Huixin: Driving China’s Self Sufficiency in Advanced Semiconductor Equipment

Set in 2025, this case describes the five-year journey of Huixin Technology (Huixin) Ltd., a China-based semiconductor equipment company. It highlights the challenges the company faced in an industry dominated by global players and a market with exacting precision requirements. This was compounded by geopolitical tensions disrupting access to experienced talent, advanced technologies, and essential components.

China’s semiconductor market represented a large opportunity driven by demand from a vast domestic application base and government efforts to promote self-reliance amid intensifying US-China tensions. Since 2015, the number of domestic start-ups had surged in the country, however, the niche and specialised field of metrology and inspection—Huixin’s focus—still had very few players. Founded in 2020, Huixin had built strong research and development (R&D) and production capabilities, and in 2024, reported annual sales of nearly RMB 70 million (US$10 million). Over the next few years, it planned to expand its product portfolio and scale rapidly, targeting doubling of revenue annually.

This momentum, however, brought new challenges. Scaling production required significant investment and constant upgrades to manufacture next-generation, higher-quality, and more cost-efficient products. The global semiconductor landscape remained volatile with supply chain constraints worsening. Domestically, Huixin struggled to match the financial strength and brand reputation of large incumbents, making it difficult to attract and retain top talent.

More importantly, the intense hands-on management style, which had driven the company’s early success, was becoming increasingly unsustainable as the business grew in complexity and size. Clearly, Huixin required a strong middle management layer and formal governance to sustain scale, but would these changes undermine its agility and entrepreneurial spirit, the very qualities that drove its innovation?

This case will help students analyse an organisation’s external environment, evaluate the potential of its core resources to create sustainable competitive advantage, and learn about the difference between static resources and dynamic capabilities. Students will also examine the role of leadership and organisational structure in enabling scale and managing the operational complexity that growth brings.

Inspection copies and teaching notes are available for university faculty. To receive an inspection copy and teaching note, please email cmpshop@smu.edu.sg with your registered faculty email ID and a link to your contact information on the faculty directory at your university as verification. An inspection copy and teaching note will then be sent to your faculty email account.

Download information

SMU Faculty/Staff can download the case & teaching note on iNet with your SMU login ID & Password via the following links:

·      The Case (SMU-25-0034)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-25-0034TN)

For purchase of the case and supplementary materials via The Case Centre, please access the following links:

·      The Case (SMU-25-0034)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-25-0034)

For purchase of the case and supplementary materials via Harvard Business Publishing, please access the following links:

·      The Case (SMU-25-0034)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-25-0034)