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Round-up Report
November 2004
SMIC becomes the 3rd largest foundry at Q3 (Nov 29, 2004)
According to the IDC’s recent released data, China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) has bypassed Singapore based Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (CSM) at the third quarter of this year and becomes the world’s 3rd largest foundry.
SMIC has managed sales revenue of US$274.9million in the third quarter, up 24.4% over the last quarter while CSM’s sales revenue was US$257.3 million.
TSMC and UMC still top the No.1 and No. 2 among foundry service providers.
Fairchild teams with Tsinghua University (Nov 29, 2004)
Fairchild Semiconductor and Tsinghua University signed a strategic multi-faceted agreement in terms of establishing IC R&D labs in Beijing and Shanghai.
“Our agreement with Tsinghua University is another important step in Fairchild’s business strategy. Our relationship with the University is one more important component of our emphasis on China, building upon our new 800,000 square foot assembly and test plant in Suzhou, our sales offices there, and our Global Power Resource™ labs. These investments validate the importance of the China market to our business,” said Bob Conrad, Fairchild’s senior vice president and general manager, Integrated Circuits Group.
Fairchild’s business in China has grown rapidly since the company was established in 1997. Today Fairchild is the leading power components supplier in China, commanding a 12% market share, according to the company. The agreement represents a major milestone in Fairchild Semiconductor’s global development, and will play an important role in the success of the corporation’s global Power Franchise strategy.
Chinese economy forecast to grow 9.3 percent in 2004(Nov 29, 2004)
Based on the forecast of the State Information Center, China’s economy growth rate will be 9.3% in 2004.
The growth rates during the first three quarters are 9.8%, 9.6% and 9.1% respectively. The continuous decline of the growth rate is because of the government’s macro economic control regulations. These regulations aimed at curbing overheating of fixed asset investment.
Under the government regulations, the growth of primary and tertiary industries has sped up remarkably. In the first three quarters, the primary industry grew 5.5 percent, up 2.7% YOY; the tertiary industry grew 8.5 percent, up 2% YOY.
China allows foreign investment in television content (Nov 22, 2004)
China will allow foreign investors to invest in entertainment television production business, starting from Nov. 28, 2004 based on Xinhua report.
The new regulation will allow foreign investor to own as much as up to 49% of entertainment program producers. However, there are some restrictions to watch. First, foreign investors need to inject minimum US$2 million capital to form a joint venture. Second, the JV has to produce two-thirds of China related content.
It has been regarded as a big step for Chinese government to open a door to foreign investors in the TV content development area.
China’s STB market to grow (Nov 22, 2004)
China’s STB makers expect to start mass manufacturing of standard set-top-boxes (STB) next year without being bothered by the different encryptions(conditional access) from different digital cable TV operators. This is the announcement from the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) at China’s Second Digital TV Technology Seminar.
Based on Weimin Bai, Director of Broadcast and TV Department of the MII, there are three solutions for the change: PCMCA, USB2.0 and ISO7816, which will standardize the STB and make the card to decrypt the access code from individual operators.
At present, China has 1.2 million digital TV cable subscribers and expects to have 30 million in next 2-3 years. In-Stat/MDR says that China consumed 235,000 STB box in the first half of 2004 and China has over 120 million cable users.
Amoi works with Ericsson Mobile (Nov 22, 2004)
Amoi recently signed an agreement with Ericsson in terms of using its 3G platform. Based on the agreement, Amoi will be certified by Ericsson to use its U100 which is a multimedia dual-mode of WCDMA and GSM/GPRS platform.
Xiaozhong li, CEO of Amoi, said that this cooperation was based on the previous experience working with Ericsson and Ericsson’s advanced technology in 3G handset platform.
This is the second agreement between Amoi and Ericsson. The first one was signed early this year about G100 and G200 platform products.
The 64th CEF and 2004 AEES in Shanghai (Nov 15, 2004)
The 64th China Electronics Fair (CEF) and 2004 Asia Electronics Exhibition Sanghai(AEES) 2004 will be held in Shanghai New International Expo Center from Nov.15-18.
CEF is one of the most important electronics fairs in China. With fully supports from China Ministry of Information Industry and Ministry of Commerce, CEF is the largest show of electronic component, semiconductor and MRO (maintenance, repair and operations material) with over 30 year history in China.
AEES is co-hosted by the organizers of the top five electronics exhibitions in Asia including China Electronic Appliance Corp., Electronic Industries Association of Korea, Hong Kong Trade Development Council, Japan Electronics Show Association and Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers Association.
These events are a great gathering of manufacturers, suppliers and distributors.
China ‘s electronics revenue hits US$205.6bn from Jan-Sept (Nov 15, 2004)
China’s economy has been growing continuously. From Jan to Sept, China has achieved US$205.6bn sales revenue in electronics industry, up 42% YOY; electronics export revenue achieved US$144.6bn, up 35% YOY.
Based on the Ministry of Information Industry, at the end of 2004, China’s electronics industry expects to gain sales revenue of US$267bn and export of US$180bn.
Digital TV, 3G products, network equipment and IC products are regarded as new growth areas.
ADI launches chipset for TD-SCDMA (Nov 15, 2004)
Analog Devices, Inc.,(NYSE:ADI), a global leading semiconductor for signal processing applications launched SoftFone-LCR chipset for China’s self-developed 3G standard TD-SCDMA. This chipset, powered by ADI’s Blackfin processor, was the world’s first complete chipset based on the TD-SCDMA Low Chip Rate(LCR) air interface and was regarded as an important milestone in ADI’s roadmap in wireless technology.
“We expect TD-SCDMA handset design activity to increase rapidly over the coming months and the SoftFone-LCR chipset is the most complete, flexible and cost-effective solution for handset manufacturers and ODMs to leverage for fast time to market.” said Christian Kermarrec, vice president, RF and wireless systems, Analog Devices, Inc.
The newly developed chipset provides all the critical functions necessary to build a TD-SCDMA handset, including the baseband signal processing and control, analog-interface functions and radio signal. Datang Mobile has been using the Analog Devices Blackfin Processor in development platforms to provide the world’s first TD-SCDMA mobile terminal and the first TD-SCDMA PCMCIA data card to achieve TD-SCDMA MTNet test.
TCL teams with Toshiba on white home appliance market (Nov 8, 2004)
China’s leading electronics company TCL International (Huizhou, Guangdong) just signed an agreement with Japanese top home appliance maker Toshiba in setting up two JVs in Nanhai, Guangdong province to make and sell refrigerators and washing machines.
The two newly established JVs (manufacturing JV and sales JV) will be invested by TCL and Toshiba together with the amount of US$ 50 million. The manufacturing JV is expected to be founded in Jan, 2005 with a production capacity of 2 million refrigerators and 1.5 million washing machines. The company will be in charge of manufacturing refrigerators and washing machines with the brand name of Toshiba and TCL to serve both Chinese domestic and global market. The sales JV will be responsible for selling products within China and will put into fully operation in April 2004.
This win-win strategy will allow Toshiba and TCL to expand their market shares in China and the global market in a faster way.
Ericsson opens its R&D center in Chengdu (Nov 8, 2004)
The Swedish telecom equipment and handset maker Ericsson recently opened its new R&D center in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, aiming at serving market in Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, Chongqing city and Tibet Autonomous Region. This center will initially develop parts for radio stations supporting the GSM, CDMA and WCDMA mobile phone systems for the global market.
With 20 engineers, this new R&D center will help to improve the technology and service in the area, stated Gramee McCusker, General Manager of Ericsson western China region.
At present, Ericsson already has 6 regional centers which are in northern, southern, central and western China. Each center will serve for the clients and markets in the individual region.
Leadership changes with China’s telecom sectors (Nov 8, 2004)
China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom have experienced the change of top leadership.
Former China Unicom head Jianzhou Wang became the new president of China Mobile, while Xiaobing Chang, former China Telecom deputy general manager, was named the new chairman of China Unicom. Meanwhile, former China Mobile vice president Xiaochu Wang was appointed the new chief of China Telecom.
This radical change at the highest levels of management for the largest telecom operators in China is widely believed to be an attempt by the Chinese government to avoid fierce competitions that may arise from the rollout of 3G mobile services in China. Changes in senior management at these companies could be done because of government backing.
PT/EXPO COMM China 2004 in Beijing (Nov 1, 2004)
PT/EXPO COMM China 2004 was held on Oct. 26-30, 2004 at China International Exhibition Center, Beijing China.
Sponsored by the MII and China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and organized by China National Postal & Telecommunications Appliances Corporation (PTAC) and China International Exhibition Center Group Corporation (CIEC), this exhibition has attracted 850 exhibitors and over 370,000 visitors.
This is a great gathering of telecom equipment makers, top telecom operators and IC providers. TD-SCDMA Summit was a shinning point during the event, showing China’s progress in TD-SCDMA development. The voice of the summit, from government, telecom operators and manufactures, indicated that TD-SCDMA infrastructure equipment and handset will be likely to be commercialized by the middle of 2005.
Fairchild Semiconductor generates 40% of its revenue in China market (Nov 1, 2004)
Fairchild Semiconductor expected to gain US$700 million from China which is about 40% of its worldwide sales revenue in 2004, based on DigiTimes report.
Eric Guo, head of Fairchild’s Asia operations said that Fairchild is able to grow its market share through maintaining strong relationships with key customers and serving smaller customers via its distributors in China.
Fairchild’s key customers in Asia include top motherboard makers such as Asustek, Micro-Star International (MSI) and Gigabyte Technology; notebook makers such as Quanta and Compal Electronics; and home appliance makers such as Haier, Changhong and Konka.
Datang to partner with SK Telecom and Tiandi on handset (Nov 1, 2004)
Datang Telecom Technology Ltd is to pay US$3.75 million to buy stakes in a joint venture (JV) between South Korea's SK Telecom and Xinjiang Tiandi Group. With the participation of Datang Telecom, registration capital for the JV will amount to US$25 million with SK Telecom taking a dominant share of 60 per cent. Xinjiang Tiandi Group and Datang Telecom will account for 25 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively.
Datang’s joining enables the JV to produce and sell high-end handset and compete with high-end handset makers like Nokia, Motorola and Samsung because Datang has the handset manufacturing license.
The MII has granted 30 GSM mobile phone manufacturing licenses and 19 CDMA licenses to 36 manufacturers. A total of 26 out of the 36 manufacturers are foreign players and eight are privately-owned domestic enterprises.
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