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Chinese tool start-up takes on the big boys |
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Oct 18, 2006 at 11:09 AM |
A big question surrounding the hypergrowth of the Chinese chipmaking industry has been if and when a domestic supplier infrastructure would gain traction.
Not just subsidiaries of multinational companies, but honest-to-Mao homegrown operations. Apart from Beijing-based Seven Star, which has made some noise through its its manufacturing alliance with Aviza, the pickings have been slim. Few Chinese companies that have exhibited at recent Semicon China expos seemed ready for the demands of advanced chipmaking, either at home or on the global stage.
My interest was piqued, then, by last week's news that Shanghai-based Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) has garnered $35 million in Series B financing from a who's who laundry list of innovation-hungry VCs and other investors. The generically named Shanghai-based company, which is led by a group of former Applied Materials hands, wants to hit the ground running at the 65- and 45-nm process generations. Unlike the usual Chinese tool company model of focusing on older, mature applications, AMEC says it will provide equipment that is technologically cutting edge and competitive on the productivity and cost fronts.
Launching a new semiconductor equipment company in this day and age is not an easy task, but a China-based outfit could cash in on the lucrative potential of a market hungry for domestic solutions and robust local infrastructure, and leverage any success at home into a regional and global business. But don't expect Applied, Novellus, TEL, and the other tool leaders to let AMECÂ gain any momentum. And if there's even a whiff of intellectual-property infringement issues around the start-up's technologies, the big boys' gloves would really come off.
What I don't know yet is what kind of tools that AMEC is developing, its alpha- and beta-tool status and specs, proposed launch dates, early customers, and more general corporate information. The company does not seem to have a Website yet. So expect to see some more about this intriguing new company in future Chip Shots postings.
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