SMIC Announces Board Changes and Q2 Financial Report

Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) announced on August 11 that Zhao Haijun has resigned as executive director to focus on performing the duties of co-CEO. At the same time, Wu Hanming has been appointed as a Class I independent non-executive director, a member of the nomination committee and the strategic committee of the board.

Wu, aged 70, is an expert in microelectronics technology. In 2019, he was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and is currently the dean of the School of Micro-Nano Electronics, Zhejiang University, the dean of the National Demonstration School of Microelectronics, University of Science and Technology of China, the chairman of Zhejiang ICsprout Semiconductor Co., Ltd., and an independent director of BYD Semiconductor Company.

According to the website of Chinese Academy of Engineering, Wu has been working in China’s integrated circuit industry for a long time and has made outstanding contributions. He presided over and participated in the R&D of 0.13 micron to 14 nanometer seventh-generation chip production technology, and solved a series of key process difficulties, including etching.

Tudor Brown, the former president of Arm, announced on his LinkedIn page on August 11 that he had resigned from SMIC’s board of directors. This news was confirmed by SMIC.

SEE ALSO: Former Arm President Tudor Brown Resigns From SMIC Board

On August 11, SMIC also released unaudited results for the three months ended June 30, 2022. The company’s sales revenue in the period was $1.903 billion, an increase of 3.3% compared with $1.842 billion in the first quarter of 2022. Its gross profit was $751 million in the second quarter of 2022, compared with the $750 million in the first quarter of 2022.

SMIC management commented: “In the second quarter of this year, the company’s revenue exceeded $1.9 billion, up 3.3% sequentially, with a small increase in both shipments and ASP. Capacity utilization was 97.1% and gross margin was 39.4%. Due to the limitations on people’s movement as a result of the pandemic, some of the labs did not conduct annual maintenance in the second quarter, causing the overall impact of the pandemic on output to be lower than expected, thus revenue and gross margin in the quarter slightly exceeded guidance. In the third quarter, revenue is expected to be flat to up 2% sequentially, with gross margins in the range of 38% to 40%.”

In addition, the monthly production capacity of the company increased slightly from 649,100 8-inch wafers in the first quarter of 2022 to 673,800 8-inch wafers in the second quarter of 2022.