1. It is difficult to stop falling under profit plunging;
According to the micro-messaging news, the earlier domestic IC design company, Quan Zhi Technology, first took off from the MP4 market, and after the flat-panel market became more and more like water, it now appears to be in bad condition. Recently, Quan Zhi Technology released its 2017 financial report, showing that the company will be in 2017. Revenue was RMB 120,090,500, a year-on-year decrease of 4.08%; net profit attributable to parent company was RMB 17,330,400, which was a decrease of 88.35% year-on-year; after deducting non-recurring gains and losses, the total net loss of the whole year was RMB 29,284,479.06, which was a decrease of 121.4% year-on-year.
2017 was the 10th anniversary of the establishment of Quanzhi. Under the sharp fall in revenue, the company entered the year 2018. It has not stopped falling. According to the first-quarter earnings forecast released by Quan Zhi, the company anticipates 2018 -In March, the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was -150 million to -100 million, down -102.80% year-on-year to -35.20%, while the average net profit growth rate for the semiconductor and components industries was 29.27%.
Plate myth is no longer, All-in-one dilemma
Founded in 2007, Quan Zhi is an intelligent application processor SoC and intelligent analog chip design manufacturer. In the early days of its establishment, Quan Zhi relied on the MP4 market to harvest the first pot of gold, followed by Apple’s launch of the iPad tablet computer in 2010. The rapid development of the tablet market.
In the second half of 2011, the A10 single-core processor based on the ARM Cortex-A8 was launched for the domestic 'white card' tablet PCs. In 2012, it also introduced the A13 processor, which started in the flat panel market. As a result, chip shipments have begun to rise quickly.
According to the statistics, in 2011, the total revenue and net profit of Zhengzhi Technology were 260 million yuan and 58.91 million yuan respectively, and the growth rates were as high as 413 percent and 867% respectively. In 2012, the company's operating income was 1.34 billion yuan, and its operating profit was as high as 607 million yuan, net profit of 571 million yuan. Driven by the big sales of A10 and A13 products, Quan Zhi from 2011 to 2012, the level of revenue increased by 4 times, once created the flat panel market myth.
Thanks to the flat-panel market, Quan Zhi Technology also followed its IPO. After repeated twists and turns, the company successfully landed on the A-share market in May 2015. However, since 2014, the rapid development of the flat-panel market has begun to decline. In 2015, the performance was particularly strong. The market sales fell by more than 50% in a single month. As of the third quarter of 2017, the flat-panel market has experienced sales decline for 12 consecutive quarters.
The company’s operating income reached RMB 1,209.6455 million in 2015, a decrease of 2.62% compared with the same period of the previous year. The profit rose slightly; the 2016 profit growth rate flattened, with Q4’s net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies at 10.5 million. Yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 64.9%; 2017 revenue decreased 4.08% year-on-year; net profit attributable to parent company was RMB 17,3340, down 88.35% year-on-year.
The myth of tablet is no longer, and the reliance on the whole story is hard to drive again. All the bloggers also said frankly that the main reason for the decline in revenue was due to the slowdown in demand for the downstream tablet processor chip market and the decline in sales volume.
Unfavorable transformation, flat panel is still the biggest performance support
Faced with the fact that the tablet market has entered a recession, Quanzhi began to make adjustments and transitions in 2015. Simultaneously in the set-top boxes, the smart imaging market has increased its investment. Currently, the Zhiji set-top box H6 and the binocular camera V5 have undergone two iterations. Among them, ISP iterates three generations, but the market performance is not strong.
Afterwards, in 2016, the VR market showed an explosive trend. The company also stepped up its efforts in the VR market and launched a VR9 virtual reality chip. However, now the domestic VR market is only a “virtual fire” and the outbreak is still early. The volume is not high.
After the loss, the company's goal is to target the automotive electronics and smart home products represented by smart speakers. In its annual report, the company stated that on-board product lines, with the intelligent upgrade of the automotive industry, the overall automotive market has grown steadily. The proportion of smart cockpit deployments has rapidly increased. The company relies on video technology, hardware and software integration advantages, integrates resources, and provides high-quality localization services to form a series of market cooperation in the field of rear-view mirrors; however, the automotive market competition Intensified, the requirements for product cost and safety continued to increase, and the follow-up strategy of Quanzhi fluctuates.
On the one hand, although the flat-panel market is going into recession, there is still a certain amount of room for inventory. The company hopes to use the A63 high-end chip solution in the smart flat panel market. On the other hand, it will also enter the MCU market and launch the MCU XR871. Applications in new smart home appliances, smart toys, WiFi networking modules and cloud connectivity, etc., to know that the MCU market cost bargaining has been very serious.
The multi-pronged horizontal strategy did not play a good role, driving the revenue growth of the company's total revenue. Instead, it gradually lost the technical advantages of the original video codec and was overtaken by competitors. During this period, Zhi also reached a strategic cooperation with Qualcomm to obtain support and breakthrough in radio frequency and baseband product lines. Although the two parties have cooperated for more than three years, they have not yet achieved results.
However, what is intriguing is that even if the revenue of all-campaign revenues fell sharply, the net profit loss in 2017 exceeded 170 million yuan, and the expansion of new product lines did not go smoothly. The performance of the first quarter of 2018 saw a declining trend, but it was at the second level. The performance of the market is contrary to this. Recently, the stock price has continued to rise. As of the previous trading day, the total number of shares of Chishi had closed at RMB 26.2 per share, up 4.93%.
According to informed sources, apart from the overall environment of the integrated circuit segment, Quanzhi’s stock price rose or related to the arrival of the original stock lifting period. On May 15th, the original shareholders of Quanzhi listed limited shares of 160 million shares, accounting for the total 49.14% of the share capital will usher in the tide of lifting the ban. As for the future trend, we may as well wait and see.
2. 'Merger Madman' Zhao Weiguo's resignation is behind the 'violet pattern'.
Recently, Zhao Weiguo resigned as Chairman of Ziguang Guoxin Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ziguang Guoxin", 002049.SZ) and two announcements of the chairman of Ziguang Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ziguang Shares", 000938.SZ). Once again, Zhao Weiguo and the purple light system pushed to the cusp of public opinion.
Although Ziguang Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'Ziguang Group') and Zhao Weiguo himself once explained to the outside world that Zhao Weiguo's resignation as chairman of the two listed companies of the Ziguang Group was due to 'too busy', the industry disputed Zhao Weiguo’s departure. Constantly.
An industry insider who declined to be named told reporters from the China Business Daily that after Zhao Weiguo personally took over the business of the two subsidiaries, he failed to make rapid achievements. Now it is a strategic shift to hand over some of the burden to Yu Yingtao.
Resignation storm
Zhao Weiguo had previously dominated a series of mergers and acquisitions in the chip industry, and his skillful operation of capital made Ziguang famous. His expertise in capital operations was seen by the outside world as a 'business card' of purple. Now that it is precisely the Sino-US trade friction, he suddenly announced that The two most important listed companies of the group resigned and did not retain their seats on the board of directors. The reason for resignation was only too busy. This led to many speculations about the reasons for Zhao Weiguo’s resignation.
Some people in the industry believe that the resignation is behind Ziguang Group’s major shareholder, Tsinghua Holdings, who has opinions on Zhao Weiguo’s business and strategic practices over the past few years. The industry even believes that this will be a signal that Zhao Weiguo’s control over Ziguang Guoxin and Ziguang’s shares has weakened. A publicist in Ziguang told reporters that they could not comment on the rumors. However, another Ziguang PR told the reporter: 'According to the requirements of listed companies, the chairman of a listed company may be required to attend some meetings. Zhao does not want to do it. Some business affairs resigned from his duties and the focus of his work did not change. ' Zhao Weiguo also stated to the public: 'When the party secretary cannot control the affairs of the party committee secretary.'
The reporter noticed that Zhao Weiguo’s resignation was also a matter of March 2018 when Ziguang Group announced that Li Liyou had resigned as a co-president of Ziguang Group and chairman of Spreadtrum for another personal reason.
Ziguang Group is a company controlled by Tsinghua Holdings. The reporter noted that recently, the entire Tsinghua Holding Group is also carrying out personnel and personnel adjustments. Xu Jinghong left Tsinghua Holdings as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Long Dawei took over the chairmanship of the fifth board of directors of Tsinghua Holdings.
It is reported that this cadre adjustment is a further decision of the Central Government of Tsinghua University to carry out rectification work, and implements the decisions made by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on deepening the reform of state-owned enterprises. It is implemented in the industry to comprehensively strengthen party leadership and the party’s 2. To build and strengthen important measures for the regulation and supervision of the industry.
M&A defeat
According to the information publicly disclosed by Ziguang Group, its development goal is to build a high-tech industrial chain from 'core to cloud'.
The "violet system" has been crazy in the chip industry's 'buy buy buy', Zhao Weiguo has thus been dubbed the 'merger madman' title. According to incomplete statistics, since 2013, 'purple system' has spent hundreds of billions of mergers and acquisitions 16 companies. Among them, 11 companies involved in mergers and acquisitions or related investments in chip-related fields. Including privatization and acquisition of Spreadtrum Communications; acquisition of IC design company Rui Dike; and acquisition of 51% stake in Xinhua San, an HP-owned company.
At present, Ziguang Group’s core core companies mainly include Ziguang Zengrui, Ziguang Guoxin, and Wuhan Changjiang Storage Co., Ltd. The core cloud companies mainly include Ziguang Group, Xinhua Group, and Ziguang Western Digital Co., Ltd. Zhao Weiguo’s two separated companies are Ziguang Group listed companies in the field of integrated circuit design and cloud computing.
Ziguang Guoxin is positioned in the Ziguang Group's memory industry segment and is an important platform for the Ziguang Group's strategy from 'core' to 'cloud'. Under the leadership of Zhao Weiguo, Ziguang Guoxin has thrown an 80 billion yuan price increase plan to try to acquire Taiwan Nanmao Technology, a 25% stake in PowerScience, once hoped to integrate Changjiang Storage, which is under the control of another non-listed company under the Ziguang Group, but the above plans eventually ended in deficiencies.
Ziguang Group is Ziguang Group's IT information system, cloud computing, big data and other business platforms. The previous acquisition of Xinhua III was an acquisition completed by Ziguang under the leadership of Zhao Weiguo. Ziguang’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Ziguang, is a joint venture of Ziguang. Information Systems Co., Ltd. had also hoped to acquire a 15% stake in Western Digital. After the abortion, it had no choice but to choose to use a joint venture company to marry Western Digital.
In addition, on the matter of mergers and acquisitions, Ziguang Group also hoped to purchase US-based memory giant Micron Technology for US$23 billion, and purchase 25% of TSMC’s shares for US$30 billion. Both of them were folded. After multiple acquisitions, Ziguang Group will shift its focus to the construction of the domestic storage industry.
Compared with the previous aggressive mergers and acquisitions, Ziguang's strategy has also changed. Zhao Weiguo said in an interview with China Securities Journal that 'Ziguang Group has completed its industrial layout and will transition from mergers and acquisitions to independent research and development.'
At the same time, the “violet system” has already listed many listed companies on the capital market, and all are generous. At the end of 2017, Ziguang Holding successively issued the SMIC and Legend Holdings. Ziguang Group, Ziguang Communication, Tibet Chunhua , Tibet Communications, Jian Kun Investment and other 'violet light' listed companies in the capital market has also continued action.
Mode Dispute
From the aggressive mergers and acquisitions to the use of capital to nurture the failure of the development of the chip industry, it also caused the outside world to question the 'violet pattern'. IT independent commentator Sun Yongjie believes that the current so-called independent innovation and cloud computing power of Ziguang is just Zhao Weiguo. The passive choice after the failure of the “violet pattern”, which is dominated by merger and acquisition strategies, may be the real reason why Zhao Weiguo resigned from the chairman of Ziguang and ceased to take any position in the listed company.
In an interview with this reporter, a veteran of the semiconductor industry also expressed doubts about Zhao Weiguo’s development model of the chip industry: 'From the merger theory, wool theory (capital investment company, the company takes money to do industry, capital to the market to arbitrage This process is described as the Internet thinking that wool is in pigs. Using capital to nurture the development of the chip industry. Is it really feasible to collaborate with local governments to obtain funding?' He believes that Ziguang has obtained funding for projects around the country. The difficulty is high. If the semiconductor can be immediately profitable, it is still possible to develop. 'But if there is a loss, will Ziguang be able to withstand the 10-year cold bench?' In addition, Ziguang’s projects in Nanjing and Chengdu must duplicate the Wuhan Yangtze River storage model. It is still unknown when Wuhan Yangtze River Storage is profitable.
Some industry insiders believe that for Violet can not be killed by stick, through mergers, capital market operations quickly exchange for market and technology, Violet is also seen as a new way to explore the development of the semiconductor industry, its strengths is the application and chip manufacturing Together, this may be a new road. In addition, Zhao Weiguo’s lofty ideals and determination for the semiconductor industry are also unmatched by semiconductor companies such as SMIC and Hua Hong.
'Through M&A standing on the shoulders of giants is not a bad idea.' But Sun Yongjie also believes that Ziguang's M&A is too aggressive, although it acquired the acquisition of Spreadtrum, RDA, Hewlett-Packard's corporate business in China, but in the acquisition of U.S. Micron Technology, Western Digital , Taiwan Nanmao Technology and other key mergers and acquisitions have no results, and Micron Technology these companies because of the master core technology is seen as an important chip between the game between the country and the country.
It is worth noting that Guo Gaohang, an analyst at Gabbana Consulting Semiconductor, told this reporter that the trade friction between China and the United States has a limited impact on China's semiconductor industry. However, he believes that from a macro perspective, what is reflected in the US trade list is the Chinese technology. Concerns about the rapid rise of the industry, especially the rise of China's integrated circuit industry.
As of now, Ziguang Group's layout in cloud computing is also a frequent action. Ziguang Group stated that it will focus on expanding the global business of cloud services in the future. Ziguang Stock has established Ying Tao as its new chairman to push the implementation of Ziguang Group's 'cloud service' strategy. The integration of Ziyun Group's 'cloud network' strategy, which is also considered by the industry as a strategic shift of Ziguang. China Business News
3. The national memory base construction will be accelerated again 'China Core' will be available in Wuhan;
Yangtze River Network April 14th (Changjiang Daily reporter Shao Hao) Wuhan National Memory Base Project took an important step and formally transferred from engineering construction to mass production preparation. On the 11th, Mayor Wan Yong at National Storage Base Project Chip Production Machine Taiwan’s move-in activities emphasized that we must use the socialist ideology of Chinese characteristics in the new era of Xi Jinping as a guide and resolutely implement the decision-making and deployment of the Party Central Committee, the State Council and the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government, accelerate the development of national memory base project construction and technological breakthroughs, and let the 'China Core' The bigger and bigger Wuhan becomes, the stronger and stronger it becomes.
In July 2016, the National Storage Base project was completed in Wuhan. It took a breakthrough in the scale development of China's IC flash memory chip industry, and changed the country's major mission of relying entirely on imported passive memory. Last September, the National Storage Base The project is capped in advance. After the chip production machine is installed and installed, it is expected to produce the first batch of 32-layer three-dimensional NAND flash memory chips with completely independent intellectual property rights during the year.
Wan Yong said that the move of the national memory base project chip production platform into the "China Core" is a big step, and it is also a big step for the "New Wuhan Construction." The process of building a national memory base is a state mission of Wuhan Yongdan. The process of manufacturing a powerful country, Wuhan has been making unremitting efforts to round the dream of a national memory base.
It was hard to understand the difficulties. Wan Yong shared with the guests on the occasion that the national memory base project had achieved a lot of important moments such as building, negotiating projects, business cooperation, site selection, building capping, and product development. The scene was sympathetic to the participants. He said that it was one of the exciting scenes that came along this road that made this exciting time for moving the machine into the day –
4. China's oxide nonlinear optical crystal research has been a breakthrough
Recently, Prof. Yu Haohai from the State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials of Shandong University cooperated with the Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and made new progress in the research of oxide nonlinear optical crystals. The relevant research results were published as cover articles in an internationally renowned journal, American Chemistry. Learning magazine.
Due to its important applications in defense, medical, industrial and scientific research fields, mid-infrared laser has become one of the research hotspots in the field of laser technology at home and abroad. Practical mid-infrared nonlinear optical materials are the material basis of mid-infrared lasers. The wide transmission range, high laser damage threshold, and large nonlinear optical effects. In general, the phonon energy of oxide crystals is high, which limits the application of far-infrared radiation. The research of mid-infrared nonlinear optical crystals is mainly focused on sulfur. The phosphorus crystals are representative of semiconductor crystals, but the wide bandgap of oxides determines that such materials may have high damage thresholds and may increase the output power of existing mid-infrared lasers. The research group is facing the research and application status of mid-infrared oxides, Based on the long-term research of yttrium silicate system, we grasped two key factors of wide bandgap and low phonon energy. Through molecular design, La3SnGa5O14 (LGSn) crystals further screened in yttrium silicate system are comprehensive performance. Excellent mid-infrared nonlinear optical crystal; Small size sample obtained by crystal growth, found that the infrared cutoff edge of the crystal is 11μm Infrared spectral region, with a wide band gap, high damage threshold, large nonlinear coefficient, can be used to produce mid-infrared laser and other advantages of mature near-infrared laser pumping.
Prof. Yu Haohai’s research group has been devoted to the research of artificial crystals, especially lasers and nonlinear optical crystal materials and devices. Crystal growth in optical crystals such as laser crystals, nonlinear optical crystals, laser self-frequency-doubling crystals, optical switch crystals, etc. He has achieved a series of applications in device applications. He has published many papers in international journals such as Adv. Mater., ACS Nano, Laser & Photon. Rev., Appl. Phys. Lett., and received extensive attention. Some research results have been transformed and applied. In 2014, the crystals of yttrium silicate system may have important applications in the mid-infrared region. In 2016, the mid-infrared nonlinear optical properties and practical prospects of lanthanum gallate crystals were evaluated.
This research work has received strong support from the National Key Research and Development Program and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.