The JV company, dubbed SMIC Advanced Technology Research & Development (Shanghai), will focus on R&D to build advanced CMOS technologies and establish China's home-grown 14nm and beyond process technologies.
The JV company will be majority owned by SMIC, while Huawei, Qualcomm and Imec will be minority shareholders, SMIC noted.
SMIC disclosed that in the first phase, the JV company will develop 14nm CMOS technology for mass production, which will be based on Imec's knowhow in advanced semiconductor processing technology. The new R&D project will be undertaken in an SMIC fab.
SMIC will own the rights to license the required IP rights on the mass production technologies of advanced nodes developed by the JV company, enabling these technologies to be applied to SMIC's current and future range of products and serve SMIC's business with other companies, the foundry said.
Mass production of 14nm chips will be ready at SMIC's fab by 2020, which is "one of the goals set up by the National IC Industry Development Outline," the China-based foundry said.
"SMIC is China's largest semiconductor enterprise and has the capabilities to bring 14nm technology into production. It is exciting to be working with the largest IC design company both in China and abroad, and the world's top research institutes to tackle advanced IC process technology," said SMIC CEO Tze-Yin Chiu.
"We see a growing potential in China, both as a market and as a source of innovative engineering," noted Imec CEO and president Luc Van den hove. "The expertise of the four partners is focused on the creation of an excellent platform to foster nanoelectronics R&D in China. And the joint development of a 14nm process facility will be a step stone to achieve this goal. A stepping stone that, I am convinced, will benefit the world's IC manufacturing community."
Qualcomm president Derek Aberle said "We believe that this venture will serve to better meet the growing needs of local Chinese and global customers who demand high performance, low power mobile devices. The collaboration will also help bring even more advanced processing technology and wafer manufacturing capacity to China, thereby helping China to build capability in FinFET technology."
Tags: PCB manufacturer, PCB supplier, PCB assembly, PCB design, Multilayer PCB, HDI PCB, LED PCB, Automotive PCB, High Frequency PCB. Industry Control PCB, PCBA, PCB Samples.