Chinese 12-inch Wafer King Eswin Rises on USD1.8 Billion Factory Plan in Wuhan(Yicai) Dec. 3 -- Shares of Eswin Material Technology rose nearly 5 percent intraday after China’s largest mainland producer of 12-inch semiconductor silicon wafers said it would spend CNY12.5 billion (USD1.8 billion) on building a new wafer plant in Wuhan.
Eswin [SHA: 688783] surged as much as 4.5 percent intraday to CNY24.86 (USD3.50) but fell back to close 1.2 percent lower, dragged down by a broader market decline. The Star Market Composite Index [SHA: 000680] dropped 1 percent.
The new facility in central China’s Wuhan will have a planned monthly capacity of 500,000 12-inch silicon wafers for advanced integrated-circuit manufacturing, the Xi’an-based firm announced yesterday. These wafers can be used to produce logic chips, flash memory, dynamic random-access memory, image sensors, display-driver chips, and other devices.
Wuhan is one of China’s major hubs for the memory-chip industry. Eswin currently operates two wafer fabs, both located in its home base of Xi’an. For the new Wuhan undertaking, Eswin plans to establish a joint-venture project company with a local government-owned investment platform to handle investment, construction, and operations. ESWIN will hold 82.4 percent of the JV, with the local platform holding the remainder.
Once the Wuhan project is completed and fully ramped up, Eswin’s total 12-inch wafer capacity is expected to exceed 1.7 million wafers per month. The added capacity will strengthen service capabilities for customers in central China and benefit clients in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions, further consolidating the firm’s leadership in the domestic market and enhancing its global competitiveness, it said.
Eswin completed its initial public offering on Shanghai’s Star Market at the end of October, pricing shares at CNY8.62 (USD1.30). The entire net proceeds of CNY4.5 billion (USD653 million) are being used to build its second Xi’an fab. On its debut, the stock surged as much as 362 percent intraday and closed at CNY25.75, up 198 percent from its issue price.
Editor: Emmi Laine
