Chinese chipmaker gains world's largest market share
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-03-09 10:37

Chinese high-tech company Vimicro has sold over 10 million of its Xingguang digital multimedia CPU chips in the international market, giving it the world's largest market share at 40 percent.

These chips have been sold to 16 countries and regions, including the Unites States, Japan, South Korea, and some European countries, Monday's Beijing Daily reported.

The Xingguang (Star Light) digital multimedia CPU (central processing unit) chip holds over 200 patent technologies at home and abroad and has seized 80 percent of domestic market share, said John Deng, president of Vimicro Corporation, a private company run by overseas returned students in Beijing's Zhongguancun, known as China's "Silicon Valley".

"It indicates that China is approaching the era of 'Invented by China' from what used to be known as 'Made in China' in its integrated circuit (IC) industry," Zhang Qi, director of the Electronics and Information Administration with China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII), said.

China had seen a slow progress in its IC industry in the three decades after it successfully developed its first IC in 1965, and over 10 billion chips were used each year from late 1990s. However, 80 percent of the chips, and even 100 percent for sophisticated chips, were imported.

In 1999, China's domestic chip production accounted for only 0. 6 percent of the world's total. In developing the CPU, in particular, China had made little headway.

Statistics from the MII show China is the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, with production hitting 186.44 million units by the end of 2003. However, none has its own "Chinese heart ".

The government has attached great importance to developing Chinese CPU chips.

In 1999, a Xingguang digital multimedia chips project, headed by John Deng, was jointly launched by the MII, the State Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), and other departments.

In addition, the MOST invested 9 billion yuan (108 million US dollars) into 15,000 national research and development projects and high technology programs in 2003 alone.

So far, some leading IT companies from China and overseas, including Lenovo, China Telecom, China Netcom, Microsoft, HP, Samsung, Philips, Foxconn, and Fujitsu have become clients of Vimicro, national English-language newspaper China Daily has reported.

The successful development of the digital multimedia chip has broken the monopoly of foreign chips in this sector, which dominated the domestic market for decades, experts said.

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