Xi'an Feixin Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., a provider of laser radar chip-level solutions, has received tens of millions of pre-A rounds of financing jointly led by Bosch and Bobby. This round of financing will be used for technology research and development. Market expansion and other aspects.
With the continuous development of artificial intelligence technology, industrial applications represented by unmanned driving have put forward higher requirements for hardware technologies such as laser radar. Lidar gives unmanned vehicles the ability to perceive complex traffic environments. The most critical sensor for driving is also a field of general concern for AI venture capital circles at home and abroad.
From the perspective of industry development, the integration and low price of laser radar is the inevitable development trend of large-scale application. Therefore, solid-state laser radar with small size, low price and high reliability will receive more and more attention.
From the track point of view, foreign laser radar manufacturers mainly include Velodyne, Ibeo, Innoviz, Leddar Tech and Quanergy. The domestic manufacturers started relatively late, the main manufacturers are Beike Tianqi, Hesai Technology, Sagitar Juchuang and so on.
In terms of technology alone, Velodyne and Quanergy in the United States and Ibeo in Germany have become the global leader in laser radar. Their products have been applied in unmanned test vehicles and are currently in a monopoly position in the market.
Lidar is divided into mechanical rotary radar and solid-state laser radar from the technical level. Currently, the mainstream laser products on the market are mechanical rotary laser radars. Line detectors are used, which rely on high-speed mechanical rotation for scanning. Assembly accuracy and reliability are extremely required. High, mass production is challenged, resulting in high prices; and large product size, lack of human eye safety, poor anti-interference ability, etc. are the main problems in the current stage.
Founded in 2016, Feixin Electronics develops low-cost, small-sized, highly reliable, highly anti-interference and human-protected Lidar through core technologies such as chip design, circuit design, signal processing, and system integration. product.
In response to industry pain points, the current fly-core research and development products use continuous wave-borne modulation or coherent heterodyne detection schemes, using focal plane point cloud ranging technology to meet higher spatial resolution and larger field of view, the detection distance can exceed 200m, without the need for complicated and expensive mechanical scanning devices, continuously improve system reliability, and make the obtained images clearer.
In terms of signal processing, the company's patented technology effectively suppresses crosstalk between background light and other light sources, improving the measurement accuracy and anti-interference ability of the system. By providing a chip-level solution, the laser radar is highly integrated. The product cost and volume are also greatly reduced. In the actual application process, it can be better integrated with the vehicle body to achieve concealed and beautiful effects, no longer affect the aerodynamic performance of the vehicle, and actively promote the large-scale application of the vehicle laser radar.
At present, Feixin Electronics is mainly engaged in the business model of B2B, with R&D and production of laser radar systems and core chips as its main business. The future customer groups are mainly for domestic and foreign automotive, robots, drones and other production R&D manufacturers. For domestic and foreign automotive electronics, vehicle manufacturers and unmanned high-tech companies to cooperate, and has reached a strategic cooperation agreement with the main target customers.
On the team side, the core R&D team has more than 50 people, accounting for 87% of the company's total, of which more than 90% are graduate students or above.
CEO & Chairman Lei Shuyu: PhD in Electrical Engineering, School of Electronic Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, USA; Graduated from the Department of Electronics, Peking University. His core team has extensive project development experience and is composed of several industry experts. Long-term technical development work in the industry's top companies or research institutes, technology areas include chip design, photoelectric sensor design, laser technology, packaging technology, optical design, system integration and other aspects of laser radar.
Feixin Electronics has successively obtained capital injections from Bosch (Bosch), Xike Angel, Shanghai Fengrui and Jinshajiang. The company's current valuation is 470 million yuan.
According to reports, Feixin Electronics plans to release the first laser radar product in the fourth quarter of 2018, and achieve small batch production in 2019.