Anshi Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Wentai Technology, will buy Newport Wafer Fab, Britain's largest chipmaker, for 63 million pounds (564 million yuan), according to CNBC. It is said that negotiations are under way and Anshi could announce the acquisition as early as Monday or Tuesday.
It is understood that NWF mainly produces silicon chips for automotive power applications, and the industry has been hit particularly hard by the shortage of chips. The company has also been developing more advanced "compound semiconductors" that are faster and more energy efficient.
The semiconductor industry has made a lot of big moves recently.
It is worth noting that the 2020 annual report of Wentai Technology shows that the company completed the acquisition of the remaining stake in Anshi Semiconductor during the reporting period and has achieved 100% control of Anshi Semiconductor.
Anshi Semiconductor is a world-renowned semiconductor IDM company, headquartered in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, can deliver more than 90 billion pieces of products every year, its products are widely used in all kinds of electronic designs around the world.
According to core research data, in 2020, Anshi Semiconductor rose from 11th in 2019 to 9th in the ranking of global power discrete device companies. In the ranking of Chinese power discrete device companies, Anshi Semiconductor (China) Co., Ltd. ranks first.
In fact, there has been a lot of big moves in the semiconductor industry recently, and on the same day, the National Fund also stepped in again, spending 2.5 billion yuan to buy a stake in Science and Technology Innovation Board Semiconductor leading China Micro Co., Ltd.
On July 2, China Micro Corporation released a report on the fixed increase in the evening, raising a total of 8.21 billion yuan and issuing a price of 102.29 yuan per share. Among them, the second phase of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co., Ltd. was allocated 2.5 billion yuan, China International Capital Corporation was allocated 406 million yuan, and Gao Yi's boss Deng Xiaofeng was allocated a total of 540 million yuan.
Data show that China Micro Corporation is a China-based, global micro-processing high-end equipment company, providing highly competitive high-end equipment and high-quality services for the integrated circuit and pan-semiconductor industry. The plasma etching equipment and chemical thin film equipment developed by China and Micro are the key equipment for manufacturing all kinds of micro devices, which can process all kinds of micron and nanometer devices.
Last week, TI announced that it would buy Meguiar's 12-inch fab for $900 million, and Nvidia had earlier extended an olive branch to ARM. In addition, the global chip giants continue to expand production plans.
In this regard, some industry analysts believe that chip production capacity is difficult to expand in the short term, while the global supply chain is affected by the epidemic, and the voices of price increases in all aspects of the semiconductor industry chain rise one after another, further boosting the economy. Since the second quarter, leaders of mainstream wafer manufacturers such as TSMC and Intel have successively stated that the shortage of global chip manufacturing capacity will continue until 2023. This has further accelerated the pace of epitaxial mergers and acquisitions of chip giants.
The performance of domestic semiconductor enterprises increases in advance in the lack of core market.
In the first half of 2021, with the normalization of the global epidemic, the economies of various countries began to recover, the demand for consumer electronics grew, and the demand for industry and cars picked up. However, the shortage of production capacity and serious shortage in the semiconductor industry increased instead of falling. As a result, the downstream terminal market continues to "rise", and the global semiconductor market remains high. For upstream enterprises, this wave of "super market" has directly led to the growth of the company's performance; especially domestic semiconductor enterprises, ushered in a pre-increase in performance in the first half of this year.
Statistics show that as of July 2, 2021, 10 A-share semiconductor companies have issued semi-annual performance forecasts, with year-on-year profit growth of 50% or more, and some companies' income in the first half of the year has exceeded that of last year. The growth in performance mainly benefited from factors such as strong demand, higher product prices and accelerated autonomous and controllable processes.
Among them, IC closed test factory Tong Fu Micro, semiconductor equipment supplier Core Source Micro, LED driver chip leader Ming Microelectronics, power semiconductor leader Yang Jie Technology, Internet of things WI-FI solution supplier Lexin Technology, semiconductor equipment manufacturer North Huachuang, semiconductor device manufacturer Weir, IC closed test manufacturer Changdian Technology, the half-year net profit of these seven companies have doubled.
With regard to the reasons for the performance growth, the above-mentioned companies all mentioned the slowing down of the novel coronavirus epidemic, increased demand in the end market and tight capacity in the global supply chain.
According to the first Securities Research report, "the global lack of core has made the world's economies aware of the importance of 'semiconductor production capacity'. In the future, various regions will increase the input of semiconductor manufacturing capacity, which is an unprecedented change in awareness in the history of semiconductors. This change of expectation and awareness will enhance the value of wafer foundries. Whether it is foundry or IDM enterprises, as long as there are wafers to benefit. In terms of specific performance, one is that one's own fab can guarantee the supply of production capacity, and the other is that it can combine chip design and process to develop unique device processes and make products that are different from fabless enterprises. "
There are many semiconductor enterprises, which industry segment should be given priority?
1. Early: semiconductor equipment
Generally speaking, every round of semiconductor business cycle starts with the equipment enterprises. Because the supply of equipment is the most rigid, semiconductor manufacturing enterprises must place orders with equipment enterprises at least one year in advance before they see the boom in the industry in order to catch up with the boom in the industry. Therefore, equipment companies can first enjoy the benefits of the semiconductor business cycle, and the stock price will naturally rise first.
2. Medium-term: semiconductor manufacturing
After the manufacturer got the booked equipment and installed and debugged it, they began to release production capacity, the shipment volume increased, and the performance began to grow substantially. Therefore, when you see manufacturing companies leading the rise of the entire semiconductor industry, it often means that you are in the middle of the semiconductor cycle at that time.
3. Late stage: semiconductor materials
When the production capacity of manufacturing enterprises is released and shipments are greatly increased, the demand for semiconductor materials will come up. Therefore, generally in the late stages of the semiconductor cycle, materials companies begin to lead the industry.
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