Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is a semiconductor foundry company headquartered in Shanghai, China. It provides integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing services on 350 nm to 28 nm process technologies. SMIC has wafer fabrication sites throughout mainland China, offices in the United States, Italy, Japan, and Taiwan, and a representative office in Hong Kong. Notable customers include Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Texas Instruments.

SMIC was established as an exempted company under the laws of the Cayman Islands on April 3, 2000 by Richard Chang (Traditional Chinese: 張汝京), a Chinese-American entrepreneur who had previously worked at Texas Instruments and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC). Under Chang’s leadership, SMIC built its first fab in the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai, China, and subsequently expanded its manufacturing operations to other cities in mainland China. SMIC is currently the largest and most advanced semiconductor foundry in mainland China, operating wafer fabrication facilities in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenzhen in China and in Avezzano, Italy (SMIC acquired 70% ownership interest of LFoundry S.r.l on July 29, 2016). SMIC was listed on the SEHK (Ticker: 0981) and New York Stock Exchange (Ticker: SMI) in 2004.

In October 2007, the United States Government enrolled SMIC in its Validated End User (VEU) program as a trusted customer of regulated U.S. technology, thereby reducing many of the export control barriers for SMIC.

In early 2009, Harvard Business School wrote a case study on SMIC's business model, characterized as a Reverse Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT). The case study found that SMIC is executing a strategy that leverages the desires of municipalities in China to build clusters of high technology companies. By partnering with those cities to build new semiconductor fabs that SMIC would then operate under contract, the company could build scale without necessarily confronting immediate large capital outlays. Unlike the Build-Operate-Transfer model that some municipalities were using to build infrastructure like the new subway in Shenzhen, in the SMIC "Reverse BOT model" a municipality would build a capital intensive fab and SMIC would operate it, sharply lowering its capital costs. This model gave the company a unique level of flexibility in an industry where capital costs were the major driver of product costs.

In November 2009, Richard Chang resigned as CEO and was replaced by David N.K. Wang (Traditional Chinese: 王寧國), a former executive of Hua Hong (Group) Co., Ltd. and Applied Materials. Wang served until 2011, when he resigned and Tzu-Yin Chiu (Traditional Chinese: 邱慈雲), an experienced semiconductor industry executive, was appointed as CEO. Tzu-Yin Chiu then transitioned CEO responsibilities to Dr. Haijun Zhou on May 10, 2017.

In 2013, SMIC established a joint venture in Beijing to fabricate using 40nm and below technologies.

On December 22, 2014, SilTech Shanghai, one of SMIC's indirectly wholly owned subsidiaries; JCET; and China IC Fund entered into a co-investment agreement to form an investment consortium in connection with the proposed acquisition of STATS ChipPAC, a leading provider of advanced semiconductor packaging and test services in the world and a company incorporated in the Republic of Singapore, shares of which were listed on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited before the acquisition. On June 18, 2015, according to the co-investment agreement, SilTech Shanghai invested US$102 million as a capital contribution for 19.6% ownership interest in Changjiang Xinke, a company incorporated in Jiangsu province, China, which is accounted as an associate of the Group.

On June 23, 2015, Huawei, Qualcomm Global Trading Pte. Ltd., IMEC International, and SMIC jointly issued a press release in relation to the formation of the SMIC Advanced Technology Research & Development (Shanghai) Corporation, an equity joint venture company. The joint venture company's focus was to be the R&D for the next generation CMOS logic technology and was designed to build China’s most advanced integrated circuit (IC) development R&D platform. SMIC Advanced Technology R&D (Shanghai) Corporation is majority owned by SMIC, while Huawei, IMEC, and Qualcomm are minority shareholders. The current focus of the joint venture company is on developing 14nm logic technology.

On June 24, 2016, SMIC. LFoundry Europe and Marsica entered into a sale and purchase agreement pursuant to which LFoundry Europe and Marsica agreed to sell and SMIC agreed to purchase 70% of the corporate capital of LFoundry S.r.l. for an aggregate cash consideration of EUR49 million subject to adjustment. The acquisition was completed as of July 29, 2016.

On October 14, 2016, Ningbo Semiconductor International Corporation was jointly established by China IC Capital (the wholly owned investment fund of SMIC), Ningbo Senson Electronics Technology Co., Ltd, and Beijing Integrated Circuit Design and Testing Fund with a registered capital of RMB355 million, equal to US$52.8 million. SMIC holds 66.76% of the ownership interest. NSI will develop analog and specialty semiconductor process technology platforms in the areas of high-voltage analog, radio frequency, and optoelectronics. These developments will support customers in IC design and product development for applications in smart home, industrial, and automotive electronics, new generations of radio communications, augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, and other specialty systems.

The company was the target of a lawsuit brought by TSMC, accusing SMIC of misappropriating TSMC intellectual property. The first round of litigation ended in 2005 with a $175 million settlement. A second round was opened in 2006. The liability phase of the lawsuit began on September 9, 2009 in Oakland, California, and the jury found SMIC liable on 61 out of 65 claims.

SMIC entered into a settlement agreement with TSMC to resolve all pending lawsuits between the parties, including the legal action filed by TSMC in California for which a verdict was returned by the jury against SMIC on November 4, 2009 and the legal action filed by SMIC in Beijing. SMIC and TSMC have entered into a settlement agreement on November 9, 2009 to settle and dismiss the CalifoCase, including all claims and defenses of SMIC yet to be decided in that case and SMIC's appeal in the Beijing Case, thus concluding all pending court litigation between the parties.

Key provisions of the settlement include a mutual release of all claims that were or could have been brought in the pending lawsuits; termination of SMIC's obligation to make remaining payments under the prior settlement agreement between the parties (approximately US$40 million); payment to TSMC of an aggregate of US$200 million; and a grant to TSMC of approximately 8% of SMIC's issued share capital and a warrant which would allow TSMC to obtain total ownership of approximately 10% of SMIC's issued share capital.

SMIC has customer service and marketing offices in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Taiwan, and a representative office in Hong Kong. It has wafer fabs at the following locations: