SMIC Acquires LFoundry and Enters into Global Automotive Electronics Market

AVEZZANO, Italy & SHANGHAI - Saturday, June 25th 2016 [ME NewsWire]

 (BUSINESS WIRE)-- Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (“SMIC”; NYSE: SMI; SEHK: 981), one of the leading semiconductor foundries in the world and the largest and most advanced foundry in mainland China, jointly announces with LFoundry Europe GmbH (“LFE”) and Marsica Innovation S.p.A. (“MI”), the signing of an agreement on June 24, 2016 to purchase a 70% stake of LFoundry for a consideration of 49 million EUR. LFoundry is an integrated circuit wafer foundry headquartered in Italy, which is owned by LFE and MI. At the closing, SMIC, LFE and MI will own 70%, 15% and 15% of the corporate capital of the target respectively. This acquisition benefits both SMIC and LFoundry, through increased combined scale, strengthened overall technology portfolios, and expanded market opportunities for both parties to gain footing in new market sectors. This also represents the Mainland China IC foundry industry’s first successful acquisition of an overseas-based manufacturer, which marks a major step forward in internationalizing SMIC; furthermore, through this acquisition, SMIC has formally entered into the global automotive electronics market.

As the leading semiconductor foundry in Mainland China, in the first quarter of 2016, SMIC recorded profit for the 16th consecutive quarter with revenue of US$634.3 million, an increase of over 24% year-on-year. In 2015, SMIC recorded annual revenue of US$2.24 billion. In fiscal year 2015, LFoundry revenue reached 218 million EUR.
This acquisition will bring both companies additional room for business expansion. At present, SMIC’s total capacity includes 162,000 8-inch wafers per month and 62,500 12-inch wafers per month, which represents a total 8-inch equivalent capacity of 302,600 wafers per month. LFoundry’s capacity amounts to 40,000 8-inch wafers per month. Thus, by consolidating the entities, overall total capacity would increase by 13%; this combined capacity will provide increased flexibility and business opportunities for supporting both SMIC and LFoundry customers.
SMIC has a diversified technology portfolio, including applications such as radio frequency (“RF”), connectivity, power management IC’s (“PMIC”), CMOS image sensors (“CIS”), embedded memory, MEMS, and others—mainly for the communications and consumer markets. Complementarily, LFoundry’s key focus is primarily in automotive, security, and industrial related applications including CIS, smart power, touch display driver IC’s (“TDDI”), embedded memory, and others. Such consolidation of technologies will broaden the overall technology portfolios and enlarge the areas of future development for both SMIC and LFoundry.
The semiconductor industry is one of the most globalized industries; the successful establishment of a multi-country manufacturing base sets a precedent in the Mainland Chinese IC foundry industry. The union of Chinese and Italian enterprises in the semiconductor industry will bring China market opportunities to LFoundry and more potential European customers to SMIC. Both SMIC and LFoundry can further develop the business potential of the Euro-Asia market.
Dr. Tzu-Yin Chiu, the CEO and Executive Director of SMIC said, “The successful completion of the LFoundry srl acquisition agreement is an important step in our global strategy. Both SMIC and LFoundry will mutually benefit from the shared technology, products, human talents and complementary markets. This will additionally expand our production scale and allows us to service the automotive IC market and for LFoundry to enter into China’s consumer electronics market, thus bolstering our overall development and growth. Through the acquisition, communication and cooperation in the semiconductor industry between China and Europe has been further enhanced, and contributes to the mutual success of the integrated circuit industry in both regions. In the future SMIC will continue to enhance, strengthen, and further expand leadership in the global semiconductor ecosystem.”
Sergio Galbiati, the Managing Director of MI and Chairman of LFoundry srl, said, “This is the beginning of a new era for LFoundry and our Italian fab. We are pleased to become part of a very strong worldwide player, SMIC. Together we can further improve LFoundry’s strength on optical sensor related technology, which is well recognized worldwide, and continue to contribute to the growth of technology in Europe, thanks to our partnerships with many relevant players. The agreement with SMIC will enable us to have a stronger level playing field in Europe.”
Günther Ernst, the Managing Director of LFE and CEO of LFoundry srl, said, “We have made significant efforts in achieving technology excellence. The agreement with SMIC will further enable us to better use our own manufacturing capacity and have access to SMIC’s extremely diverse technology offerings while taking advantage of SMIC’s commercial network and overall capacity. As part of SMIC, LFoundry will continue to pioneer technology to help our customers achieve success and drive value for our partners and employees around the world. We look forward to working closely with the SMIC team to ensure a smooth transition.”
For the full details of the related announcement please see the filing: http://www.smics.com/eng/investors/ir_filings.php
You are also invited to join SMIC’s management as they highlight the announcement and take questions from analysts.
Conference Call / Webcast Announcement
Date: June 27, 2016
Time: 8:30 a.m. Shanghai time
Dial-in numbers and pass code:

Mainland China +86 400-620-8038 (Pass code: SMIC)
Hong Kong +852 3018-6771 (Pass code: SMIC)
Taiwan +886 2-2650-7825 (Pass code: SMIC)
United States, New York +1 845-675-0437 (Pass code: SMIC)

The call will be webcast live with audio at: http://www.smics.com/eng/investors/ir_presentations.php or http://edge.media-server.com/m/p/2wu5fu9p.
An archived version of the webcast, along with an electronic copy of this news release will be available on the SMIC website for a period of 12 months following the webcast.
About SMIC
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation ("SMIC") (NYSE: SMI; SEHK: 981) is one of the leading semiconductor foundries in the world and the largest and most advanced foundry in mainland China. SMIC provides integrated circuit (IC) foundry and technology services at 0.35-micron to 28-nanometer. Headquartered in Shanghai, China, SMIC has a 300mm wafer fabrication facility (fab) and a 200mm mega-fab in Shanghai; a 300mm mega-fab and a majority owned 300mm fab for advance nodes in Beijing; and 200mm fabs in Tianjin and Shenzhen. SMIC also has marketing and customer service offices in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Taiwan, and a representative office in Hong Kong. For more information, please visit www.smics.com.
Safe Harbor Statements
(Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995)
This press release contains, in addition to historical information, "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements, including statements under "Second Quarter 2016 Guidance", "CapEx Summary" and the statements contained in the quotes of our CEO regarding our target for sustained profit, our revenue growth, continued demand strength and high utilization and our strategy to capture growth opportunities brought by specific markets and products are based on SMIC’s current assumptions, expectations and projections about future events. SMIC uses words like "believe," "anticipate," "intend," "estimate," "expect," "project," "target" and similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks, both known and unknown, uncertainties and other factors that may cause SMIC’s actual performance, financial condition or results of operations to be materially different from those suggested by the forward-looking statements including, among others, risks associated with the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry, changes in demand for our products, competition in our markets, our reliance on a small number of customers, orders or judgments from pending litigation, intensive intellectual property lawsuits in semiconductor industry, financial stability in end markets, general economic conditions and fluctuations in currency exchange rates.
Investors should consider the information contained in SMIC’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including its annual report on 20-F filed with the SEC on April 25, 2016, especially the consolidated financial statements, and such other documents that SMIC may file with the SEC or The Hong Kong Stock Exchange Limited ("SEHK") from time to time, including current reports on Form 6-K. Other unknown or unpredictable factors also could have material adverse effects on SMIC’s future results, performance or achievements. In light of these risks, uncertainties, assumptions and factors, the forward-looking events discussed in this press release may not occur. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date stated, or if no date is stated, as of the date of this press release. Except as may be required by law, SMIC undertakes no obligation and does not intend to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
About LFoundry:
LFoundry is a leading specialized foundry. Based in Avezzano, Italy and Landshut, Germany, LFoundry is focused on providing access to most advanced analogue manufacturing service with a capacity of >40,000 wafers/month, innovative technology extensions, including volume 90nm and copper manufacturing, a strong emphasis on flexibility and customer partnership. LFoundry is supporting own technology IP for 150nm and 110nm with a large portfolio of process-proven libraries, IP, design tools and reference flows. (www.lfoundry.com)    

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Contacts

LFoundry Media Contact:
Gianluca Togna, Mobile: +0039 3491931601
Email: gianluca.togna@lfoundry.com

SMIC Media Contact:
Terry Ding, Tel: +86-21-3861-0000 x16812
Email: Terry_Ding@smics.com

SMIC Investor Contact:
Tel: +86-21-3861-0000 x 12804
Email: ir@smics.com

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