A ceremony marks the start of operations of GalaxyCore's new plant in the Lin-gang Special Area. [Photo/WeChat ID: shlgguanweihui] 

The ceremony for manufacturer GalaxyCore Shanghai Limited Corporation's new micro wafer plant – situated in the Lin-gang Special Area, in East China's Shanghai – was held on Dec 22 to mark the start of operations. 

In the electronics sector, a wafer is a thin slice of semiconductor – such as a crystalline silicon – that is used in the fabrication of integrated circuits and in photovoltaics it is used to make solar power cells.

GalaxyCore, founded in 2003, now has nine subsidiaries located around the world. It is a leading IC design company for Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Transistor or CMOS image sensors.

The company also designs, develops and sells display driver integrated circuits or ICs, which are capable of powering display panels to show images on screen. They're mainly used in mobile phones, smart wearables and other electronic devices with displays.

The new plant is the first manufacturing plant for the 12-inch CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) wafer that's been set up in China for enterprises transitioning from fabless to fab-lite manufacturing. 

It's been designed to mainly produce middle and high-level CIS products, with the aim to improve and enrich the existing mix of product categories.

It's also expected to speed up the transformation of R&D results, improve GalaxyCore's competitiveness and expand market share. The facility will focus on meeting customer needs by targeting the development of innovative technologies and producing customized products.