Under the agreement, National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund will acquire 24% of the enlarged shareholding of ZTE Microelectronics. The new investment will enhance ZTE Microelectronics’ research and development capabilities, and strengthen its offerings in advanced semiconductor technologies, as well as broaden its marketing and distribution channels in China and in international markets.

ZTE Microelectronics focuses on the development of semiconductor technologies for applications including telecommunications, mobile devices, Big Data, cloud computing, Internet of Things and wearables.

With more than 2,000 R&D employees in offices in China and the United States, ZTE Microelectronics is currently developing products with 28 nanometer technologies, and has R&D capabilities for 16 nanometer and 14 nanometer technologies.

Chipsets developed by ZTE Microelectronics are currently deployed commercially in base stations to support multi-frequency band wireless access, as well as optical networking units (ONUs).

In addition, ZTE Microelectronics also develops products used in smartphones and mobile devices shipped in markets including China, Brazil, Indonesia and Russia, supporting LTE-Advanced standards and multimode operations.

In 2014, ZTE Microelectronics increased its net profit by 258% to RMB 458.6 million, with revenue growing to RMB 3.06 billion.

National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, with shareholders including China’s Ministry of Finance, China Development Bank and China Mobile Communications Corporation, has investments in developers of semiconductor technologies, an area of national strategic interest to the Chinese government.