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Bad news always follows, though.

It was only in mid-April that news came that an eight-inch wafer factory with a total investment of 300 million US dollars will soon be settled in Qingdao High-tech Development Zone, which will produce 30,000 pieces per month after completion, which will be the second large-scale eight-inch wafer production line in the Bohai Rim region after Shougang NEC.

It is said that the vice governor in charge of the economy of Shandong Province has specifically instructed the relevant responsible person of the provincial information industry department not to let the project run away.

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

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

Thailand's CP Group, the main investor, has targeted the production of the eight-inch wafer fab for integrated circuits for home appliances, IC cards, smart cards, integrated circuits for display drivers, integrated circuits for computer peripherals and integrated circuits for multimedia applications.

CP Group hopes to set up a factory in Qingdao, the Bohai Rim Home Appliance Manufacturing Center, and hopes to cooperate with Haier, industry experts believe that the target customers of this wafer factory's products are Shandong IT, home appliances and other major manufacturers.

However, some people believe that the main business of CP Group is agriculture and animal husbandry, food and large supermarkets, and the only thing that is related to IT is that there are 2.6 million telecommunications operations in Bangkok, which is basically not connected with wafers.

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

"What's wrong, doesn't this mean that the domestic chip manufacturing industry is booming?" Shen Ying, who was doing beauty maintenance at home, was lying there and asked with some curiosity.

As a top young rich woman in China, Shen Ying has her own professional nurse, from skin care to nutrition and health to sports guidance and image design, she has a strong team to support, and she also has one-stop supporting service equipment from fitness to bathing to beauty services at home.

Fan Wuxi glanced at Shen Ying, who was soaking in the petal bathtub and had a lot of strange things on her face, and said to her, "The key is to look at the object, CP Group and the IT industry are not in line at all, this time it is obvious that they took someone else's second-hand production line and went to the mainland to enclose the land, but they were given a treasure by the short-sighted local government." ”

As Fan Wuxian guessed, Thailand's CP Group's sales revenue reached 10 billion US dollars last year, and the good revenue background made CP Group start the idea of wafers, although they have no technology and no experience, but they have money, so when Taiwan's electronics industry is gearing up to enter the mainland wafer market, CP Group feels that the opportunity is coming, so it keeps looking for South Korea's Hyundai Company and Taiwan Milo Technology Co., Ltd. as partners, intending to enclose land in Shandong.

In fact, Shandong attaches great importance to this project, and when the vice governor in charge of this aspect hosted the representatives of three foreign enterprises including CP Group, he called the leaders of Qingdao City and Zhang Ruimin, president of Haier Group, on the spot, hoping that they would attach great importance to and coordinate the joint venture cooperation of the project, which shows that Shandong officials attach great importance to the wafer project.

Local media in Shandong also disclosed the matter, but did not mention whether CP cooperated with Haier or Hisense, but according to reliable information obtained by Fan Wuxi, the cooperation between CP and Haier is a foregone conclusion.

According to the preliminary agreement, foreign capital will account for 60 percent of the investment in this project, and Haier will hold 40 percent of the shares with land, plant and part of the capital. The first phase of the project plans to invest US$160 million to produce 15,000 pieces of eight-inch wafers per month, and the second phase of the project is to invest US$110 million to eventually produce 30,000 pieces per month.

As for whether CP chose Haier or Hisense for cooperation mentioned in the media, Fan Wuxian believes that it is just a smokescreen released by CP Group, so as not to make Haier's asking price too high.

In fact, this joint venture between Haier and CP Group into the wafer industry is not a hot head, but in line with Haier's development ideas. As early as two years ago, Zhang Ruimin invested 50 million yuan in Beijing Zhongguancun High-tech Park to establish Beijing Haier Integrated Circuit Design Co., Ltd., using the internationally popular 0.25 micron and 0.18 micron CMOS processes.

This entry into the Shandong wafer project is just a further extension of Haier's wafer industry chain, forming a one-stop industrial pattern of design, production, packaging, and testing.

"Actually, it doesn't mean good news for me, but it still has a certain positive significance for the entire domestic IT industry." Fan Wuxian scratched his head and said.

In the current situation, not all electronics companies believe that the future of the wafer industry must be very bright, for example, Shougang plans to launch the wafer industry competition.

Shougang NEC was established in 1991 as a joint venture between Shougang Corporation and NEC Electronics, and the company currently mainly provides semiconductor wafer manufacturing and packaging and testing services, with a six-inch wafer production line and several packaging and testing lines.

At the time of the company's establishment, Shougang Group and Japan's NEC held 51 and 49 of the joint venture's shares, respectively. According to industry insiders, the company mainly produced DRAM products when it was established, and the benefits were very good at the beginning. However, after experiencing the catastrophe of the global price drop of DRAM in 1997, it collapsed and fell into a loss-making situation.

In the 2,000-year sequential capital increase and share expansion, the shareholding structure of NEC and Shougang Group has changed, and finally NEC has obtained a controlling stake of 50.3, and the stake of Shougang Group has been reduced to 49.7.

At present, it is reported that Shougang will transfer all the 49.7 shares it holds and completely withdraw from the semiconductor industry.

Analysts under Fan Wuzhi believe that there are two possible reasons for Shougang's withdrawal from the semiconductor industry, one is that Shougang NEC has been expanding slowly for many years, and has not created sustained good returns for Shougang Group. Second, if you want to continue to make the enterprise bigger, it will inevitably mean more investment, due to the huge amount of capital required for the semiconductor manufacturing industry, Shougang, which is mainly engaged in steel, lacks experience in the operation of semiconductor enterprises, and continuous investment is too risky for Shougang Group.

In fact, Shougang NEC planned to invest $1 billion to build an eight-inch wafer production line last year, but this plan was shelved shortly after the announcement, and after the plan was stranded, Shougang Group considered buying all the shares held by NEC to develop on its own, but finally decided to sell the shares due to the risks.

It is Wuxi China Resources Group that may take over Shougang shares.

As part of China's efforts to impact the semiconductor industry, Shougang NEC and Wuxi China Resources, which were established together in the late 80s and early 90s, both occupied important positions in the domestic semiconductor industry.

However, with the rapid changes in the global semiconductor market, the two companies have shown different fates, and after the introduction of strategic investors, China Resources has successfully transformed into a foreign-funded holding company through restructuring, realizing market-oriented operation, and showing a trend of rapid expansion under the pattern of global semiconductor industry recovery.

Shougang NEC became a global foundry base for NEC Electronics after the Chinese lost its controlling stake, which led to the slow development of Shougang NEC in wafer manufacturing, and the source of profit mainly relied on the back-end packaging and testing business.

"It should be said that there is no surprise in China Resources' acquisition of Shougang NEC." Fan Wuzhi said, "Since the beginning of this year, China Resources' expansion has been very obvious, although Shougang NEC has been slow to expand in terms of external foundry business, but due to the continuous provision of LCD driver chip business for NEC, the operation of the organization has been relatively effective, and the company's six-inch production line assets still have a certain quality, and Shougang also has vacant factories to facilitate production expansion." In addition, Shougang NEC's performance in the packaging and testing business is also good, which is believed to be the reason why China Resources is interested in Shougang NEC. In addition, as investing in large-size wafer manufacturing will not only face huge financial pressure, but also face cruel global competition, China Resources has long established the idea of using second-hand equipment to save costs, and the purchase of Shougang NEC's existing six-inch production line assets is the fastest way to expand production capacity. ”

After listening to Fan Wuxian explain the current situation of the domestic wafer industry, Shen Ying also had some understanding of this, so she asked, "So, what do you mean?" Keep fighting, or get out of the market? ”

In fact, the current eight-inch wafer competition is not a threat to Fan's, but it just makes our profits in this part of the market decline." Fan Wuxian said, "My focus is still on technology research and development and design, and for specific production, it can be maintained." ”

Fan's current domestic 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 for two years, these wafer manufacturers who want to enter the domestic market can not pose a serious threat to Fan's.

What will happen in two years is a different story, and no one can predict what will happen in the future.

"So what else do you have to worry about?" Shen Ying asked a little strangely.

"Take precautions, not to mention that this time the wafer industry war, there are actually some deep-seated insiders that are not enough for outsiders-" Fan replied.

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