Four IC Industry Clusters Have Emerged in China as the Country Commences Its 13th Five-Year Plan, TrendForce Reports

The development of China’s semiconductor sector has gained new momentum in the first year of the country’s 13th Five-Year Plan (2016~2020). According to the global market research firm TrendForce, committed policy efforts and investments from the Chinese government have resulted in the formation of four IC industry clusters that are respectively located in the country’s four major regions of activities – the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the Beijing-Tianjin Bohai Sea region and the Central-Western region.

By the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan in 2020, the domestic IC industry is expected to achieve an annual revenue growth of over 20% and have caught up to the international standards in terms of technology and manufacturing. Because the government since 2000 has been promoting the development of IC supply chains within the country’s Pilot Free Trade Zones, related industry clusters have thus emerged from these areas.

The Yangtze River Delta has Shanghai as its core, and its IC industry cluster generated an annual revenue of around RMB 179.2 billion in 2015 – the highest among the four regions. TrendForce’s analysis shows that IC industry in the Yangtze River Delta mainly involves the mid- and downstream sections of the IC supply chain. China’s most advanced IC manufacturing and packaging/testing technologies are concentrated in this area.

The Pearl River Delta has Shenzhen as its center, and the annual revenue of the region’s IC industry cluster reached RMB 68.8 billion in 2015, with fabless IC design making up the largest share. Huawei’s subsidiary Hisense is the leading IC manufacturer in the area and serves as an important local hub for product design and the integration of systems and applications.

The heart of the IC industry within the Beijing-Tianjin Bohai Sea region is Beijing’s Zhongguancun Science and Technology Zone. This industry cluster focuses on design, manufacturing and application development. The IC revenue from the region totaled 62.5 billion in 2015. Major industry-related enterprises in the area include SMIC (Beijing) and Tsinghua Unigroup.

The revenue from the IC industry cluster in the Central-Western region reached RMB 50.5 billion in 2015. The region is currently being developed to become the main manufacturing base of China’s NAND Flash industry. Major fabs in the region include Samsung’s 3D-NAND fab in the city of Xian and XMC’s fab in the city of Wuhan. The latter facility is being expanded to take on additional NAND Flash production. XMC furthermore formed a holding company called Yangtze River Storage Technology with Tsinghua Unigroup this July. The new holding company will gather and allocate resources for the development of the domestic NAND Flash industry.

In addition to these four regions, the IC industry in Fujian Province has also attracted growing interests. The province is the home of Fujian Jin Hua Integrated Circuit (JHICC), a semiconductor enterprise that will play a major role in fulfilling the IC production targets of the 13th Five-Year Plan. JHICC’s most crucial investment related to the Five-Year Plan is its DRAM fab located in the prefecture-level city of Quanzhou.

Furthermore the provincial government and United Semiconductor Xiamen (or USCXM, the China-based subsidiary of the major foundry UMC) have formulated an ambitious plan to create an IC industry ecosystem linking several major cities along its eastern coastline, including Fuzhou, Xiamen, Quanzhou and Putian. TrendForce believes that the southeastern region of the country will have a bigger influence in the overall domestic IC industry if Fujian’s cluster can collaborate with its counterpart in the Pearl River Delta.