1. Qualcomm extended the NXP transaction deadline again to May 25;
Sina Technology News Beijing time on the evening of May 11 news, Qualcomm announced today that it has extended the validity of the acquisition of NXP Semiconductors (NXP Semiconductors) to May 25, 2018 at 5 pm.
In October 2016, Qualcomm announced that it had acquired NXP Semiconductors for approximately US$38 billion, which was equivalent to approximately US$110 per share. Later, with the increase in the stock price of NXP Semiconductors, the shareholders of the company believe that Qualcomm’s quotation is too low. In February of this year, Qualcomm in turn Increase the quotation to 127.50 US dollars per share, about 44 billion US dollars.
Prior to this, Qualcomm has extended the validity period of the transaction several times, because it has not yet been approved by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.
To complete this transaction, Qualcomm needs to be approved by regulators from nine countries around the world. Qualcomm has so far received the approval of eight of these departments and is only subject to the approval of the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China. With approval, Qualcomm needs to pay NXP Semiconductors a $2 billion termination fee.
For the transaction, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China stated last month that the Ministry of Commerce is reviewing Qualcomm’s acquisition of NXP Semiconductors in accordance with the provisions of the “Anti-Monopoly Law.” For Qualcomm’s proposed relief measures, The initial feedback from the market test conducted by the investigation agency concluded that Qualcomm's solution is difficult to solve the relevant market competition issues.
For Qualcomm, this acquisition transaction is crucial because the company is seeking to expand its customer base and become the leading chip maker in the rapidly growing self-driving car market. However, analysts said that the trade and investment frictions between China and the United States are resolved. Before the Chinese Ministry of Commerce approved the transaction is unlikely. (Li Ming)
2. Silver Pigeon Investment confirms the transfer of 6% stake in Anshi Semiconductor;
On May 11, 2018, Henan Yinge Industrial Investment Co., Ltd. (600069.SH) issued the "Announcement on the Progress of Indirect Acquisition of JW Fund Shares", announcing that Yingou Investment invested in the indirect subsidiary of Yingkou Qianyin. The company confirmed the transfer of 6% equity of Ansemi Semiconductors, which has so far paid a deposit of US$25 million.
The announcement disclosed that on April 25, 2018, the Target Fund issued a bidding document to all interested investors, intending to directly or indirectly transfer the JW Fund's $125 million limited partnership shareholding (accounting for 6% of the overall original share of Ansa Semiconductor). As an indirect subsidiary of Yingkou Ganyin, invested by Yinge Investment, Youpin Company participated in the bidding, and it was recently determined that it will become the JW fund's USD 125 million limited partnership share held by Pacific (accounting for 6% of Ansi’s overall original share). The transferee’s transferee price was $165 million.
The acquisition of Yinshi Semiconductor’s shareholding by Yinge Investment started in 2017. On July 15, 2017, Yinge Investment disclosed “on the signing of planned foreign investment”. <框架协议>The announcement of the preliminary announcement of Silver Pigeon Investment’s intention to participate in the acquisition of share equity of Anshi Semiconductor. After nearly one year of negotiation and preparation, Yinpin Investment’s indirect subsidiary, Yinyou Company, invested by Yinge Investment passed this award. Gained a substantial step in the $125 million share of Safe Semiconductor.
The announcement also pointed out that Youpin, together with the former Bank of International, Shengzhao Industrial and the shareholder, invested 1.4 billion Hong Kong dollars to complete the above-mentioned transfer of 125 million U.S. dollars. Among them, Youpin Company invested 150 million Hong Kong dollars and enjoyed an excess amount in a progressive manner. Proportional distribution of income.
Judging from the above transaction structure and the recent premium level of Anshi Semiconductor's share in the public auction of Hefei Core Screen Industry Investment Fund, listed companies have locked in a larger revenue space and are expected to gain more in the future by introducing priority funds for leveraged financing. Big gains.
According to public information, Ansemi Semiconductors is an independent derivative of the standard product business of NXP Semiconductors, a well-known semiconductor company. The main products are discrete devices, logic chips and PowerMos chips, integrated design, manufacturing, and packaging and testing. It is a typical vertically integrated semiconductor company. • Ann Semiconductor’s profit before interest and tax increased from 233 million USD in 2015 to nearly 327 million USD in 2017 (February-December), and its profitability and growth ability were impressive.
At present, there is news that Ansi Semiconductor has begun to consider IPO. Taking into account the current policy support for unicorn enterprises and the enthusiasm of the semiconductor industry, market players are optimistic about their capitalization prospects.
For Yinge Investment, either as a financial investor or an alternative to Ansemi Semiconductors' capitalization plan, the successful transfer of some equity of Ansemi Semiconductors will benefit the rapid development of listed companies. Securities Daily
3. Entry of trillion-grade investment in China's 'core' industry to accelerate the run;
China's 'Core' Industry Accelerates Its Run
Li Zhenghao
At present, China's semiconductor industry has received unprecedented attention in every move.
On the one hand, the funds are gathering further. The Wall Street Journal recently disclosed that the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund (hereinafter referred to as the “large fund”) has prepared to announce a new fund with a scale of about 300 billion yuan (US$47.4 billion). Meanwhile, Driven by major funds, SMIC (00981.HK) also announced on May 3 that it will jointly establish a semiconductor industry fund with major funds, Shanghai Haoxin, etc., with a total scale of 1.616 billion yuan.
On the other hand, there are a large number of new players. According to the May 5th Taiwanese media DigiTimes, the world’s largest foundry company Foxconn Electronics has formed a semiconductor group and is considering the construction of two wafer fabs. Meanwhile, according to *ST Datang 5 On the 5th of this month, the company's joint venture with Qualcomm and other companies have received approval from regulatory authorities. In addition, the Chinese-owned ARM mini China initiated by the British ARM company has been confirmed to be operational.
An analyst of CITIC Securities told the “China Business” reporter: 'The Sino-US trade dispute breaks the original pattern of the semiconductor industry in both countries, and in the long term it will strengthen the determination of domestic alternatives to the domestic cornerstone industry. With the second phase of the In 2018, China will continue to accelerate investment, and the semiconductor industry is expected to usher in the golden decade.
The scale of investment will exceed one trillion yuan
The Grand Fund was established in 2014 and invested by 15 companies including Guokai Finance, China Tobacco, Yizhuang State Investment, China Mobile, Shanghai Guosheng, China Electronics, Ziguang Communications, and Huaxin Investment. The registered capital is 98.72 billion yuan. The Ministry of Industry and Finance Division chief Wang Zhanqi is the legal representative and chairman of the board of directors.
According to the announcement of changes in shares on March 13, 2018, the largest shareholder of the major fund is the Ministry of Finance, which holds 36.47% of shares, followed by China Open Finance, which holds 22.29% of shares, China Tobacco holds 11.14%, and Yizhuang holds 10.13% of the shares. , Wuhan Financial Holdings, Shanghai Guosheng, China Mobile accounted for 5.06% of the shares, other shareholders together accounted for 4.78%.
According to public information, since the establishment of the Big Fund in September 2014, the initial investment of RMB 138.7 billion has been basically completed. The investment scope has taken into account the chip design, packaging and testing, equipment and materials industries, among which, as of now, manufacturing, design, The proportion of investment in all aspects of the industry chain, including packaging and testing, equipment and materials, was 63%, 20%, 10%, and 7%, respectively.
The reporter combed and found out that as of March 31, 2018, the effective decision-making project of the first phase of the big fund exceeded 62 projects and 52 foreign companies were invested; one of the letter sources showed that the direct investment of major funds accounted for more than 5% of the shares in China. Outer listed companies include: Huiding Technology (603160.SH) in the field of chip design, Zhaoyi Innovation (603986.SH), Guoke Microelectronics (300672.SZ), Beidou Xingtong (002151.SZ), Micro Micro Technology (02239) .HK); Changjiang Electronics Technology (600584.SH), Tongfu Microelectronics (002156.SZ) in the field of packaging and testing, North Huachuang (002371.SZ) in the field of semiconductor production line equipment, and Changchuan Technology (300604.SZ), ACM Research (NASDAQ: ACMR); SMIC of foundry manufacturing; Sanan Optoelectronics (600703.SH) in the field of compound semiconductors and specialty processes; a total of 12 listed companies with an average shareholding ratio of approximately 10%.
In addition, according to the research report of Huachuang Bonds, the major fund has incited local industrial investment funds in the first phase of about 514.5 billion yuan. That is to say, the leverage ratio between the first phase of large funds and social capital is already close to 1: 4. The reporter combed and found , Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Gansu, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong, Tianjin, and other semiconductor towns have established local promotion funds before and after the establishment of large-scale funds, which are generally between several billion yuan and tens of billions of yuan.
According to media reports, the overall size of the second phase of the big fund will be between 150 billion and 200 billion yuan. However, the Wall Street Journal quoted an anonymous source as saying that the size of the fund's fundraising will reach 300 billion yuan. .
Everbright Securities estimates that according to the scale of the second phase of the big fund of 150 billion to 200 billion yuan, and the ratio of funds of 1:3, it is expected that the second phase of the big fund will instigate about 450 billion to 600 billion yuan of social capital. If we add a large fund of RMB 1387 million in the first phase and its instigated RMB 514.5 billion, the large funds and their total investment will easily exceed the RMB trillion level.
In addition, it is worth noting that Ding Wenwu, the managing director of the major fund, publicly stated in January 2018 that the future investment layout of major funds will shift from 'face coverage' to 'point breakthrough,' and the focus of work will gradually shift from 'focusing on pre-investment'. 'After investing and paying equal attention', large funds must not only complete the industrial layout, but also seek 'overtaking' opportunities.
Ding Wenwu also revealed that the next big fund will increase the proportion of investment in the chip design industry, and will focus on national strategies and emerging industries for investment planning, such as smart cars, smart grids, artificial intelligence, Internet of things and 5G, etc., and try to Increase support for the equipment and materials industry.
Domestic companies are already gearing up
At the same time that all funds were running and entering the stadium, many companies also acted.
In the manufacturing sector, according to Digitimes related reports, Foxconn Electronics (ie Hon Hai Precision Industry) has formed a semiconductor subgroup and is considering the construction of two wafer fabs. Another report disclosed that Foxconn has already established a chip manufacturing related subsidiary. For example, Jingding Precision Technology, which manufactures semiconductor equipment, and Infocore Technology, which is based on semiconductor module packaging and testing, and Tianye Technology, are included in the operation of the semiconductor subgroup. At the same time, Foxconn has established a technology development team with engineers from outside and let This team is responsible for evaluating the feasibility of the semiconductor group's construction of two 12-inch fabs.
Our reporter tried to verify the authenticity of the above-mentioned news with Foxconn by telephone and email, but Foxconn did not reply.
There is also a big news from Ziguang Group. On May 2nd, the former Director of Electronic Information Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Yan Shijing, has officially joined the Ziguang Group as the co-president and reports directly to Zhao Weiguo, Chairman of the Ziguang Group, mainly assisting Zhao Weiguo in managing the purple light. Group chip industry business planning and development.
According to public information, Shi Shijing has more than 30 years of working experience in the ICT field in China. In addition to the former director of the Electronic Information Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Yan Shijing also serves as the deputy director of the Nuclear Special Project Office for the implementation of major projects, and the national integrated circuit industry development leading group. Office officials and other duties.
An industry source and the reporter said during the exchange, Zhai Shijing, who is in charge of the Ziguang Group’s chip business, is likely to concurrently serve as Ziguang Guoxin Chairman and Changjiang Storage Chairman. Ziguang Group’s chip business includes Ziguang Guoxin, Ziguang Exhibition. Sharp, Yangtze River Storage etc.
The source also stated that Yan Shijing's entry into the Ziguang Group was a major signal that the Chinese integrated circuit industry will no longer be fighting independently. He will use the entire Chinese electronic information industry ecological environment in the future to completely change the unfavorable situation in China's integrated circuit industry.
Alibaba’s layout in the chip field is also attracting attention. At the end of April, Alibaba’s Dharma House announced that it was developing a neural network chip Ali-NPU. However, Alibaba announced publicly that it would acquire the only domestic company with wholly-owned assets. The company's proprietary embedded CPU IP Core Co., Ltd. – Shanghai Zhongtian Micro, and Beijing Xiansheng Interconnect Technology Co., Ltd. developed a speech recognition chip.
The reporter combed and found out that in fact Alibaba had already invested a lot in AI chips, including the strategic investment star startup company Cambrian, Shen Jian Technology, programmable chip company - Barefoot Networks, Kneron, 翱5 companies such as ASR.
At the same time as Chinese-funded enterprises are making efforts, foreign-funded enterprises are not far behind. Among the most concerned British ARM companies. ARM recently told reporters via e-mail that its joint venture with China has just begun operations. Our focus is to make this The new joint venture company has succeeded in developing new ARM IP and standards, enabling the Chinese market, and promoting local innovation and growth.
Zhou Zixue, chairman of SMIC, said recently: 'Central and local support has driven the semiconductor industry's positive situation. Although semiconductors are now very hot, I believe that the development of the semiconductor industry must be prepared for long-term and arduous struggles. A landmark event is the issuance of 5G licenses. The arrival of 5G will lead to the emergence of a new generation of emerging technology industries. From the stage of view, the arrival of 5G is divided into licensing, networking, and terminal upgrades. The shortest time in terms of 1 year, the most For 2 years, 5G is in sight. In terms of market structure, we should realize that in the communications and electronics field, the future will be a market pattern where Chinese customers and foreign customers are equally divided. In the areas of computing and storage, it will take a long time to come. It will also be a foreign-based market structure supplemented by China. 'China Business News
4. Yun Zhisheng won 100 million U.S. dollars for round C financing, and will soon launch AI chip;
On May 11th, IOT Artificial Intelligence Service Provider Yun Zhisheng announced that it had won a US$100 million Series C financing, led by China Energy Health Fund, 360, Qianhai Wutong M&A Fund, Hanfu Capital, etc. The largest single financing amount in the field of intelligent voice technology. At the same time, the company revealed that the new round of larger-scale C+ round financing is also nearing completion. C Series financing is held by Hanergy Investment as its exclusive financial advisor.
Founded in 2012, Yun Zhisheng has been focusing on the Internet of Things artificial intelligence services. It has intelligent speech recognition and semantic understanding technology with independent intellectual property rights, and it has built a full stack technology chain with algorithms, computing capabilities, and chip capabilities.
On May 16th, Yunzhisheng will launch an IoT-oriented AI chip that has been independently developed for nearly 3 years. This is the industry's first Internet of things AI chip with independent intellectual property rights and voice solutions.
Yun Zhisheng stated that because the market has been based on the product form of a universal chip solution in the home, smart speaker, and children's robot market, Yunzhi has verified the rationality of the product and user scenario, and the AI chip will quickly enter the market after mass production. And to meet the needs of more product types and morphology on the cost, stability, integration and other aspects.
Yun Zhisheng calendar financing:
June 2013: Completed A round of 100 million yuan financing; December 2014: Completed 50 million US dollars round B financing; December 2015: Completed tens of millions of dollars B+ round of financing; August 2017: Completed nearly 300 million yuan Yuan C round of financing.
Yun Zhisheng CEO Dr. Huang Wei said: 'The recent Sino-U.S. trade war reflects the shortcomings of China's core technology. We are still subject to people at many key technology nodes. Yun Zhisheng took the lead in the industry in 2013 to determine the 'cloud core' The development strategy, decided in 2015 and invested in the research and development of its own chips, Yun Zhisheng will continue to focus on the accumulation of its own core technology in the AIoT field and industrial application. This financing will be mainly used for the company’s artificial intelligence technology and The chip R&D investment will help the company achieve business innovation and transformation and upgrade with a one-stop solution with higher cost performance. At the same time, we will further accelerate business expansion in smart life and smart service areas, and actively invest in building a sound industrial chain ecology. '
Cloud knowledge business development in the past year
In the field of white goods, Yunzhisheng has accumulated high-quality head customers including Gree, Midea, Changhong, etc., and in March 2018, United Micro Devices released the R1 smart speaker positioned as AI Central Controls.
In the automotive industry, Yun Zhisheng revealed that its market share in the aftermarket is over 70%, and it will soon establish a joint venture with a well-known car manufacturer to create a pre-loading gauge AI chip.
In the medical field, Yunzhisheng has launched a medical professional voice interaction solution in China and has launched more than 60 representative benchmarking Top Class A hospitals. In December 2017, Pingyao Hao and doctors have jointly set up a full-scale medical doctor's intelligent mobile layout. Medical artificial intelligence service on side and home terminal.
In the field of innovative business, Yunzhisheng's supercomputing platform business has created an artificial intelligence supercomputer benchmark with one billion gigaflops per second of floating-point computing capability. It is also building for Xiamen City People's Government and Ping An Group's Ping An Technology Corporation. And operate the domestic top artificial intelligence supercomputing center.
According to Yun Zhisheng, with the launch of its own production of AI chips, the company will use a more complete three-dimensional one-stop solution to unite with many strategic shareholders and partners to jointly cultivate multi-modality in the field of smart life and smart services. Artificial intelligence services, in order to accelerate the development of domestic alternative plans, to attack our own independent core technology continue to add bricks and tiles.
5. The current sensor chip supplier 'Xinggong Micro' won a village capital investment of 10 million yuan;
As the cornerstone of the Internet of Things, the market for sensors is huge. According to the forecast of BCC Research and Allied Market Resarch, a specialized market research organization, from 2017 to 2022, global sensors will reach a market size of US$241 billion.
On May 10, recently, Shanghai Xingong Microelectronics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Xinggong Micro”) received a 10 million yuan investment from Kunshan Qi Village Investment Center (Limited Partnership) fund controlled by a village capital.
Senko Mirco-electronics CO., LTD was established in Shanghai in May 2013. It is founded by a senior management staff of European and American first-class semiconductor companies, senior technicians and well-known venture capital funds. The core high-tech company. R & D headquarters is located in Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, with magnetic sensor laboratories and application program centers in Tokyo, Japan. The company condenses senior current sensor experts from China and abroad to lead the current sensor industry trends. It fills many gaps in the domestic current sensor field. Since its establishment more than four years ago, Xinggong Micro has successfully developed a global leading high-precision fast response integrated current sensor chip, which is in line with leading semiconductor companies such as Infineon, TI, Allegro and AKM. The same starting line, the current product range covers from 0A to 1000A measured current, isolated voltage 3 to 5000V full range of current sensors. The company's products have been applied to the current sensor module, UPS power supply, motor drive, inverter, photovoltaic inverter Transformers, new energy electric vehicles and other fields are gradually recognized by customers.
Ye Tianchun, director of the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, previously mentioned at the 2017 China (Shanghai) International Sensor Technology and Application Expo: The biggest bottleneck still exists at the two ends of the Internet of Things, namely, the collection and processing of information, in which the sensors are both objects. The weakest link in networking is the most significant area of development.
As the cornerstone of the Internet of Things, the market for sensors is huge. According to predictions from BCC Research and Allied Market Resarch, a specialized market research agency, from 2017 to 2022, global sensors will reach a market size of US$241 billion. The track, especially the deep-rooted new energy vehicles, new energy power station in this emerging market, is laid out in the current sensor segment.
The programmable linear Hall chip is used in the current sensor module, accelerator pedal, brake pedal and other fields to monitor the linear magnetic field, displacement, angle and other physical parameter changes to trigger the corresponding action; fully integrated single-chip current sensor applied to motor control, robot , Servo, frequency converter, power supply and other areas of the current control loop; current sensor module used in electric vehicle motor controller, BMS, photovoltaic inverter, DC piles, energy storage systems and other high-power systems to monitor the current.
Kai Village Fund was established in 2017 by Kunshan Zizhu, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Village, and Kunming Zizhu, a wholly-owned subsidiary, and Xi'an Tianli. It is an industrial investment fund for investment in semiconductors and integrated circuits, with a total size of 400 million yuan.
One Village Capital Semiconductor Investment Strategy
2015, namely the establishment of a village at the beginning of the formation of the semiconductor capital M & A team, and set the 'world's leading manufacturers of alternative +' strategy. As private capital, a village well aware of the high threshold, long-period semiconductor investment, but based on As for the judgment of the rise of 'China Core', one village has invested in a number of semiconductor companies with sophisticated technologies for more than two years, some of which have even become the world's leading semiconductor 'stars'. Such as being selected as IC by the China Semiconductor Association. The unicorn top of the list of the rising technology, is the world's leading supplier of analog and mixed-signal chips, has been Intel shares, it designed to solve the chip security products to be officially started at the end of 2018; AI in Silicon Valley Chip start-up company GTI (Gyrfalcon Technology) introduced the world's first revolutionary visual identity AI chip for volume production; Vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) supplier, Longhui Optoelectronics, entered volume production stage, adding new members to 'China Core' ; is expected to overturn the magnetic industry information in the storage industry.
6. Domestic 8-inch semiconductor-grade monocrystalline silicon wafers will achieve 'Ningxia Production'
The reporter recently learned from the Yinchuan Economic and Technological Development Zone that Ningxia Yinhe Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd.'s 8-inch semiconductor wafer project will enter the equipment assembly stage, and 8-inch semiconductor grade silicon wafers will be trial production in June.
The chip manufacturing is mainly divided into silicon chip preparation, chip manufacturing, chip testing and selection, assembly and packaging, and final measurement. The silicon wafer preparation is the first link, and the quality of the silicon wafer is crucial for subsequent chip manufacturing. During the time, large-size silicon wafers were mainly supplied by original equipment suppliers such as U.S., Japan, and Germany, and there was no mature production chain in China. After the completion of the silver and semiconductor wafer projects, it could make up for the domestic production of semiconductor integrated circuit industries, automobiles, computers, and consumer electronics. , Communications, Industrial, Medical and National Defense and other industries demand 8-inch semiconductor-grade monocrystalline silicon wafers to ensure the integrity and stability of the supply of silicon wafers in the domestic market and the integrated circuit industry chain. At the same time, China's demand for high-quality semiconductor wafers is reduced. Reliance on imports significantly reduces costs and increases industrial competitiveness to meet the urgent requirements of China's integrated circuit industry for silicon substrate base materials.
'We have developed a 40- to 16-nm process 8-inch semiconductor polishing wafer manufacturing technology with proprietary intellectual property rights and realized industrialization.' said Hau Yu Chau, managing general manager of Ningxia Yinhe Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. The company will develop high-quality semiconductors. The R&D and industrialization of silicon wafers has led to the establishment of a large-scale semiconductor wafer industrialization and innovation research and development base at the international advanced level. After trial production in June, an annual output of 4.2 million 8-inch semiconductor-grade monocrystalline silicon wafers will be achieved. Post-natal, annual sales income of 1 billion yuan.
In recent years, Yinchuan Economic and Technological Development Zone has successively introduced a number of new materials industry projects that have significant impact at home and abroad, built a world-renowned single-crystal silicon production base, and is the largest industrial sapphire production base in China. It is becoming an important domestic strategy. Emerging material production base. In the first quarter, the output value of the strategic new material industry in Yinchuan Economic and Technological Development Zone grew by 87.4%.