Chip-making companies in China are trying to help solve a global shortage of semiconductors. China’s output of chips surged by 41.3% year-on-year to a monthly record of 31.57 billion units in July, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). The surge helped bring China’s total IC output in the first seven months of this year to 203.6 billion, up 47.3% year-on-year. China exported 178.5 billion integrated circuits from January to July, up 35% year-on-year. Fu Liang, an independent technology analyst, said that as the global shortage of semiconductors continues to affect automobile, smartphone, PC and other sectors, Chinese chipmakers are beefing up their production capacities. Strong demand for semiconductors and the addition of new production capacity have helped fuel the rise in output of chips, Fu said. For instance, SiEn (Qingdao) Integrated Circuits Co, a foundry founded by Richard Chang, an industry veteran and founder of chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), recently kicked off production of 8-inch wafers in Qingdao, Shandong province.
To meet the skyrocketing global demand for personal computers amid the Covid-19 pandemic, China has also exported 130 million PCs from January to July, up nearly 41% year-on-year. The PC refreshment cycle has shortened and the penetration rate has increased, which has motivated more Chinese companies to enter the PC sector, experts said.
In July, the output of China’s electronic information manufacturing sector increased 13% year-on-year. The growth rate itself increased by 1.2 percentage points year-on-year. In the second half of this year, China wants to further promote scientific and technological innovation, and strengthen supply chains and fundamental research. Qiao Biao, Deputy Director of the China Center for Information Industry Development, a Beijing-based think tank, said a more resilient and flexible industry chain is an important foundation for the growth of China’s economy, the China Daily reports.
