On the afternoon of May 9, 2018, the signing ceremony of "Yueya Semiconductor (Nantong) Project" was successfully held in the conference room on the third floor of Zhuhai Yueya Semiconductor Co., LTD.

Zhuhai Yueya is mainly engaged in the research and development, design, production and sales of core-less IC packaging substrate, and is committed to becoming the world's leading innovative packaging substrate solution provider. At present, the company's products in the world's mobile phone RF chip packaging substrate market share of the top three, breaking the foreign high-end IC packaging substrate manufacturers monopoly market situation, the product has been Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi and other mainstream mobile phones.

Vietnam Asia Company was founded in 2006, the first joint venture between Chinese and Israeli enterprises, focusing on the industrialization of high-end organic coreless packaging substrate invention patents. After continuous innovation and development, the company has become the first innovative enterprise in the world that adopts "copper pillar method" to produce high-density coreless packaging substrate and realize mass production. It is a national high-tech enterprise, a private technology enterprise in Guangdong Province and an intellectual property advantage enterprise in Zhuhai, and has set up Guangdong Engineering Technology Center. Its "Highly reliable RF Module System-level packaging substrate manufacturing technology" won the second prize of Guangdong Science and Technology Award in 2013; On July 31, 2012, Zhuhai Yueya Packaging Substrate Technology Co., Ltd. was officially renamed as Zhuhai Yueya Packaging Substrate Technology Co., LTD.

Nantong port before you sign this agreement, the brake, the district government and zhuhai and semiconductor co., LTD. Held talks, and by the finance director and chairman Mr Secret Chen Chunling introduced nantong project investment plan, the two sides in a cordial and friendly atmosphere of the communist party of China renew friendship and common looking good prospects for cooperation, and on how to promote the cooperation projects, to further strengthen in-depth exchange of views on the future cooperation, A consensus was reached.

General Manager Mr. Chen Xianming extended a warm welcome to the government of Nantong Gangzha District to visit VietAsia and briefly introduced the basic situation of VietAsia. Mr. Chen Xianming, general manager, said that after years of development, VietAsia Semiconductor has formed a down-to-earth, commitment, the pursuit of efficiency, pay attention to quality of excellent enterprise style, won the trust and praise of customers and partners around the world.

After close contact and project negotiation in the early stage, with the high attention and promotion of Nantong Gangzha District government, Vietnam Asia will select the most excellent project managers and teams to complete the Vietnam Asia Semiconductor (Nantong) project on time with high quality. We hope that both sides can strengthen communication and accelerate the progress of the project. We should not only make the project the best project in Nantong, but also make it an excellent project in the semiconductor integrated circuit industry with high science and technology content.

Mr. Cao Jinhai, head of Gangzha District Government of Nantong City, delivered a speech

Mr. Cao Jinhai, head of Gangzha District Government of Nantong City, first thanked General Manager Chen Xianming for his warm reception. Cao district chief said that Vietnam Asia cautious and conscientious, ups and downs of the entrepreneurial process, admirable. He said that Nantong is the gateway city in the north of Shanghai metropolitan area, one of the first 14 coastal cities opened to the outside world in China, the economic center in the north of the Yangtze River Delta, a modern port city and a national historical and cultural city. Reaching the Yellow Sea in the east, looking at the Yangtze River in the south, and inviting the lights of Shanghai and Suzhou, and bordering Taizhou and Yancheng in the west and north, it is known as "North Shanghai", "according to the meeting of the river and sea, choke the throat of the north and the south".

Nantong combines the advantages of "golden Coast" and "golden waterway", with 226 kilometers of coastline along the Yangtze River, which is an important part of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in Jiangsu Province. In 2017, the added value of industries above designated size in Nantong was 331.84 billion yuan, an increase of 7.8 percent over 2016, among which light and heavy industries grew 6.8 percent and 8.3 percent respectively. By economic type, state-owned enterprises grew by 12.9 percent, joint-stock enterprises by 10.3 percent, and foreign enterprises and enterprises invested by Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan grew by 2.6 percent. Three key pillar industries, including electronic information, intelligent equipment and new materials, grew 15.6 percent, 15.1 percent and 11.3 percent year-on-year, respectively. The signing of the Yue Ya Semiconductor (Nantong) project is of great importance to the construction of semiconductor integrated circuit industry cluster in the Yangtze River Delta.

Right: Mr. Sun Yongbin, Executive Deputy Director of Management Committee of Nantong North High-tech Zone

Left: Mr. Chen Xianming, General Manager of Vietasia Semiconductor Co., LTD

During the talks, the two sides also communicated and exchanged views on issues of respective interest. After the talks, the two sides held a signing ceremony for the cooperation project. In the presence of Mr. Cao Jinhai, Mr. Jiang Feng and other leaders, Mr. Sun Yongbin, Executive Deputy director of the Management Committee of Nantong North High-tech Zone, and Mr. Chen Xianming, general manager of Yueya Semiconductor Co., Ltd. signed the cooperation agreement respectively.

The little-known company is the only Chinese-Israeli joint venture in Zhuhai and one of the first Chinese and Israeli companies to cooperate in scientific and technological innovation. So, over the past ten years, what kind of story has happened between Israel and Zhuhai?

1. First acquaintance -- master the technology to win the respect of Israel

There have been two tech start-up booms in Israel's history of tech innovation: one from the mid-1990s to 2000 and the other from 2005. The story of Vietasia encapsulation began in 2005.

"Amitec had a pioneering technology for packaging substrates, and as an IP incubation company, they desperately needed to find a partner to commercialize the technology." Chen Hsien Ming, general manager of VietAsia Packaging, is one of the founders of the company. He still remembers the "first acquaintance" with Amitec.

"Amitec focused on China because of its strong manufacturing base and its nascent semiconductor industry, which is hungry for new technologies." He told reporters that Founder Group not only has brand advantages and strong financial strength, the industrial layout of the group also let Amitec see Founder's ambitions in the semiconductor industry.

After careful consideration, the two sides decided to join hands. In 2005, Amitec set up a project team jointly with Founder Group to begin the industrialization exploration of Coreless technology. In 2006, the two parties jointly established Vietasia Packaging Company, with each contributing 1 million dollars. At that time, there was little cooperation between Chinese and Israeli companies in scientific and technological innovation. "We don't have a lot of experience with how the two smartest peoples can work together. We have to figure it out." "Chen Xianming said. The first challenge is understanding and monetizing the technology.

"What Amitec brings is just a basic laboratory technology. Although it is groundbreaking, it is difficult to really commercialize because they have no experience in mass production, so from the production process to the production equipment to the selection of raw materials, Viet Na needs to explore by itself."

He told reporters that from 2006 to 2008, the team spent a long time to understand the technology, and finally gradually transferred the technology from paper to concrete production process, and then gradually controlled the product qualification rate and cost to the market acceptable degree. In the process, the Israeli attitude towards the Chinese team also changed a lot.

At the beginning of the cooperation, the Chinese team was relatively weak because of its lack of understanding of technology. But as we learned more about the technology, the products and the industry, the Israelis showed plenty of respect." He told reporters that the technical excellence is the point of cooperation between the two sides, through learning from each other, in 2008, the core-free packaging substrate technology of Viet Ya packaging finally declared maturity.

2. Growth -- "Can't just rely on technology licensing"

When the technology matures, the next step is market expansion. "Our customers are mainly mobile phone RF chip companies, and the market is monopolized by five global industry giants, so it is not easy to break into their doors." Chen Xianming lamented that after unremitting attempts and excellent product quality, in 2009, Viet Asia finally succeeded in obtaining the recognition of two of the companies.

In 2010, the company realized mass production and became the first company to apply the internationally leading Coreless technology for coreless packaging substrate development and industrialization, which filled the gap in the domestic IC industry chain.

"The key to opening the market is our technology and process that maximizes the high density, high efficiency, low energy consumption, and high speed requirements of today's advanced packaging designs." Chen Xianming told reporters that consumer electronic products thin development intensifies, making the more Asia "core technology" mainstream trend is obvious.

But doubts have been raised. "The key technologies of Vietnam and Asia are all from Israel, and the ability of independent innovation is not fully reflected." At the beginning of the rise, there are integrated circuit industry experts have commented so.

In fact, Vietnam itself is aware of the problem. "To grow, we have to address the integrity of our technology and not just rely on Israeli technology licensing." "Chen Xianming said. To do so, Vietnam must "negotiate" with Amitec.

Why? He explained that in the early days of the partnership, the joint venture contract between Founder Group and Amitec stipulated that Vietnam could not carry out independent research and development. Meanwhile, all patents and technologies generated during the operation of the joint venture shall be owned by Amitec.

"This was a concession made by Founder Group at the beginning of the partnership. Amitec wanted to protect its intellectual property rights, and we had to accept it in order to make the partnership work." 'It does limit the independent innovation of the Vietnamese team to a certain extent,' he said. Fortunately, these days did not last long. With the deepening of cooperation and understanding between the two sides, Amitec began to trust the Chinese team more.

In December 2011, AMITEC packaged 13 patents for $15 million to inject into the company's registered capital in the form of intangible assets. Prior to this, Founder Group also increased capital in cash according to the resolution of the board of directors. Both parties hold 50% equity of Zhuhai Yueya and are listed as the largest shareholder of the company. In 2012, for the company's long-term development needs, the company introduced several private equity funds, Founder Group and AMITEC's shares were diluted equally to 38.36%.

The restrictions on independent research and development were also lifted, and the cooperation between the two sides began to enter the "honeymoon period", and Vietnam Asia began to move toward the "growth road" of independent innovation. According to Chen Chun-ling, the company's chief financial officer and secretary of the board of directors, at present, VietAsia has obtained about 70 invention patents, and about 110 others are in the public notice.

3. Tengfei -- The output value of 2019 is expected to exceed 100 million dollars

In 2016, the output value of Viet Asia packaging reached 500 million Yuan, occupying 25% of the global mobile phone RF chip packaging substrate market capacity, and entered the top three in the global market segment.

In addition to the quantity breakthrough, the quality of Viet Ya has also been highly recognized by the mainstream manufacturers. According to the introduction, at present, the mainstream product of mobile phone RF chip packaging substrate is 4-layer board, Vietnam's products are mainly 8-layer board, and have the production capacity of 10-layer and 12-layer board.

"Our core technology is in line with the trend of 'small and fine' and 'integrated integration' in the semiconductor industry chain, including packaging substrate applications." Chen Xianming said that in the future, VietAsia packaging will continue to deepen this segment of the market, to maintain the leading position in the industry.

At the same time, the company will also expand into other markets to diversify the risk of over-concentration in the terminal market. According to the introduction, at present, Viet Ya has successfully developed wafer embedding technology, by embedding the wafer directly in the packaging substrate, save the subsequent packaging links, shorten the chip delivery time, improve the efficiency of the industry, significantly save costs. At the same time, direct embedding also makes the product size smaller, the loss of circuit signal is further reduced, greatly improving the performance of the chip.

"We started developing this technology three years ago. This year, we received the certification from the U.S. TI company and will soon start mass production." Chen Xianming revealed that at present, the technology is only suitable for power management chips and other analog chip fields, with the continuous maturity of the technology, will also gradually expand to other chip fields.

Glass packaging substrate is also one of the new achievements of Viet Ya packaging in recent years. Integrated, this technology can replace the traditional "glass + substrate" step processing mode, to provide users with a complete set of solutions. At present, the technology has been roughly mature, into the incubation stage

"We hope that through the incubation of these three kinds of products, we can further enhance our position in the industry and gradually transform from a single semiconductor material provider to a comprehensive service provider of semiconductor devices and modules." Chen Chunling told reporters that according to the plan, the company's annual output value will exceed $100 million in 2019. According to reporters, in 2014, Vietnam Asia package had planned to land on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, but highly dependent on big customers and other "hard" eventually hampered its IPO road.

"The risk of large customer concentration has greatly improved." The company now has more than 10 mass-production clients, with domestic clients accounting for about 30% of its revenue, Mr. Chen said. "We plan to resume our IPO path and list on the chinext board of the Shenzhen Exchange in the second half of next year or the first half of next year."

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