China Fab Project

Another China fab project has been halted, reports the South China Morning Post.

Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (HSMC) has been building a $20 billion semiconductor production site in Dongxihu for two years but the local government has said that construction has been halted because the money has run out.

HSMC intended to build a 14 nanometer logic process production line with a  capacity of 30000 wpm and a 7nm logic process production line with a capacity of 30000 pieces per month and  a wafer level advanced packaging production line.

The halt in construction at HSMC follows abandoned fab plans at the jv between Globalfoundries and the City of Chengdu, the discontinued DRAM fab site of Fujian JinHua and the bankruptcy of  Tacoma Nanjing Semiconductor Technology which was building a $3 billion fab backed by the government.

There are reports of  HSMC’s contractors not being paid including one from clean-room specialist L&K Engineering which said in its half year report that it had stopped work because of delayed payments.

 When asked for a comment on the situation by the South China Morning Post, HSMC’s chairman Chiang Shang-yi – formerly of TSMC and SMIC – said he was not aware of the company’s financial problems.

Dr Chiang was head of R&D at TSMC.