The pile foundation project of Hua Hong Semiconductor's 12-inch factory has officially started. What will it bring to Wuxi?

Latest update time：2018-04-04

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Source: Content from "China Jiangsu Net", thank you.

Yesterday, the launching ceremony of the pile foundation project of the first phase of Hua Hong Semiconductor (Wuxi) Co., Ltd. was held. Taking the construction of Hua Hong Wuxi base project as an opportunity, the wisdom of the semiconductor industry was gathered to discuss the development of Hua Hong technology and serve the implementation of the Yangtze River Delta economic integration strategy in the field of integrated circuits.

Since the signing of the contract, the Huahong Wuxi Base Project has been highly valued and concerned by the leaders of Jiangsu Province and Wuxi City and relevant departments. On March 30, Wu Zhenglong, Deputy Secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee and Governor of Jiangsu Province, and his delegation visited the project site to inspect and guide the work, and listened in detail to the report of Zhang Suxin, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Huahong Group, on the planning and progress of the first phase of the project, as well as the driving effect of the Wuxi integrated circuit industry chain. Governor Wu gave full affirmation and hoped that the two sides would strengthen cooperation and exchanges to promote win-win development. Prior to this, Li Xiaomin, member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee, also made a special trip to the project for on-site inspection.

Wang Yu, President of Huahong Grace and General Manager of Huahong Semiconductor (Wuxi) Co., Ltd., briefly introduced the basic situation of the Huahong Wuxi Base Project. The Huahong Wuxi Integrated Circuit R&D and Manufacturing Base covers an area of about 700 acres, with a total investment of US$10 billion, and an investment of US$2.5 billion in the first phase. A new 12-inch specialty process integrated circuit production line with a process level of 90-65 nanometers and a monthly production capacity of about 40,000 pieces will be built to support applications in emerging fields such as 5G and the Internet of Things. It is planned to complete civil construction in the first half of 2019, and complete the construction of the clean plant and the installation and connection of power electromechanical equipment in the second half of the year, and gradually achieve full production, with an estimated annual output value of 5 billion yuan.

What will the Huahong super project with a total investment of 10 billion US dollars bring to Wuxi?

The Huahong Wuxi Integrated Circuit R&D and Manufacturing Base Project (hereinafter referred to as the Huahong Wuxi Project) is Huahong's fourth integrated circuit manufacturing base outside of Jinqiao, Zhangjiang and Kangqiao in Shanghai, and it is also the first project outside of Shanghai. The total investment of the first phase of the project is about US$2.5 billion, and a new 12-inch wafer production line will be built. However, most people may not have any idea what a wafer is. Simply put, wafers are the basis for manufacturing various chips. If chip manufacturing is likened to building a house with Lego bricks, then wafers are the base for building Lego, except that this base is a thin slice cut from high-purity silicon columns, with an 8-inch diameter being an 8-inch wafer and a 12-inch diameter being a 12-inch wafer. For a single wafer, the larger area of 12 inches means higher unit production capacity, while on the other hand, the technology and requirements for manufacturing equipment are more stringent, and the investment cost increases accordingly.

"It has been exactly seven months since the signing of the contract on August 2 last year and the start of construction now," said Zhang Suxin, Party Secretary and Chairman of Huahong Group. In just a few months, with the strong support of Wuxi and the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund and other parties, the first phase of the project has successfully carried out various preliminary preparations such as feasibility study, project construction environmental impact assessment, land use permit, planning scheme, EPC bidding, etc. It is planned to complete the civil construction in the first half of 2019, and complete the construction of the clean room and the installation and wiring of the power electromechanical equipment in the second half of the year. It is planned to have production capacity by the end of 2019, by which time it will produce 40,000 12-inch wafers per month to support 5G and Internet of Things applications.

In fact, for ordinary people, the most important thing may be how many jobs this super project can bring. As early as last year, after the project was signed, many practitioners in Xicheng began to pay attention to the recruitment dynamics of Huahong Wuxi project. Some netizens posted on relevant forums to ask when Huahong would start recruiting, saying that they could not find relevant recruitment information and were afraid of missing it. It can be seen that in the hearts of many people, Huahong is a desirable company. "Wuxi is a livable city, and Huahong is a leader in the industry with a large platform. The combination of the two should be very attractive to job seekers." Zhang Suxin said. At the same time, he revealed that the first phase of the project will recruit about 1,500-2,000 people.

At present, the recruitment work for Huahong Wuxi project is ongoing. The reporter can search for relevant positions on major recruitment websites such as Liepin.com, Zhaopin.com, and 51job.com. On the 51job.com website, it can be seen that Huahong released a batch of job information on February 24, providing 13 positions such as various front-line engineers, administrative specialists, and human resources specialists. Each type of engineer position provides 10 or 20 places. At the same time, the annual salary of engineers is mostly shown as 150,000-200,000 yuan, and administrative specialists and human resources specialists also have 100,000-150,000 yuan. From the recruitment requirements, Huahong attaches great importance to work experience, and most jobs require 5-7 years of work experience. On Zhaopin.com, Huahong Wuxi also released these positions, and the number of recruits and requirements are roughly the same. In addition, from the comments of some netizens in Baidu Post Bar, we can roughly understand that the interview process of Huahong Wuxi is in progress: someone in Baidu "Huahong Hongli" Bar asked if anyone had gone to Huahong Wuxi for an interview in mid-January and received an offer, and some netizens said that after submitting their resume to 51job.com, they went for an interview in early February, but have not heard back yet.

"Huahong said it needs a large number of technical personnel and hopes that the city and district levels will assist in recruiting talents," said Fan Xiaohua, deputy district head of Xinwu District, who went to Huahong Group to connect with the project. The first question raised by the other party was "After the project is put into production, a large number of semiconductor talents will be needed. Can the introduction of talents keep up?" In his view, if a city has good companies and a good employment environment, it will naturally attract talents. He introduced that in terms of talent guarantee, Southeast University Wuxi Branch and 58 institutes are training relevant talents. At the same time, Xinwu District also recruits through government-owned human resources companies such as Xinxin Human Resources. "Although integrated circuit talents are in short supply, I believe that by further strengthening the integration of industry, academia and research, and increasing the matching degree between enterprises and talents, the gap should be effectively alleviated." Yan Yin, deputy manager of Xinxin Human Resources, said.

According to Yang Jian, director of the Wuxi Municipal Development and Reform Commission's Major Projects Office, although Wuxi's integrated circuit industry has been ranked first in the country for many years, the industry distribution is not balanced, mainly concentrated in the field of packaging and testing, and the upstream design and manufacturing links are insufficiently motivated. "Wuxi has nearly 200 integrated circuit companies, almost covering every link of the industrial chain, but the proportion of the design industry in the industrial structure is seriously low." With the arrival of the Huahong project, suppliers of materials, equipment, accessories, etc. will gather in Wuxi one after another, providing very objective opportunities for supporting industries such as production line design, installation, and chip packaging. At present, Wuxi has more than 200 integrated circuit companies of various types, covering multiple fields such as circuit design, wafer manufacturing, packaging and testing, supporting equipment and materials, etc. It has not only formed an IC industry cluster with nearly 50,000 employees, but also gathered a number of supporting companies in semiconductor equipment engineering and special gases.

It is understood that the world's 8-inch and 12-inch silicon wafers are mainly produced by four silicon material manufacturers in Germany, Japan and the United States. These large companies have a large market share and strong technical advantages. According to industry estimates, the current production level of the domestic semiconductor silicon material industry is far behind the international advanced level. The gap between 8-inch silicon wafers and the international level is about 15 years, and the gap between 12-inch silicon wafers and the international level is 20 years. The construction of the Huahong Wuxi project has given people hope of narrowing the gap with the international large-diameter field.

Currently, Wuxi has a 12-inch production line for memory from Hynix, and Hua Hong plans to build four in Wuxi. By then, Wuxi's layout in 12-inch integrated circuits will be more complete. More importantly, the entire Hua Hong Group has applied for 11,000 patents. The Hua Hong project will make up for Wuxi's shortcomings in chip design and independent intellectual property rights. It is particularly noteworthy that this Hua Hong project has also received support from the National Integrated Circuit Big Fund. Hua Hong will join hands with Wuxi and, with the help of the Big Fund, may become the "king" of domestic 12-inch production lines. It is predicted that in the next few years, Wuxi's 12-inch production lines are expected to reach 5-6, forming an industry scale of hundreds of billions, and Wuxi's position as the "Southern Base" of integrated circuits will be consolidated again.

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