Huawei took action and opened up this secret track.
The investment community has learned that recently, Microsource Photonics (Shenzhen) Technology Co., Ltd. has undergone industrial and commercial changes, adding Huawei affiliated company Shenzhen Hubble Technology Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) as a shareholder. Previously, Xiaomi affiliates had invested in the company, holding 6.48% of the shares.
Behind the optical chip, lies the hope of China’s semiconductor industry to change lanes and overtake. A careful review revealed that Huawei has invested in the entire optical chip industry chain - from upstream, midstream to downstream, investing in corresponding companies. Following Huawei's lead, VC/PE are also gathering here.
Huawei’s low-key approach:
Just hired a Ph.D. from Peking University
Let’s start with a Ph.D. from Peking University.
Zhu Xiaoqi, the founder of Microsource Photonics, graduated from the School of Information Science and Technology of Peking University and received a double bachelor's degree in economics from the National Development Research Institute. During his master's and doctoral studies, he chose to continue his studies at Yanyuan, where he studied under Professor Chen Zhangyuan, director of the State Key Laboratory of Regional Optical Fiber Communication Networks and New Optical Communication Systems at Peking University, focusing on the field of lasers.
In the early years, when domestic communications were still stuck in the 2G and 3G era, Zhu Xiaoqi specialized in one technology - narrow linewidth lasers. Laser is one of the important components of lidar, and is even known as the "eyes of lidar", and narrow-line lasers mean better performance.
In the long-term scientific research process, Zhu Xiaoqi keenly felt a trend: the communication world is moving from the electrical era to the optical era. If you want to break through the bottleneck of electrical limits, you must use optical communication technology to channel a large number of computing power. force demand. This gave him the idea of ??starting a business. In November 2018, Zhu Xiaoqi officially founded Microsource Photonics (Shenzhen) Technology Co., Ltd.
The Microsource Photonics team has strong Peking University genes - in addition to Zhu Xiaoqi, many core members of the team are from Peking University, and the company's chief scientist is Professor Chen Zhangyuan himself. Combining the relevant industry-university-research results of Peking University School of Electronics, Microsource Photonics focuses on the R&D and production of miniaturized narrow linewidth lasers, low-noise millimeter-wave sources and supporting optoelectronic modules. It has independent intellectual property rights for many core technologies.
Data shows that micro-source photonics optoelectronic solutions can be widely used in laser measurement (lidar, ranging mapping, three-dimensional scanning), high-speed optical communications, chip-level atomic clocks, millimeter wave communications, and cutting-edge scientific research and education. and many other fields. Whether it is autonomous driving, high-precision maps, or communications, optoelectronic solutions must be applied, and the relevant downstream market can reach hundreds of billions. Especially with the outbreak of autonomous driving, micro-source photons have begun to enter the field of vision of investors.
Previously, Microsource Photonics maintained a financing rhythm of one financing per year. In August 2020, the company received angel round investment from Qianhai Fulong Investment, and in March 2021, it received Series A financing from Tongwei Capital. Through equity penetration, it can also be found that A-share listed companies Century Huatong, West China Co., Ltd., and Zhejiang Dongfang also indirectly hold shares in Microsource Photonics.
At the beginning of this year, Microsource Photonics welcomed a heavyweight industrial capital - Xiaomi. Tianyancha shows that on January 21, Weiyuan Photonics added several new shareholders including Xiaomi-affiliated company Hainan Jimu Venture Capital Co., Ltd., among which Jimu Venture Capital holds 6.4828% of the shares. Insiders believe that this investment is an important move by Xiaomi to lay out optoelectronic chips and speed up the competition for the industrial chain. Just last week, Shunwei Capital also appeared in the Weiyuan Photon equity chain.
At the same time, Hubble Investment, a subsidiary of Huawei, has also added a new external investment case, and the target is micro-source photons. After this capital injection, Hubble also holds 6.4828% of the shares of Microsource Photon. Microsource Photon has a number of patent inferences such as "narrow linewidth laser used in coherent lidar" on the core components of photoelectric sensors. This investment is also regarded as another important move for Huawei in the optoelectronic chip territory.
Huawei has invested in an industrial chain
This cutting-edge track is emerging
Through Huawei’s latest move, we see a hidden track—— Optical chip.
What is an optical chip? According to the classification, the CPU, GPU and other chips used in our common mobile phones, computers, and cars are integrated circuit chips. Because they use electrons to generate, process, and transmit information, they are called electronic chips. But optical chips are different. They mainly use photons to generate, process, transmit and display information, so they are superior in transmission speed, data parallelism, bandwidth and delay rate.
In the mid-1990s, due to the limitations of semiconductor process conditions and the needs of the entire industry in its early stages, silicon photonics technology has not developed, and electronic-based chips have firmly occupied the leading role.
But now, optical chips have become a battleground for global communications manufacturers, playing an irreplaceable and important role in the development of 5G and even 6G communications. Tang Xiaojun, chief technical planner of Huawei's optical product line, once said that optical communications will become more important in the next decade with its excellent genes of large bandwidth and low latency.
Huawei has long recognized the forward-looking nature of this technology and has quietly invested in an optical chip layout.
In 2012, Huawei acquired CIP Technologies, a British integrated photonics research center, starting its exploration in the field of optical chips. The following year, Huawei also acquired Caliopa, a Belgian silicon photonics technology developer, to supplement its presence in the field of optical chips. technology gaps.
2019 is an important turning point. Since the second half of 2019, Huawei has concentrated its investment in optoelectronic chips, which once set off a domestic optical chip investment boom.
Yuanjie Semiconductor is one of the typical cases. In September 2020, Huawei Hubble announced its investment in Yuanjie Semiconductor. This company, which was born in Shaanxi, is mainly engaged in the research and development, production and sales of semiconductor chips for high-speed communications. It has been little-known for a long time since its establishment.
An investor in Beijing who is familiar with the situation revealed that it usually takes more than three months for Hubble Investment to conduct research, but at that time the investment in Yuanjie Semiconductor was compressed to one month, and the original time of two to three weeks was The approval process also took only a few days. At that time, various VCs/PEs came to visit, and the competition for shares was extremely fierce.
In the end, Hubble Investment, together with CDB Science and Technology, CDB Finance, Meritorious Management, and National Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrading Fund***, completed the D-round investment in Yuanjie Semiconductor. The latest news shows that Yuanjie Semiconductor has started the listing process and is impacting the IPO of the Science and Technology Innovation Board.
In March this year, Huawei also invested in another optoelectronic chip company, Zonghui Xinguang. Also participating in this round of financing were DJI Innovations, Kai Xuyuan Capital, Qianhai Zhonghui Fund, and Yicun Capital, Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund, Wu Yuefeng Capital, BYD, Gaorong Capital, Yaotu Capital and many other VC/PE and industrial capitals.
Information shows that Zonghui Core Light mainly develops and produces VCSEL chips, devices, modules and other products. The company’s founding team mainly comes from Stanford University. Co-founder Chen Xiaochi studied under James Harris, an academician of the American Academy of Engineering. Deeply engaged in the research and development and manufacturing of optoelectronic chips. As early as June 2020, Hubble Investment had exclusively invested in Zonghuixinguang’s Series C financing.
According to incomplete statistics from the investment community, so far, Huawei Hubble has acquired more than ten optical chip-related companies - including wafer-level optical chip manufacturer "Kunyou Optoelectronics", silicon photonic integrated circuit R&D company "Core Vision", EDA tool developer "Lixin Software", analog and mixed-signal chip design company "Juxin Microelectronics", silicon carbide material manufacturer "Tianyue Advanced", packaging and testing equipment provider "Zhongke" "Fly test" and so on.
Looking further, these companies cover multiple links in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the industrial chain. It can be said that Huawei has invested in an entire industry chain.
Following Huawei’s investment, VC/PE are coming
Opportunities for China’s semiconductors to catch up
Once upon a time, optical chips were a very deserted track.
Until Huawei entered the market in a big way, these optical chip companies that had been neglected quickly became popular.
For example, Kunyou Optoelectronics. The company's helmsman, Lin Tao, graduated from the Engineering Class of Zhu Kezhen College, Department of Optoelectronics, Zhejiang University. He received full funding as an Intel Scholar to further his studies at the University of Cambridge in England, where he studied under Ian? White Academician and received a PhD in Optoelectronics. In 2016, Lin Tao returned to China and founded Kunyou Optoelectronics, entering this semiconductor "no man's land" and focusing on the research, development and application of wafer-level optical chips.
Since then, Kunyou Optoelectronics’ financing amount has directly doubled - in 2020, Kunyou Optoelectronics announced a new round of 200 million yuan in Series B financing, with participation from Joy Capital, CMB International Capital, and Yuanhe Chenkun , Kunzhong Capital, Lingang Zhihao, Walden International, China Science and Technology Star, Yuanjing Capital, Chenhui Venture Capital, etc. all participated in the investment; in 2021, Kunyou Optoelectronics completed nearly 400 million Series B financing, and CITIC Zhengye Credit Industry Fund, Yunfeng Fund, Pudong Science and Technology Group Haiwang Capital, CCB Investment, Mingshi Capital, Source Code Capital, Country Garden core alliance enterprise Yingrui Capital and other more than ten investment institutions followed closely.
"Huawei has formed a unique advantage in the semiconductor supply chain, and its brand influence is beyond words. Many institutions that follow up believe in Huawei's strategic vision." A person in Shanghai who focuses on hard technology VC partner said. In his opinion, Huawei's investment layout is stable and ruthless. It understands technology and has a better understanding of where the market is. Its moves in the semiconductor field have become a benchmark.
Not long ago, another relatively eye-catching financing came out of optical chips. In April this year, Lingming Photonics completed hundreds of millions of yuan in Series C financing, led by Meituan Longzhu, and old shareholders Kunzhong Capital and Gaorong Capital continued to invest. In 2018, four returned Ph.D.s from prestigious universities jointly founded Lingming Photonics, dedicated to researching single photon detector (SPAD) technology.
In addition, Xizhi Technology, Changguang Huaxin, and Xinyun Optoelectronics have officially announced financing of over 100 million, IDG Capital, Gaorong Capital, Puhua Capital, Lightspeed China, Kunzhong Capital, Lenovo Star, Well-known investment institutions such as CPE Yuanfeng and ZhenFund have flocked here, and industrial capitals such as Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund, OPPO, and Meituan Longzhu have also gathered here.
This is a market that almost no one can refuse. Huawei Strategic Research Institute believes that the development prospects of the photonics industry are huge. The market value of photonic core components is no less than US$320 billion (approximately more than 20 trillion yuan). In the future, it will also leverage the industry to create 2.6 trillion US dollars (approximately more than 20 trillion yuan). 16 trillion yuan) output value.
There is also a common knowledge in the investment circle: In contrast, China is easiest to change lanes and overtake in the field of optical chips. In the words of China Science and Technology Innovation Star Mi Lei: "In the field of photonic chips, the gap between us and foreign countries is the smallest, and the competitive pressure is also the smallest. In the future, whether it is the basis of the Internet, the Internet of Things, 5G, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse Facilities are inseparable from photonic technology, and photonic chips will become the key cornerstone of the smart era."
More importantly, once optical chips are mass-produced and put into use, lithography machines may become a thing of the past. . Today, photolithography machines are still the most stuck technology for domestic chips. It is even said that without high-end lithography machines, it may be difficult for domestic chips to become high-end. Optical chips can partially replace high-end computing chips, thereby reducing dependence on cutting-edge lithography machines and accelerating the process of chip localization.
All in all, the strong rise of domestic optical chips is a strategic opportunity for us to catch up. Today, American chip manufacturers account for half of the world, including super giants such as Intel, Qualcomm, and Nvidia. However, the emergence of optical chips is expected to end the previous era and start the next era.
Just as investors lamented, if we seize the opportunity of optical chips, China is also expected to give birth to its own chip giant.
This article comes from the investment community