--- title: "Hua Hong's Wuxi FAB9 ramps as China's No. 2 foundry leans into 12-inch wafers" date: 2026-10-24 category: Chips & Compute site: NeuroAI canonical: https://neuroai.site/a/na-chips-huahong-foundry language: en --- # Hua Hong's Wuxi FAB9 ramps as China's No. 2 foundry leans into 12-inch wafers > Hua Hong posted 2025 revenue of RMB 17.29B (US$2.44B; HK$19.0B), up 20%, as its Wuxi FAB9 pushed 12-inch wafers to about 60% of sales. A foundry's fortunes are decided less by a single headline chip than by the slow, grinding rhythm of wafer starts. In a cleanroom on the outskirts of Wuxi, a new 12-inch line has spent the past year learning to run at full tilt. For Hua Hong (华虹半导体), that line is the center of gravity. The Shanghai-based contract manufacturer has long been the quiet No. 2 behind the country's largest pure-play foundry (晶圆代工), content to serve specialty and mature nodes. The bet now is that scale, not just specialization, can carry the next chapter — if utilization holds and the new capacity pays for itself. ## Key takeaways - Hua Hong's 2025 revenue reached RMB 17.29B (US$2.44B; HK$19.0B), up 20.2% YoY, with net profit RMB 377M (US$53M; HK$415M), down 1.0% (Hua Hong 2025 annual report). - Its Wuxi FAB9 reached over 40,000 wafer starts per month by December 2025, lifting 12-inch revenue to about 60% of total (Hua Hong 2025 annual report). - Both 8-inch and 12-inch lines reported average utilization above 100% in 2025 (Hua Hong 2025 annual report, via Securities Times). - 2026 Q1 revenue was RMB 4.63B (US$652M; HK$5.09B), up 18.2%, with net profit RMB 140M (US$19.7M; HK$154M), up 513% (Hua Hong Q1 2026 report). - Hua Hong ranks 5th among global pure-play foundries and 2nd among mainland China firms by 2025 sales, per the company (Hua Hong 2025 annual report). - A proposed acquisition of Hua Li Micro (华力微) was accepted by the Shanghai exchange and is expected to close in H2 2026 (Hua Hong / Securities Times). ## A foundry built on specialties Hua Hong is a pure-play foundry (晶圆代工) split between 8-inch and 12-inch fabs, but its identity is specialty technologies rather than bleeding-edge logic. The core platforms are embedded non-volatile memory, standalone flash, analog and power devices, logic and RF, and discrete power components such as IGBTs. That mix is deliberate. Instead of racing to the smallest node, the company serves the less glamorous but high-volume chips inside cars, industrial equipment, MCUs and power supplies. The strategy has kept it out of the most capital-intensive corner of the industry — and away from the tightest export controls. ## The FAB9 ramp The headline operational story is FAB9, Hua Hong's 12-inch project in Wuxi. The line began risk production at the end of 2024 and ramped through 2025; by December 2025 its monthly wafer starts exceeded 40,000 (Hua Hong 2025 annual report). That ramp lifted 12-inch revenue to roughly 60% of the company's total, up from a smaller base a year earlier. Volume followed. Full-year 2025 shipments, measured in equivalent 8-inch wafers, rose 18.4% year on year, while sales value rose 19.9% (Hua Hong 2025 annual report). The company also reported average utilization above 100% on both its 8-inch and 12-inch lines — a wording that most likely reflects overtime and a conservative nameplate definition rather than physical overrun. ## Margins tell a different story Revenue growth of 20% masks a thinner bottom line. Net profit attributable to shareholders slipped 1.04% to RMB 377 million (US$53 million; HK$415 million) in 2025, even as the top line expanded (Hua Hong 2025 annual report). The drag is familiar for any foundry opening a new mega-fab: depreciation, ramp labor and pricing pressure in mature nodes eat into margins just as capacity comes online. Research and development spend reached RMB 1.99 billion (US$281 million; HK$2.19 billion), a sign the company is still funding new process platforms rather than harvesting. The fourth quarter offered relief — net profit of RMB 125 million versus a RMB 197 million loss a year earlier, a return to black. The 2026 first quarter extended that: revenue RMB 4.63 billion (US$652 million; HK$5.09 billion), up 18.2%, and net profit RMB 140 million (US$19.7 million; HK$154 million), up 513% (Hua Hong Q1 2026 report). That jump is off a low base and flattered by a foreign-exchange gain, so it overstates underlying momentum. ## Where the demand came from The growth was not evenly spread. Embedded non-volatile memory benefited from recovering MCU and automotive demand, with 55nm eFlash in high-volume production and 40nm eFlash COT in risk production. Standalone NOR flash sales rose 44.5%, helped by a 48nm product. Analog and power platforms grew 42.0%, driven by AI-adjacent power supplies and handsets, alongside automotive and industrial demand. Logic and RF saw a 40nm ultra-low-power process enter volume production, and power devices pushed a 1.6-micron IGBT process into electric-vehicle main inverters and renewable-storage systems (Hua Hong 2025 annual report). In other words, Hua Hong's "AI" exposure is mostly indirect — the power and analog chips that sit around accelerators, not the accelerators themselves. The platform mix that drove 2025 growth included: - Embedded non-volatile memory: recovering MCU and automotive demand, with 55nm eFlash in volume and 40nm eFlash COT in risk production. - Standalone NOR flash: sales up 44.5%, helped by a 48nm product (Hua Hong 2025 annual report). - Analog and power (BCD): up 42.0%, from AI-adjacent power supplies and handsets plus automotive and industrial demand (Hua Hong 2025 annual report). - Logic and RF, and power devices such as a 1.6-micron IGBT process for EV inverters and renewable-storage systems (Hua Hong 2025 annual report). ## The Hua Li Micro question The next leg of capacity may come by acquisition. Hua Hong's proposed purchase of Hua Li Micro (华力微), another 12-inch asset, was accepted by the Shanghai exchange and is expected to close in the second half of 2026 (Hua Hong / Securities Times). If completed, it would consolidate more Shanghai-area 12-inch capacity under one roof. The company has also moved to rename itself to Hua Hong Hongli (华虹宏力) for brand unification across its A and H shares. ## Honest limitations This article draws on Hua Hong's 2025 annual report and 2026 first-quarter disclosure as reported by Chinese financial media; the figures were not independently audited here. The "utilization above 100%" phrasing is the company's and should be read cautiously. The claim of ranking 5th globally and 2nd among mainland China pure-play foundries is the company's own citation of 2025 sales and is unverified in this piece. The Q1 2026 profit surge rests on a low comparison base and a forex gain. Currency figures use fixed rates of ¥7.1 = US$1 and ¥1 = HK$1.1; the Q2 2026 revenue guidance of US$690M–700M is left in the company's own dollars. ## What readers can do now - Operators: treat Hua Hong's mature-node capacity as a diversification option for MCU, power and embedded-memory supply, but qualify lead times during the FAB9 ramp. - Investors: watch the 12-inch revenue mix and gross-margin trend more than top-line growth; the Hua Li Micro close is the next catalyst to track. - Researchers: map Hua Hong's specialty nodes — 90nm BCD, 65nm RF SOI, 55nm eFlash — against your own device roadmaps as second-source options. --- Published by NeuroAI (https://neuroai.site/) — https://neuroai.site/a/na-chips-huahong-foundry Free to quote with attribution and a link to the original.