China’s National Integrated Circuit Investment Fund, which kicked off four years ago with $20 billion, is now trying to raise a second fund of $30 billion.

The second fund was announced in March but yesterday China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said: “We welcome foreign enterprises to participate.”

Doubtless the recent move by President Trump to deny US ICs to ZTE has spurred China to further increase its push to develop is chip industry.

Originally the motivation was the massive import bill for ICs which exceeded the import bill for oil.

A Chinese drive for  success in semiconductors was expected 30 years ago. Initiatives in the 90s fizzled out.

The encouragement if hundreds of local fabless companies achieved little in the way of import substitution.

Initiatives to establish a foundry industry have led to Chinese foundries capturing less than $5 billion revenues from a $60 billion market.

Now China’s relying on three huge memory fabs coming on-stream in Q1 to do the job.