Nearing Threat
A huge investment in semiconductor manufacturing facilities is being made in China. The China’s investment in the sector has reached US$65.9 billion in the recent one year, which is five times more than that Samsung Electronics made in the chip production line in Pyeontaek city, Gyeonggi Province, Korea.
UMC announced last year that it would build 12-inch wafer production facilities in Xiamen, China at an investment of US$6.2 billion. PowerChip, in the meantime, decided to build 12-inch wafer and LCD driver IC factories in Hefei by investing US$13.5 billion.
This year, Hong Kong-based artificial intelligence and software developer Dkema decided late last month to invest US$2 billion for the construction of 12-inch wafer factories in Huai’an. The purpose of the investment is to build an industrial cluster for the supply of smartphone, tablet PC and smart home elements.
AOS is to spend US$700 million on the construction of semiconductor production, packaging and testing facilities in Chongqing. Tsinghua Unigroup is to build DRAM and NAND flash factories in Shenzhen. XMC recently said that it would build a 3D NAND flash plant in Wuhan at an investment of US$24 billion. TSMC is working on 12-inch wafer production facilities in Nanjing by investing US$19.5 billion, too.
“China is aiming to turn its semiconductor industry into one that is not dependent on foreign technology,” the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association explained, adding, “In particular, it is concentrating on domestic IC development to be better prepared for big data, the Internet of Things, etc.”