1. Decrypting Mega Innovation, Rambus Joint Venture Hefei Ruike Micro
According to today's latest news, the new-generation memory company Hefei Ruike Microelectronics Co., Ltd. established and completed the A-round financing led by Qingqing Ginkgo. Ruix Micro is Mega Innovation and American chip designer Rambus Co-founded a joint venture (Reliance Memory) to commercialize Resistive Random Access Memory (RRAM) technology.
The joint venture investors of this investment include Hefei High-tech Industry Investment Co., Ltd., China Investment Zhongcai and Huashan Capital. The strategic investors of this investment include Rambus Inc., the world's leading supplier of semiconductor technology, and Zhao Yi innovation - China. Leading non-volatile memory solutions and 32-bit microcontroller suppliers. Other investment partners include Walden International and Zhenghe Investment.
As the national semiconductor industry's development, memory has become a top priority. In recent years, it has been concerned by the government, enterprises and other parties.
Among them, as a semiconductor company that has been starting with memory and MCU for more than a year since it was first listed, in the recent period of time, the layout of Kyocera's innovations in memory has been continuously linked.
Accelerate the layout memory market
Last year, Zhaoyi Innovation and Hefei Industrial Investment Holdings (Group) Co., Ltd. signed the "Cooperation Agreement on Storage R&D Projects", and agreed that both parties should cooperate in developing R&D projects for 19nm process memory (including DRAM, etc.), with a budget of approximately RMB 18 billion. yuan.
This indicates that Siu Yi Innovation has begun to enter the DRAM field. It is understood that the goal of Siu Yi Innovation is to successfully develop before the end of 2018, and achieve a product yield of no less than 10%.
Since the beginning of this year, Siu Yi Innovation intends to purchase fingerprint chip products and touch-control chip products for 1.7 billion yuan, trying to cut into the digital chip field.
After the reduction of shares held by China Shipping, the company's development direction has been fully shifted to storage, and vigorously promoted the storage chip business including NAND, DRAM and Nor Flash.
In April, Kyi Yi Innovation Strategy led a one-micron round A 300 million yuan financing. It is understood that a microelectronics company focused on storage control chip design Shenzhen Silicon Semiconductor Co., Ltd. and the establishment of storage master chip After the merger, it will form a complete product line of storage control chips, covering a full range of control chip products from USB, SD, eMMC, UFS, SATA SSD, PCIe SSD, etc., to provide consumer, industrial and automotive applications. Level storage solution.
From the series of layouts of Siu Yi Innovation, it is not difficult to find that Siu Yi Innovation is constantly strengthening the diversity of its products on the basis of maintaining the advantages and application coverage of the original 'NOR Flash' memory chips, 32-bit general-purpose MCU products. Sex, and trying to get into more fields.
The entry into the DRAM memory market and the establishment of a joint venture company to enter the RRAM field are the long-term layout of Zhaoyi Innovation.
Formally enter RRAM new memory field
Why is it easy to innovate in the memory field layout so frequently?
On the one hand, in recent years, the state has increased the construction of the storage industry, and increased emphasis on secure storage of data information. Industrial support policies and investment in new projects have also continued to heat up.
From the national government issued the “Outline for Promoting the Development of the National IC Industry” to the National Fund/Huaxin Investment has invested more than 50 projects and more than 40 companies, the pace of progress in China's integrated circuit industry is ongoing.
On the other hand, due to the significant increase in market demand, all major memory chip companies have achieved good results in 2017. According to the latest annual report of Zhaoyi Innovation, in 2017, Zhaoyi's innovative revenue reached RMB 2.03 billion, a year-on-year increase of 36.32%. The net profit was 397 million yuan, an increase of 125.26% year-on-year.
The fiery market and the development of the industry have all stimulated Siu Yi's innovation to seek further development in the field of memory.
Now, with the establishment of a joint venture between Zhaoyi Innovation and Rambus, with the accumulation of mega-easy innovation in the field of memory and Rambus' technology, Mega Innovation may create more possibilities in the new memory area.
It is understood that the joint venture company's main RRAM technology is a new type of computer memory that relies on temperature and voltage to store data.
In response to RRAM technology, Academician Liu Ming of the Chinese Academy of Sciences pointed out in his speech titled “Trends and Opportunities for Memory Technology Development” that with the continuous development of emerging fields such as smart phones, the Internet of Things and big data, the global memory market has experienced explosive growth. The proportion in the semiconductor industry also reached an unprecedented 24%.
However, with the market demand and the continuous evolution of process technology, Academician Liu Ming believes that the new type of memory represented by RRAM will take the stage, especially after the 28nm node, based on the new memory RRAM in the latter stage of the process, MRAM will become embedded The main technical solution for storage, there are already a number of semiconductors announced R & D and mass production.
In this situation, the establishment of the joint venture company indicates that Yiyi Innovation has officially entered the RRAM new memory area.
Future development of joint venture speculation
Although for a long time, Rambus has been plagued by patent litigation and even considered for sale for a time. However, Rambus was founded in 1990 and has always had a huge advantage in high-end storage products. In the PC era, Rambus used its DDR, SDRAM technology in the chip industry. Occupy a monopoly position, through the investment in research and development, has accumulated 2,500 patents.
According to informed sources, since the RRAM technology is not yet mature, there is a huge space for development in the future. The establishment of this joint venture company is exactly the one investment made by Zhaoyi Innovation and Rambus in the future RRAM technology market.
Although Zhaoyi Innovation and Rambus currently only signed an agreement and the joint venture company has not been established yet, in the future, Zhaoyi Innovation will be able to further expand the new memory market while Rambus can leverage on the strength of Chinese capital to develop this Value of new technologies.
At the same time, in this cooperation, China Capital will occupy a dominant position. The personage informed that the company’s total investment is US$50 million. In terms of shares, Rambus occupies approximately 30% of the joint venture’s shares, the company’s team accounts for 30%, and Zhaoyi’s innovation accounted for About 10% of shares, Chinese funds are mainly led by Qingcun, including Walden Capital, Huashan Capital, Zhaoyi Innovation, and Hefei Gaoxin Investment.
As for the specific time of establishment, since the joint venture needs to be approved by the U.S. side, the company's registration and the specific establishment time can only be confirmed after the approval.
Joint venture company will settle in Hefei
In addition, the insider emphasized that although Zhaoyi Innovation did not disclose the position of the joint venture company in the future, according to the layout of Zhaoyi Innovation, the company will be settled in Hefei in the future. Now, with the formal establishment of the joint venture company, this speculation also falls. Real hammer.
In general, the joint venture company settled in Hefei was mainly based on the following reasons:
First of all, Hefei attached great importance to the development of the semiconductor industry and gave strong support. In a few short years, Hefei brought together 129 semiconductor companies, covering the entire industry chain including design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, equipment and materials, etc. , Become one of the fastest growing and most effective cities in the semiconductor industry in China.
Secondly, as mentioned before, Zhaoyi Innovation and Hefei Production and Investment signed a cooperation agreement. The Changxin 12-inch memory wafer manufacturing base project co-operated by both parties is accelerating its construction.
In the future, with the establishment of the joint venture company and the completion of Hefei Changxin, Zhaoyi Innovation will be able to flex its muscles in the field of new storage by virtue of Hefei's full industrial chain advantage and the manufacturing capabilities of Hefei Changxin.
Maintaining a close partnership with the fab is one of the priorities highlighted by Zhu Yiming, chairman and general manager of Zhaoyi Innovation. To this end, Zhaoyi Innovation's strategy to invest in SMIC is to help ensure production capacity supply. The strategic investment aims to provide emerging storage solutions for our GD32 microcontroller series and other future embedded products in applications such as the Internet of Things.
It can be said that settled in Hefei can not only boost the development of the joint venture, but also guarantee future capacity supply, and it can also enhance the future development space of Hefei Changxin.
Of course, the person familiar with the matter emphasized that since the investment is only 50 million U.S. dollars, and it is not clear whether the future will be used for research and development or investment in batches, it is not ruled out that the joint venture company and Hefei Changxin will conduct in-depth production and manufacturing in the future. Cooperation.
Zhu Yiming pointed out that at present, Chinese companies have formed a certain basis in the special memory market, but there is still a big gap in the mainstream memory industry. The rise of the domestic memory industry requires cooperation and cooperation between upstream and downstream industrial chains to form a joint force. To achieve a breakthrough.
Industry expert Mo Dakang also pointed out that China’s development of the storage industry is a long-term process that cannot be accomplished overnight. In the long-term future, the Chinese semiconductor industry must be a sturdy follower and learner. It is also a 'contributor' that makes progress with the industry.
This time, with the establishment of Siu Yi Innovation and Rambus joint venture company, whether it is for the layout of Zhaoyi Innovation in the field of memory, or for the development of China's memory industry, it will be a big plus!
2.Tongfu Microelectronics won a large fund, Cinda Wind, China Merchants Investment Capital 1.7 billion yuan
Gaiwei News, May 9, 2018, Tongfu Microelectronics Co., Ltd. was awarded as a partnership in Ningbo Meishan Bonded Port Area, Daoxang Xinbin Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership), and National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co., Ltd. (large fund). Nantong Merchants Jianghai Industry Development Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership) 1.701 billion yuan investment.
Tongfu Microelectronics Co., Ltd. is located in Nantong City, Jiangsu Province, China. Established on February 04, 1994. The scope of business includes: research and development, production of integrated circuit and other semiconductor products, and provision of related technical services.
The company is currently the largest company in China, with the highest level of technology and the largest product range. It specializes in providing core products from PT to ASSEMBLY to BACKALT KEY. The Technology Center, backed by Japanese Fujitsu, one of the top 100 companies in the world, adopts JEDEC international standards to continuously develop IC trails for chip design, manufacturing trend after package, testing technology and technology. The company's existing DIP, SOP , SOT, SIP, QFP, BCC, LCC, TO, PGA and other series of package shapes, and has MCM (MCP), MEMS and other high-end IC packaging technology. The company independently develops hundreds of test software, used in flash memory, automotive electronics, IC testing in the area of computer peripherals, RF devices, etc. The company has mastered the lead-free plating processes such as Palladium, Pure Tin, Tin-antimony, etc. and 8-inch, 150-micron chip reduction, dicing, and computer-assisted multi-head test technology. In the international leading level. The company is actively working with domestic and foreign major wafer manufacturers to develop a 12-inch chip packaging technology. August 16, 2007, the company successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange A shares.
Cinda Wind Investment Management Co., Ltd. is located in Beilun District, Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, China. Established on January 06, 2013.
China Merchants Capital Investment Co., Ltd. is located in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, China. Established on January 10, 2012.
National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co., Ltd. is located in Beijing, China. Established on September 26, 2014. Management Organization: China National Capital Corporation Limited.
3. Intel invests another shot, these three Chinese startups or broke out!
According to the micro-messaging news, Intel, the US chip giant, announced today that it has invested more than 72 million U.S. dollars in 12 technology startups covering various areas such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, cloud services and silicon.
Among them, there are three Chinese companies in the invested company, namely Lexin, Ruiwei and Lingque Cloud.
Fabless semiconductor company Lexin Technology
It is understood that Lexin Technology is a global fabless semiconductor company with its business mainly focused on the Internet of Things. Lexin Technology official website said that the company provides a complete set of flexible solutions for Internet of Things applications, including WiFi chips. , Bluetooth chip and WiFi + Bluetooth combo chip.
This time, Intel Capital's C-round financing for Lexin was jointly led by Intel Capital and the Core Energy Investment Fund. This is another major step taken by Lexin after it received financing from Fosun Group B in September 2016.
LeXin launched core products in 2014 and 2016 respectively: ESP8266 chip and ESP32 chip, which became the industry's first Wi-Fi+ dual-mode Bluetooth/BLE+ dual-core 32-bit microcontroller (MCU) all-in-one system-on-chip (SoC) In 2016, Lexin was named "cool supplier" in the IoT field by Gartner.
Intel said that some of Lexin's chip solutions are widely used in tablet computers, cameras, wearables, and smart home devices and other Internet of Things products at a very competitive price.
Zhang Rui'an, founder and CEO of Lexin, said: “Lexin has developed a variety of wireless networking products and solutions for IoT after 10 years of development, relying on independent innovation to become one of the world's leading providers of IoT solutions. This time, the joint investment of Intel Capital and the Core Energy Investment Fund will further strengthen the company's development. Lexin's products are entering millions of households. We look forward to equip the world with more smart home devices equipped with Lexin's 'core'. '
Vision-aware products and solutions provider Rui Wei
Ruiwei is China's first artificial intelligence startup company. It not only possesses superior visual perception technology, but also is an advocate and leader of the front-end intelligence in the industry. It is committed to implementing complex front-ends in embedded front-ends with limited performance, power consumption and cost. Machine vision algorithms are applied in traditional industries such as home appliances, retail, and security to help the industry transform and upgrade and achieve AI empowerment.
As of now, Ruiwei has a total of four product lines, including security, smart retail, smart home appliances and car.
Taking retail as an example, Ruiwei currently has two hardware carrier products. One is a shop meter, which is used for precise analysis of customers entering the store; the other is a Xiaoke, which analyzes the customer's attention to products and advertisements.
In order to solve the problems encountered in cloud analysis in retail, Rui Wei introduced a technology based on deep learning algorithm made by FPGA. While solving the problem, the cost was reduced to 1/3 to 1/4 at that time.
It is understood that this time, Intel Capital is a Swiss-funded B+ round of financing. This is a new round of financing completed in less than six months after completion of round B financing at the end of last year. This round of funding will be used to develop visual perception products. Application scenarios and industry solutions to accelerate the landing of AI technology.
Rui Zeng, founder and general manager of Zhan Donghui, stated: 'Artificial intelligence has risen to China's development strategy in China. This is a great opportunity for Ruiwei. This time Intel's investment has not only brought Ruiwei a broader platform for development, but also It will help Ruiwei to further expand its presence in the artificial intelligence industry and increase its market share, strengthen its industry-leading advantages, and accelerate the provision of richer application scenarios and better solutions. It will truly help industry customers achieve AI empowerment and value enhancement. '
Container PaaS Service Provider Cloud Cloud
LingQue Cloud was founded by the core founding team of the original Microsoft Azure cloud platform. It is a leading company in container services and enterprise-level PaaS in China. It has world-leading, ultra-large-scale enterprise cloud platform development, operation and maintenance and management experience, and is located in Seattle. Both Beijing and Beijing have R&D centers. In June 2017, Lingqin Cloud launched the SaaS version of Alauda Cloud and Alauda Cloud Pro, and then launched the PaaS platform for AMD's microservices application, Alauda EE.
It is reported that the current customers of Lingqin Cloud have covered many Fortune 500 companies in the fields of finance, operators, manufacturing, energy, aviation, and automotive. The participants in this round of investment are all strategic investors, and funds will be used for professional team building. , The container PaaS platform is perfect and the industry is on the ground.
The financing was led by Intel Capital, and other strategic investors such as Mingzhao Capital were involved in the investment. Participating in this round of investment were all strategic investors. The funds will be used for professional team building, and the container PaaS platform will be perfected and the industry will be launched, further strengthening Lingqin Cloud. Advantages in Chinese container PaaS field.
This is the new financing that Lingling Cloud completed within six months after it was led by Tencent’s cloud strategy in November 2017 and was funded by early investment party Gaochun Capital and broadband capital.
Zuo Yi, founder and CEO of Lingqin Cloud, stated that 'future containers will play an increasingly important role in IT technology. With the increasingly perfect ecological system, Container Cloud's PaaS technology has entered a mature stage. We are honored to have it. At the critical moment of the company's development, we obtained Intel's strategic investment. We will further temper our products and penetrate into the enterprise-class market. We will help enterprise customers quickly build cloud native applications and achieve DevOps landing through Kubernetes' container-based PaaS platform for microservice applications. This will accelerate business innovation iterations and ultimately achieve digital transformation.
Why Intel invests in them
Companies that are new to Intel’s portfolio will drive innovations that include: artificial intelligence (AI)-based conversational computing that accelerates the design of virtual assistants; improves user-perceived contextual experiences in stadiums, theme parks, hotels, and even hospitals Application; New processor that can bring machine learning capabilities to mobile devices.
Intel’s Senior Vice President and Intel Investment President Wendell Brooks said: “These new innovative companies have fully demonstrated Intel’s data-centric development strategy. They are shaping the future of artificial intelligence, the future of cloud computing, The future of networking and the future of chip technology. With the world increasingly intelligently interconnected, these technology areas will be crucial.
Lin Lizhong, vice president of Intel Capital and Managing Director of Asia Pacific and Europe, said: 'Intel Capital is committed to promoting data-driven technology innovation and supporting the transformation and upgrading of China's technology industry.'
Intel senior vice president and Intel investment president Wendell Brooks said: 'These innovative companies embody the strategic priorities of Intel as a data leader. They will help shape the future of artificial intelligence, the future of cloud computing, and the Internet of Things. The future, and the future of chip technology. As the world becomes more interconnected and intelligent, these are key areas of technology.
Photo of Intel and the company being voted
In addition, Intel Capital also announced that it has completed the diversified investment objectives set in 2015 two years and a half earlier - 'Invest 125 million US dollars to support women and ethnic minority-led startup companies'. Intel's investment diversification program aims to find Global companies founded and/or led by women and people with disabilities, and American companies founded and/or led by ethnic minorities, members of the LGBTQ community, and veterans.
4. How does Tektronix push fingerprint technology 'second revolution'?
In recent years, in the tide of Internet of Things and smart home, the smart lock market has grown exponentially. Fingerprint locks, the most accepted products in smart locks, have quickly led to the rise of domestic fingerprint module manufacturers. As one of the representatives of domestic fingerprint manufacturers, Tuzheng Technology (Bersec BIOSEC) grew rapidly with a 300% growth rate of revenue, and achieved sales of semiconductor fingerprint modules in the smart home and fingerprint lock industry in 2017. The country's first industry status; In addition, Tuzheng Technology is also the first domestic independent successful R&D and mass production integrated semiconductor fingerprint module company, which has promoted the new wave of fingerprint identification modules from optical technology to semiconductor technology.
On May 8, Tuzheng Technology held a new product conference in Shenzhen, released 5 new products with innovative fingerprint industry, and launched a new upgrade of the sixth-generation V8 fingerprint recognition algorithm. At the same time, it brought a lot of differences from the traditional FOD. The chip stacking and DISP ultra-thin packaging technology ensure the good experience of wet and dry fingers under normal conditions and push China's fingerprint industry to a new height.
Five Arrows Get Together, Join Alibaba, Huawei Hass Adds New Product Line
At the press conference, the five new products brought by Tectech are ceramic fingerprint sensors and modules, high-performance single-chip integrated fingerprint modules, and support for state-of-the-art single-chip integrated fingerprint modules. Ultra-thin packaged low-power fingerprint sensor and Wi-Fi digital video module.
Ceramic cover type sensors are gradually becoming the standard product for mid-to-high end fingerprint locks. The ceramic cover plate sequence fingerprint sensor and module products released by Graphs & Tech. have realized a ceramic cover plate on a large area sensor with a new packaging process. The protection program, which is the first mass production application of ceramic cover plate in a large area of fingerprint recognition sensor.
High integration, high reliability, cost-effectiveness, low power consumption, single-chip realization of the smallest size is the application point of the current single-chip fingerprint module. Figure is the high-performance single-chip integrated technology brought about this time Fingerprint module, with a thickness of only 650 μm, adopts self-designed ultra-thin packaging technology to assemble semiconductor fingerprint sensor and fingerprint algorithm chip and large-capacity memory on one chip, up to 40 I/O pins, open 64KB application Program space, support for secondary programming development, speed identification less than 0.35S, completely changed the current production structure of the industry application system, can save an MCU.
The new products brought by Graphs & Technologies also support the state-of-the-art single-chip integrated fingerprint module, which adopts a single-chip integrated package from Tuzheng Technology. The entire package thickness is only 650 microns. The built-in Cortex M3 core SE is in the security chip. Internal operation of fingerprint recognition algorithm, support for secondary development, unique FOD package design to ensure the safety of the security of the chip, has a secret authentication; also has ultra-thin package low-power fingerprint sensor, its thickness is only 225 microns, ultra-low Power consumption, full-speed operating current of less than 1.5mA in active mode, is the thinnest and lowest power fingerprint sensor in the industry.
In addition, Tuzheng Technology officially announced the addition of a new product line at the press conference and launched the 'Wi-Fi Digital Video Module', the 'WiFi Cat's Eye' module, together with Alibaba, Huawei Hass, represented by fingerprint locks. The wireless cat's eye function of the application scenario is designed as a low-power consumption module. It can be directly integrated into the front panel of the fingerprint lock, through the Wi-Fi network, giving smart lock video calls, remote unlocking and other new functions, as if to give the smart lock Gives both eyes, promotes the development of mid-to-high-end smart locks to 'gatekeeper robots'. Among them, Huawei Hass developed digital video compression technology for fingerprint lock applications. Alibaba Security Lab led the development of a security framework ID2 for high-security IoT devices. Ensure access and interactive data security.
Smart lock is the trend of domestic traditional lock industry upgrading. Although China's smart lock development time is short, but the development speed is the fastest in the world. Industry experts predict that in the next three to five years, the size of China's smart lock industry will be Achieving 100 billion yuan will lay the foundation for the main force in the lock industry. The fingerprint chip industry's enterprise technology, products and innovation services will undoubtedly quickly drive the rapid upgrading of traditional industries.
Launched V8 algorithm with a low error rate of 0.0001%
The 'fingerprint recognition algorithm' used in the 'fingerprint recognition module', which is the core part of the fingerprint lock, is the fingerprint recognition 'brain' of each smart lock, and it is the software algorithm for identifying and operating the 'fingerprint' information. 'fingerprint algorithm' It requires high practicality and requires time accumulation and iteration.
It is reported that Tuzheng Technology's fingerprint algorithm has been developed for 17 years, and after 15 years of commercial inspection. Fingerprint recognition algorithm technology is also the core technology of Tuzheng Technology. After the connection of objects in the Internet of Things, “Wisdom” requires information acquisition and processing technology. The core of this core is the 'algorithm'.
In the release, Tuzheng Technology officially launched the sixth generation of the newly upgraded fingerprint recognition algorithm V8 version. Chart positive technology CTO Zhao Xu introduced, V8 algorithm uses a stable structure features and image features depth fusion algorithm, so that the pass rate is higher The generation is increased by 10%, the misrecognition rate is as low as 0.0001%, and the dependence on structural features is reduced to 1-2.
Fingerprint algorithm, unlike other technologies, is very practical, requires database accumulation and iterative iterations, and cannot be closed behind the door. In addition, after the explosive growth of the smart lock industry in China, the 'fingerprint algorithm' is also diversified and developed. No standard has been formed yet. The introduction of the Graph V8 algorithm can guide the industry's attention to the convenience of fingerprint recognition algorithms. At the same time, it can enhance password protection and improve the anti-attack ability of the algorithm.
According to reports, the algorithms used by all the fingerprint identification modules currently on the market by Tuzheng Technology are self-developed algorithms of Tuzheng Science and Technology, and they always take security as the first consideration, and try to optimize the experience performance on this basis. The algorithm of science and technology has been constructed on the basis of the structure feature algorithm, and on this basis, the image algorithm is introduced to improve the accuracy of comparison.
DISP and Emulation help to innovate fingerprint recognition module
For a fingerprint chip product, the chip packaging method will affect other aspects of the chip design. Small changes within the package are sufficient to significantly change the electronic or mechanical characteristics of the package system. This single-chip solution allows the sensor , Memory and algorithm chips are highly integrated, which saves space and cost, allows customers to have cost advantages in terms of solutions, has greater space and flexibility in industrial design, and adapts to high-value, personalized market trends.
At present, it is using industry-leading DISP package, FOD package fingerprint identification modules have achieved mass production. Figure positive technology has successfully introduced wafer-level packaging and SiP (System in Package) chip-scale package, representing the positive Technology has industry-leading autonomous capabilities in the back-end of the chip - advanced packaging design and simulation capabilities, through the chip behind the fingerprint recognition module to help shape the revolution.
Compared to traditional fingerprint design solutions, the ultra-thin fingerprint products of Tuxun's DISP package have a minimum thickness of 225um, making it the thinnest product in the industry. At the same time, R&D through simulation-driven products can significantly shorten the development cycle. For complex structures Fingerprint packaging products, in advance to find mold flow problems of the packaged products, can shorten the development cycle, can achieve a successful mold opening.
According to Xie Jianyou, vice president of Tu Zheng Science and Technology, the mold flow simulation completely reproduces the filling process in the plastic packaging process, eliminates the risk in the encapsulation process, eliminates hidden dangers, and improves product reliability. Stress Simulation: During the actual use of the fingerprint product simulation The stress conditions of each plastic part are analyzed to eliminate the hidden dangers of failure. Thermal simulation: The thermal evaluation of the high heating elements in the fingerprint application product is performed to find the thermal bottleneck and optimize the product structure design. The measured temperature of the product inductance L1 is 49.8 in the case. °C, the simulated temperature is 50.685 °C, with an error of 1.77%.
It can be seen that Tuzheng Technology has become a full-industry-chain high-tech enterprise with semiconductor fingerprint chip design, fingerprint algorithm design, semiconductor fingerprint chip SiP package design, module and application design capabilities, and at the same time, Tuzheng Technology has a trail of chips. Design, simulation and R&D capabilities. Multi-chip stacking is achieved through FOD design, which enables volume production of thinner, smaller, higher integration, and more stable performance products.
In addition, the new hardware products rely on different traditional DISP ultra-thin packaging, integrated semiconductor fingerprint module multi-chip stack packaging technology innovation, will lead the 'small package, high performance, low power consumption, heterogeneous integration, single chip' The trend of innovation brings greater penetrating power, provides the texture and design basis of high-end products, guarantees a good experience of wet and dry fingers under normal conditions, and promotes the second revolution of Chinese fingerprint technology.
5. From the core to the cloud Ziguang Group's ambition and regret
Since May 8th, Ziguang Guoxin’s securities abbreviation has changed from 'Violet Guoxin' to 'Violet Guowei'. The announcement stated that the company is engaged in integrated circuit design under the overall strategy of Ziguang Group's 'From Core to Cloud' strategy. Related business. This change is to further reflect the industry in which the company is located, and to clarify the positioning of Ziguang Micro's core business in the microelectronics field.
Among domestic chip companies, Ziguang Group has a wide range of layouts, covering the design of the industry chain, production, and packaging and testing, but the overall domestic chip layout is at a relatively early stage.
'We are basically completing a layout on the surface, but there is still a long way to go to the high end in more details. ' Ziguang Group Vice President, Zijing Zengru’s chief operating officer Wang Jingming frankly told reporters such as First Financial, The current violet product is not complete.
Layout chip
According to the product form, semiconductors are mainly divided into discrete devices, optoelectronic devices, sensors, and integrated circuits. Integrated circuits are further divided into Analog, Micro, Memory, and Logic. Statistics from the Statistics (WSTS) organization show that, in 2017, sales of memory and logic circuits were US$ 123.97 billion and US$ 102.21 billion respectively, accounting for 36.1% and 29.8% of IC sales, respectively.
However, in terms of storage, China's self-sufficiency rate is almost zero. Memory is mainly divided into volatile memory and non-volatile memory. The former includes DRAM and SRAM, and the latter mainly includes NANDFlash and NORFlash. An employee of the Yangtze Group’s Yangtze River Storage Group told reporters The memory chip accounts for about one-third of the chip market, and is mainly divided into volatile memory and non-volatile memory. The former includes DRAM and SRAM, and the latter mainly includes NANDFlash and NORFlash. DRAM and NANDFlash are two pillar industries of memory. China relies heavily on imports. Among them, NANDFlash products are almost entirely from abroad. They are mainly used in mobile phones, solid-state hard drives and servers. NORFlash is mainly used in the Internet of Things. The technology threshold is relatively low, and Chinese companies have basically grasped, but their application areas and market size are not as good as DRAM. And NANDFlash.
Excessive reliance on imports not only faces the risk of interruption of supply, but also increases prices from time to time. The soaring prices of memory chips since the second half of 2016 have also made domestic terminal manufacturers miserable. Although, Yangtze River’s storage under the Ziguang Group is trying to achieve China. Breakthrough in memory chips, but it takes time before mass production in real scale. China's first 32-layer three-dimensional flash memory chips (3DNANDFlash) cost US$1 billion from Yangtze River Storage, which lasted two years.
In 2018, Wuhan Yangtze River Storage Base began to move into production facilities to achieve small-scale mass production. By 2019, the company's 64-layer 128Gb 3D NAND memory chips will enter the scale of research and development. The employees told reporters that the first generation of product technology will be out this year 'Mainly for technical accumulation, not a truly mass-market product. It may be that next year when our second-generation product comes out, it will be mass-produced according to market demand'. Previously, Zhao Weiguo, chairman of Ziguang Group, stated that Ziguang Group will With 100 billion U.S. dollars invested in chip manufacturing, it is estimated that 370 billion yuan will be raised at this stage and 'prepared for five years of ammunition'.
Ziguang Guoxin is one of the core companies of the Ziguang Group's integrated circuit industry. At present, the company's main business is the design and sales of integrated circuit chips, including smart security chips, special integrated circuits and memory chips, respectively from Beijing Tongfang Microelectronics Co., Ltd. , Shenzhen City Microelectronics Co., Ltd. and Xi'an Ziguang Guoxin Semiconductor Co., Ltd. three core subsidiaries bear.
The smart security chip is its main source of income. The financial report shows that in 2017, Ziguang Guoxin’s operating revenue was 1.83 billion yuan, among which smart security chips, special integrated circuits, memory chips and crystal components accounted for the total revenue 44.47%, 28.22%, 18.30% and 8.82%.
However, Ziguang Zengru, which was formally completed in January 2018, is the most important part of Ziguang Group's chip design layout. In 2013 and 2014, Ziguang Group completed the exhibition with a price of 1.8 billion U.S. dollars and a price of 900 million U.S. dollars respectively. Communications and RDA acquisitions, the two companies subsequently delisted from Nasdaq. Ziguang Group said that after integration, at the product business level, Spreadtrum will continue to focus on autonomy of baseband chips for 2G/3G/4G/5G mobile communications. R&D and design; RDA is committed to the research and development of core technologies in the field of Internet of Things.
In recent years, Zhan Rui has not performed satisfactorily. According to data from the China Semiconductor Industry Association, Zeng Rui sales in 2011 were RMB 11 billion, which is a decrease of 12% compared with RMB 12.5 billion in 2016. 361, another domestic mobile phone chip design company, Huawei Hass Compared with 100 million yuan, the gap has further widened.
In addition to the Yangtze River’s first 32-layer three-dimensional flash memory chip, the company’s independent research and development road, the SC9850KH developed by Violet Zhanrui also has a breakthrough. It is the first mobile phone chip platform with the key technology of independent embedded CPU.
However, there are some that are not in Ziguang's chip layout, such as the processors of computers and servers. Referring to this problem, Yu Yingtao, the co-president of Ziguang Group, and Yu Yingtao, president and CEO of Xinhua San Group, told the First Financial reporter: 'CPU's problem is no solution, no solution. Intel is too strong. 'Either at home or abroad, the CPU market is basically monopolized by Intel. In the area of server CPUs, Intel’s share is as high as 90% or more. '95% The money was taken by an Intel company. The servers in the world were all worked for Intel. Dell, HPE, China's Xinhua, Huawei, Inspur, and Dawn were all working for Intel. This is the reality. I was very angry and I was helpless on the one hand. ' Yu Yingtao said.
As for the layout of Ziguang Group on the chip, Wang Jingming concluded that the current products are not all-inclusive. Ziguang's chip design industry mainly covers communications, smart cards, FPGAs and some special-purpose products. 'This is still a comprehensive layout of the chip. Gap. 'From the perspective of the industry chain, Ziguang is in the design (Ziguang Zengrui, Ziguang Guoxin), manufacturing (Yangtze River Storage, etc.) and Fengjian's holdings of Shanghai Hongmao Microelectronics, acquisition of Sipin Technology (Suzhou)' also There are layouts, but production is focused on storage, and mass production has not yet been achieved. 'The balance between storage and design is not so light. To a certain extent, the pressure on storage at Ziguang Group will be greater because of the great investment intensity. , Economic risks are also great.
Enter the public cloud
Ziguang said that the chip industry can enhance the core competitiveness of the Ziguang Group's cloud computing industry, and the cloud computing industry can provide the chip industry with an application market.
In an interview with reporters from First Financial and other reporters, Yu Yingtao stated that currently there are three types of manufacturers in the country that provide cloud services. One is private clouds that are promoted by traditional ICT manufacturers such as Huawei, Xinhuasan, Inspur, and Dawning. Public clouds; One category is cloud companies represented by Internet companies BATJ, and UCloud, Qingyun QingCloud and other professional cloud service providers. In addition to providing IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS services online, the latter two are more concentrated. Enterprise-level cloud service power.
In his view, this has threatened Huawei, Xinhua III's site. 'It used to be it, I played with me. Now it has hit my site. This is the most basic strategy of our public cloud. It hit my site. I must fight back. '
Different from Internet companies, which have evolved into cloud computing services earlier, the layout of ICT vendors has become sluggish. As Internet companies have taken a leading position in the public cloud market, they have gradually penetrated from 2C services to 2B's enterprise-level user domains. ICT Manufacturers also rose to resist. In August of last year, Huawei CloudBU formally migrated to Huawei, ranking second only to Huawei's three BGs (operator business BG, corporate business BG, and consumer business BG) and vowed to become the world’s “5 clouds”. One of them. At the 'H3CNAVIGATE2018 Pilot Summit' held on March 30 this year, Ziguang Group announced that it has invested 12 billion yuan to officially enter the public cloud market. Zhao Weiguo stated that the cloud industry is an important part of Ziguang's 'core cloud strategy'. Yu Yingtao stated that Ziguang Group's public cloud products will be formally launched on June 30, and said that Ziguang Public Cloud can achieve the top two in the field of enterprise-class customer segmentation.
Yu Yingtao stated that public cloud is a money-burning business, '12 billion investment is a basic line, even less. In the future, we will increase investment through development or financing in the development process. '
At present, China's public cloud IaaS market as a whole maintains rapid growth. According to the IDC data of international research institutions, the overall scale in the first half of 2017 exceeded US$1 billion, an increase of nearly 70% compared to the same period last year. In the first half of 2017, Alibaba Cloud’s IaaS layer revenue was 500 million. USD, which occupies 47.6% of the Chinese market share, followed by Tencent Cloud, Jinshan Cloud, China Telecom and Ucloud.
At Huawei's 2017 annual report conference, Hu Houkun, chairman of Huawei's rotating team, also predicted that 'the cloud business will be dominated by Internet companies and SMEs during the 1.0 period. There will be more and more large companies in the era of 2.0, especially traditional The industry uses the cloud approach to complete their digital transformation.
The corporate customers are considered to be the sites of ICT vendors. Yu Yingtao believes that compared with Internet cloud service vendors, ICT companies naturally have 2B genes, which is its greatest advantage. BAT moves from public clouds to private clouds, while Ziguang Group From the private cloud to the public cloud, he said: “Purple cloud public cloud is not the same as public cloud represented by BAT. It belongs to dislocation competition. We may not be doing online business in at least two to three years. Open to the public business, we only do corporate-level public cloud. 'Whether it is Xinhua III or Ziguang, all long-term service corporate customers. Yu Yingtao said that Xinhua III sold 'boxes' origin, 'routers, switches, servers, etc. All sorts of things are boxes. In the past, business users bought boxes to find me, bought private clouds to find me, bought public clouds to find someone (because there wasn't); now, I offer you a full set of solutions for you, and I'm cloudy Management, with a set of platforms, an operating system to meet the needs, can improve efficiency, and easy maintenance.
However, it is not easy to complete the transition from selling equipment to providing services. In Ying Tao’s frank statement, 'Operating and service are the advantages of Internet companies and also our biggest shortcomings. We lack operating experience, so we dare not venture into the 2C field. We must learn from these companies. '
Yu Yingtao stated that the flagship enterprise in the Ziyun Group's cloud network business group is the Xinhua Group and the future Ziguang Cloud. Xinhua III will provide Ziguang Cloud with technical and market development services. On the technical level, all the underlying layers of the Ziguang Cloud The structure, technical coordination and R&D are currently supported by Xinhua III. In terms of market development, Ziguang Cloud's marketing team is highly synergistic with Xinhua III's marketing team. 'When Xinhua's customers need Ziguang Cloud Service, we will introduce him to them. Violet cloud, and even help the purple light cloud to consign. Because the purple light cloud itself and Xinhua San is a twin brother. Xinhua San's technology system and sales force is the core guarantee of the success of Ziguang cloud. 'First Financial Daily
6. Mega Ease and Rambus form a joint venture to establish RRAM company Rui Ke Micro and simultaneously complete Series A financing
On the 9th of May, the US semiconductor technology provider Rambus established a joint venture company with China's non-volatile memory solution and 32-bit microcontroller supplier Zhaoyi Innovation Hefei Ruike Microelectronics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Rui (Kewei), and simultaneously completed the A round of financing led by Qingjian Ginkgo. This new joint venture is committed to the commercialization of Resistive Random Access Memory (RRAM) technology and will bring next-generation memory technology to market. For use in embedded devices.
The joint venture investors of this investment include Hefei High-tech Industry Investment Co., Ltd., CIC Zhongcai, and Huashan Capital. The strategic investors of this investment include Rambus, Zhaoyi Innovation. Other investment partners include Walden International and Zhenghe Island Investment.
RRAM is a type of non-volatile memory that operates by changing the resistance of a particular solid dielectric material. RRAM devices, also known as memristors, change resistance when applied with different voltages. RRAM is more than traditional embedded non- The lower power consumption of volatile memory makes it an ideal choice for Internet of Things (IoT) applications - low power performance is critical in IoT applications.
As a new generation of memory vendors, Tridonic is committed to the commercialization of Resistive Random Access Memory (RRAM) technology and brings next-generation memory technology to the market. Compared with existing technologies, it will have low cost, low power consumption, and information security. The advantage of being able to scale down, the product can be applied to the storage of embedded and IoT devices.
Rambus CEO Ron Black said: “Rambus has invested in RRAM technology for many years and this joint venture is a great way to continue to develop this technology for the embedded market. Through cooperation, Rambus and other partners will make this joint venture Can provide innovative storage solutions for the next wave of the most advanced mobile devices. '
'We are very proud to be able to provide our customers with the widest range of non-volatile memory solutions,' said Yiyi Yi, founder of Mega Innovation, 'This strategic investment is aimed at our GD32 microcontroller series and other futures such as Embedded products in applications such as the Internet of Things provide emerging storage solutions.
Qing Jun, founding partner of Gingko said: 'We are very pleased to be the joint lead investor of REC Microelectronics. This will enable us to explore new eras of memory technology together with Rambus, Kyi Yi Innovation and other partners. We are in technology. The good record of investment gives us confidence. We are convinced that this new opportunity for development will bring exciting new technologies to the global market.
Qingkong Ginkgo is a team-led venture capital management organization under Tsinghua Holdings Co., Ltd. It has established such brand names as 'Tsinghua Science Park Incubator' and 'Inspired Venture Capital'.