Xuzhou, wie kann es sich mit Chips stärken?
It is said that someone once said, "What more do you Xuzhou people want to develop? Just focus on farming and coal mining and supply Nanjing and other regions in southern Jiangsu."
Of course, this is a statement circulating online, and it's difficult to verify its authenticity.
However, this rumor also indicates that Xuzhou was once an out - and - out "coal capital". Data shows that after 1949, Xuzhou had a cumulative coal production of 1 billion tons, once contributing over 80% of Jiangsu's coal output. Someone once described Xuzhou as "a city full of coal ash and half - covered with dust".
But who could have imagined that this "grubby - looking" Xuzhou is now making an amazing leap: Xuzhou is making efforts in the chip industry!
In the list of major projects in Jiangsu Province in 2024, Xuzhou has as many as 7 information technology projects selected! It can even compete with some cities in southern Jiangsu. These projects cover core aspects of the chip industry such as advanced semiconductor thin - film materials, photoresist, and monocrystalline silicon materials. In the new energy field, there are also 5 projects.
To be included in the list of major projects in Jiangsu Province, there is a basic threshold: the total investment should generally be no less than 1 billion yuan, and the annual planned investment should be no less than 300 million yuan.
How did Xuzhou suddenly rise to prominence?
The Xuzhou Semiconductor You Don't Know
As we all know, China is a large importer of chips, buying about one - third of the world's chips every year. In just the first two months of 2024, China imported over 78 billion chips, spending nearly 390 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 19%.
To address the "chip shortage", China has to develop its own capabilities. One company called Xuzhou Bokang is emerging as a dark horse, breaking the 20 - year monopoly of foreign photoresist companies.
All along, photoresist is the most crucial material in chip production, directly affecting the quality of chips. High - end photoresist is especially needed for manufacturing mobile phone and computer chips, so it is hailed as "the pearl on the crown of semiconductor materials".
Actually, the manufacturing process of photoresist is not very complicated, but it's not easy to produce high - end photoresist.
Due to sub - standard technology and high metal impurity content, the quality of photoresist produced in China is not high, and the yield rate is low. For a long time, the market has been firmly controlled by Japanese and American companies, and China has had to rely on imports to solve the shortage. Relevant data shows that more than 80% of the entire high - end photoresist market is mainly controlled by four Japanese companies: Tokyo Ohka Kogyo, JSR, Shin - Etsu Chemical, and Fujifilm.
However, nowadays, Xuzhou Bokang has achieved a 100% technological breakthrough in the field of photoresist materials. The content of metal impurity ions has been reduced from the original 100 pph to 10 pph, and the purity has been increased by 10 times at one go. The two major problems of KrF and ArF photoresists have been solved, and there has been a qualitative leap in performance.
At the same time, Bokang has an independent and complete photoresist industrial chain and has established a deep cooperative relationship with Huawei. Many of its products have been introduced, verified, and sold in domestic 12 - inch wafer fabs, and it has successfully captured 5% of the market share from Japanese giants.
In fact, in addition to Xuzhou Bokang, Xuzhou has also incubated several unicorn companies such as Xinxin Semiconductor, Shangda Semiconductor, and Xinhua Semiconductor.
In the list of Jiangsu unicorn companies in 2023, Xinhua Semiconductor was on the list.
Xinhua Semiconductor, founded in 2017, is currently the largest domestic producer of electronic - grade polycrystalline silicon for the semiconductor industry. In January 2022, Xinxin Semiconductor completed a Series A financing of over 1 billion yuan, attracting the favor of many capital giants such as Cinda Feng Investment, Ruixin Capital, and Shixi Capital, and successfully made it onto the Forbes 2022 list of new unicorn companies.
Coincidentally, in September 2022, Shangda Semiconductor received a Series A+ financing of 700 million yuan. The investment institutions included several state - owned funds such as the Guangdong - Macao Semiconductor Industry Investment Fund, Guangzhou Emerging Fund, and Jinshi Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrading New Materials Fund.
Actually, for Xuzhou, these four unicorns may just be the beginning.
Currently, many semiconductor companies in Xuzhou have successively received high - amount financing. For example, Zhongke Zhixin received a Series B financing of over 150 million yuan from Hunpu Investment, Xinding Capital, and Xiamen Hengxing Group in 2023;
In the past three years, Leuven Instruments has received multiple rounds of support from the Beijing Integrated Circuit Advanced Chip Fund, Yangtze River Capital, Yizhuang State - owned Investment, Guangzhou Development Zone Industrial Fund, and "CAS - affiliated" investment institutions. Companies such as Huaxing Laser and Xinhua Semiconductor have also maintained a financing rhythm of once a year.
Xuzhou's semiconductor industry not only holds a crucial position both within and outside the industry but is also attracting batches of capital to boost the development of China's semiconductor industry.
Favorable Timing and Location
Jiangsu has always had many economic powerhouses. In such a highly competitive environment, Xuzhou's rise is due to two factors. On the one hand, it has been quietly deploying in the integrated circuit industry; on the other hand, it benefits from its geographical advantages, which have enabled it to "find its position and seize the opportunity".
As a typical resource - exhausted city in China, Xuzhou has been catching up, focusing on high - tech industries and strategic emerging industries as its key development directions for the future.
As early as 2017, in response to the insufficient industrial development, Xuzhou formulated the "Implementation Plan for the Development of the Integrated Circuit and ICT Industries", focusing on developing the two industrial chains of integrated circuits and ICT.
In addition to policy support, Xuzhou has been actively promoting the development of the integrated circuit industry.
Relying on its original photovoltaic industry foundation, Xuzhou has concentrated its efforts in the semiconductor field and has become an important semiconductor raw material supply base in China. For example, Zhongqing Photovoltaic uses internationally leading production processes to form a new energy industrial cluster integrating photovoltaic cell and module manufacturing, energy storage for photovoltaic power stations, and the construction and operation of charging piles.
Riding on the wave of the rapid development of the global semiconductor industry, Xuzhou's semiconductor industrial chain has grown from scratch and continues to expand. Currently, Xuzhou's semiconductor industry has formed an industrial chain led by chip manufacturing, devices, and packaging and testing.
At the same time, geographical advantages are also the key to the take - off of Xuzhou's chip industry. Historically, because Xuzhou is located at the junction of Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan, and Anhui provinces, it has become a famous "thoroughfare of five provinces" and has always been a strategic location for military strategists. Over time, Xuzhou is still a transportation hub. There is even a saying that "if Xuzhou is connected, the whole country is connected".
Xuzhou is the central city in the Huaihai Economic Zone.
In 2011, after the opening of the Beijing - Shanghai High - Speed Railway, Xuzhou East Station became one of the seven major high - speed railway hubs on the Beijing - Shanghai line.
Nowadays, Xuzhou forms a "1 - hour city circle" with four provincial capitals: Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Jinan, and Hefei. Starting from Xuzhou East Station, it takes only 3 hours to reach five major cities: Beijing, Xi'an, Wuhan, Shanghai, and Hangzhou. It can reach more than 180 cities, ranking among the top in the country in terms of high - speed railway accessibility.
It can be said that Xuzhou's status as the central city of the Huaihai Economic Zone is well - deserved.
In recent years, in order to compete for high - quality and limited industrial resources, various regions have introduced various preferential investment promotion strategies, leading to a boom in the relocation of high - tech enterprises to other places.
Among them, Jiangsu Province has become the biggest beneficiary of the cross - regional relocation of enterprises.
According to relevant data statistics, in 2022, 82.2% of the high - tech enterprises that moved out of their original registration places across the country were attracted to Jiangsu. Among the Jiangsu cities where these enterprises moved in, Xuzhou actually outnumbered Nanjing in terms of the number of incoming enterprises and became the city with the largest number of incoming enterprises.
Although Xuzhou is not as rich as Nanjing in terms of scientific and educational resources, it has attracted many smart home, Internet of Things device, and other types of enterprises to settle in with its advantages in scenario - enabled and AI underlying software and services.
The three cities with the largest number of incoming high - tech enterprises related to artificial intelligence are Nanjing, Nantong, and Xuzhou. BYD, a domestic new energy battery giant, has successively signed contracts with XCMG Group and Huaihai Holding Group to launch two billion - level projects in Xuzhou; Great Wall Motors has established its first high - end drive and transmission system production base dedicated to new energy vehicles and achieved mass production.
With the influx of foreign enterprises and the rise of local enterprises, Xuzhou is building a new "Silicon Valley" in the Chinese mainland.
Capital Leverage
As the saying goes, even the most skillful housewife can't cook a meal without rice. The rapid development of Xuzhou's semiconductor industry is mainly due to the policy - level guidance of industrial capital.
In 2021, Xuzhou proposed to allocate 20 billion yuan of government funds over 5 years to support state - owned enterprises in leading the establishment of industrial funds, with the total scale of newly established industrial funds reaching no less than 100 billion yuan. It also plans to cultivate no less than 10 domestic and foreign listed companies, and invest in no less than 150 high - tech enterprises and specialized and sophisticated enterprises with unique features in the next five years.
With policies leading the way, the Xuzhou government also has strong executive power. In September of the same year, the Xuzhou municipal government completed the registration of the investment fund, actively assisting the transformation and upgrading of emerging industries and traditional industries.
In addition to the active participation of the government, other venture capital forces introduced have also played an important role in promoting the development of Xuzhou's industries.
In Xuzhou, state - owned funds have always been a strong backing and have provided significant support to the semiconductor field.
As early as 2018, the Xuzhou Industrial Guidance Fund initiated the Haoxin Semiconductor Industry Fund and the Xuzhou Ruixin Electronic Industry Fund, with a total scale of up to 4.41 billion yuan, once being the largest single - amount industrial development fund investment in Xuzhou. At the same time, in order to support local important semiconductor enterprises, the Xuzhou Industrial Development Guidance Fund also sets up special funds, such as the Haoxin and Ruixin special funds, mainly to support the construction of the Xuzhou Xinjing large - silicon - wafer project;
In order to attract the high - end semiconductor vacuum coating equipment project to settle in Xuzhou, the Xuzhou Industrial Development Guidance Fund specially set up a 650 - million - yuan leading microelectronics special fund. According to a report by Cailian Press, there are currently 177 funds registered in Xuzhou, and 9 of them have names containing "semiconductor", "chip", or "integrated circuit".
Among all the industrial funds, the most active one is the Xuzhou Shengxin Semiconductor Industry Investment Fund Partnership. Its LP list is very rich, including not only two government - guided funds but also listed - company - guided funds such as Nata Optoelectronics, Juhua Co., Ltd., Dinglong Holdings, and Zhengfan Technology. In addition, there are two market - oriented FOFs: Gongqingcheng Yongchang Sheng No. 3 Equity Investment Partnership and Zhoushan Shangya Investment Management Partnership.
The successive establishment of these industrial funds has attracted a large number of investors to Xuzhou and given Xuzhou enough confidence to embark on a unique path of transformation and development.
With policy support, the right direction, and strong - performing enterprises, it is only natural for Xuzhou's chip industry to succeed. From a traditional old industrial base to a leader in the new energy industry, especially leading the way in the semiconductor industry, Xuzhou can be regarded as a model for urban transformation.
Xuzhou keeps up with the times, is good at exploration, and does not stand still. Instead, it actively seeks transformation and has become a city that nurtures many unicorn companies.
Therefore, some people say that Xuzhou will be China's next science and innovation city.
This article is from the WeChat public account "Zhengjieju". The author is Zhengjieju. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.