China's top 10 chip companies

China’s chip companies have been on the rise in recent years — even before the country came under tough U.S. export controls, limiting its access to advanced artificial intelligence chips from firms such as Nvidia.

As part of a push for self-sufficiency, Chinese semiconductor firms receive generous support from state-back entities through subsidies and tax breaks, and homegrown tech companies are also incentivized to work with local chipmakers.

Despite the U.S.’ tightening constraints, China’s chip companies — ranging from those focused on AI to memory and mobile — are making efforts to catch up.

Here are 10 of China’s top chip companies, according to The China Project.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, also known as SMIC, makes logic chips and is partially state-owned. It was founded in 2000, and is the mainland’s largest contract chipmaker. SMIC became the third-largest foundry by revenue in the world during the first quarter of last year, according to Counterpoint Research.

The company partnered with Huawei to develop the advanced 7-nanometer chip in the tech giant’s Mate 60 Pro smartphone.

HiSilicon

HiSilicon is Huawei’s chip design subsidiary. It designed the 7-nanometer chip in Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro smartphone, as well as the tech giant’s Ascend AI accelerator chips.

HiSilicon got its start in Shenzhen, China in 1991, and became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Huawei in 2004.

Hua Hong Semiconductor

Hua Hong Semiconductor is a pure-play foundry, meaning it manufactures chips for other companies. It was founded in 1996, and initially focused on DRAM memory chip production. After acquiring Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing in 2011, the firm became China’s second-largest contract chipmaker.

Naura Technology Group

Naura Technology Group manufactures chip production equipment. As China’s largest chip equipment manufacturer, the partially state-owned company provides chipmakers with equipment such as plasma etching and cleaning systems.

Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp

Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp debuted in 2016, and is a leading memory chip manufacturer in China.

Earlier this year, TechInsights found that the company had made advanced memory chip “breakthroughs,” making it more competitive with Samsung and Micron (MU).

Will Semiconductor

Will Semiconductor is a chip designer that was founded in Shanghai, China in 2007. The company focuses on chip design research and development for categories such as mobile and the Internet of Things.

GigaDevice Semiconductor

GigaDevice Semiconductor is a leading designer — both locally and globally — of NOR memory chips, which are used in devices such as mobile phones and medical devices. Unlike NAND flash memory chips which have more storage density, NOR is faster to read.

The company is based in Beijing, China, but was founded in Silicon Valley.

Wingtech

Wingtech is a partially state-owned integrated device manufacturer that focuses on designing and manufacturing chips, as well as consumer electronics such as laptops and smartphones.

UNISOC

As the country’s largest designer of mobile phone chips, UNISOC counts Samsung, ZTE, and Motorola among its clients. It is one of the largest chip designers in the world, coming behind Mediatek, Qualcomm (QCOM), and Apple (AAPL) for global market share. However, the company does not design cutting-edge chips.

Jiangsu Changjiang Electronics Tech

Jiangsu Changjiang Electronics Tech was founded in 1972, and covers semiconductor manufacturing, packaging, and testing. It is the third-largest OSAT firm, or outsourced semiconductor assembly and test firm, in the world.