Chinese manufacturer of semiconductor products Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) last Friday announced that it has signed an agreement to purchase 70% of the Italian semiconductor companies LFoundry.
This semiconductor factory, located in Italy and belongs to the companies LFoundry Europe GmbH (LFE) and Marsica Innovation SpA (MI). After completion of the transaction, SMIC will own 70% of the company, while the LFE and MI will remain at 15%. The deal amounted to 49 million euros.
For SMIC, the largest contract manufacturer of semiconductor products in mainland China, the deal is the first acquisition of a foreign entity. According to Tzu-Yin Chiu (Tzu-Yin Chiu), Director General of SMIC, this transaction is an important step in the company's promotion in the world market, and that in the future, SMIC will continue to expand and increase its presence in the semiconductor market.
Also, this transaction provides SMIC to enter the market of semiconductor components for the automotive electronics industry and security systems. LFoundry this deal will provide access to production capacities of other factories SMIC, and will also make the Chinese market more open to it. At this point, until the completion of the transaction, the production capacity is estimated LFoundry of 40 000 200mm wafers per month, and SMIC - in 302 600 200 mm wafers.
It should be noted that, according to Gartner, in 2015, SMIC is in fifth place among the largest semiconductor manufacturers occupying 5% of the market, and its revenue was $ 2.24 billion. Revenue LFoundry also totaled $ 243 million.