(Yicai) Sept. 10 -- Fusion New Material’s shares rose after the Chinese chemical additives supplier said it plans to buy some semiconductor raw material assets from South Korea's SK Enpulse for KRW68 billion (USD49 million).

Fusion New Material [SHA: 688503] closed 2.7 percent higher at CNY60.73 (USD8.53) per share in Shanghai, after soaring by as much as 11.3 percent earlier today.

Fusion New Material will partner with an investment management firm to buy SKE’s blank mask business assets, under a signed deal the Changzhou-based company announced yesterday. 

Fusion New Material will own at least 95 percent of the assets and expects the acquisition to fast-track the expansion of its new chip materials business and help its existing semiconductor business broaden its customer base.

Blank masks are key semi-finished material used to make photomasks, the main raw material in the semiconductor lithography process and a critical consumable in wafer processing. At present, China’s use of high-end Argon Fluoride blank masks is almost entirely dependent on imports from Japan.

SKE's blank mask products have been validated by several semiconductor wafer fabrication plants and third-party independent clients from South Korea, the Chinese mainland, and Taiwan, and are now in mass production, Fusion New Material noted.

The company said the assets it will acquire are still unprofitable, with an operating loss of CNY5.1 million last year on revenue of CNY4.3 million (USD603,500).

SKE is a subsidiary of Busan-listed SKC, which produces and processes semiconductor materials and components.

Fusion New Material's main revenue stream is the photovoltaic conductive paste business. Its semiconductor paste products have entered the supply chains of several leading chip clients.

Editor: Futura Costaglione