China's flagship semiconductor fabrication company Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) has hired Wallace Pai, formerly general manager of GlobalFoundries China region, to serve as SMIC's business and marketing executive for FinFET advanced process products, helping to expand SMIC's footprint of advanced process customers.
In 2017, in an effort to make a breakthrough in the process, SMIC brought in Mong-Song Liang, a former senior R&D director at TSMC, as co-CEO and executive director of SMIC.
In less than two years, SMIC has achieved a breakthrough in the 14nm FinFET process, which has been slow to advance.
In 2019 SMIC's 14nm process is officially mass-produced and adopted by Huawei Kirin processor.
The latest news shows that the next generation N 1 process is also close to mass production, with a big contribution from Mong-Song Liang.
However, due to the recent escalation of US export control measures for Huawei, this has also affected the design and manufacturing of the Huawei Kirin processor.
If Huawei increases orders, SMIC's existing 14nm capacity may not be sufficient.
However, against the backdrop of escalating U.S. controls, there is still a great risk of relying solely on orders from one Huawei customer, which also makes SMIC unable to accelerate the development of the advanced process market and take more advanced process customers to spread the risk.
At the same time, with SMIC's rapid increase in advanced process capacity, SMIC does need to further develop more high-end customers. Therefore, the recruitment of former GlobalFoundries China region general manager Wallace Pai is not difficult to understand.
Wallace Pai holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Previously at GlobalFoundries, he was Vice President and General Manager of the China region, where he was responsible for driving GlobalFoundries' strategic planning development in China, with a focus on customers and business in the China region.
Prior to joining GlobalFoundries, he also served as a senior executive at semiconductor companies such as Motorola, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Synaptics, and earlier in his career as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and a microprocessor design engineer at Intel.
