Archive for ‘Wuxi’

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20/05/2020

US semiconductor giant shuts China factory hailed as ‘a miracle’, in blow to Beijing’s chip plans

  • US chip giant GlobalFoundries confirms it has ceased operations at its only Chinese facility, with industry experts saying the poorly-planned project was doomed to fail
  • Closure deals blow to China’s plans to move up semiconductor value chain, amid increasingly hostile tech rivalry with the United States
Beijing boasted that the final total investment in the GlobalFoundries plant could be US$10 billion. The plant was intended to produce 300mm wafers, a key material in making chips, but production never started at the 65,000 square metre facility, which was completed mid-2018. Photo: Weibo
Beijing boasted that the final total investment in the GlobalFoundries plant could be US$10 billion. The plant was intended to produce 300mm wafers, a key material in making chips, but production never started at the 65,000 square metre facility, which was completed mid-2018. Photo: Weibo

US chip giant GlobalFoundries has halted operations at a joint venture factory in China, the company has confirmed, dealing a potential blow to China’s bid to own a bigger slice of the global semiconductor market.

The closure of the firm’s only China facility comes just three years after it announced plans to make chips in the mainland, and comes amid an escalating tech war with the United States.

The winding down, however, has little to do with the fierce superpower rivalry. It comes after two years of speculation as to what was actually happening at the US$100 million facility, which was hailed as “a miracle” by local media when announced to fanfare in 2017, but which never got off the ground.

Nonetheless, the symbolism is rich.

China is struggling in its efforts to boost its domestic chip research and production in a bid to counter US efforts to block it from American technology.

Last week, the US Department of Commerce upped the ante by banning the sale
of Huawei-designed chips produced outside America if they are made using the US software and technology, adding further pressure to the Chinese telecom giant’s global supply chain.
The GlobalFoundries factory, in a hi-tech park in the southwestern city of Chengdu, was one of China’s major foreign-invested semiconductor projects, for which the local government rolled out the red carpet three years ago.

At the time, Chengdu boasted that the final total investment in the plant could be US$10 billion. The plant was intended to produce 300mm wafers, a key material in making chips, but production never started at the 65,000 square metre facility, which was completed mid-2018.

A spokesperson for California-based GlobalFoundries confirmed that the Chengdu plant had stopped operations and that it had offered staff an “employee optimisation plan”, a commonly-used euphemism for lay-offs.

“The plan is being carried out on the basis of open and transparent communications with the employees and they have been offered various options to choose from based on their personal situations,” a company statement read.

A 2018 annual report from the joint venture, in which GlobalFoundries had a stake of 51 per cent with the rest controlled by an investment vehicle of the Chengdu government, showed that the plant had 320 employees.

A company notice sent to employees dated May 14 and seen by the Post said that after mid-June, the company would only pay 70 per cent of Chengdu’s minimum monthly wage, about 1,246 yuan (US$175.38), while negotiating severance packages with staff.

For some industry analysts who have followed the Chengdu project from its inception, its demise has less to do with the trade war, more to do with poor planning.

There was little detailed research and planning before the project was launched. As far as the Chengdu government is concerned, it lacks a sufficient understanding of GlobalFoundriesGu Wenjun, analyst

“There was little detailed research and planning before the project was launched. As far as the Chengdu government is concerned, it lacks a sufficient understanding of GlobalFoundries, its decision-making mechanism and economic strengths, and it did not get strong support from the central government,” said Gu Wenjun, chief analyst at Shanghai-based semiconductor research firm ICwise.
The idea of establishing a joint venture was first pitched to Chongqing municipality, a neighbouring city of Chengdu, in 2016. Chongqing signed a memorandum of understanding with GlobalFoundries to set up a plant to manufacture 300mm silicon wafers – components for making integrated circuits – using technology from GlobalFoundries’ Singapore factory.
After the deal to open a Chongqing plant fell through for unclear reasons, Chengdu moved in to cut a deal with GlobalFoundries in late-2016. A 2017 blueprint stated that 3,500 employees could be working at the site, according to Wallace Pai, then GlobalFoundries’ general manager for China.
But production never started. Initially the project was supposed to have two phases: using mainstream technologies to manufacture 300mm wafers from 2018, then transferring to more advanced technologies in late-2019.
However, in October 2018, the two partners decided to “bypass” the phase one manufacturing stage, partly because of China’s increasing demand for more advanced products and GlobalFoundries’ own financial stress. The project has since stalled.

Comparing official announcements from the Chengdu government and GlobalFroundries back in 2017, Gu from ICwise said the two had different focuses, which might explain the plant’s derailment. The government clearly wanted to bring in mainstream, lower-risk technologies to boost the city’s brand, while the company aimed for Chinese capital and government support to invest in more advanced technology, Gu said.

The joint venture will continue after the factory’s demise, with GlobalFoundries still expecting to expand sales in the Chinese market, the company said in its statement. It now has five factories, three in the US and one each in Singapore and Germany.

When The Post contacted the office of the joint venture partner within the Chengdu government, the person answering the phone said they did not know anything about the closure nor future plans, before hanging up without giving their name.

“Our focus in China is on developing and growing our partner ecosystem including creating local technology infrastructure and bringing more intellectual property vendors and electronic design automation partners to better serve the local market,” the company said.

According to the China Semiconductor Industry Association, China’s integrated circuits sales rose 15.8 per cent in 2019 from a year earlier to 756.2 billion yuan (US$106.44 billion), while sales in the global semiconductor market dropped by 12 per cent to US$412 billion.

Last week, Dutch company ASML Holding, a key supplier of chip-making equipment, set up a plant in Wuxi, in Jiangsu province, in a boost to China’s efforts to attract foreign semiconductor investment.

Source: SCMP

Posted in advanced technologies, American, ASML Holding, ‘a miracle’, Beijing’s, blow, Chengdu, China, China Semiconductor Industry Association, chip, Chongqing Municipality, Dutch, euphemism, Factory, foreign, Germany, global, GlobalFoundries, hailed, hostile, Huawei-designed chips, Investment, jiangsu province, lay-offs, mainstream, manufacture, plans, production, semiconductor, semiconductor giant, semiconductor market, shuts, Singapore, symbolism, tech rivalry, technologies, Technology, transferring, Uncategorized, United States, US chip giant, US Department of Commerce, value chain,, Wuxi | Leave a Comment »

25/02/2020

Breakthrough in 28-year-old Chinese murder case as DNA test leads police to suspect

  • Female medical student’s body was found in a Nanjing sewer in 1992
  • Officers had investigated in vain until a tip-off from police in another city last week
Nanjing police had released a sketch of a male “with a squarish face and big eyes” after the 1992 killing. Photo: Weibo
Nanjing police had released a sketch of a male “with a squarish face and big eyes” after the 1992 killing. Photo: Weibo
Police

in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing say they have cracked a 28-year-old murder case in which a young medical school student was brutally killed.

“For 28 years, a special task force had persistently investigated the case, and it made major developments on February 23. The police caught the killer, surnamed Ma, the same morning,” the police said in a statement published on Weibo on Sunday night.

At a press conference on Monday afternoon, Nanjing police said they had used DNA testing to confirm the suspect’s identity and had detained him. The prosecutor had yet to make a formal arrest.

Last Wednesday, the force received a lead from police in Xuzhou, about 280km (175 miles) north, who said that there was suspicion over a local family, one of whom they said had a possible motive for the crime. Nanjing police sent a team to Xuzhou to investigate.

The 1992 newspaper notice by Nanjing police had offered a 10,000 yuan reward for information. Photo: Weibo
The 1992 newspaper notice by Nanjing police had offered a 10,000 yuan reward for information. Photo: Weibo
On Sunday, they found that the DNA of Ma, who lives in Nanjing, matched preserved DNA evidence that was collected following the death.
The victim, surnamed Lin, was a student at the former Nanjing Medical School. Her bludgeoned body was found in a sewer on March 24, 1992, but – possibly due to limited resources and technologies at the time – there was no clear lead on who the killer was.

Nanjing police had in 1992 offered a 10,000 yuan reward for leads – then worth US$1,818, or equivalent to five years’ salary for the average Chinese citizen – in a notice in the local Yangtze Evening News.

The notice also gave a sketch and description of the possible offender, described as a “male about 1.7 metres [5ft 7in] in height, about 25 years old, with a squarish face, big eyes, short hair, darker skin, scars or acne on his face, and a sturdy, muscular physique”.

Chinese man cleared of schoolgirl’s rape and murder after 13 years in jail

17 Feb 2020

For years, the unsolved case haunted the police force. In a collection of police stories produced by the Nanjing Publishing House in 2012, former officer Ye Ning wrote that every year on March 24, Lin’s parents visited the medical school’s campus in memory of their daughter.

One year, Ye saw Lin’s parents at the police bureau. “They left in calmness, although sadness and disappointment were written over their faces,” he wrote. “The couple held on to each other, and the umbrella could not shelter them from the rain.”

He was reminded that Lin and her parents still needed justice for her to rest in peace, he wrote.

Lin came from Wuxi, a city less than 200km southeast of Nanjing, one of her former classmates told Legal Daily. Another was quoted as recalling that they had reported to their teacher that Lin had not arrived for their class. The teacher found Lin’s umbrella in a faculty building, and then her body in a sewer.

The classmates said they had immediately informed Lin’s mother after learning that the killer may have been identified. “Lin’s father had died of lung cancer, her younger brother works in Shenzhen and her mother lives by herself in Wuxi,” one of the classmates was quoted as saying.

Ma is now 54 years old and had been running a dog trade business, according to a man quoted by Modern Express who said he had met Ma a few times in the early 2000s.

Revealed: the quiet, ‘dutiful’ son named one of China’s most notorious serial killers
29 Aug 2016

The breakthrough in the case raised hopes among the Chinese public that another decades-old Nanjing murder, a notorious dismemberment case, could be solved.

In January 1996, body parts of a student were found boiled, shredded and wrapped in different bags all over the city, nine days after she went missing.

The victim, Diao Aiqing, was a first-year student at Nanjing University. Local police conducted large-scale searches around the city but never found the killer. The case has given rise to urban myths and been analysed in novels and posts on social media.

“I wonder when the Nanjing University case will be cracked, I hope it will be soon,” one person said on Weibo after the news about the Lin case.

The public has compared these Nanjing cases to a high-profile case in Baiyin, central China, in which a serial killer nicknamed “China’s Jack the Ripper” mutilated several of his 11 victims between 1998 and 2002, the youngest of whom was eight years old.

The killer, 54-year-old Gao Chengyong, had created panic during the killing spree. Said to have targeted young women who lived alone, Gao was caught in 2016 after a tip-off and was executed in January.

Source: SCMP

Posted in “China’s Jack the Ripper”, Chinese, dog trade business, Female medical student’s body, leads, murder case, Nanjing, Nanjing Medical School, Nanjing University, Police, sewer, suspect, Uncategorized, Wuxi, Xuzhou, Yangtze Evening News | Leave a Comment »

22/02/2020

China reports fall in new coronavirus cases but concerns grow over rising global spread

BEIJING (Reuters) – China reported a sharp decrease in new deaths and cases of the coronavirus on Saturday but a doubling of infections in South Korea and 10 new cases in Iran added to unease about its rapid spread and global reach.

Mainland China had 397 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections on Friday, down from 889 a day earlier, but only 31 cases were outside of the virus epicentre of Hubei province, the lowest number since the National Health Commission started compiling nationwide data a month ago.

But infection numbers continued to rise elsewhere, with outbreaks worsening in South Korea, Italy and Lebanon and Iran, prompting a warning from the World Health Organization that the window of opportunity to contain the international spread was closing..

South Korea saw another spike in infections, with 229 new confirmed cases, taking its tally to 433. Officials warned that could rise substantially as more than 1,000 people who attended a church at the centre of the outbreak had shown flu-like symptoms.

Iran, which had no reported cases earlier this week, saw 10 new cases, one of which had died, taking the number to 28 infections and five deaths.

RELATED COVERAGE

  • South Korea coronavirus cases more than double in a day
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Concerns about the virus weighed on U.S. stocks on Friday, driven by an earlier spike in cases in China and data showing stalling U.S. business activity in February. [MKTS/GLOB]

It has spread to some 26 countries and territories outside mainland China, killing 13 people, according to a Reuters tally.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Twitter expressed concern on Saturday about cases with no clear link to China and called on all countries to invest urgently in preparedness. He made an appeal for $675 million to support the most vulnerable countries.

On Friday, he said now was the time to act decisively.

“We still have a chance to contain it,” he said. “If we don’t, if we squander the opportunity, then there will be a serious problem on our hands.”

An outbreak in northern Italy worsened with its first two deaths, among 17 confirmed cases including its first known instance of local transmission.

Japan confirmed 14 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, among those a teacher who had shown symptoms while working at her school.

Japan is facing growing questions about whether it is doing enough to contain its spread, and concern about whether it could scupper this year’s Tokyo Olympics. Organisers on Saturday postponed the start of training for volunteers as a precaution.

The Bank of Japan’s governor on Saturday shrugged off talk that the widening epidemic is triggering an outflow of funds from Asia.

Online site for coronavirus news – here

GRAPHIC: Tracking the novel coronavirus – here

NEW COMPLICATIONS

The total number of confirmed cases in mainland China rose to 76,288, with the death toll at 2,345 as of the end of Friday. Hubei reported 106 new deaths, of which 90 were in Wuhan.

But new, albeit isolated findings about the coronavirus could complicate efforts to thwart it, including the Hubei government’s announcement on Saturday that an elderly man took 27 days to show symptoms after infection, almost twice the presumed 14-day incubation period.

That follows Chinese scientists reporting that a woman from Wuhan had travelled 400 miles (675 km) and infected five relatives without showing signs of infection, offering new evidence of asymptomatical spreading.

State television on Saturday showed the arrival in Wuhan of the “blue whale”, the first of seven river cruise ships it is bringing in to house medical workers, tens of thousands of which have been sent to Hubei to contain the virus.

Senior Chinese central bank officials sought to ease global investors’ worries about the potential damage to the world’s second-largest economy from the outbreak, saying interest rates would be guided lower and that the country’s financial system and currency were resilient.

Chen Yulu, a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, said policymakers had plenty of tools to support the economy, and were fully confident of winning the war against the epidemic.

“We believe that after this epidemic is over, pent-up demand for consumption and investment will be fully released, and China’s economy will rebound swiftly,” Chen told state television.

China has recently cut several key lending rates, including the benchmark lending rate on Thursday, and has urged banks to extend cheap loans to the worst-hit companies which are struggling to resume production and are running out of cash.

The transport ministry said businesses would resume operations on a larger scale later this month and said more roads, waterways and ports were returning to normal.

Online media and Weibo users posted footage and images on Saturday of some malls reopening, including in the cities of Wuxi, Hangzhou and in Gansu province, with shoppers queuing in near-empty streets outside for mandatory temperature checks as trickles of customers in masks perused luxury goods shops and makeup counters.

Some analysts believe China’s economy could contract in the first quarter from the previous three months due to the combined supply and demand shocks caused by the epidemic and strict government containment measures. On an annual basis, some warn growth could fall by as much as half from 6% in the fourth quarter.

However, transport restrictions remain in many areas and while more firms are reopening, the limited data available suggests manufacturing is still at weak levels, with disruptions starting to spillover into global supply chains.

Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) said on Saturday that one coronavirus case had been confirmed at its mobile device factory complex in Gumi, causing a shutdown of its entire facility.

Finance leaders from the Group of 20 major economies were set to discuss risks to the world economy in Saudi Arabia this weekend.

The WHO’s Tedros on Twitter said 13 priority countries in Africa had been identified for help because of their direct links to China or high travel volume. That would include 30,000 personal protective kits on the way to six countries and 60,000 more for 19 states in the weeks ahead.

Source: Reuters

Posted in asymptomatical, “blue whale”, Bank of Japan’s, Beijing, Central bank, China, concerns, coronavirus, coronavirus cases, deaths, epidemic, factory complex, fall, Finance leaders, Gansu Province, global, governor, Group of 20 (G20), grow, Gumi, Hangzhou, hubei province, iran, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mainland China, Mobile device, National Health Commission, new, People’s Bank of China (PBOC), ports, reports, Reuters, rising, river cruise ships, roads, Saudi Arabia, sharp decrease, South Korea, spread, Tokyo Olympics, transport ministry, Uncategorized, waterways, Weibo, World Health Organization, Wuhan, Wuxi | Leave a Comment »

08/07/2019

Supercomputing centers unveil new engine for innovation in China

BEIJING, July 7 (Xinhua) — China has built six National Supercomputing Centers (NSCC) since 2009, serving as a new driver for the country’s innovation, according to the NSCC in north China’s Tianjin Municipality, which celebrated the 10th anniversary of the founding of the center on Saturday.

Since the establishment of the NSCC in Tianjin was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology in May 2009, other five supercomputing centers were founded one after another in Shenzhen, Jinan, Changsha, Guangzhou and Wuxi respectively.

As the first supercomputing center in China, the NSCC in Tianjin is not only where China’s first petaflop supercomputer the Tianhe-1 is located, but also responsible for developing China’s new generation of the exascale supercomputer the Tianhe-3.

Tianjin has established a complete autonomous information industry including high-performance chips, autonomous control system, high-performance server and database, setting up a model on the transformation of technologic innovation achievements, said Li Xiang, vice president of the National University of Defense Technology.

“The supercomputer has become a symbol of power reflecting the innovative capabilities of China. Next, we will connect these supercomputing centers and share the resources nationwide,” said Mei Jianping, deputy director-general of the Department of High and New Technology of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Source: Xinhua

Posted in Changsha, Department of High and New Technology, Guangzhou, Jinan, Ministry of Science and Technology, National Supercomputing Centers (NSCC), National University of Defense Technology, new engine for innovation, Shenzhen, Supercomputing centers, Tianhe-1, Tianhe-3, Tianjin, Uncategorized, unveils, Wuxi | Leave a Comment »

30/05/2019

Chinese education officials sacked for investigating four-year-olds in anti-mafia crackdown

  • Parents in Jiangsu province were shocked by a form that said a kindergarten class had been investigated and ‘no pupils were found to be involved in organised crime’
  • Officials fired or disciplined for ‘causing serious negative publicity’
A kindergarten in Guiyang put up a banner on its entrance that read: “Crack down early and crack down young. Eliminate the dark and evil forces when they are still budding”. It was later removed. Photo: Weibo
A kindergarten in Guiyang put up a banner on its entrance that read: “Crack down early and crack down young. Eliminate the dark and evil forces when they are still budding”. It was later removed. Photo: Weibo
Education officials in eastern China have been sacked or disciplined after targeting kindergarten pupils in a crackdown on organised crime.
Residents in Wuxi, a city in Jiangsu province, were shocked when a note saying that 35 pupils aged four and five at Xinguang Kindergarten had been investigated as part of the wider crackdown on mafia-style gangs was leaked online.
The form, signed by two teachers, concluded: “No pupils were found to be involved in organised crime”.
Copies of the document started circulating on social media, triggering a widespread backlash and ridicule.
Some social media users accused the kindergarten of box-ticking and questioned whether staff would have been capable of discovering whether any parents were involved in organised crime.
China’s war on organised crime, corrupt officials sees 79,000 people detained

One said that if officials really wanted to nip criminal tendencies in the bud, they were starting too late, adding: “Why not start when they are in the womb and crack down in the maternity hospital?”

An unidentified staff member from the Wuxi Education Bureau confirmed that schools were being targeted in the crackdown on organised crime, telling Chengdu Economic Daily: “Banners are hung everywhere inside and outside the school premises”.However, they insisted: “There was no wrongdoing by the kindergarten. We are mainly targeting teachers and parents for the publicity.”

But on Thursday the Wuxi government backed down and criticised education officials in Xishan district for misinterpreting the crackdown on organised crime and “putting on an unrealistic show”.

Three senior officials from the Xishan district authority were disciplined for their roles in “causing serious negative publicity”.

China’s fentanyl firms back crackdown on opioid

Feng Dongyan, the chief and party secretary of Xishan district education bureau, was given a party warning.

Wang Zhaoyu, director of the bureau’s general office, and Lu Zhongxian, the director in charge of education inspection of the bureau, lost their jobs and were given a serious party disciplinary warning.

Beijing started the campaign targeting grass-roots criminal organisations and their “protective umbrellas” last year.

More than 3,000 people have been punished so far, but the campaign has also been ridiculed for taking aim at the wrong targets.

Last month a kindergarten in Guiyang in Guizhou province put up a banner at its entrance reading: “Crack down early and crack down young. Eliminate the dark and evil forces when they are still budding”.

The kindergarten said the banner was “meant for the public” but took it down after an online backlash.

Source: SCMP

Posted in anti-mafia, Beijing, Chengdu Economic Daily, Chinese, crackdown, disciplined, education officials, fentanyl firm, four-year-olds, Guiyang, Guizhou Province, investigating, jiangsu province, kindergarten class, online backlash, opioid, organised crime, sacked, Uncategorized, Wuxi, Xishan | Leave a Comment »

22/04/2019

Huawei says launches ‘world’s first’ 5G communications hardware for autos

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Huawei Technologies launched on Monday what it said was the world’s first 5G communications hardware for the automotive industry, in a sign of its growing ambitions to become a key supplier to the sector for self-driving technology.
Huawei said in a statement that the so-called MH5000 module is based on the Balong 5000 5G chip which it launched in January. “Based on this chip, Huawei has developed the world’s first 5G car module with high speed and high quality,” it said.
It launched the module at the Shanghai Autoshow, which began last week and runs until Thursday.
“As an important communication product for future intelligent car transportation, this 5G car module will promote the automotive industry to move towards the 5G era,” Huawei said.
It said the module will aid its plans to start commercializing 5G network technology for the automotive sector in the second half of this year.
Huawei has in recent years been testing technology for intelligent connected cars in Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen and Wuxi and has signed cooperation deals with a swathe of car makers including FAW, Dongfeng and Changan.
The company, which is also the world’s biggest telecoms equipment maker, is striving to lead the global race for next-generation 5G networks but has come under increasing scrutiny from Washington which alleges that its equipment could be used for espionage. Huawei has repeatedly denied the allegations.
Source: Reuters

Posted in 5G communications hardware, autos, Balong 5000 5G chip, Changan, Dongfeng, FAW, Huawei, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, self-driving technology., Shanghai, Shanghai Autoshow, Shenzhen, Uncategorized, Washington, world's first, Wuxi | Leave a Comment »

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