China's aggressive push to develop a domestic semiconductor industry has largely been successful. The country now has fairly advanced fabs that can produce logic chips using 7nm-class process technologies as well as world-class 3D NAND and DRAM memory devices. However, there are numerous high-profile failures due to missed investments, technical shortcomings, and unsustainable business plans. This has resulted in numerous empty fab shells — zombie fabs — around the country, according to DigiTimes.
As of early 2024, China had 44 wafer semiconductor production facilities, including 25 300-mm fabs, five 200-mm wafers, four 150-mm wafers, and seven inactive ones, according to TrendForce. At the time, 32 additional semiconductor fabrication plans were being constructed in the country as part of the Made in China 2025 initiative, including 24 300-mm fabs and nine 200-mm fabs. Companies like SMIC, HuaHong, Nexchip, CXMT, and Silan planned to start production at 10 new fabs, including nine 300-mm fabs and one 200-mm facility by the end of 2024.
