Will Semiconductor (WillSemi; ) is a Chinese

publicly listed A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (li ...

fabless semiconductor company Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclu ...

headquartered in Shanghai. Its primary focus is on

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...

for semiconductor design and sale of semiconductor devices. Its products are applied in the fields of mobile communications, vehicle electronics,

Internet of things Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...

devices, and security products. Together with its subsidiaries including

OmniVision Technologies OmniVision Technologies Inc. is an American subsidiary of Chinese semiconductor device and mixed-signal integrated circuit design house Will Semiconductor. The company designs and develops digital imaging products for use in mobile phones, lap ...

(OmniVision), the company does business as OmniVision Group.

Background

WillSemi was founded on 15 May 2007 by Yu Renrong. He previously worked at Inspur. On 4 May 2017, WillSemi held its

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

becoming a listed company on the

Shanghai Stock Exchange The Shanghai Stock Exchange (, SSE) is a stock exchange based in the city of Shanghai, China. It is one of the three stock exchanges operating independently in mainland China, the others being the Beijing Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock ...

. Due to the lack of core technological competitiveness, WillSemi could only engage in the distribution business with low technological content. To improve its competitiveness, it has acquired various other semiconductor firms in the past decade. On 5 June 2017 it planned to acquire OmniVision but its main shareholder Zhuhai Rongfeng objected to the plan as it saw Wingtech was also interested in acquiring OmniVision leading to the first M&A attempt failing. After some changes in OmniVision shareholders, WillSemi made another attempt to acquire OmniVision in May 2018 with the deal being successfully completed in May 2019. The acquisition meant WillSemi could now enter the

CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss ", , ) is a type of MOSFET, metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) semiconductor device fabrication, fabrication process that uses complementary an ...

Image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to form an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they refraction, pass through or reflection (physics), reflect off objects) into s ...

(CIS)technology market as well as have leverage OmniVision's technical expertise to improve its semiconductor design capabilities. The deal made WillSemi the world’s third-largest supplier of CIS, behind

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

and

Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SEC; stylized as SΛMSUNG; ) is a South Korean multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation founded on 13 January 1969 and headquartered in Yeongtong District, Suwon, South Korea. It is curr ...

. In November 2023, WillSemi held a

global depository receipt A global depository receipt (GDR and sometimes spelled ''depositary'') is a general name for a depositary receipt where a certificate issued by a depository bank, which purchases Share (finance), shares of foreign companies, creates a Security ( ...

(GDR) offering on the

SIX Swiss Exchange SIX Swiss Exchange (formerly SWX Swiss Exchange), based in Zürich, is Switzerland's principal stock exchange (the other being BX Swiss). SIX Swiss Exchange also trades other security (finance), securities such as Swiss government bonds and deriv ...

. Raising US$445 million, it was China's largest GDR offering since 2005.

References

External links

* {{SSE 50 companies 2007 establishments in China 2017 initial public offerings Companies based in Shanghai Companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange Companies listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange Electronics companies established in 2007 Fabless semiconductor companies Semiconductor companies of China Companies in the CSI 100 Index 2007 in Shanghai

Background

See also

References

External links