In recent personnel changes at China’s leading domestic chip equipment company, Shanghai Microelectronics Equipment Co., Ltd., also known as “Micro Company,” two American executives have resigned. This company has been on the U.S. list of Chinese military enterprises twice before.
On September 21, Micro Company issued an announcement regarding changes in deputy general manager and core technical personnel.
According to the announcement, the board recently received written resignation reports from directors Nituqiang and Yang Wei. Nituqiang applied to resign from the positions of deputy general manager and core technical personnel of the company due to personal reasons. Yang Wei also applied to resign from the position of core technical personnel for personal reasons. After their resignations, Nituqiang and Yang Wei will still work in the company.
Regarding these two core technical personnel, the announcement mentioned that Nituqiang, born in 1962, is an American citizen with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the University of Science and Technology of China, a Ph.D. and postdoctoral degree from the University of Texas. As of the disclosure in the announcement, Nituqiang directly holds 764,358 shares, accounting for 0.123% of the total share capital of the company.
Yang Wei, born in 1966, is also an American citizen with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from Xi’an Jiaotong University. As of the disclosure in the announcement, Yang Wei directly holds 454,017 shares, accounting for 0.073% of the total share capital of the company.
After this change, the number of core technical personnel at Micro Company decreased from 9 to 7.
Micro Company stated that it is mainly engaged in the research and development, production, and sales of high-end semiconductor equipment, involving high-end equipment in the fields of semiconductor integrated circuit manufacturing, advanced packaging, LED production, MEMS manufacturing, and other micro-fabrication processes.
At the end of January 2024, the U.S. Department of Defense placed Micro Company on the Chinese Communist Military Enterprise List (CMC List) based on the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act Section 1260H.
On August 16, Micro Company announced that it had officially filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense in U.S. court.
This is the second time the company has been included in the CMC list. On January 14, 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense had previously listed Micro Company as a company associated with the military, but removed it from the list on June 3 of the same year.
Financial reports show that in the first half of 2024, Micro Company’s operating income was 3.448 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36.46%; the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company was 517 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 48.48%.
As of the closing price on September 23, Micro Company’s stock price had fallen by 10.46% in the past month, to 117.45 yuan per share, with a market value of 72.9 billion yuan.