Ten Chinese semiconductor start-ups that got a leg up from their founders’ foreign experience

[Daniel Nenni]

I know a few of these:

A large number of overseas trained and educated Chinese nationals have returned home to establish start-ups in the semiconductor field. Although China imports US$300 billion worth of chips annually – about US$160 billion of which are re-exported in finished electronics products – it is a laggard when it comes to making them.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has repeatedly urged the country to become more self-reliant when it comes to core technologies like semiconductors, which power all manner of electronics from AI to smartphones. Officially, the Chinese government has never stipulated that chip making technologies should be of Chinese-origin. Rather, it has emphasised the need to attract foreign capital, technology and talent.

To that end, a large number of overseas trained and educated Chinese nationals have heeded the call and returned to China to establish start-ups in the semiconductor field, ranging from electronic design automation (EDA) software and IC design to silicon foundry and wafer processing equipment.

Most of the founders on this list started their companies well before the US-China tech war, but have had to navigate a more difficult external environment amid US bans on certain core technologies over national security concerns.

China’s most advanced chip maker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), was established in 2000 by Richard Chang, who worked for more than 20 years as a wafer fab specialist at US chip major Texas Instruments.

Although Chang resigned from SMIC in 2009, many have followed in his footsteps by starting their own companies after learning the ropes at foreign semiconductor companies. Here are 10 of them.

Ten Chinese chip start-ups whose founders have foreign experience

Many overseas trained and educated Chinese nationals have returned to China to establish start-ups in the semiconductor field, ranging from IC design to chipmaking tools. Here are 10 of them.

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[John Grant (Nine Tiles)]

In the UK (I'm not sure whether it's the same in the US) universities want Chinese students for the fees they pay, but at the end of the course they can't get work visas so are more or less forced to take what they've learnt back home and exploit it there. That seems to me to be short-sighted in the extreme.

 

[Paul2]

A large number of overseas trained and educated Chinese nationals have returned home to establish start-ups in the semiconductor field. Although China imports US$300 billion worth of chips annually – about US$160 billion of which are re-exported in finished electronics products – it is a laggard when it comes to making them.

Indeed, I've been long kept telling people that China spends more on importing electronics parts, and other light industry consumables, than on oil, to everybody's big surprise, and that measuring inputs consumption was a better indication of real size of Chinese industry, as you can't eat microchips, and you normally only can put them into something you can sell.

I think you could've heard the phrase quite a few times phrases already in last few years. I remember I first told that on a social event of one of Vancouver's tech associations at around 2012, and put a point that China's consumption of electronics parts was bigger than its electronics industry, and that it had massive double digit percentage underaccounting in the sector.

I do remember I had a few reprint requests after the event, and everybody was surprised I was not writing anything.