Chapter 1107 The Situation Is Serious

However, bad news always comes.

It was only mid-April when news came again that an eight-inch wafer fab with a total investment of US$300 million was about to be settled in Qingdao High-tech Development Zone. After completion, the plant will have a monthly production capacity of 30,000 wafers. This will be the next step after Steel Later, the second large-scale eight-inch wafer production line in the Bohai Rim region.

It is said that the deputy governor of Shandong Province in charge of economy specifically instructed the relevant person in charge of the province’s Department of Information Industry not to let this project go away.

At the same time, Fan Wubing got another news. Jinan is also planning to set up a wafer factory. The production specifications have not yet been determined. It may be six-inch wafers or eight-inch wafers.

The Planning Office of the Information Industry Department of Shandong Province told reporters that although Shandong Wafer is basically a blank slate, their goal is to be a leader in the Bohai Rim Economic Belt. Whether it is Jinan or Qingdao, they will provide strong support.

The main investor, Thailand's Charoen Pokphand Group, targets the production of this eight-inch wafer fab in integrated circuits for home appliances, four-card cards, smart cards, integrated circuits for display drivers, computer peripheral integrated circuits, and multimedia application integrated circuits.

CP Group hopes to locate its factory in Qingdao, the home appliance manufacturing center of the Bohai Rim, and hopes to cooperate with Haier, industry experts believe. The target customers of this wafer fab’s products are major manufacturers such as Shandong Si” Home Appliances.

However, some people believe that the main business of CP Group is agriculture, animal husbandry, food and large markets. The only thing related to the four is that it has 2.6 million telecom operations in Bangkok, which basically has nothing to do with wafers. It is a bit unexpected that they suddenly want to enter the wafer industry. The industry is very questioning whether their technical capabilities are really qualified for this new technology industry.

"I think these people are crazy!" Fan Wubing couldn't help but complain at this time, no matter how gentle he was.

"What's wrong? Doesn't this mean that the domestic chip manufacturing industry is booming?" Shen Ying, who was doing beauty care at home, asked curiously as she lay there.

As the top young rich woman in the country. Shen Ying has her own professional nurse. From skin care to nutrition and health to action guidance and image design, she has a strong team to support her. Even at home, she also has a line of fitness, bathing and beauty services. Dragon supporting service equipment.

Fan Wubing glanced at Shen Ying, who was soaking in the petal bathtub with a lot of strange things on his face, and said to her, "The key is to look at the target. Chia Tai Group and Si Ying are not in the same league at all. , this time it was obvious that he took someone else’s second-hand production line and went to the mainland to enclose the land, but it was pawned by the short-sighted local government. "

As Fan Wubing guessed, Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Group’s sales revenue last year reached US$10 billion.

The good revenue background made CP Group start thinking about wafers. Although they had no technology or experience, they had money. So when Taiwan's electronics industry was gearing up to enter the continent's wafer market, CP Group felt that an opportunity had come, so it quickly found South Korea's Hyundai Corporation and Taiwan's Milo Technology Co., Ltd. as partners, planning to enclose territory in Shandong.

In fact, Shandong really attaches great importance to this project. The deputy governor in charge of this aspect hosted a banquet with representatives of three foreign companies including CP Group. I called Qingdao city leaders and Haier Group President Zhang Ruimin on the spot, hoping that they would attach great importance to and coordinate the joint venture cooperation on the project, which showed the importance Shandong officials attached to the wafer project.

Local media in Shandong also disclosed this matter. However, it was not mentioned whether Zhengda will cooperate with Haier or Hisense, but according to the information obtained by Fan Wubing, the cooperation between Zhengda and Haier is a foregone conclusion.

According to the preliminary agreement, this one is from the investment. Foreign capital will account for 60% of the shares, and Haier will hold 40% of the shares with land, factories and part of the capital. The first phase of the project plans to invest US$160 million, which will achieve a monthly production capacity of 15,000 eight-inch wafers. The second phase investment will be US$110 million, and will eventually achieve a monthly production scale of 30,000 wafers. The joint venture will import eight-inch monocrystalline silicon wafers from overseas as substrates for the design and production of integrated circuits.

As for whether CP Group would choose Haier or Hisense for cooperation mentioned in the media, Fan Wubing analyzed it and believed that it was just a smokescreen put out by CP Group to prevent Haier from charging too high a price.

In fact, the joint venture between Haier and CP Group to enter the wafer industry is not a hot idea, but is in line with Haier's development ideas. As early as two years ago, Zhang Ruimin invested 50 million yuan to establish Beijing Haier Integrated Circuit Design Co., Ltd. in Beijing's Zhongguancun High-Tech Park, using the internationally popular 10,000-micron and old-micron processes.

This entry into the Shandong wafer project is just a further extension of Haier's wafer industry chain. A one-stop industrial structure including design, production, packaging and testing has been formed.

"Actually, it depends on how you say this. It's over. It's not good news for me, but for the entire domestic tracking industry, it still has a... great significance." Fan Wubing scratched his head and said. Under the current situation , and not all electronics companies believe that the future of the wafer industry is necessarily bright. For example, Steel plans to launch competition in the wafer industry.

It is a joint venture between China Steel Corporation and Electronics and was established in 1991. The company currently mainly provides semiconductor wafer manufacturing and packaging and testing services, and has a six-inch wafer production line and several packaging and testing lines.

When the company was established, the Steel Group and Japan held 50% and 30% of the equity of the joint venture respectively. Industry insiders said that when the company was established, it mainly produced concave products and had good benefits at the beginning. However, after experiencing the catastrophe of the sharp drop in the price of concave balls in 1997, it fell into a slump and fell into a loss-making situation.

In the successive capital increase and share expansion in 2000, the equity structure of the Steel Group changed. Finally, it obtained the controlling rights of the alliance. The shares of the Steel Group were reduced to 1.5%.

At present, there are news that Steel will transfer all its shares in the joint venture and completely withdraw from the semiconductor industry.

Analysts under Fan Wubing believe that there are two possible reasons for Steel to withdraw from the semiconductor industry. One is that the expansion has been slow for many years and has not created a sustained and good return on investment for the Steel Group. The second is that if the company is to continue to grow, it will inevitably mean more investment. Due to the huge amount of funds required for the semiconductor manufacturing industry, Steel, which is mainly engaged in steel business, lacks experience in the operation of semiconductor enterprises. Continuous investment is too risky for the Steel Group.

In fact, it had planned to invest one billion US dollars to build an eight-inch wafer production line last year, but this plan was shelved shortly after the announcement. After the plan was shelved, the Steel Group once considered buying all the shares it held and developing it on its own, but considering the risk issues, it finally decided to sell the shares.

The company that may take over Steel shares is Wuxi China Resources Group.

As China's efforts to impact the semiconductor industry, Benbi and Wuxi China Resources, which were established together in the late 1980s and early 1990s, once occupied an important position in the domestic semiconductor industry.

However, with the rapid changes in the global semiconductor market, the two companies have shown different fates. After introducing strategic investors, China Resources successfully transformed into a foreign-controlled company through restructuring, realized market-oriented operations, and showed a trend of rapid expansion under the pattern of global semiconductor industry recovery.

After the Chinese side lost its controlling stake, it became a global foundry base for electronics. This model led to slow development in wafer manufacturing, and the profit source mainly relied on the back-end packaging and testing business.

"It should be said that there is nothing unexpected about the acquisition by China Resources." Fan Wubing said, "China Resources' expansion has been very obvious since the beginning of this year. Although the expansion of its external foundry business has been slow, its organization has been operating more effectively due to the continuous improvement of its driver chip business. The company's current six-inch production line assets are still of a certain quality, and there are also vacant factories for expansion. In addition, its performance in the packaging and testing business is also good. I believe these are the reasons why China Resources is interested. In addition. Since investing in large-size wafer manufacturing will not only face huge financial pressure, but also face brutal global competition, China Resources has long established the idea of ​​using second-hand equipment to save costs. Purchasing existing six-inch production line assets is the fastest way to expand production capacity. "

After listening to Fan Wubing's explanation of the current situation of the domestic wafer industry, Shen Ying also had some understanding of it, so she asked, "So, what do you mean? Continue to fight or withdraw from the market?"

"We definitely cannot give up on the chip market. In fact, the current eight-inch wafer competition does not pose a threat to Fanshi at all. It just makes our profits in this part of the market drop a little." Fan Wubing said, "My focus is still on technology research and design. As for specific production, it can be maintained."

Fanshi's current in-house wafer production line is mainly eight-inch, so there is no need to worry about being squeezed out of the market share too seriously. At least within two years, these wafer manufacturers who want to enter the domestic market will not pose a serious threat to Fanshi.

And what will happen after two years is another scene. No one can predict what will happen in the future.

Then what are you worried about?" Shen Ying asked with some surprise.

"Prepare for a rainy day, not to mention that this time the wafer industry war actually has some shortcomings," Fan Wubing replied.