Newport Wafer Fab, the UK’s largest chip producer, has been bought by Chinese owned company Nexperia.

Nexperia, headquartered in the Netherlands, currently employs over 12,000 workers, and produces over 90 billion units annually.

The Dutch manufacturer, which reported revenues of $1.4 billion in 2020, was purchased by a consortium of Chinese investors in 2016.

The exact size of the acquisition of the Newport, Wales based chip factory has not been disclosed but various sources estimate it at £63 million.

Production at the facility started in the 1980s when it began making silicon chips, before later transitioning into manufacturing semiconductors and compound semiconductors.

In 2017, ten councils in the Cardiff region announced a £38 million investment in the facility, in a move intended to create 2,000 skilled jobs over the next five years.

The news comes at a time of pronounced foreign interest in the UK semiconductor industry; Nvidia’s planned $40 billion acquisition of Cambridge-based chip designer Arm is currently under review on competition and national security grounds.

Other European countries are taking hard lines on semiconductor acquisitions by foreign entities; the Italian government blocked Chinese firm Shenzhen Investment Holdings from buying a majority stake in Milan-headquartered semiconductor company LPE in April.

"The acquisition is great news for the staff here in Newport and the wider business community in the region as Nexperia is providing much-needed investment and stability for the future," said Paul James, operations director at the Newport site, in a statement issued by Nexperia.

"I must stress again that having the UKs leading 200mm silicon and semiconductor technology development and processing facility being taken over by a Chinese entity – in my view – represents a significant economic and national security concern,", said Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the UK government's Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

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