On the same day, UMC also announced that it will be based on subsidiaries and ships, and will be listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange with the mainland subsidiaries Lianxin (Xiamen) and Lianhe Semiconductor (Shandong).
The news was announced the next day, UMC shares rose 7%, closing at 18.2 yuan, the market value of the day soared 170 billion yuan. When the Sino-US trade war is gradually burning to the semiconductor, why did UMC suddenly have this big move?
All walks of life, this move is to reshape the global layout, aim at the hot mainland semiconductor market, grab the demand for 12-inch wafers.
12-inch wafers are mainly used in 5G, Internet of Things, self-driving, AI. At present, UMC's 12-month capacity is 177,000, and with Japan's triple Fujitsu's 36,000, the production capacity in the next 12 months is expected to exceed 210,000.
The current global production capacity of 12-inch wafers is about 5.5 million. The mainland has put into operation 10 10-inch wafer fabs with a monthly capacity of 620,000. The supply is seriously lower than the demand. Many suppliers can't buy even if they increase the price.
In the Sino-US trade war, the war has spread to the semiconductor. The mainland is still lagging behind the United States because of semiconductor development. It seems to be swallowed by the United States. It can only dig from Taiwan and call for "the whole people's refining core" to semiconductor autonomy. The big strategy is moving forward. UMC's big move is quite a combination of the high-speed train to expand the market.
In January of this year, UMC filed a patent infringement lawsuit against semiconductor technology in the Fuzhou People's Court.
After half a year of trial, UMC issued a statement on July 3, stating that the case has won the case, and Micron's DRAM and NAND Flash products are likely to withdraw from the mainland market.
Micron’s financial report last year showed that more than half of the company’s net sales came from the mainland, meaning that the judgment would have a huge impact on its revenue and would also rewrite the global memory market ecosystem.
Bloomberg columnist Tim Culpan said that while China continues to target technology, intellectual property, and trade on the US, it is not difficult to imagine that the Fuzhou People's Court will make a favorable judgment against UMC.
In fact, at the same time that UMC issued the above statement, Fujian Jinhua, a state-owned semiconductor company with close cooperation with China, also issued the same statement.
Fujian Jinhua is one of the largest companies in the first phase of Continental Semiconductor's 12 billion support. The technology is almost exclusively provided by UMC, and the two parties cooperate with the “Jinhua Project”.
When Micron was banned from selling DRAM on the mainland, Samsung, which was originally dominated by the mainland market, SK Hynix is expected to be tempted to eat the market, but on May 31, the China National Market Supervisory Authority (SAMR) sent personnel to The two Korean factories conducted anti-monopoly investigations in their offices in the mainland, making them feel like needles.
This market vacancy, the community is expected to join the market next year, Hefei Changxin, Jinhua integration will become a direct beneficiary.
The two land factories are the targets of the big fund, and the latter has a close cooperation with UMC. The former general manager of Ruijing and the senior deputy general manager of UMC Chen Zhengkun are responsible for assisting the construction of the plant.
The above-mentioned Lido related to UMC continues to attract foreign investment ratings. In the latest analysis of the top 10 foreign capitals such as JP Morgan Chase and Credit Suisse, 6 of them maintained the rating of the UMC and 4 raised the target price.
It’s just that Gao Canming also warned that UMC had been on a level with TSMC, but then UMC was in a chaotic position. In 2000, it violated Taiwan’s laws and invested in mainland semiconductor manufacturers (referring to the ship case), making TSMC a global leader in the foundry market. UMC won the case in the lawsuit against Micron, and it is also lucky.
UMC's share price rebounded in the short-term, reflecting the market's confidence in its aggressive access to the mainland market and the globalization of its distribution. It also included the Lido case winning Lido. But today (July 6), the Sino-US trade war broke out, and the market was under a low pressure. UMC's share price once came to 17.5 yuan, the stock price is like a warmth. Although it is a new low in the past five days, but in the long-term, it is still at a high of nearly five years.
How long can UMC celebrate this market? Perhaps as Warren Buffett said, “When the sea recedes, you know who is not wearing pants.” Foreign analysts said that wait until the follow-up effect of Sino-US trade wars slows down. It is the beginning of the real test of UMC.
This article is reproduced from Taiwan Vision Magazine