A total of 27 semiconductor companies and related organizations in China have formed a High-End Chip Alliance (HECA) aimed at vertically integrating the development of China's semiconductor industry, according to a Shanghai-based cnstock.com report.

The HECA will cover the development of China's semiconductor industry from the set-up of the industry's architecture, chip production, software/system development and information services, said the report.

The institutions and companies participated in the alliance include Tsinghua Unigroup, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), Yangtze River Storage Technology (YRST), Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE, Beijing University, Tsinghua University, Institute of Microelectronics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and China Academy of Telecommunication Research of MIIT.

The alliance will be headed by Ding Wenwu, president of China's National Semiconductor Industry Investment Fund (known as the Big Fund), while Tsinghua Unigroup chairman Zhao Weiguo will serve as deputy director.

The alliance comes as no surprise because many China-based semiconductor firms have already developed different degrees of partnerships, said Yang Jui-lin, deputy division director of Taiwan-based Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK).

Since the alliance is consisted primarily of suppliers, the short-term impact on Taiwan's semiconductor industry firms should be limited, Yang commented.

But Yang also warned that the HECA may seek to play a dominant role in drafting key specifications for the interfaces and DRAM chips used in the emerging sectors such as robots and drones if it other companies such as Baidu and the Alibaba Group are included in the alliance.

By: DocMemory
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