China-based foundries may not be able to provide manufacturing sevices using the most advanced processes, but they see strong demand from the domestic market. SMIC and Huahong are expected to report handsome profits this year. And Huahong Semiconductor has been aggressively expanding capacity. The arrival of the 5G era has prompted many chip suppliers to turn their focus away from 4G applications, supply of which is falling short of demand.

China foundries enjoy robust demand from domestic market: China-based pure-play foundries including Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) and Huahong Group have enjoyed robust demand from China's domestic IC sector thus far this year, and are poised to post impressive profit increases in 2021, according to industry sources.

Huahong hikes 12-inch fab capacity in Wuxi: Specialty IC foundry Huahong Semiconductor has seen monthly capacity at its 12-inch wafer fab in Wuxi more than double in less than six months to 48,000 wafers, according to company sources.

Supply of chips for 4G applications falls short of demand: The supply of 4G product chips including power amplifiers (PAs) and smartphone application processors has fallen short of demand due mainly to the chip suppliers' increased focus on 5G products, according to industry sources.

By DIGITIMES