, many other China government guidance funds also frequently invest in companies in the semiconductor industry. [11] : 164–167
Due to the rapid pace of Chinese semiconductor industry advances, on 7 October 2022, the U.S. government announced a major set of export restrictions toward China, with a focus on artificial Intelligence and semiconductor technologies, with the aim of disrupting the development of China's semiconductor industry. [12] In January 2023, these export controls were made multilateral with an agreement between the governments of the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands. [13] Between October 2022 and May 2023, China's government responded with a diverse set of measures, including filing a suit in the World Trade Organization. [14] [15]
On 26 December 2023, China prohibited the use of CPUs made by US companies Intel and AMD for Chinese government PCs and servers. [16] The country instead approved 18 processors made by Chinese companies Loongson and Phytium. State-owned companies were also instructed to transition towards Chinese hardware by 2027. [16] The ban was part of China's strategy to rely more on its domestically designed options in response to US sanctions and export controls.
On 15th September 2024, China announced significant advancements in its domestic semiconductor industry, promoting two new deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines. One of the machines operates at a wavelength of 193nm with a resolution below 65nm and an overlay accuracy below 8nm. The second machine has a wavelength of 248nm, with 110nm resolution and 25nm overlay accuracy. [17]
Samsung, who is currently the world's largest producer of NAND flash memory, has two plants in Xi'an which accounts for 42.5% percent of its total production capacity, and 15.3% of worldwide NAND production capacity. [18] [19] It was the company's largest overseas investment in chip production with an initial cost of $7 billion. [20]
Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC) is a Chinese semiconductor integrated device manufacturer specializing in flash memory (NAND) chips. Founded in Wuhan, China in 2016, the company received backing from Tsinghua Unigroup. Prior to YMTC, China had no company capable of producing flash memory. Its consumer products are marketed under the brand Zhitai.
In 2020, YMTC was using a 20 nm process to make 64-layer 3D NAND flash. [21] In April 2020, the company unveiled its first 128 layers vertical NAND chip, then the most advanced layer count in mass production, based on XTacking architecture, which then entered production. [22]
In 2021, YMTC was producing around 80,000 wafers per month, with plans to expand its first plant to reach 100,000 wpm capacity by 2022; [23] this would have given the company around 6-8% of global market share. [3]
ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is a Chinese semiconductor integrated device manufacturer headquartered in Hefei, Anhui specializing in the production of DRAM memory. As of 2020, ChangXin can manufacture LPDDR4 and DDR4 RAM on a 19 nm process with a capacity of 40,000 wafers per month. [24] The company plans to increase output to 120,000 wpm and launch 17 nm (LP)DDR5 by end of 2022, with a target total capacity of 300,000 wpm in the mid-long term. [25]
Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics is a Chinese semiconductor company headquartered in Hangzhou. The company focuses on the design of integrated circuit (IC) chip and the manufacturing of semiconductor microelectronics-related products. It is one of the largest integrated device manufacturers (IDM) in China. [26]
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is a partially state-owned publicly listed Chinese pure-play semiconductor foundry company. [27] [28] It is the largest contract chip maker in mainland China and 5th largest globally, with a market share of 5.3% in the second quarter of 2021. [2] [29] [30]
SMIC is headquartered in Shanghai [31] and incorporated in the Cayman Islands. [32] It has wafer fabrication sites throughout mainland China, offices in the United States, Italy, Japan, and Taiwan, and a representative office in Hong Kong. [33] It provides integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing services on 350 nm to 14 nm process technologies. State-owned civilian and military telecommunications equipment provider Datang Telecom Group as well as the China National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund are major shareholders of SMIC. [34] [35] [36] [37]
Hua Hong Semiconductor Limited is a publicly listed Chinese pure-play semiconductor foundry company based in Shanghai, established in 1996 as part of China's national efforts to boost its IC industry. Currently, Hua Hong's most advanced node is achieved by its subsidiary Shanghai Huali (HLMC), which in 2022 could manufacture a 28/22nm process; in 2022 advanced 14nm technology was being developed by the company. [38] [39]
Hua Hong Semiconductor is currently mainland China's second largest chip-maker behind rival SMIC and the 6th largest globally, with a market share of 2.6% in the second quarter of 2021. [2] [38]
HiSilicon is a Chinese fabless semiconductor company based in Shenzhen, Guangdong 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, [40] [41] ARM Cortex-A53, ARM Cortex-A57 and also for their Mali graphics cores. [42] [43] HiSilicon has also purchased licenses from Vivante Corporation for their GC4000 graphics core.[ citation needed ]
HiSilicon is reputed to be the largest domestic designer of integrated circuits in China. [44] In 2020, the U.S. instituted rules that require American firms providing certain equipment to HiSilicon or non-American firms who use American technologies that supply HiSilicon to have licenses [45] and Huawei announced it will stop producing its Kirin chipset from 15 September 2020, onwards. [46] HiSilicon was overtaken by Chinese rival UNISOC in terms of mobile processor market share as a consequence. [47] However, at the end of 2023 the Kirin 9000S processor, which was first used in the Huawei Mate 60, showed that HiSilicon was restarting its production of Kirin chipsets after a three-year hiatus, this time with entirely domestically produced chips. [48]
Hygon Information Technology is a partially state-owned publicly listed Chinese fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Beijing. The company mainly handles central processing units (CPUs) based on Intel's x86 technology as well as domestic Deep Learning Processors. [49]
Loongson Technology is a Chinese fabless company that develops a family of general-purpose, MIPS architecture-compatible microprocessors, mainly used in personal computers and supercomputers. The processors were favoured by the Chinese government in its “Made in China 2025” push, which was also directed against US semiconductor sanctions. [16]
UNISOC is a Chinese fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Shanghai which produces chipsets for mobile phones. UNISOC develops its business in two major fields: consumer electronics, which includes smart phones, feature phones, smart audio systems, smart wear and other areas; Industrial electronics, on the other hand, covers such fields as LAN IoT, WAN IoT, or smart display.
In 2021, it was the fourth largest mobile processor manufacturer in the world, after Mediatek, Qualcomm and Apple, with 9% of global market share. [47]
Will Semiconductor is a publicly listed Chinese fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Shanghai. In May 2019, it acquired OmniVision Technologies. [50]
Zhaoxin is a fabless semiconductor company, created in 2013 as a joint venture between VIA Technologies and the Shanghai Municipal Government. [51] The company manufactures x86-compatible desktop and laptop CPUs. [52] The term Zhào xīn means million core. [note 1] The processors are created mainly for the Chinese market: the venture is an attempt to reduce the Chinese dependence on foreign technology. [53] [54]
JCET Group Co., Ltd. is a public company headquartered in Jiangyin on China's eastern coast. [55] [56] It is the largest Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) company in mainland China and the third-largest globally. [57] JCET was formed in 1972, when Jiangyin converted a local factory to produce transistors. JCET went public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2003 and continued to grow over time. JCET provides a range of semiconductor packaging, assembly, manufacturing, and testing products and services.[ citation needed ]
Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment is a partially state-owned publicly listed Chinese company that manufactures semiconductor chip production equipment. It is one of the largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer in China. [58]
NAURA Technology Group is a partially state-owned publicly listed Chinese company that manufactures semiconductor chip production equipment. It is currently the largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer in China. [59]
Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (SMEE) is a semiconductor manufacturing equipment manufacturer based in Shanghai, supplying lithography (DUV immersion) equipment and other equipment used in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Currently, its most advanced product is the SSA600, with a resolution of 90 nm. SMEE is developing the SSA800, with a resolution of 28 nm, which will be followed up by the SSA900, with a resolution of 22 nm. [60] In December 2022, the United States Department of Commerce added SMEE to the Bureau of Industry and Security's Entity List. [61]
China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) is China's third largest electronics and IT company behind only Huawei and Lenovo. Its fields include communications equipment, computers, electronic equipment, IT infrastructure, networks, software development, research services, investment and asset management for civilian and military applications. [62] [63]
The company also manufactures semiconductors and semiconductor equipment used in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, largely for military applications. [64]
Huawei is reportedly planning to build its own fabs, in cooperation with SMIC, in an attempt to promote vertical integration and reduce impacts of US sanctions such as the one it was subjected to during the China–United States trade war. [65] In 2023, Huawei released its Mate60 Pro smartphone, which had a 7nm chip application processor HiSilicon Kirin 9000S manufactured by SMIC using SMIC's N+2 process node. [66]
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 Taiwan'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.
The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. It's roots can be traced to the invention of the transistor by Shockley, Brattain, and Bardeen at Bell Labs in 1948. Bell Labs licensed the technology for $25,000, and soon many companies, including Motorola (1952), Schockley Semiconductor (1955), Sylvania, Centralab, Fairchild Semiconductor and Texas Instruments were making transistors. In 1958 Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild independently invented the Integrated Circuit, a method of producing multiple transistors on a single "chip" of Semiconductor material. This kicked off a number of rapid advances in fabrication technology leading to the exponential growth in semiconductor device production, known as Moore's law that has persisted over the past six or so decades. The industry's annual semiconductor sales revenue has since grown to over $481 billion, as of 2018.
The foundry model is a microelectronics engineering and manufacturing business model consisting of a semiconductor fabrication plant, or foundry, and an integrated circuit design operation, each belonging to separate companies or subsidiaries. It was first conceived by Morris Chang, the founder of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC).
Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclusively, located in the United States, mainland China, and Taiwan. Fabless companies can benefit from lower capital costs while concentrating their research and development resources on the end market. Some fabless companies and pure play foundries may offer integrated-circuit design services to third parties.
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.
Zentrum Mikroelektronik Dresden (ZMD) was regarded as the heart of East Germany's microelectronics research in the 1980s as well as its most advanced integrated circuit manufacturer. Together with TU Dresden and VEB Spurenmetalle Freiberg, ZMD formed the foundation for Silicon Saxony, a cluster of microelectronics companies that came to include new fabs by Siemens and AMD.
UNISOC, formerly Spreadtrum Communications, Inc., is a Chinese fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Shanghai which produces chipsets for mobile phones. UNISOC develops its business in two major fields - consumer electronics and industrial electronics. Consumer electronics includes smartphones, feature phones, smart audio systems, smart wearables and other related devices. Industrial electronics cover fields such as LAN IoT, WAN IoT and smart displays.
Faraday Technology Corporation is a fabless ASIC / SoC and silicon IP provider. From specification level to GDSII-in, its flexible engagement model allows customers at various levels in the design phase to begin ASIC implementation.
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.
Semiconductor consolidation is the trend of semiconductor companies collaborating in order to come to a practical synergy with the goal of being able to operate in a business model that can sustain profitability.
Tokyo Electron Limited, or TEL, is a Japanese electronics and semiconductor company headquartered in Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan. The company was founded as Tokyo Electron Laboratories, Inc. in 1963. TEL is best known as a supplier of equipment to fabricate integrated circuits (IC), flat panel displays (FPD), and photovoltaic cells (PV). Tokyo Electron Device, or TED, is a subsidiary of TEL specializing in semiconductor devices, electronic components, and networking devices. As of 2011, TEL was the largest manufacturer of IC and FPD production equipment. Listed on the Nikkei 225, in 2024, Tokyo Electron had a market cap of US$114.6 billion, making it the third-most valuable company in Japan in terms of market cap, and the 12th ranked semiconductor-related company worldwide.
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.
Tsinghua Unigroup Co., Ltd. is a state-owned Chinese technology and semiconductor manufacturer that also supplies digital infrastructure and services to domestic and global markets. Based in Beijing, it is among the country's largest technology conglomerates; subsidiaries include UNISOC, China's largest mobile phone chip designer. Other core subsidies design and manufacture network equipment and server and storage products, and produce system integration, network security and software applications.
Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC) is a Chinese semiconductor integrated device manufacturer specializing in flash memory (NAND) chips. Founded in Wuhan, China, in 2016, with government investment and a goal of reducing the country's dependence on foreign chip manufacturers, the company was formerly a subsidiary of partially state-owned enterprise Tsinghua Unigroup.
Hua Hong Semiconductor Limited is a publicly listed Chinese pure-play semiconductor foundry company based in Shanghai, established in 1996 as part of China's national efforts to boost its IC industry. Currently, Hua Hong's most advanced node is achieved by its subsidiary Shanghai Huali (HLMC), which can manufacture 28/22-nm process.
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".
The China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, also known as the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund and the Big Fund, is a China Government Guidance Fund. The fund aims to help China reach its national goal of achieving self-sufficiency in the semiconductor industry by investing in domestic semiconductor companies. It has played a significant role with regards to the semiconductor industry in China by funding companies such as SMIC, Hua Hong Semiconductor, and YMTC.
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.
Hygon Information Technology is a publicly listed Chinese fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Beijing.
The VIA/Shanghai Zhaoxin KX-5000 series of x86-compatible CPUs will never be sold outside of China to avoid an Intel lawsuit.","...will use the technology to develop chips for server systems to be sold only in China