After working in and around China’s semiconductor industry for a decade, Doug Sparks wrote a book about his experiences. The book’s title, “A Decade in the Chinese Semiconductor Industry: An American’s Story,” says it all, while only vaguely describing the 377-page book’s contents. That’s because only a small fraction of the book focuses on the state of China’s semiconductor industry. Instead, the book has a much broader theme that looks at the current and evolving political, economic, social, and cultural climates in China. The book then positions China’s semiconductor industry within those multiple dimensions.

During a 1939 radio broadcast, UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill described the alliance between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” That phrase applies equally well to China, in my opinion. I’ve visited China four times over the past 20 years, and I’m no closer to understanding the country than I was before my first trip there. Xi Jinping’s ascent to China’s presidency and the COVID-19 epidemic have complicated the situation even further.

Sparks has multiple materials science degrees from Purdue University, including a PhD. For his graduate work, he focused on inkjet printing, which gave him an early start in MEMS. Sparks spent the early part of his career working on MEMS and IC development for automotive applications at Delphi Automotive Systems (formerly GM’s Delco). He traveled to Japan and Europe where he gained international business and semiconductor experience. Eventually, in 2011, he landed a position as CTO for Hanking Electronics, where he oversaw MEMS product and process development for pressure, temperature, flow, gas, and strain sensors and RF resonators. Over the next decade, Sparks traveled throughout China and visited numerous semiconductor fabs belonging to a long list of Chinese and international semiconductor makers. He also experienced first-hand the effects that COVID-19 had on China and the country’s semiconductor industry.

After working in China’s semiconductor industry for a decade, Doug Sparks wrote a book about his experiences. “A Decade in the Chinese semiconductor Industry: An American’s Story,” says it all and yet it only vaguely describes the book’s contents at the same time. Image credit: Doug Sparks

The first 200 pages of “A Decade in the Chinese semiconductor Industry” describes life in 21^st-century China and lays out the forces that formed today’s China. In his book, Sparks writes rather extensively about Chinese cuisine, which can appear both strange and disgusting to Western palates. The book includes many color photographs of strange foods that Westerners are unlikely to find appealing including delicacies such as chicken feet, aquatic intestinal parasites, and sea cucumbers. Sparks ate them all. Many pictures in the book depict whole butchered animals or severed animal heads, prepared and arranged on a plate. Fish heads are considered particular delicacies for the cheek meat. Dining with customers and colleagues is a frequent and integral part of doing business in China, so I do not think Sparks includes these pictures to shock. Rather, he’s building the case that China and its customs are far removed from Western business experience. The food chapter is just a taste of things to come.

China has been interacting with other nations for centuries, often to China’s disadvantage. The chapter describing these relations includes this passage, which helps to set the tone for what is to come later in the book:

“The Second Opium War began in 1856 and lasted until 1860. Britain and France combined their land and sea power to defeat China. This conflict resulted in more favorable trade rights for the foreign powers, reparations, and the opening of additional ports, including Shanghai, to foreign trade.

“The Opium Wars marked the beginning of what the Chinese call the ‘Century of Humiliation,’ a period of foreign domination and internal turmoil that significantly impacted China’s modern history.

“The period from the 1830s to the 1930s is called the Century of Humiliation in China today. During my sightseeing in Beijing, I saw many plaques outlining the actions of the British and French during the Second Opium War. At the Summer Palace, located around Kunming Lake, there are signs at various locations detailing what the British and French soldiers did during this war. The wooden structures in the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven were all burnt to the ground during the Opium Wars or by the Japanese during World War II. This Century of Humiliation still plays a part in China’s wolf warrior mentality, which diplomats have recently seen.”

A subsequent chapter on corruption and purges adds further context for the upcoming description of the semiconductor industry in China. The chapter begins with this paragraph:

“Many developing countries, not just China, are rife with corruption. Corruption arises in bureaucracies, especially autocratic bureaucracies, with poor judicial protections. Members of the bureaucracy, who can be government or corporate officials, will extract payment from a private citizen or company in exchange for assistance in avoiding entanglement in rules, taxes, fees, or in obtaining approval for an action or project.”

Sparks then describes the many forms that corruption takes in China. Later in this chapter, Sparks describes the election of President Xi Jinping with a paragraph that would likely earn him undue government attention should he ever return to China:

“The emergence of Xi Jinping as the leader of China began with excitement that quickly turned to fear and apprehension across much of China’s business and local government leaders. In early 2013, President Xi promised to catch both Tigers and Flies. The Tigers were high-level government officials and virtually all members of rival CCP factions. Flies were lower-level local officials and business leaders. What began in that first year of his rise to power and continues to this day is fodder for a reboot of the Game of Thrones – CCP style.”

This chapter continues by saying that a high tolerance for certain forms of corruption is just one of the cultural differences that Western observers may not find palatable, just like much of the cuisine described in earlier chapters. Many people in China view copying (IP theft) as “simply a way to accomplish a task faster.” Later in the book, Sparks points out that other countries, including the United States and Japan, have also relied upon IP theft when it was expedient. Companies in the United States took trade secrets from the UK in the early 1800s to get a leg up during the first industrial revolution. Japan extensively “borrowed” US technological IP without permission or licenses after World War II to help rebuild its shattered economy. To be fair, Sparks points out that some Chinese semiconductor companies legally purchase and license the IP that they use, but blatant theft and routine violation of NDA agreements are also common.

After plowing through 220 pages to set the stage, Sparks is finally ready to discuss Chinese semiconductor companies. He writes:

“Wafer fabs have been built in China at an amazing rate over the last 15 years, with more than 75 fabs in the country at last count. In addition to government labs and international fabs, several private wafer fabs have been built in the last two decades. Wafer diameters of 100, 150, 200, and 300 mm are used in these fabs, and critical dimensions shrank as wafer diameters increase. Mature node 300mm IC and 200mm MEMS fabs are now in China. Large Chinese IC foundries include SMIC, Hua Hong, and Huali. SITRI (Shanghai Industrial Research Institute), Siles, and Hanking Electronics have built 200mm MEMS or microsystem wafer fabs in China. As of 2024, the smallest node produced in a Chinese wafer fab has been 7nm and operated by SMIC. Due to export controls, moving below 7nm will be difficult in China.”

However, a surprising number of these newly built fabs are not successful. Neither do they perish. Instead, they become zombies. Sparks writes:

“It should be noted that some of these fabs are not fully equipped. Government funding of construction projects is relatively easy to obtain since this is a key CCP evaluation metric for mayors and provincial governors. Many totally or partially state-funded wafer fabs will only get enough investment to partially install facilities or equipment in a new fab. The cash flow at these foundries is next to zero, and they are not financially self-supporting. Local government officials will often pay salaries for a skeleton crew to go to work each day just for tours of government officials and potential investors. Some of these fabs turn off HEPA filters on the weekend to save power, resulting in particle problems contaminating the equipment, fab surfaces, and wafers. In a Western country, these companies would quickly go bankrupt, but in China, they can linger on in a zombie-like status for years.”

Of course, some Chinese semiconductor foundries and fabs, such as the companies listed above, are successful.

The remainder of Sparks’s book describes an ongoing Chinese social dystopia with enhanced surveillance through CCTV cameras and mobile phone technology, which proliferated exponentially during the COVID-19 era. The descriptions of methods that the government employs to keep tabs on and control its population are positively Orwellian and employ far more advanced technology than the author of “1984” ever envisioned. However, even with these built-in societal restrictions and disadvantages, China seems determined to compete in the global semiconductor market. In this book, Sparks provides a significant amount of detail about and insight into why China behaves the way it does, and anyone interested in the future of the global electronics industry should take a serious interest in what he has to say.

Sparks has returned from China and is now a consultant here in the USA, where he’s the CEO of M2N Technologies LLC, a consulting firm specializing in semiconductors, MEMS, and sensors and their supply chains. M2N provides consulting and development services for fab selection. supply chain strategies and optimizations, MEMS packaging and process development, and semiconductor process transfers between fabs. The company also provides M&A and patent litigation assistance to its clients.

On a practical note, this book would have benefitted from a copy editor. There are numerous typos, spelling issues, and grammatical errors. Many of the images included in the book have been visibly distorted to fit the layout. The book is printed using double-spaced typesetting, so the content would fill a book only half as thick if laid out normally. Perhaps Sparks did this to justify the book’s $40 price. These traits are all hallmarks of a self-published book, but they should not deter you from purchasing and reading this book, because it’s unlikely you’ll find a more up-to-date, honest, accurate, and raw assessment of China’s semiconductor industry. I purchased my copy from Amazon after learning about the book. Here’s a link.