‘Made in China 2025’: the Guangzhou start-up aiming big in semiconductors
Gowin Semiconductor says it is seeing increased interest in its FPGA chips, a market dominated by US firms including Xilinx, Altera and Lattice
As China’s use of smart devices and artificial intelligence (AI) surges, a new generation of domestic chip makers is focusing on specialised semiconductors to power the technologies of tomorrow, as the country seeks to build a tech industry commensurate with its economic power.
Take Guangzhou-based Gowin Semiconductor. The four-year-old start-up, which makes field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chips, believes it has what it takes to challenge the global leaders, US companies Xilinx, Altera and Lattice, which together control 90 per cent of the global market for the special chips.
In the past few months, Gowin has begun mass production of its low- and mid-density FPGA chips, for which it holds full intellectual property rights. The chips – which can be configured after manufacturing, and are used in sectors including automotive, video interfaces, electronics, telecommunications, defence and aerospace – are made for the company by the world’s biggest contract manufacturer, Taiwan-based TSMC. They are currently for sale in the mainland Chinese market.
Gowin expects to sell 10 million FPGA chips this year. That would be a stark contrast to the company’s first order for just 10 chips in January 2017.
Its big break came after the crisis over Chinese telecoms equipment maker ZTE, which came close to being put out of business after Washington banned American firms from selling to ZTE because of its violation of US sanctions on Iran and North Korea.