Tsinghua Unigroup, a subsidiary of Tsinghua Holdings, along with four other semiconductor companies, is on the 2020 Forbes list of China’s “50 Most Innovative Companies”, the first time it has appeared. Forbes China, the Chinese-language edition of Forbes, released the latest annual “50 Most Innovative Companies” list on June 22. 

This is the third consecutive time that Forbes China has released the list, which assesses a company’s innovation capabilities in terms of business model, R&D investment, core independent intellectual property rights, transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and growth.

The list covers 45 industries and 309 segments. By analyzing the development status, competition and development trends of different fields, the list tailors a unique evaluation system and standards for different fields, and selects the most innovative and sustainable companies in each one.

As a large-scale integrated circuit leader in China, Tsinghua Unigroup has continued to invest in R&D and innovation for many years. So far, the company has established 60 R&D centers around the world, and it has had around 45,000 employees and 30,000 patents, more than 90 percent of which are invention patents. It has also won many national scientific and technological awards, including the National Science and Technology Progress Award.

Tsinghua Unigroup ranked 20th in the 2019 Global Semiconductor Technology Invention Patent Ranking released by incoPat and IPRdaily, the highest ranking in the electrical semiconductors in the Chinese mainland. The company was also on the "50 Smartest Companies" list from MIT Technology Review.

It has had many leading international and domestic chip and related components design and manufacturing subsidiaries, such as Unisoc, Guoxin Micro, Linxens, Yangtze Memory Technologies, Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd, and Xi’an UniIC. Their products include mobile communication chips, memory chips, FPGAs, AI chips, micro-connectors and security chips.

UNISOC is the world's third largest open market mobile chip design company, the world's leading 5G communication chip company and China's largest IoT chipset supplier. Its products cover 2G/3G/4G/5G mobile communication baseband chips, AIoT chips, RF front-end chips, wireless connection chips, and TV chips. It is a global company that fully masters full scenario communication technologies, including 2G/3G/4G/5G mobile communication technology and IoT. Built on a 6nm EUV process technology and empowered by some of the latest design techniques, UNISOC launched its new-generation 5G SoC mobile platform -- T7520 -- in February.

Guoxin Micro produces dual-interface smart security chips with the world's highest security level certification. The chip products are widely used in bank cards, social security cards, resident health cards, transportation cards, residence permits, smart homes, and the Internet of Things. The company also owns China's first independent intellectual property, high-performance FPGA PGT180H with tens of millions of gates. FPGA products can be used in routers, switches, drones, base stations, and vehicle systems in communications, artificial intelligence, information security, data centers, and the industrial Internet of Things.

Linxens is a world-class specialist in the design and manufacture of micro connectors for smartcards. The Linxens China factory being built in Tianjin will reach the world's most advanced level in terms of technology and production processes in the area.

Following the small-scale mass production of 32-layer 3D NAND flash memory chips in 2018, Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. (YMTC)’s 64-layer TLC 3D NAND flash memory with innovative Xtacking® architecture was officially put into mass-production in September 2019. On April 13, 2020, YMTC announced that its 128-layer 1.33Tb QLC 3D NAND flash memory chip, X2-6070, has passed sample verification on the SSD platform through co-working with multiple partners. As the first QLC based 128-layer 3D NAND, X2-6070 has achieved the highest bit density, highest I/O speed and highest capacity so far among all released flash memory parts in the industry. On June 20, the second phase (civil) of the national storage base project implemented by YMTC started construction.