Carmakers and industrial buyers now deal with two Nexperia supply chains, and any reunion depends on Wingtech's board, two Dutch court appointees and a pending Amsterdam ruling.
Nexperia’s Chinese unit says it now runs a fully domestic supply chain, two days after the Dutch chipmaker’s interim chief executive said the two halves of the company could still be reunited. Speaking at the 23rd China International Semiconductor Expo in Beijing on November 12, Nexperia China CEO John Chang (Zhang Qiuming) said: "We have completed the localisation of the entire chain, from product definition and development to manufacturing," the South China Morning Post reported. The unit says its domestic 12-inch wafer platform now covers every product category.
On November 10, interim CEO Stefan Tilger told Reuters in Munich that reunification remained possible, that holding an equity stake in the Chinese business was another option, and that Chinese parent Wingtech Technology should be fairly compensated if the split became permanent.
The two statements describe the same company from opposite ends. The Dutch side is keeping a reunion on the table, while the Chinese side is reporting progress on a supply chain that no longer needs European wafers. Chang’s claims are the company’s own; no independent audit of the unit’s output or quality has been published.
The China unit says local foundries now cover its whole range
Chang said Nexperia China works with domestic foundries for wafers and uses its own plants and local contractors for packaging and testing, according to SCMP. Existing product lines are still being moved onto the 12-inch platform, a goal the unit first set out in August. Delivery times for some components have already fallen to four to six weeks, from 12 to 16 weeks, he said.
The unit has been building this base since the Dutch parent stopped shipping European wafers to it directly more than a year ago. In August, Chang said Nexperia China had delivered more than 40 billion chips to over 1,000 customers in 11 months and was the first to mass-produce power chips on 12-inch wafers, while the European plants still mainly run 6-inch and 8-inch lines, IT Home reported. The Economic Observer reported the unit’s claim that domestic content had risen from under 20% to 100%, with price cuts of about 30% on eight power MOSFET products.
Tilger keeps a reunion open as the Dutch side grows without China
Before the split, Nexperia made wafers in Europe and shipped them to China for assembly, testing and packaging, TechNode noted. Tilger said the Dutch business had gained from customers who want a supply chain independent of China. "I don’t think there’s anything against also holding an equity stake in the Chinese operations," he told Reuters, adding that Wingtech remains "the economic owner of the shares of the company" even though it cannot exercise control.
Excluding the Chinese units it no longer controls, Nexperia reported third-quarter revenue of US$389 million, up 9.3% from the previous quarter. Nexperia has expanded packaging in Malaysia to replace lost Chinese capacity, but Tilger said output was "still insufficient to meet the demand levels in the market." Bits&Chips, a Dutch trade publication, said he spoke at the Electronica fair and that talks are taking place behind closed doors. Tilger said any long-term settlement is for Wingtech’s board and two Dutch court-appointed officials to negotiate.
The court appointees’ split plan is the first test
Reuters reported that Wingtech rejected those officials’ proposal to leave it in charge of the Chinese business while outside investors took control of the rest of Nexperia. Wingtech’s November 4 announcement, as reported by Phoenix, is more guarded: it said it is willing to keep negotiating the "Two Circles" plan but will not accept a solution imposed without its consent, and it called the proposal an expropriation of its investment.
The same announcement says the Dutch side’s Amsterdam suit seeks US$2 billion plus interest from Wingtech, founder Zhang Xuezheng, Nexperia (China) and Nexperia (Shanghai), partly for building a competing China supply chain, which EastFrontier covered when Nexperia sued Wingtech in Amsterdam. Wingtech rejects the claims. A Dongguan court on November 2 barred the sale or dilution of equity in Nexperia’s Dutch companies. The Amsterdam Enterprise Chamber heard a request on October 30 to stop Wingtech obstructing the administrator and the Two Circles plan, and had not ruled when Wingtech made its announcement.
That ruling is the next marker. An order binding Wingtech to the court appointees’ plan would point toward a permanent split with compensation, while the China unit’s progress in moving its remaining product lines onto local 12-inch wafers will show how much of the old integrated chain is left to reunite.