Breaking the monopoly of foreign companies, Chongqing Super Silicon, a domestic large silicon wafer company, puts into production

Semiconductor silicon wafers are one of the links where the gap between my country's semiconductor industry chain and the international advanced level is the largest. In addition, the supply concentration of large silicon wafers is extremely high, mainly supplied by Shin-Etsu, SUMCO, GlobalWafers, etc., so the promotion of localization is of great significance.

In order to change the situation where my country relies on imports for large silicon wafers, my country is actively moving towards the production of 8-inch and 12-inch silicon wafers, and multiple projects are being launched.

A research report from West China Securities shows that as of the third quarter of 2019, the total investment in domestic large silicon wafer projects reached 134.9 billion yuan, with a total target production capacity of 6.42 million wafers per month. This figure is already the global monthly demand for 12-inch silicon wafers in 2018.

Currently, the companies that are actively planning the production of large silicon wafers in China include Ferrotec (China), Advanced Silicon Semiconductor, Hejing Technology, as well as Jinruihong, Advanced Silicon, Eswin, Shanghai Xinsheng, etc.

Among them, Super Silicon Semiconductor has projects in Chongqing, Chengdu and Shanghai. Chongqing Super Silicon successfully produced the first 450mm crystal in China.

According to the official website of Chongqing Super Silicon Semiconductor Co., Ltd., the company was registered and established in Chongqing Liangjiang New District in June 2014. It owns 400 acres of land, of which the first phase of construction is approximately 130,000 square meters and the designed production capacity is 500,000 pieces/month.

Chongqing Super Silicon is a mixed-ownership high-tech enterprise controlled by state-owned assets. Its major shareholders include Chongqing Liangjiang Group, National Development Fund, Shanghai Super Silicon, etc.

In 2016, the official website of Eleven Technology showed that the Chongqing Super Silicon Project is expected to have a total investment of 5 billion yuan and will be built in three phases. Among them, the first phase of construction will be from June 2014 to December 2016, with a planned investment of about 2.34 billion. After the completion of the first phase of the project, the production capacity will reach 150,000 pieces/month; the second phase of construction will be from January 2017 to December 2018, with a planned investment of 2 billion yuan to expand the production capacity to 300,000 pieces/month; the third phase of construction will be from January 2019 to December 2020, with an investment of 660 million yuan, to further expand the production capacity and start the production of high-end silicon wafers, reaching a production capacity of 500,000 pieces/month. After the project is completed and reaches full production, it will produce 6 million pieces of IC line silicon wafers of 200mm and above per year, with an output value of about 3 billion yuan.

In May 2014, the "300mm (including 200mm) single crystal silicon crystal growth and polishing silicon wafers and extended products for extremely large-scale integrated circuits" project invested and constructed by Chongqing Super Silicon officially started.

In June 2015, the civil construction of Chongqing Super Silicon was completed. According to the official website of Liangjiang New District at that time, the Chongqing Super Silicon Semiconductor Project invested 1.5 billion yuan, and after reaching full production, it will achieve an annual production capacity of 6 million 8-inch silicon wafers and 600,000 12-inch silicon wafers.

In April 2016, the first phase of the project was put into trial production; in May, the first IC-grade 8-inch monocrystalline silicon rod was successfully pulled out; in September, the first IC-grade 12-inch monocrystalline silicon rod was successfully pulled out. On October 28, the first batch of IC-grade monocrystalline silicon of the project was successfully rolled off the production line.

According to a report by People's Daily at the time, the Chongqing Super Silicon project had a total investment of 5 billion yuan and was built in three phases. The first phase of the project, which was completed and put into production this time, will produce 1.8 million silicon wafers annually, which will break the monopoly of foreign companies on the large-size IC-level silicon wafer market.

On January 20, 2017, Chongqing Super Silicon's first batch of 200mm silicon wafer products was shipped out of the factory.

On February 9, 2018, Chongqing Liangjiang New District reported that Chongqing Super Silicon Semiconductor Co., Ltd. successfully produced the first 450mm crystal in China by relying on self-made equipment and its own technical strength, and obtained the review and approval of top companies such as TSMC, UMC, Global Foundry, Toshiba, NXP and other world-class companies.

It is worth mentioning that on May 9, 2019, Taiji Industrial issued an announcement regarding a major lawsuit involving its subsidiary, Eleven Technology. The announcement showed that Taiji Industrial's subsidiary, Eleven Technology, sued Chongqing Super Silicon Semiconductor Co., Ltd. ("Chongqing Super Silicon") due to a construction contract dispute, demanding that it pay the outstanding project funds and interest on the funds.

After signing the contract, Eleven Technology entered the construction site on September 14, 2015, and handed over all the mechanical and electrical engineering works to Chongqing Super Silicon after completion on October 28, 2016.

In other words, as of 2019, the construction payment for the Chongqing Super Silicon Phase I project had not been settled.

The project was mentioned again in the "Notice on the Implementation Plan for the Construction of a National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Development Pilot Zone in Chongqing" issued by Chongqing in June 2020.

This notice proposes to strengthen the "chip, screen, device, core, and network" industrial cluster, and promote the expansion of projects such as SK Hynix Phase II, Silicon Pan Microelectronics substrate-level fan-out packaging, AT&S high-density packaging substrates, and Chongqing Ultra Silicon integrated circuits' large-size silicon wafers.

So far, there is not much news about the capacity ramp-up or mass production of the Chongqing Super Silicon project.