Written by Zhidixi (public account: zhidxcom) | Wei Shiwei
Not long after the beginning of 2020, the "investment company" Xiaomi began to take action again.
Buffett said: "I am fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful." At a time when the global economy is on the brink of crisis, Lei Jun's Xiaomi Industry Fund has started greed mode.
Starting from January 16, Xiaomi Group, through its subsidiary Hubei Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership), referred to as Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund, has invested in Dili in just over two months. Eight semiconductor companies including Austrian Microelectronics, Lingdong Microelectronics and Aojie Technology.
This wave of operations was less than half a year after Xiaomi invested in Sutong Semiconductor for the first time on November 19, 2019. So far, Xiaomi's supply chain investment map has expanded to 19 semiconductor companies, covering Wi-Fi chips, radio frequency (RF) chips, MCU sensors, FPGAs and other fields.
Xiaomi’s dream of making cores has not stopped.
In October last year, Zhidongxi conducted an investigation and report on Xiaomi’s supply chain investment, sorting out Xiaomi’s ecological chain and supply chain investment strategy, especially in the semiconductor field. ("Xiaomi's Breakout Battle: After investing in 12 supply chain companies in two years and fighting, how many trump cards does Lei Jun have?")
Xiaomi revealed in its second quarter financial report of 2019 that as of June 2019 On the 30th, there were more than 270 foreign investment companies, with a total book value of 28.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.8. At the same time, as of August 20, it has invested in 12 supply chain companies, covering semiconductors to smart manufacturing.
Among them, the 8 semiconductor companies it has invested in not only provide endurance for its "AI AIoT" dual-engine strategy in the short term, but also provide it with long-term impact on the chip R&D market and open up the industrial chain. "Meridian" laid the technical foundation.
These are Xiaomi’s “self-rescue” and new strategies for the industry chain in the semiconductor field after the failure of the ThePaper S2 chip.
With Xiaomi’s series of investment actions since 2020, Zhixixi decided to once again focus on Xiaomi’s semiconductor investment plan. While exploring Xiaomi’s layout and progress in the semiconductor field, it also found out what it hides The strategic thinking and changes behind it.
At the same time, can Xiaomi’s industrial chain investment tactics really create new technological layout methods? It’s a long road ahead. What ambitions and expectations does Xiaomi’s core-making journey reflect Lei Jun’s ambitions and expectations?
In February this year, at Xiaomi’s first product launch of the year, the flagship Xiaomi Mi 10, which had traveled in space, once again aroused industry enthusiasm. The protagonist of the product performance also came from Qualcomm Snapdragon. The Dragon 855 has been upgraded to the Snapdragon 865.
Behind the "halo" blessing of Snapdragon 865 is the "dark" third year of Xiaomi Surging S2.
The term "self-developed chips" has gradually become another weakness of Xiaomi since the launch of Xiaomi 5C mobile phone and its equipped Pascal S1 in 2017, and this is also a problem that has long been said to be "bad" by the industry. story.
In 2018, since Songguo Electronics, a semiconductor company owned by Xiaomi, was reorganized and established Nanjing Dayu Semiconductor, Xiaomi’s self-developed chip manufacturing process seems to have stopped in the eyes of the outside world.
Although a year later, Dayu Semiconductor and Pingtou Ge*** jointly released an NB-IoT SoC chip called U1, which is oriented to the Internet of Things field and has built-in GPS and PA (power amplifier chip). It supports Beidou NB-IoT R13, but it has not caused much waves in the market. Looking back, I don’t know since when, the official website of Pinecone Electronics has been covered with dust, showing that it is inaccessible.
However, contrary to Xiaomi’s slow progress in self-developed chips, Xiaomi’s semiconductor investment is gradually accelerating.
On January 23, 2018, Xiaomi’s Zimi Technology and Shunwei Capital, a joint venture founded by Lei Jun, conducted an A-level investigation into Nanxin Semiconductor, a semiconductor company engaged in integrated circuit (IC) research and design A round of investment, with a transaction amount of tens of millions of yuan, was Xiaomi’s first step into the semiconductor investment battlefield.
In the following two years, Xiaomi's investment "engine" continued to accelerate, and it successively invested in 19 semiconductor companies such as Yunyinggu Technology, Espressif Technology, and VeriSilicon Microelectronics, covering display driver chips, MCU sensors, Wi-Fi chips and radio frequency chips and other fields. Among them, three companies, Juchen Semiconductor, Espressif Systems Technology and Amlogic Semiconductor, have been successfully listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board.
Xiaomi’s momentum has continued into 2020, and it has shown stronger momentum in the market.
Since January 16, Xiaomi’s Hubei Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership), referred to as the Yangtze River Xiaomi Industry Fund, has invested in 8 semiconductor companies within two months. There were 7 new investors, far exceeding the previous frequency.
According to public information statistics, these eight semiconductor companies are Diao Microelectronics, Sutong Semiconductor, Xinbaite Microelectronics, Fortior (Fengqian Technology), Angrui Microelectronics, Aojie Technology, Smart Microelectronics and Hanxin Microelectronics.
1. Diao Microelectronics
Diao Microelectronics, founded in February 2010, is a hybrid analog semiconductor IC design and manufacturing company. Its founder and chairman Ju Jianhong graduated from Majored in electrical engineering at the State University of New York in the United States. Before officially founding Dio Micro, he had nearly ten years of working experience at Fairchild Semiconductor in the United States, responsible for chip design, technology, application and marketing.
At present, Diao Micro provides corresponding chip solutions to the fields of consumer electronics, smart home, LED lighting, medical electronics and industrial electronics. Its main products include LED lighting components, ultra-low power consumption and Low noise amplifiers, high-efficiency power management electronics, and electronics for a variety of analog audio/video applications.
As of July 1, 2019, Diao Micro has applied for 65 patents of various types. Among them, 15 invention patents have been authorized and 17 utility model patents have been authorized.
According to public information from the Sutong Science and Technology Industrial Park Management Committee in Nantong, Jiangsu, on June 30, 2019, Diaowei has been listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board.
On January 16, 2020, Diowei also received a strategic financing from Xiaomi. Its new shareholder is Changjiang Xiaomi Fund, holding 17.23 shares, but the transaction amount has not yet been disclosed.
2. Lingdong Microelectronics
Lingdong Microelectronics is a provider of MCU chips and solutions. It was established in March 2011. Its chairman and CEO Dr. Wu Zhongjie graduated from Southeast University University and has working experience in many large chip design companies.
In terms of products, Lingdong Microelectronics has developed the MM32 series of MCU products based on the Arm Cortex-M0 and Cortex-M3 cores, mainly in five series: F/L/W/SPIN/P, respectively targeting general high-end applications. Performance market, ultra-low power consumption and safety applications, wireless connections, motors and power supplies, and OTP (One Time Programable) type MCUs.
It is understood that the MM32 series MCU products have been widely used in automotive electronics, industrial and motor control, smart home appliances, medical, consumer electronics and other markets.
In fact, Lingdong Microelectronics was listed on the New Third Board as early as August 31, 2015, but the company issued an announcement in 2019 that it would terminate its stock ownership starting from March 14 Listed, announced delisting.
Following the expansion of investment in Xiaomi’s semiconductor industry chain, Xiaomi has also focused its investment on the MCU technology advantages of Smart Microelectronics.
On January 19 this year, Lingdong Microelectronics received strategic financing funds from the Yangtze River Xiaomi Industry Fund, and its registered capital increased to 56.68 million yuan, an increase of 19.88%.
At the same time, Wang Xiaobo, managing partner of Xiaomi Industry Fund, became the new director of Lingdong Microelectronics.
3. Xinbaite Microelectronics
Compared with other semiconductor companies invested by Xiaomi, Xinbaite, which was established in October 2018, appears to be particularly young.
It is understood that after graduating from Tsinghua University with a master's degree in microelectronics, the company's founder and CEO Zhang Haitao went to the United States to study and received a doctorate in microelectronics from the University of California. He also had ten years of experience in Qualcomm, TriQuint and RFaxis. More than 10 years of work experience. At the same time, he also led the R&D team responsible for Apple iPhone5/6 and Texas Instruments WiFi radio frequency terminal projects.
Xinbaite mainly uses high-performance radio frequency chip technology to design and develop wireless communication radio frequency devices. Its products are deployed in 5G, Wi-Fi and IoT and other fields, targeting communication equipment, consumer electronics, automotive electronics, Multiple markets such as medical electronics and smart devices.
At present, the company has developed products such as Wi-Fi 5 front-end module (FEM), 5G communication power amplifier and radio frequency switch, and has reached partnerships with companies such as Xiaomi, Lenovo, China Mobile and China Telecom. .
On January 21 this year, Xinbaite also disclosed its first equity financing. Yangtze River Xiaomi Industry Fund invested 560,300 yuan, with a shareholding ratio of 4.33, becoming the company’s seventh largest shareholder.
4. Fortior Technology (Fortior)
Founded in May 2010, Fortior Technology is a relatively low-key IC design company that mainly develops special chips for motor drive control.
According to investigations, founder and CEO Bi Lei was selected into the eighth batch of the "Thousand Talents Plan" of the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 2012, and CTO Bi Chao was also selected into the eleventh batch in 2015. The "Thousand Talents Plan" is an important talent policy implemented by our country to introduce returning talents.
At the same time, Bi Chao serves as a postdoctoral tutor at the National University of Singapore, a senior member of IEEE, and has served as a senior scientist at the Science and Technology Authority of Singapore. He has rich R&D experience in the field of motor technology.
▲Fengqian Technology CTO Bi Chao
Currently, Fengqian Technology has established two major R&D centers in China and Singapore.
It has developed a full range of brushless DC motor drive products through a number of core technologies such as three-phase and single-phase Hall-free DC brushless drives, including three-phase BLDC dedicated control chips, single-phase BLDC dedicated Control chips, motor-specific MCU series, etc. are widely used in terminal equipment, drones, consumer electronics, home appliances, medical equipment and other fields.
In April 2014, Fengxia Technology received Series A financing with a transaction amount of tens of millions of yuan. The strategic financing disclosed on January 21 this year was invested by Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund, ZTE Venture Capital and other institutions, of which Xiaomi invested 1.2972 million yuan, accounting for 1.87% of the equity.
5. Onrui Microelectronics
For Onrui Microelectronics, which has just moved to a new home, the RMB 3.1071 million invested by Xiaomi on February 20 is undoubtedly a blessing. The good news is that before this, Angruiwei had not increased its capital for seven years. It is understood that after this investment, Xiaomi’s equity ratio will be 6.98, making it the third largest shareholder of Onruiwei.
At the same time, this investment will also be used in the research and development of radio frequency front-end chips for 5G mobile phone terminals and new generation Internet of Things SoC chips.
Founded in July 2012, Onrui Micro is one of the important RF/analog integrated circuit design and development manufacturers in my country.
It has developed 2G/3G/4G/5G radio frequency front-end chips, Bluetooth low energy (BLE ) chips, dual-mode Bluetooth chips, low-noise amplifiers and a series of radio frequency front-end and wireless connection chips, with more than 200 types of mass-produced chips.
It is understood that the chips developed by Onrew Micro have covered consumer fields such as mobile terminals, wearable devices, drones and smart homes. Customers include Samsung Electronics, Foxconn, ZTE, TCL and Lenovo. of manufacturers.
6. Sutong Semiconductor
Compared with other traditional chip manufacturers, Sutong Semiconductor, established in July 2018, is also relatively young and is a Wi-Fi 6 chip design company. , but it is the only non-new investment company among Xiaomi’s semiconductor investments in 2020.
In fact, Yangtze Xiaomi Industry Fund invested in Sutong Semiconductor on November 19, 2019, becoming the company’s sixth largest shareholder. This was also Xiaomi’s last investment in the semiconductor field in 2019. .
Based on Sutong Semiconductor’s chip research and development technology in the field of Wi-Fi 6, Xiaomi decided to increase its weight and led the company’s Series A financing on February 20 this year, with Yaotu Capital also participating in the investment . So far, Sutong Semiconductor's registered capital has increased from the initial 10.4 million yuan to 13 million yuan, an increase of 25.
In addition to further expanding the engineering R&D team, Sutong Semiconductor also plans to use this investment in the R&D and mass production of Wi-Fi 6 SoC products.
It is reported that the company’s core R&D team has rich experience in Wi-Fi 6 standardization and has previously developed more than 20 wireless SoC chipsets for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular 4G globally. .
At this stage, the company is also accelerating the research and development and mass production of the next generation Wi-Fi 6 chipset to further meet the strong market demand for Wi-Fi 6 chips.
7. Aojie Technology
Aojie Technology is a baseband chip design company that mainly develops mobile terminal equipment, Internet of Things, navigation and other consumer electronics chips. It was established in 2015 , and received Series A financing from Alibaba and Shenzhen Venture Capital in August 2017. Alibaba is the largest shareholder, holding 21.75 shares.
Aojie Technology, which has a rich financing history, received strategic investment from Yangtze River Xiaomi Industry Fund, Industrial Securities Investment and other institutions on February 24 this year, and its registered capital also increased from US$363 million to $375 million. Among them, Xiaomi’s subscribed capital contribution was US$5.1917 million, accounting for 1.38%.
It is understood that Dai Baojia, the founder and chairman of Aojie Technology, graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States with a master's degree in electrical engineering and also holds a master's degree in business administration from the University of Chicago. Before founding Aojie Technology, he also served as the chairman and CEO of Ruidike, a radio frequency chip company.
It is worth mentioning that the company acquired Marvell’s mobile communications unit (MBU) in 2017, becoming one of the few companies in my country with full network technology.
At present, Aojie Technology’s product line has covered multi-standard communication standards including 2G/3G/4G/5G and IoT, and has successfully developed mobile communication baseband chips, Wi-Fi chips, and LoRa chips. and multi-mode IoT wearable chips and other communication chips.
8. Hanxin Microelectronics
Founded in March 2017, Hanxin Microelectronics is a fast charging protocol chip company, including digital-analog hybrid chips, power chips, etc.
At present, the company has multiple business product lines such as LDO (low dropout regulator), voltage detection, lithium battery charging, fast charging interface identification and USB charging protocol ports, covering a wide range of fields such as toys, smart meters and fast charging.
It is understood that Hanxin Microelectronics not only reached tens of millions of strategic investment cooperation with TCL and SK Hynix in 2017, but is also a fast charging agreement supplier for companies such as Qualcomm, Huawei and Spreadtrum. The cumulative shipments of charging protocol chips have reached nearly 100 million.
Just a week ago on March 10, Yangtze Xiaomi Industry Fund announced a new external investment and officially became a shareholder of Hanxin Microelectronics, with a subscribed investment of 308,600 yuan and a shareholding ratio of 9.92, becoming the company. the fourth largest shareholder.
At the same time, the registered capital of Hanxin Microelectronics also increased from the original 2.7778 million yuan to 3.1121 million yuan, an increase of 12.04%.
It is not difficult to see that Xiaomi’s semiconductor industry layout is the same as Lei Jun’s usual “first-hand ecological chain, first-hand industrial chain” investment path. It also puts its “eggs” in two baskets, one is self-research Chips, one is industry chain investment.
But judging from the actual situation, Xiaomi’s self-developed core manufacturing path is not smooth.
It is understood that the ThePaper S1 launched by Xiaomi in 2017 is a 64-bit processor, using 28nm process technology and eight-core design, and contains four A53 cores with a frequency of 2.2GHz and four 1.4 cores. GHz clocked A53 core, and 4-core Mali-T860 GPU.
For Xiaomi, which started out on the Internet, although the birth of the Paper S1 was not easy, Lei Jun took the first shot of Xiaomi semiconductor research and development in the mobile smart terminal market. So this chip will compete with other Compared with its opponents, it is still weak in terms of performance, process and power consumption.
With rumors circulating that the ThePaper 2 chip was unable to break through the power consumption and performance bottleneck, and the senior management team was unable to bear the huge expenses in chip development and tape-out, Xiaomi's originally ambitious self-research and core manufacturing plan gradually disappeared. sound.
Although with the reorganization of Songuo Electronics, Dayu Semiconductor jointly launched the NB-IoT SoC chip with Pingtou Ge in 2019, its performance was mediocre and failed to truly refresh the industry and market’s perception of Xiaomi." "Insufficient core making capacity" label.
So, is it time for Lei Jun to wake up from his stumbling dream of self-developed cores? For now, the answer is still no.
Xiaomi, which is skilled in the field of industrial chain investment, has gradually opened up a semiconductor supply chain investment path with "Xiaomi characteristics" over the past two years or so, which has supplemented its own semiconductor R&D strength from the side. Inadequate shortcomings.
According to Zhixixi, among the 19 semiconductor companies that Xiaomi has invested in in the past two years, in addition to Shunwei Capital, which was co-founded by Lei Jun, the investment entities also include Hubei Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund Partnership (Yangtze Xiaomi Industry Fund for short), Jiangsu Zimi Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. (Zimi Technology for short), Tianjin Venus Venture Capital Co., Ltd., Wuhan Luojia Wutong Emerging Industry Investment Fund Partnership and People Better.
Behind Xiaomi’s slowly expanding semiconductor investment landscape, the Yangtze River Xiaomi Industry Fund has played the most important role.
It is understood that the fund was established in 2017 with a target fund size of 12 billion yuan. It is mainly used to support the business expansion of Xiaomi and Xiaomi ecological chain companies. But unlike other funds that focus on investing in Internet of Things companies, this fund’s foreign investment mainly focuses on the semiconductor field.
Zhidongxi found that there are currently 24 external investments disclosed by Yangtze River Xiaomi Fund on the enterprise industrial and commercial information query platform, covering mobile phones and smart hardware, core components of electronic products, smart manufacturing, industrial automation, and new technologies. materials and new processes.
Among them, more than half of the fund's investments are in the semiconductor field, with a total of 13 companies. It has become an important weapon for Xiaomi to invest in the semiconductor supply chain.
At present, it seems that "angel investor" Lei Jun's semiconductor investment dream is gathering full strength to move forward.
2020 is not only the second year after Lei Jun announced the launch of Xiaomi’s “mobile phone AIoT” dual-engine strategy, it is also the third year of Xiaomi’s core-making dream.
At this stage, Xiaomi’s semiconductor investment layout has been deployed in multiple fields such as MCU, FPGA, RF, GaN and IP, and has gradually achieved coverage of the entire industry chain from semiconductor materials, electronic components to IC design.
But it is not difficult to find that Xiaomi’s dream of making cores is changing direction, from the mobile terminal chip market that Lei Jun initially targeted, to slowly developing towards the Internet of Things market.
The most direct manifestation is that Xiaomi’s smartphone product hardware still uses Qualcomm chips as its main hardware, while its own semiconductor investment focuses on the AIoT field with a wider range of applications.
For example, Xiaomi has invested in more than eight semiconductor companies involved in the smart home field, including Wuxi Haoda, Amlogic Semiconductor, VeriSilicon, Ankai Microelectronics, and Onrei Microelectronics.
This is undoubtedly an important step for Xiaomi in the AIoT development trend that will hit the market in 2018.
According to data reported by market research organization iiMedia Research, my country’s AIoT hardware market reached 500 billion yuan in 2018, and this figure is expected to exceed one trillion yuan by 2020.
At the beginning of 2019, Lei Jun announced that he would invest 10 billion yuan in the AIoT field in the next five years, and Xiaomi’s R&D investment expenses have also increased year by year.
On February 13 this year, Xiaomi issued a voluntary announcement disclosing its latest revenue and research and development expenses. Xiaomi's R&D expenses are expected to be approximately RMB 7 billion for the year ending December 31, 2019, and it plans to increase its investment in the 5G AIoT field to further expand the company's advantages in IoT.
At the same time, Xiaomi’s R&D expenses are expected to exceed 10 billion yuan in the year ending December 31, 2020, 4 years ahead of Lei Jun’s commitment to reach 10 billion R&D investment within 5 years in 2019. . In comparison, Xiaomi invested only 3.151 billion in research and development expenses in 2017, accounting for 2.75% of total revenue.
From another perspective, Xiaomi is more inclined to follow the "win-win investment" approach to core manufacturing. Simply put, Xiaomi is one of the "finance owners" of those semiconductor companies and is also their important customer.
Take Amlogic Semiconductor, which Xiaomi invested in November 2018, as an example. The company mainly develops multimedia smart terminal application processor chips, including Amazon, Google, Alibaba, Baidu and Xiaomi. The Company is its client. Among them, Amlogic Semiconductor’s sales to Xiaomi in 2018 were approximately 262 million yuan, accounting for 11.06% of the revenue in the same period.
It is precisely based on this strategic relationship that Xiaomi’s AIoT business also achieved good results in fiscal year 2019.
According to Xiaomi’s 2019 Q3 financial report, as of September 30, 2019, the number of connected IoT devices (excluding smartphones and laptops) to Xiaomi’s IoT platform reached 213.2 million units, a year-on-year increase of 62.0% .
In addition, Xiaomi’s IoT and consumer products revenue was 15.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 44.4%. Among them, according to statistics from Aowei Cloud, Xiaomi TV ranked first in domestic shipments with a market share of 16.9 in the third quarter of 2019.
From this point of view, Xiaomi is using its ever-accelerating semiconductor investment layout to demonstrate its ambitions in the wave of AIoT and core manufacturing.
But for Xiaomi’s core manufacturing path, ambition alone is not enough.
Behind the semiconductor investment map, Xiaomi is still suffering from the sting of the weakness of "lack of cores" and "lack of technology". From the current point of view, if Xiaomi wants to truly stand on the commanding heights of the industry and become a "great company" as Lei Jun said, it still lacks a "core."
Looking back at the public opinion field about Xiaomi's core manufacturing, on the one hand, there is the industry's ridicule and doubts about Xiaomi's self-developed chips, and on the other hand, the capital market's curiosity and expectations for Xiaomi's strategic investment.
At this stage, in terms of Xiaomi’s investment and specific development in the semiconductor industry chain, its core-making breakthrough is still a long and protracted battle. On the one hand, Xiaomi is still waiting for the "comeback" of Pinecone Electronics, and hopes that "rookie" Big Fish Semiconductor can catch up from behind; on the other hand, although Xiaomi is constantly expanding its semiconductor investment territory, it has not yet truly shaken the market position of the leading domestic players. .
It is undeniable that although Xiaomi’s investment in semiconductor companies will help enrich and expand its AIoT business, in the final analysis, how much will these investments support Xiaomi’s own chip research and development technology? Can it really bring technological innovation to Xiaomi? We don't know yet.
Xiaomi’s gradually accelerating semiconductor investment layout will provide development impetus for its “AI AIoT” dual-engine strategy in the short term, enriching and strengthening its AIoT business. But in the long run, Xiaomi Lei Jun’s dream of making cores still has a long way to go.