- The Chinese government, back in 2015, had declared that China will achieve self-sufficiency in the semiconductor industry within 10 years
- China-based YMTC continued operations at its Wuhan facility even during the Coronavirus pandemic
- China is increasingly getting aggressive in the semiconductor market
A report by a Korea-based news portal mentioned that China-based companies are stealing semiconductor patents as well as personnel working in the semiconductor arena. China, so far, has invested around one trillion yuan in development of the semiconductor industry.
China-based Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (YMTC) had recently unveiled a 128-layer NAND flash memory product named X2-6070. Though it was just a sample, it is believed that the company will start commercially producing it before the end of 2020. Korea-based Samsung, on the other hand, had started manufacturing 128-layer NAND flash memory products in 2019. YMTC, commercially producing 128-layer NAND flash memory products, as per the report, would lessen the technology gap between South Korean and Chinese companies by almost two years.
China-based semiconductor companies are going aggressive
Unisoc, China-headquartered Singhua Unigroup’s fabless subsidiary, as per the report is planning to commercially produce application processors and 5G modems in the coming times. The company might get these manufactured through the contracting route to Taiwan-based Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
The interesting point to note here that only a handful of companies have the prowess in designing and manufacturing six-nm application processor. A few examples of these companies include Samsung, Qualcomm, Apple and Huawei.
YMTC, as per the report, continued operations at its Wuhan located facility even amidst the Coronavirus lockdown. The report mentions that the same would not have been possible without the support of Chinese govt.
Huawei’s semiconductors arm, HiSilicon, is also said to be sharing application processor designs with Unisoc. The former cannot do business with US-based companies as it is blacklisted by the US government. Huawei, as per another report, was shifting its semiconductor manufacturing into mainland China.
Chinese companies, as per the experts this news portal spoke to, will continue patent and personnel stealing as well as taking aid from tax incentives. Chinese government, as per the report, will continue to support the companies until they achieve an economy of scale with.
