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China’s legacy chipmakers surge after Beijing targets US analogue ICs

By Wency Chen

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China’s legacy chipmakers surge after Beijing targets US analogue ICs

Shares of China’s domestic legacy chipmakers, including SG Micro and 3Peak, surged on Monday after Beijing’s weekend announcement of an anti-dumping investigation into imported US semiconductors.
The government’s probe into imported “analogue integrated-circuit (IC) chips” – widely used in home appliances, machinery and electric vehicles – marked the first-ever anti-dumping probe into imported IC products as the country makes steady progress in developing domestic alternatives for these products.
Leading the rally was SG Micro, a Beijing-headquartered analogue IC maker, whose shares on Shenzhen’s ChiNext board surged by the maximum 20 per cent limit on Monday to close at 87.42 yuan (US$12.26).
The company has a broad chip portfolio spanning industrial, consumer electronics, communications and automotive applications, with power management chips as its largest product line. It announced plans last month to seek a Hong Kong listing.
Shares of 3Peak, which specialises in analogue signal chain and power management chips, rose 9.7 per cent to 163.2 yuan at closing, while while Novosense Microelectronics gained 10.79 per cent.
Other gainers included Finemade Microelectronics, Shanghai Belling, Chipown Microelectronics and Southchip Semiconductor.

Analogue chips process real-world signals such as sound, temperature and light, converting them into forms usable by electronic systems.
They are widely used in power management, audio equipment, communications, sensors and automotive systems.
Unlike AI chips such as graphics processing units, analogue chips are typically manufactured using mature production nodes such as 90-nanometre and above.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said on Saturday that it would launch an anti-dumping investigation into certain US semiconductor suppliers, following an application filed by the Jiangsu Semiconductor Industry Association.
The complaint specifically targets commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs – both types of analogue chips – produced on 40nm and larger nodes.
According to the filing, the main US companies under scrutiny include Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Broadcom and ON Semiconductor.
Between 2022 and 2024, imports of the targeted products grew by 37 per cent, while their average prices in China fell by 51.77 per cent, giving US producers an average annual market share of 41 per cent during this period, the filing wrote.
Citic Securities wrote in a research note that international giants such as Texas Instruments had in recent years expanded capacity aggressively while using sharp price cuts in the Chinese market to regain lost share.
This, the brokerage said, slowed the pace of domestic substitution in analogue chips and squeezed profitability for both Chinese and foreign manufacturers.
For example, in the first half of 2025, SG Micro reported revenue of 1.819 billion yuan, up 15.37 per cent year on year. However, the pace of growth slowed sharply, dropping 21.9 percentage points from the previous year.
Adjusted net profit attributable to shareholders fell 14.98 per cent to 134.4 million yuan, while its profit margin shrank compared to 2022.
“With the launch of an anti-dumping investigation, local suppliers may gain a more favourable market environment, and profitability is expected to improve,” the note said, adding that China already had a relatively mature supply chain for analogue semiconductors.