November 2, 2015 — Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd., a Chinese government-owned chipmaker will make a $600 million investment in Powertech Technology of Taiwan, according to multiple reports. Powertech Technology, which specializes in chip packaging and testing, will hand over 25% of the company in exchange, after new shares are issued.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Powertech will use the funds to “help it expand its assembly capacity in Taiwan, develop advanced production processes and recruit talent. It would also become Tsinghua Unigroup’s major chip assembly and testing partner.”

Tsinghua is the largest chip design company in China, and earlier this year attempted to acquire Micron Technology with a $23 billion bid. That bid ultimately failed, but it hasn’t stopped Tsinghua from investing in other US companies in the industry, including Western Digital ($3.78 billion for 15%) and Hewlett-Packard’s data-networking business (51%, $2.3 billion).

This continues the unprecedented consolidation that has come to the semiconductor industry in 2015. A trend that has shown no signs of slowing as we enter 2016.

##

To help readers follow this constantly changing situation, Solid State Technology is keeping a running scorecard of all the significant transactions in the semiconductor market here: Historic era of consolidation for chipmakers.