Interesting things in the world of electronics served as easy to digest articles with a touch of wit.

On 30 September 2025, the Dutch government invoked the Goods Availability Act to take control of Nexperia, a semiconductor chips company owned by a Chinese group called Wingtech Technology. It was the first time that government in the Netherlands had used this 1952 Cold War-era law. It empowered the Dutch economy minister to block or reverse decisions taken by the company’s board.

The move was made public only on 12 October 2025 and was officially justified as necessary to deal with ‘serious administrative shortcomings and actions’ at Nexperia that ‘posed a threat to the continuity and safeguarding on Dutch and European soil of crucial technological knowledge and capabilities.’ It was an attempt to ‘prevent a situation in which goods produced by Nexperia (finished and semi-finished products) would become unavailable in an emergency.’

But this was not all. The case was to become curiouser.

On 19 November 2025, under severe Chinese pressure, the Dutch government suspended its control over Nexperia as a ‘gesture of goodwill’ to China.

Nexperia and the UK Government

It was not the first time Nexperia had been seen as a national security risk by a government. In November 2022, the British government had forced Nexperia to sell its 86% stake in the UK’s largest manufacturer of semiconductors, Newport Wafer Fab. Nexperia had acquired it in July 2021 after getting required clearances. But in 2022, the UK government invoked its recently enacted National Security and Investment Act (NSIA) that came into effect only on 4 January 2022 but could be applied retrospectively from 12 November 2020.

The NSIA applies to certain transactions involving investments and acquisitions that can pose risk to UK’s national security including in 17 sensitive areas designated as ‘Mandatory Sectors.’ These transactions are overseen by an Investment Security Unit (ISU) that operates from the Cabinet Office. In 2026, the UK government has proposed to add three new mandatory sectors: Critical Minerals, Semiconductors, and Water. Earlier, certain semiconductors were included in the mandatory sector ‘Advanced Materials’ but experts have now suggested a stand-alone category of Semiconductors that would cover the entire chips value chain from design, tools, fabrication to packaging and testing.

The Newport Wafer Fab (NWF) was set up in 1980 by Inmos but has changed hands several times since then. In 2024, the UK government gave its consent to the US company Vishay Intertechnology to buy NWF for $177 million from Nexperia under the condition that it must be informed in case Vishay enters into any agreement to give access to the fab unit to any third party.

About Nexperia

Nexperia is a global semiconductor company headquartered in Nijmegen in the Netherlands and having presence in Europe, Asia, and America. It specialises in essential semiconductor chips that power the automative, industrial, and consumer electronic designs worldwide. It operates front-end wafer fabs in Hamburg (Germany) and Manchester (UK). The wafers from these fabs go to assembly centres in Seremban (Malaysia), Cabuyao (Philippines), and Dongguan (China) and then re-exported to distributors in Europe and other parts of the world. Serving a global customer base, the company ships more than 110 billion products annually. Its R&D centres too are spread over numerous locations from Osaka (Japan) and Hongkong to Dallas (USA).

Nexperia’s roots lie in the semiconductor research group started by the Dutch company Philips in 1940s, and which began manufacturing semiconductors in Nijmegen in mid-1950s.

In 2006, this Philips division was bought by a group of private equity investors and renamed NXP to become Europe’s second largest semiconductors company. In 2010, it was listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange and in 2015, it merged with Freescale Semiconductors to become the world’s largest supplier of automative chips.

In 2017, NXP sold its Standard Products division to Chinese investors such as Wise Road Capital (a private equity firm) and the Chinese state-owned JAC Capital (also known as Beijing Jianguang Asset Management) for $2.75 billion and this division then became Nexperia. At the time, this division produced low-cost legacy chips and NXP off-loaded it to concentrate on more cutting-edge chips that promised higher profits. Perhaps for this reason the transaction was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) even as the Dutch government at the time had no such screening mechanism in place.

As a standalone company, Nexperia significantly expanded its manufacturing capacity and its business in China. In March 2018, it formally opened a significant expansion of its Guangdong assembly and test plant that increased its production capacity by 50%, enabling it to produce 90 billion pieces annually (up from 62 billion in 2017). It also launched new products including GaN devices, and began targeting high-performance application segments including xEV, data centres, telecom infrastructure, industrial automation, and high-end power supplies.

In December 2019, the Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer Wingtech Technology Ltd obtained controlling stake in Nexperia from JAC Capital for $3.6 billion in the largest deal in the Chinese semiconductor sector at that time. Wingtech obtained clearances from the Dutch government and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US for which it had to give assurances about maintaining Nexperia’s operational independence and European focus.

In March 2020, however, the Dutch CEO of Nexperia was replaced by the Wingtech founder Xuezheng Zhang.

About Wingtech Technology Ltd.

Wingtech is a Chinese company founded in 2006 by the then 31 years old entrepreneur Xuezheng Zhang. It is based in Jiaxing in the eastern province of Zhejiang and was listed in Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2017. According to the Dutch investment screening firm Datenna, almost 30% of Wingtech’s shares can be traced to the Chinese government.

Wingtech began manufacturing in 2008 and became the world’s largest mobile ODM company in 2012. It, however, depended on American and European manufacturers for microchips. To reduce this dependence, it formally entered the semiconductor sector in 2019 when it acquired Nexperia. It was a deal akin to ‘a snake swallowing an elephant’ as the market capitalisation of Wingtech at the time was much smaller than that of Nexperia.

In 2024, Wingtech began divesting some of its ODM business to focus more on the higher margins semiconductor sector. The same year on 2 December, the US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added it to its Entity List citing concerns over moves to acquire technologies crucial to the defence of USA and its allies. The US controls became stricter, but Nexperia offered it access to dual-use semiconductor technologies that was otherwise denied to it.

Action and Reaction: The Nexperia Saga

On 29 September 2025, the BIS extended the controls on Entity List firms to their foreign affiliates which are at least fifty percent owned by them, bringing Nexperia under the US sanctions. The next day, on 30 September, the Dutch government took over the company.

On 7 October 2025, a Dutch court (Enterprise Chamber of Amsterdam Court of Appeal) held an emergency hearing on a petition filed by three non-Chinese executives of Nexperia on 1 October. It removed Xuezheng Zhang and appointed a non-Chinese temporary director in his place. It also placed nearly all voting rights on the Wingtech’s shares under court management. The court cited Zhang’s ‘reckless’ decisions, personal conflict of interest, and inadequate preparation for the impending US blacklisting for suspending him. Soon, Nexperia headquarters halted salary payments of its Chinese employees as well as their access to company systems.

According to documents released by the Dutch court, the US officials had warned Dutch government officials months earlier in June that Xuezheng Zhang would have to be removed as CEO if Nexperia was to avoid being blacklisted.

The Chinese reaction was swift. On 4 October 2025, the Chinese government blocked the export of Nexperia chips produced in its Dongguan facility, suddenly disrupting the functioning of automative industry the world over. On 26 October, Nexperia suspended wafer supplies to the Dongguan unit allegedly as a ‘direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms.’

As a result of the Busan summit between President Trump and President Xi Jinping on 30 October 2025, the US suspended for one year (effective 10 November 2025) the new 50% rule. China responded by allowing the export of certain Nexperia products from the Dongguan unit on 9 November 2025.

Under sustained Chinese pressure, the Dutch government too suspended its take over of Nexperia on 19 November 2025 as a ‘gesture of goodwill’ to China.

Yet, internally within Nexperia, the matter reached a point where the Dutch headquarters of Nexperia had to resort to an open letter to its Chinese units as, according to it, its attempts to establish direct contact through regular channels had failed to elicit ‘any meaningful response.’

The Saga continues

On 11 February 2026, the Dutch court upheld the earlier suspension of Xuezheng Zhang and ordered a formal investigation into whether there had been mismanagement by the Chinese CEO and whether definitive measures needed to be taken.

On 22 May 2026, Wingtech too filed a lawsuit under China’s Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law (AFSL) against Nexperia and its three Dutch executives in a court in Guangdong province, China, seeking an award of damages estimated at 8 billion Chinese Yuan ($1.18 billion). The AFSL, enacted in 2021, provides for Chinese countermeasures such as freezing of assets, visa restrictions, transaction bans, etc as well as the private right of damages against private entities that assist in foreign sanctions against Chinese companies. More recently, on 31 March 2026, China has also promulgated Decree 834 that specifically empowers Chinese authorities to investigate threats to its industrial and supply chain security from actions of foreign states and organisations and to respond to them.

Meanwhile, the Chinese packaging unit of Nexperia in Dongguan has been functioning at around 60-70 percent of its capacity using local Chinese suppliers, client-supplied wafers, and its own stockpiles. In April 2026, it announced that it was on track to resume up to 90 percent production capacity for its in-demand products by the second quarter of 2026.

The supply lines have now been stabilised. But the core problem remains unresolved. The internal battle between the European and Chinese units of Nexperia continues, mirroring the larger geopolitical rivalry between the West and China over the control of critical semiconductor technologies.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Ques: What is Nexperia? What does Nexperia do?

Nexperia is a global semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in the Netherlands. It specializes mainly in discrete semiconductors, power MOSFETs, diodes, bipolar transistors, ESD protection devices, and logic ICs used in automotive, industrial, consumer and communication applications. Nexperia operates both wafer-fabrication facilities and assembly/test facilities, producing high volumes of relatively specialized semiconductor components.

Ques: What is Wingtech?

Wingtech Technology is a Chinese technology and manufacturing company involved in semiconductors, electronics manufacturing and communications products. Wingtech became the controlling owner of Nexperia through its acquisition of a majority stake, making Nexperia part of the wider Wingtech group while Nexperia continues to operate as a semiconductor company under its own name.

Ques: What is the Dongguan facility of Nexperia?

Nexperia’s Dongguan facility in Guangdong, China is primarily a back-end semiconductor manufacturing facility, meaning it performs assembly and testing rather than the main wafer fabrication. It packages semiconductor dies into finished devices and carries out testing before shipment to customers. The facility is over 80,000 m² and has a capacity of more than 50 billion devices per year, making it one of Nexperia’s most important high-volume assembly sites.

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