Acquisition Of British Wafer Factory By Subsidiary Wentai Technology

Wentai technology is adding semiconductor manufacturing links.

On the evening of July 5, Wentai technology announced that the wholly-owned subsidiary, AXA semiconductor, signed relevant acquisition agreements with Neptune 6 limited and its shareholders. After the completion of this transaction, the company will indirectly hold 100% equity of Newport wafer fab.

Wentai's announcement did not disclose the amount of the deal, according to previous media reports, the transaction price was about 63 million pounds (about 560 million yuan).

As a result of the acquisition, Andersen semiconductor acquired 100% ownership of Newport wafer fab, a chip manufacturer located in Newport, South Wales, UK, and officially renamed Nexperia Newport.

It is reported that Anson semiconductor is a customer of wafer foundry services provided by Newport wafer fab, and became its second largest shareholder by investing in Neptune 6 limited in 2019. In addition to its Newport plant, two other European manufacturing plants in Manchester and Hamburg have recently received significant investment.

It can be seen that Wentai technology is continuously expanding its production capacity in the world after completing the acquisition of Anshi semiconductor, and the production capacity is particularly critical in the context of lack of core. At the same time, Anson semiconductor said the acquisition will enhance the supply capacity of products that meet the vehicle specification standards and expand its market share.

On July 6, Wentai technology closed at 99.4 yuan, down 1.54%.

Under the background of lack of core, manufacturers are also constantly strengthening chip manufacturing capacity. IC photo

Who is Newport wafer fab?

According to media reports, Newport wafer fab is the largest chip manufacturer in the UK. However, compared with leading chip manufacturers such as TSMC and united power, Newport wafer fab is not large in volume and is currently in a loss state.

According to the announcement, the total assets of Newport wafer fab at the end of fiscal year 2020 were 44.7076 million pounds, and the net assets were - 5.1773 million pounds. In 2020, the operating income was 30.911 million pounds and the loss was 18.611 million pounds. However, Wen Tai said that the above data accounted for a small proportion of the relevant financial data of listed companies and had no significant impact on the company's production and operation.

Prior to this, Wentai technology acquired European semiconductor giant Anson semiconductor with 26.8 billion yuan, which became the largest semiconductor acquisition case of that year. It should have accumulated a lot of experience in transnational operation and loss recovery management.

It is understood that the Xingang Semiconductor production plant was founded in 1982. At present, it has a monthly production capacity of more than 35000 pieces of 200 mm wafers, which is an 8-inch wafer factory. It covers all kinds of semiconductor technologies, from MOSFET and trench IGBT using wafer thinning method to CMOS, analog and chemical compound semiconductors. It mainly produces vehicle grade products and is applied in the automotive field.

This is in line with the business of Anson semiconductor, a leading manufacturer of discrete and power chip IDM, one of the world's leading automotive semiconductor companies and one of Newport wafer fab's customers. In 2020, the revenue from automobile, mobile and wearable equipment, industrial and electric power, computer equipment and consumption fields will account for 45%, 23%, 22%, 5% and 5% respectively. Among them, nearly half of the revenue from the automotive sector of Anshi semiconductor will also strengthen the production and supply strength of automotive power semiconductors.

Zhang Xuezheng, chairman of Wentai technology, chairman and CEO of Anson semiconductor, said that Newport's accession will effectively enhance the IDM capability of Anson semiconductor in the field of vehicle specification level IGBT, MOSFET, analog and compound semiconductor.

In addition to the automotive sector, the demand for compound semiconductors is also increasing. According to Wen Tai financial report, authoritative institutions predict that the global power discrete device industry will grow at a high speed in 2021 and the next few years, driven by the global 5g infrastructure construction, 5g mobile phones, PC and cloud servers, electric vehicles, China's new infrastructure, and global chip price hikes. However, for 5g devices, the demand for compound semiconductors such as SiC and Gan in electric vehicles and industrial facilities (including solar energy facilities) is increasing rapidly. The growth of the next-generation compound power semiconductor market, including SiC (4H-SiC) and Gan, has now begun. Yole, a market research firm, predicts that the SiC Power semiconductor market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 29% to $2 billion by 2024.

Rapid expansion of production capacity

In the face of the growing demand, Wentai technology is also expanding the semiconductor production capacity and scale. Since last year, the shortage of core has become more and more serious, especially for automotive semiconductors, which is still continuing this year. Therefore, both wafer factories, IDM plants and chip design plants are strengthening the ability of chip manufacturing. Those with manufacturing base will expand their production through mergers and acquisitions and build factories. Fabless manufacturers also try to invest in wafer factories and packaging and testing plants to guarantee the production capacity supply and strive for the discourse power in the industrial chain.

In this wave of core shortage, the shortage of 8-inch plants is particularly serious, and the 8-inch plants are also visible from the loss of Newport wafer fab because of their low efficiency. In recent years, most of the wafer plants have expanded their production capacity by 12 inches. However, due to the serious shortage of mature capacity since last year, 8-inch plants and related equipment have become scarce, Direct acquisition of existing 8-inch plants has also become an option for leading companies.

In addition to Anson semiconductor, the world advanced also received an 8-inch factory. On April 28 this year, Youda, a panel manufacturer, announced that it would sell its l3b plant to world advanced for NT $905 million (about RMB 210 million). The factory was originally an 8-inch Wafer Factory purchased by Youda from a semiconductor company, and the world advanced could just take over and reuse it.

In addition, the expansion of Anson semiconductor continues. On June 24, its new 8-inch wafer production line in Manchester was launched. According to the plan, the first phase is planned to be completed in the third quarter of 2021; At the beginning of this year, Wentai technology's 12 inch semiconductor wafer manufacturing center project was started in Shanghai.

According to the financial report, Anshi semiconductor's back-end packaging and testing plant is also undergoing simultaneous transformation and upgrading. Among them, Dongguan factory is expanding, adding a fourth floor workshop, and adopting new automation production line and SIP (system level packaging) and other new technologies. At the same time, through investment to expand the capacity of the Philippines (lfpak) and Malaysia (clip bonding).

Wentai technology also said that it will continue to increase its investment in Anshi semiconductor to help it expand its R & D, wafer and package test scale, so as to further strengthen its competitiveness. According to the statistics of xinmou research, there are 5 Chinese enterprises among the top 20 enterprises in the global power discrete device industry in 2020, and Anshi semiconductor ranks the ninth.

In 2020, Wentai technology will achieve a revenue of 51.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24%; The net profit attributable to the parent company was 2.42 billion yuan, up 93% year on year. In terms of products, mobile phone and accessories revenue is still the core, accounting for 81%, and semiconductor business revenue accounts for 18.75%. However, the semiconductor business grew rapidly, with revenue of 9891.6118 million yuan, an increase of 521.96% over the previous year.

For Wentai technology, in addition to the mobile phone ODM business, the second growth curve of semiconductor is also the action trend of related semiconductor companies in the case of capacity shortage; From the perspective of global industrial environment, all regions are competing for manufacturing capacity, and merger investment will continue.

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