In the past 50 years, the breakthrough technologies of semiconductors have made electronic devices smaller, more stable and available, transforming our way of life and work thoroughly. We at EqualOcean selected 60 Chinese players working in different niche markets in the industry for your reference.
Semiconductors, the brains of electronic devices, have worked behind the scenes to power everything from toys and smartphones to cars and thermostats. It seems they have become an indispensable part of people's modern life.
Unimaginable high profit and cutting-edge technologies have made the industry of semiconductors a hot market. Aiming to become a “Scientific and Technological Powerhouse”, the Chinese government has provided a package of supporting policies, thus attracting more and more domestic enterprises to join this fierce game.
It is congratulated that many Chinese companies have performed well on the way to pursuing advancements and breakthroughs in technical bottlenecks. The following are 60 rising players selected from key fields based on a number of criteria, including technological strengths, financing capacity, and project experiences. This list is in no particular order.
31. JSG
JSG(Chinese:晶盛机电,300316:SZ), established in 2006, is a semiconductor material manufacturing equipment and LED substrate material manufacturing high-tech enterprise. It has 15 subsidiaries and 3 R&D centers including one overseas R&D center. JSG developed many crystal growing equipments with completely independent intellectual property rights, including the full automatic monocrystalline grower, polycrystalline grower, float zone monocrystalline grower and sapphire grower. Meanwhile, it also developed and sold crystal materials machining equipment, photovoltaic cells and module manufacturing equipment and committed to building technology and scale double leading equipment enterprise in the photovoltaic industry. In the semiconductor industry, JSG achieved the localization of crystal growing and processing equipment for 8-12 inch large silicon wafer manufacturing and obtained the leading position in semiconductor material equipment.
32. Cmsemicon
Cmsemicon (Chinese:中微), founded in 2001, is a chip design company, focusing on the R&D, design and sales of digital-analog mixed-signal chips and analog chips. The main products include home appliance control chips, consumer electronics chips, motor and battery chips, sensor signal processing chips and power devices, which are widely used in household appliances, consumer electronics, motor batteries, medical health, industrial control, automotive electronics, and the Internet of Things. Since its establishment, Cmsemicon has expanded its independent design capabilities. At present, the chip development platform with MCU as the core has been completed, and the structured and modular development of the chip has been realized.
33. NAURA
NAURA Technology Group Co., Ltd. (NAURA, Chinese:北方华创), founded in 2001, is a listed (002371:SZ) enterprise of integrated circuit high-end technological equipment in China. It mainly engages in semiconductor equipment, vacuum equipment, new energy lithium battery equipment and precision components businesses, which provide solutions for semiconductors, new energy resources, new materials as well as other related fields. At present, the company owns four major industrial manufacturing bases, and its marketing service system covers the major countries and regions in Europe, America and Asia.
34. CFMEE
Circuit Fabology Microelectronic Equipment Co., Ltd. (CFMEE, Chinese:芯碁微装, 688630:SH), founded in 2015, is a lithography equipment manufacturer. The company, with its core competence in micro-nano direct imaging technologies, engages in designing, developing, manufacturing, and marketing industry-leading direct imaging (DI) lithography systems, serving IC, photo mask, high-end PCB, IC packaging, and flat panel display markets among others. It has realized the domestic manufacturing substitution in PCB and pan-semiconductor industries. Its products are widely used in IC chips, masks, MEMS, biochips, PCB, IC substrate, touch panels, TFT-LCD, LED, and other image transfer fields.
35. Shanghai Belling
Shanghai Belling Co., Ltd.(Chinese:上海贝岭, 600171:SH) is the first Sino-foreign joint venture in the IC industry of China established in 1988 and the first listed company in China’s IC industry. It has been committed to providing clients with hybrid analog and digital-analog ICs and system solutions and solving IC supply and application issues for industrial control and consumer application clients. At present, its IC product business covers five major product areas, namely metering and SoC, power management, general-purpose analog, non-volatile memory, and high-speed and high-accuracy ADCs.
36. Silan
Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics Co., Ltd. (Silan, Chinese:士兰微, 600460:SH) is a high-tech enterprise specializing in the design of IC chips and the manufacturing of semiconductor microelectronics-related products. It is the first IC chip design enterprise listed in China. Its IC chip production line has an actual monthly output of 210,000 pieces, ranking fifth in the world in production capacity for chips of 6 inches or less. Meanwhile, with the production line for 8-inch chips being constructed in 2015 and going into operation in 2017, the company has become the first domestic company to possess IDM products and a production line for 8-inch chips.
37. CR Micro
China Resources Microelectronics Limited(CR Micro, Chinese:华润微, 688396:SH), founded in 2000, is a high-tech enterprise engaged in investment, development, operation and management of microelectronics business. The Company focuses on the fields of power semiconductors and intelligent sensors and provides customers with serialized semiconductor products and services. It can independently design products and keep the manufacturing process controllable. In addition, the Company has possessed strong capability in product technology and manufacturing process in the fields of discrete devices and integrated circuits and has formed advanced product lines with special processes and seriation.
38. Innoscience
Innoscience(Chinese：英诺赛科), founded in 2015, is the largest 8-inch Integrated Device Manufacture (IDM) fully focused on GaN technology in the world. It owns the worldwide largest dedicated 8-inch GaN-on-Si wafers manufacturing capacity. The company designs, develops and manufactures high-performing and reliable GaN devices for a wide range of applications and voltages (30V-650V). Innoscience’s GaN devices have already been used in products including Power Delivery chargers, smartphones, laptops, LIDARs, and Data centers.
39.StarPower
StarPower Semiconductor Ltd. (Chinese:斯达半导体, 603290:SH), founded in 2005, is a power module company that designs and manufactures IGBT/MOSFET/IPM/FRD/Rectifier modules and customized modules for applications in the area of inverters, welding machines, inductive heating, UPS, EV and solar/wind power. in the power range of 0.5kW up to more than 1MW. Its production sites are equipped with production facilities including a fully automated production and testing line in compliance with ISO 9001, ISO 14001 quality management system and TS 16949 automotive standard. The company also has subsidiaries and R&D centers in Europe and is currently the leading company in the IGBT field in China.
40. Yangjie
Yangzhou Yangjie Electronic Technology Co., Ltd(Chinese:扬杰科技, 300373:SZ), founded in 2000, is an IDM manufacturer in China which integrates discrete semiconductor chip design and production, semiconductor component assembly and test as well as market sales & services. It has a wide range of product lines including discrete semiconductor chips, mosfets, IGBT&power modules, SiC, rectifiers, protection devices and small signals. These products are widely used in automotive electronics, green energy, industrial, power supply, home appliance, LED lighting, security, telecommunication, consumer electronics and other fields.
41. SGMICRO
SG Micro Corp (Chinese:圣邦微电子, 300661:SZ), founded in 2007, specializes in high-performance, high-quality analog IC design, marketing and sales, and offers innovative solutions for a broad range of applications in wireless communication, consumer, medical, automotive and industrial markets. It has introduced more than 3500 analog IC products with excellent reliability and consistency, including precision signal conditioning products such as amplifiers, buffers, comparators, switches and interface products, as well as energy-efficient power management ICs. These products have been used in diverse markets including smart devices, mobile electronics and green energy technologies.
42. Bright Power Semiconductor
Bright Power Semiconductor (BPS, Chinese:晶丰明源, 688368:SH), established in 2008, is a professional virtual IDM company that designs analog and mixed-signal IC. It has focused on LED Lighting Driver IC & Smart Lighting Solutions. Besides LED, BPS also extended its portfolio to the motor driver product line. Its products are mainly used in LED lighting industries, household appliances, electric tools, industrial servo, mobile phone fast charge, set-top boxes, routers, video surveillance, home care tools, servers, communication base stations and other fields.
43. Chipown
Chipown Micro-electronics limited (Chipown, Chinese:芯朋微电子, 688508:SH) is a high-tech company engaged in analog and mixed-signal IC design. Established in 2005, the company has focused on developing green power management and driver ICs, providing one-stop application solutions and on-site technical support services. The company pioneered the mass production of China's first single-chip AC- DC integrated 700V switching power MOS, AC-DC integrated 1200V switching power MOS, 200V sOI MOS/LIGBT power ICs, 100V CMOS/LDMOS power ICs and other products. It has held over 60 International and national patents.
44. Silergy
Silergy Corp.(Chinese:矽力杰半导体, TWSE 6415), founded in 2008, has focused on designing and manufacturing a broad range of mixed-signal and analog IC. Its main products include single output step-down regulators, dual output regulators, single output step-by-step regulators, power management ICs, step-up LED backlight regulators, AC-DC LED lighting controllers, DC input LED lighting drivers, LDO regulators, and protection switches. They have been widely used in automotive, industrial, consumer, computing and telecom equipment. Silergy is the largest independent analog chip design company in Asia.
45. NOVOSENSE
NOVOSENSE Microelectronics (NOVOSENSE, Chinese:纳芯微, 688052:SH), established in 2013, is an analog and mixed-signal IC design company focusing on signal sensing, system interconnection and power drive. It provides comprehensive semiconductor products and solutions including sensor, signal chain, isolator, interface, power device, driver and power management, which are widely used in automotive, industrial, information communication and consumer electronics markets. NOVOSENSE is the first IC design company in China to provide one-stop sensor IC Solutions and ongoing technical support for professional sensor systems. The company has independent intellectual property rights and comprehensive IP accumulation in the fields of MEMS, micro-signal acquisition, mixed-signal chain processing and sensor calibration.
46. FATRI
FATRI (Chinese:西人马), established in 2015, is an integrated device manufacturer (IDM) with comprehensive capabilities in chip and sensor material synthesis, chip design, manufacturing, packaging, and testing. It is dedicated to the control and monitoring of civil aviation, energy, health care, transportation, and industrial equipment, capable of creating systematic solutions that integrate end-edge-carrier-cloud-application. Its products and services are provided in civil aviation, marine shipping, petroleum and petrochemicals, wind power generation, industrial intelligence, rail transportation, health care, and general test.
47. YMTC
Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. (YMTC, Chinese:长江存储), established in 2016, is an IDM focusing on the design and manufacturing of 3D NAND flash memory and a professional advanced memory solutions provider. Its products and solutions range from 3D NAND Flash memory wafers and packaged chips to embedded memory solutions, consumer and enterprise SSDs, which are widely used in mobile devices, consumer electronics, computers, servers, and data centers. It announced in July that its fourth-generation NAND chips, known as X3-9070, were the first to feature 232 layers of memory cells.
48. Xi’an UnilC
Xi’an UniIC Semiconductors Co., Ltd. (Xi’an UnilC, Chinese:紫光国芯, 002049:SZ), founded in 2001, has focused on the development of memory products, marketing and sales of self-owned brand memory products, and ASIC design services. Since its establishment, the company has been working on the R&D in memory, especially in DRAM technologies. Many products have been in mass production and volume shipment to serve domestic and international customers. The company has accumulated extensive R&D and industrialization experience in memory design, testing, mass production, sales and marketing.
49. JHICC
Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. Ltd. (JHICC, Chinese:福建晋华) is a state-owned DRAM manufacturer founded in 2016 with an investment of USD 5.6 billion(CNY 37.74 billion) from the Chinese national government and Fujian Province government. It is part of the Made in China 2025 program, a component of China's strategy to gain self-sufficiency in the semiconductor industry and had claimed to be a national leader in China's tech industry. It was part of the Chinese government's plan to reach 70% self-sufficiency in semiconductors by the year 2025 and not be reliant on "massive imports of integrated circuits and chips" from other countries.
50. BIWIN
BIWIN Storage Technology Co., Ltd. (BIWIN, Chinese:佰维存储), founded in 2010, specializes in the research, development, manufacturing and sales of memory chip application products. The company boasts independent software, hardware, and firmware development capability and storage algorithm and process development capability. It is one of the few domestic storage enterprises which are capable of both chip design and chip packaging and testing. BIWIN has been committed to providing storage products and services for complete machine manufacturers, brand owners, the industrial control market and the consumer market, and provides customers with a full series of storage application solutions covering game entertainment, rail transit, network security, industrial automation, mobile phones and tablets, and netcom products.
51. Zbit Semiconductor
Zbit Semiconductor, Inc.(Chinese:恒烁半导体, 688416:SH) is a fabless design house founded in 2015. Its flagship products include SPI NOR Flash and 32-bit MCUs. These products are widely used in consumer, mobile phone, IoT, communication, smart home, industrial control, and automotive market. Zbit has developed three major NOR Flash product lines (3V, 1.8V and wide range) with different densities. Its ARM Cortex-based 32-bit MCU product families have been well accepted by customers and the market since 2020. The company has demonstrated its CiNOR technology, a NOR Flash-based Computing in Memory(CIM) AI technology through a test chip. This technology is one of the potential technologies for AI on-device inference.
52. NSIG
National Silicon Industry Group (NSIG, Chinese:沪硅产业, 688126:SH), established in 2015, focuses on semiconductor silicon materials. It has four subsidiaries: Okmetic, Zing Semi, Simgui and Soitec. Their products cover 150mm-300mm high-quality SOI wafers and silicon wafers (including polished wafers and epitaxial wafers). Its products have been used in a wide range of industries including mobile communications, convenient devices, automotive electronics, the Internet of Things and industrial electronics.
53. Nata
Jiangsu Nata Opto-electronic Material Co., Ltd.(Chinese:南大光电, 300346:SZ) is a high-tech enterprise specializing in R&D, production and sales of high-purity electronic materials. Established in 2000, the company mainly provides trimethyl gallium, trimethyl indium, triethyl gallium, trimethyl aluminum and cyclopentadienyl magnesium, among others. The company's products are mainly used in the manufacturing of light emitting diode (LED), solar energy batteries, phase change memories, semiconductor laser equipment, as well as a radio frequency integrated circuit chips, among others. Its products are mainly applied in semiconductor lighting, information communication and aerospace industries.
54. Empyrean Technology
Empyrean Technology (Chinese:华大九天, 301269:SZ), founded in 2009, is an EDA and services provider to the semiconductor industry. The company provides a complete solution for analog design, digital SoC solution, complete solution for flat panel display design and foundry EDA solution, and provides EDA-related services such as foundry design enablement services. Its IP design includes IP licensing, customization, and design from spec. Foundry design enablement service includes SPICE modeling and PDK, SRAM test chip, cell library & memory compiler development.
55.Primarius
Primarius(Chinese:概伦电子, 688206:SH), established in 2012, is a manufacturer of large-scale and high-precision IC simulation, high-end semiconductor device modeling, and semiconductor parameter testing solutions. It has been focusing on the independent design and research and development of EDA tools. It has mastered the core EDA technology that is independently controllable in the key links of device modeling and circuit simulation, the two major integrated circuit manufacturing and design; formed core key tools that can support advanced process nodes such as 7nm/5nm/3nm and various semiconductor process routes such as FinFET and FD-SOI.
56.VeriSilicon
VeriSilicon Microelectronics (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (VeriSilicon, Chinese:芯原股份, 688521:SH), founded in 2001, is committed to providing customers with custom silicon services and semiconductor IP licensing services leveraging its in-house semiconductor IP. VeriSilicon's business covers consumer electronics, automotive electronics, computer and peripheral, industry, data processing, Internet of Things (IoT) and other applications. It presents a variety of customized silicon solutions, including high-definition video, high-definition audio and voice, in-vehicle infotainment, video surveillance, IoT connectivity, smart wearable, high-end application processor, video transcoding acceleration and intelligent pixel processing. It has six types of in-house processor IPs, namely GPU IP, NPU IP, VPU IP, DSP IP, ISP IP and Display Processor IP.
57. SMIC
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC, Chinese:中芯国际) is a publicly-listed(00981:HK/688981:SH) Chinese pure-play semiconductor foundry company. It is the largest contract chip maker in mainland China. SMIC Group provides semiconductor foundry and technology services to global customers on 0.35 micron to 14-nanometer process node technologies. It provides integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing services on 350 nm to 7 nm process technologies. SMIC Group also has marketing and customer service offices at home and abroad. It has wafer fabrication sites throughout mainland China, offices in the United States, Italy, Japan, and Taiwan, and a representative office in Hong Kong.
58.Huaxin
Suzhou Huaxin Micro-electronics Co., Ltd (Chinese:苏州华芯微电子, 871451:OC) is an integrated circuit design and high-tech enterprise focusing on the design, development, and sales of large-scale and VLSI chips. Since its establishment in 2000, the company has committed to the design and development of digital and digital-analog hybrid chips in the fields of MCU, RF, sensor and motor drive, which mainly serves the markets for diverse consumer and industrial terminals, especially in the field of intelligent control. It has undertaken several important research and development projects and has nearly 200 patents in related fields.
59. JCET
JCET Group(Chinese:长电科技) is an integrated-circuit manufacturing and technology services provider, offering a full range of turnkey services that include semiconductor package integration design and characterization, R&D, wafer probe, wafer bumping, package assembly, final test and drop shipment to vendors around the world. Its portfolio covers a wide spectrum of semiconductor applications including mobile, communication, compute, consumer, automotive and industry, through advanced wafer level packaging, 2.5D/3D, System-in-Packaging, and reliable flip chip and wire bonding technologies. JCET Group has two R&D centers in China and Korea, six manufacturing locations in China, Korea and Singapore, and sales centers around the world.
60. Innosilicon
Innosilicon (Chinese:芯动科技), established in 2007, is a one-stop shop of high-speed mixed signal IPs and ASIC custom solutions for a full range of processes from 130nm to 5nm, especially for FinFET processes below 22nm. So far, it is the sole technology partner in China that has access to the 5nm process library provided by Samsung and TSMC combined with the design-to-tapeout capability. In 2018, Innosilicon was the first to overcome the major technical bottleneck of GDDR6 high bandwidth memory and realized the mass production of high-performance computing GPU. In 2022, it launched the world's first silicon-proven GDDR6X PHY and controller IP, based on GDDR6X memory chips from Micron.