BEIJING, March 12 (Xinhua) -- China has surpassed Japan and the United States to become the world's largest integrated circuit (IC) producer by 2006, says Monday's China Securities Journal.

    The country's semiconductor market reported sales of 580 billion yuan (75 billion U.S. dollars) in 2006 with the IC market contributing 486 billion yuan (63 billion dollars), said Yu Zhongyu, head of China Semiconductor Industry Association, at IC Market China 2007 recently held in Shanghai.

    China's IC industry chalked up 1 billion yuan (130 million dollars) of sales in early 1990s and gained a tenfold-growth in a decade, with the sales topping 10 billion yuan by 2000.

    Driven by booming global IC market development, the country's IC industry maintained strong momentum in 2006, producing 35.56 billion IC chips, representing a year-on-year growth of 36 percent, said Yu.