(Yicai) Sept. 23 -- Shares in Biwin Storage Technology soared by as much as 5.2 percent today after the Chinese provider of semiconductor memory solutions and advanced packaging and testing products said it will invest CNY4.5 billion (USD670 million) to build the third phase of its advanced memory packaging and testing facility in southern Guangdong province, as surging artificial intelligence computing demand drives growth in the memory market.

Biwin’s share price [SHA: 688525] closed up 2.5 percent at CNY222.69 (USD33.21) today. Earlier in the day it hit CNY228.56.

Biwin’s subsidiary Guangdong Xincheng Hanqi Semiconductor Technology will be responsible for the construction of Phase Three of a wafer-level advanced memory packaging and testing manufacturing project in the Dongguan Songshan Lake High-Tech Industrial Development Zone, the Shenzhen-based firm said yesterday, citing the investment agreement penned between Xincheng Hanqi and the zone’s management.

Xincheng Hanqi is the project company responsible for the construction and operation of Biwin’s Dongguan base in Guangdong province. Biwin holds a 68.27 percent stake, while four employee shareholding platforms collectively own 29.26 percent. The remaining approximately 2.47 percent of the shares are held by an external investor.

Biwen did not disclose the planned annual production capacity of Phase Three, nor did it provide details such as a construction timeline. It only said that the project will be constructed on land at the existing production base, and that the total investment is expected to be completed by the end of 2029.

Biwin announced plans in October 2023 to invest CNY3.1 billion (USD462.2 million) in the Dongguan base to build a wafer-level advanced memory packaging and testing manufacturing project in two phases. The newly announced third phase reflects the company’s latest decision to expand capacity in response to market demand.

Both Phases One and Two of the Dongguan base use 2.5D packaging technology, with a combined capacity of approximately 3,000 wafers per month, according to the firm’s latest update released yesterday. Phase One has entered the customer sampling, process validation, and small-scale trial production stages, while Phase Two is undergoing equipment installation and debugging.

Compared with conventional packaging, 2.5D advanced packaging shortens signal transmission paths, enabling higher bandwidth and lower latency. Advanced packaging also offers advantages in miniaturization, lightweight design, lower power consumption and greater functional integration, helping improve chip performance and supporting applications in emerging fields such as smart devices and high-performance computing.

Biwin said the new investment will help the company achieve breakthroughs in key technologies for advanced packaging and testing, enabling mass production of multi-chip system-in-package solutions and computing-memory integrated packages.

Biwin is primarily engaged in the research, design, packaging and testing of semiconductor memory products. Driven by strong demand from the expansion of AI applications, Biwin’s operating revenue quadrupled in the first half from a year earlier to CNY15.6 billion (USD2.3 billion). Net profit was CNY7.2 billion, compared with a net loss of CNY226 million (USD33.7 million) in the same period last year.

Editor: Kim Taylor