Shanghai Huali Microelectronics Co yesterday started construction of its 38.7 billion yuan ($5.7 billion) 12-inch wafer plant that will help meet surging demand.
The plant, located in Kangqiao of the Pudong New Area, will start production in 2018 with a capacity of 10,000 units each month. By 2022, the company expects to ramp up to full capacity of about 40,000 units monthly. The 12-inch wafer plant features the most advanced 28-to-14-nanometer technology on the Chinese mainland, according to Huali, a subsidiary of state-owned Huahong Group.
Huali also announced a strategic cooperation with Taiwan-based MediaTek, one of top global chip designers for smartphones.
In October, Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp said it would invest US$10 billion in a new 12-inch wafer plant in the city.
By 2020, 55 percent of the world's memory, logic and analog chips are destined to flow to or through China, which now produces about 15 percent of these chips, according to research firm Bain.
