Chinese giant spending $70 billion on 3 new wafer plants

It looks like there is going to be a massive injection of wafer plants in China's near future, with Tsinghua Unigroup to reportedly build IC manufacturing sites in three locations in China: Wuhan, Chengdu and Nanjing.

Tsinghua Unigroup's total investment will hit $70 billion, according to Zhao Weiguo, chairman for the state-backed technology conglomerate, reports DigiTimes. The site continues: "Tsinghua Unigroup is assisting subsidiary Yangtze River Storage Technology to establish a new memory plant in Wuhan (Hebei province). Construction of the plant, which will cover an area of about 13 hectares, kicked off recently".

Yangtze River Storage Tech's new plant has an investment of $24 billion or so, and will be dedicated to making 3D NAND flash products, where it is hoped to hit volume production in 2018. Tsinghua Unigroup is currently breaking ground on two new plants, "one located in Chengu (Sichuan province) and the other in Nanjing (Jiangsu province) - in 2017, Zhao disclosed. Total investment in the two sites is estimated at US$46 billion", said Zhao.

Industry experts add that Tsinghua Unigroup will soon enter logic IC manufacturing, which will only expand their grip on the market.