Unigroup gets funds to grow ICs

Source: Xinhua | 2017-03-29

TSINGHUA Unigroup Ltd, China’s flagship chip firm, said yesterday that it has raised 150 billion yuan (US$22 billion) from two government-backed investors to help develop a world-class integrated circuit industry.

Unigroup, founded by Tsinghua University, will receive 100 billion yuan from China Development Bank until 2020, the chip developer said.

The national integrated circuit fund, which was founded in 2014 to support the domestic IC industry, will invest 50 billion yuan in Unigroup.

The national IC fund will help the firm to become “both big and strong” in the global IC industry and develop core home-grown technologies.

Unigroup is building a US$30 billion memory chip production complex in Nanjing that will become China’s largest when completed, and it’s also preparing to expand memory and storage facilities in Wuhan.

Unigroup is the world’s third-biggest chip firm in the mobile telecommunications sector.

The national IC fund, which was set up with 120 billion yuan, now has 138.7 billion yuan. Over 60 percent of the fund will be invested in IC manufacturing.