Tsinghua Unigroup chief pledges firm support for Spread…

China’s state-backed tech conglomerate Tsinghua Unigroup will render persistent support to its subsidiary Spreadtrum Communications to counter increasingly fierce competition in the domestic market for midrange to low-end mobile chips, seen especially after JLQ Technology emerged months ago as a key competitor in the form of a joint venture involving Qualcomm, the group’s chairman Zhao Weiguo has pledged.

Zhao made the pledge at the 2017 Spreadtrum Global Partners Conference held August 15 in Shenzhen, China. The event, bearing the theme of “Infinite Chips, Infinite Intelligence,” witnessed the presence of over 1,000 global partners and suppliers, including heavyweights such as Intel, Huawei and Lenovo.

Zhao said that China’s semiconductor industry will keep moving forward, despite firms in the US, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan having tried hard to defend themselves against the rise of the China industry. He continued that Tsinghua Unigroup has spent over CNY10 billion (US$1.499 billion) supporting Spreadtrum Communications and RDA Microelectronics over the past three years, and will continue its unrelenting support to the two subsidiaries, so as to secure a final win in the 5G mobile communications era.

He also blasted Da Tang Telecom Technology for “allying with foreigners to hit local companies,” referring to the fact that Da Tang’s subsidiary Leadcore Technology and Qualcomm teamed up with financial partners including JAC Capital to set up a joint venture JLQ technology to make midrange to low-end smartphone chips in May this year, sharply fueling competition pressure on Spreadtrum.

Big Fund ready to give financial support

Also speaking at the conference, Ding Wen-wu, president of China’s National IC Industry Investment Fund, also known as Big Fund, said the rapid development of Spreadtrum in recent years is virtually an epitome of China’s semiconductor development history. In 2016, the country’s IC production value reached CNY433.5 billion (US$64.97 billion), and the IC design sector accounted for CNY164 billion, to which Spreadtrum was a leading contributor, according to Ding.

Ding said the Big Fund, China Development Bank and Tsinghua Unigroup have signed strategic cooperation pacts to ready as much as CNY50 billion in funds to finance the R&D of new chip products and technologies by Spreadtrum and other semiconductor subsidiaries under Tsinghua Unigroup.

Ding expected Spreadtrum to make a greater stride toward the development of chipsets for 5G mobile communications based on technical support from Intel’s FinFET 14nm process, as 5G commercial operations are set to start three years later. China is now the largest mobile phone producing country in the world, supplying up to 80% of global mobile phone production. In 2016, China turned out 2.1 billion mobile phones, constituting great business potential for 5G chipsets after 2020, according to Ding.

Zhao Weiguo, chairman of Tsinghua Unigroup
Photo: Tsinghua Unigroup

Categories: Bits + chips IC design, distribution Mobile + telecom Mobile components

Tags: 5G China Huawei IC Intel Qualcomm smartphone Spreadtrum Spreadtrum Communications

Topics: Huawei

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