Domestic substitution is the general trend of the semiconductor industry in recent years, the analog chip market capacity is huge, but there are many tracks, many categories, scattered demand and other characteristics, a start-up analog chip company often from a subdivision field to start from a segment, to point with the surface, gradually develop and grow. Focusing on the field of fast charging, Zhuhai Zhirong Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhirong Technology") is a representative domestic analog chip design enterprise. Relying on the huge consumer electronics market, around the mobile phone computer and other 3C accessories market, Zhirong Technology takes fast charging as the breakthrough point of power management, with a point with a face, the momentum is like a bamboo, and gradually gained a foothold in the market and has a number of more stable and loyal downstream customers. In the eight years since its establishment, Zhirong Technology, which has continuously surpassed itself, has ushered in a new round of important development period, completing nearly 100 million yuan of financing in the second half of 2021 and opening up IPO counseling for the Science and Technology Innovation Board. Recently, Jiwei Network interviewed Mr. Huang Xinjian, marketing director of Zhirong Technology, to discuss how to further build a fast charging full link, the market view of the "post-fast charging era", and the new growth curve of the company in the future.
Huang Xinjian, Marketing Director of Zhirong Technology
Why is it said that "the fast charging market in the next 3-5 years is still in a rapid growth period"?
For the overall market trend, Li Xin, founder and CEO of Zhirong Technology, is optimistic that the fast charging market will continue to be a fast-growing market in the next 3-5 years, providing a foundation for the continuous rise of Zhirong Technology's revenue performance. Huang Xinjian concluded and added that the fast charging market can grow rapidly on a solid foundation, summarized into four points:
First of all, in the next 3-5 years or even longer, fast charging technology will continue to iterate rapidly. In terms of fast charging protocol, the most typical example is that in the second half of last year, Apple released a PD3.1 adapter that supports 140 watts, PD3.1 is the latest upgraded version of the fast charging protocol, which defines the voltage of 48 volts, which also means that applications within a dozen strings of batteries will have the opportunity to use PD fast charging, including power tools, motorcycles, cleaning robots and other traditional industrial markets. The third generation of semiconductor materials such as GaN/SiC and other emerging, the yield is stable climbing, Apple Samsung's flagship mobile phone this year are equipped with gallium nitride original adapter, is bound to lead a new wave of gallium nitride fast charging trend, these are new technologies and new materials that support the long-term development and prosperity of the fast charging market.
Secondly, the mainland is making its own fast charging standard, that is, the fusion fast charging UFCS, and is making progress on the road to a greener and more environmentally friendly fast charging agreement, which means that in the next few years, it can rely on the new fusion fast charging platform for product development;
Third, users' requirements for the fast charging experience of consumer electronic products are also getting higher and higher, we are now unable to accept the 5V2A slow charging method, more and more unwilling to wait, even the sharing market is gradually popularizing fast charging;
Fourth, although the fierce market competition has caused the gross profit margin of the fast charging industry to decrease, on the whole, due to the fast charging protocol and wide bandgap power devices are still evolving, the domestic fast charging industry players are still unable to talk about the peak of the U-curve or V-curve.
In summary, even if it is only focused on the field of consumer electronic fast charging, there is still a large market space, and the ambition and vision of Zhirong Technology are by no means limited to this.
With "fusion fast charging" as the driving force, drive into the wireless and high-power fast charging deep water area
As early as 2018, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology launched the "Mobile Communication Terminals with Fast Charging Technical Requirements and Test Methods", which will clearly define "fast charging", and unify charging methods and communication protocols, stipulating safety performance, electrical characteristics and reliability, etc., but for various complex reasons, the fast charging protocol has not yet achieved a big unification, "only support the private agreement of the 'original charger' does not meet the concept of carbon neutrality, green environmental protection", Huang Xinjian analyzed, "the future mobile phone, Laptops include some home appliances that require a standardized protocol, and the first mobile phone with fast charging will be released in the third or fourth quarter of this year. ”
Huang Xinjian said that one aspect of Zhirong Technology's key layout is to focus on fast charging, and complete the product lines such as wired fast charging, wireless fast charging, and multi-cell fast charging management. In this regard, Huang Xinjian said: "Wired fast charging is our foundation, and it can be used as a longitudinal line. Zhirong Technology has realized that in order to create a fast charging full link, product positioning needs to be converted from wired to wireless, from a dedicated fully integrated chip in the market segment (such as mobile power supply and car charging) to a more general protocol, charge and discharge power management chip. "Wireless fast charging we are already in the layout, the second and third generation products are already on the way. We will work closely with system manufacturers, not only for some relatively single function application scenarios, but also try to customize the characteristics of the peripheral peripheral functions, and our company's wireless fast charging direction must be towards the integration of high-power systems for customers to do. ”
From a long-term point of view, the future direction of Zhirong Technology includes wired and wireless high-power fast charging and power supply products related to battery charging and discharging, which is also the meaning of the company's comprehensive layout of Power + MCUs, providing PMIC and integrating MCUs soC power management solutions.
Give full play to the advantages of combining digital and analog models to force the "second growth curve"
The secret of Zhirong Technology's success, in addition to its keen sense of market smell and advanced product layout, another point that needs to be highlighted is its rare and rich experience in digital-analog hybrid IC design. Regarding the advantages of Zhirong Technology in the combination of digital and analog experience, as well as the technical difficulties in the combination of digital and analog, Huang Xinjian made a more comprehensive exposition of the microgrid: "We have an excellent R & D team support, the team has engaged in large-scale digital logic circuit SOC platform development experience of senior digital logic engineers, but also more than ten years of deep ploughing analog chips analog design masters, in addition to these years we have continued to introduce power device experts, system application experts. We as a team have worked together on dozens of projects, and after running-in, we have cooperated with each other very tacitly. Digital analog interface and channel need to be opened, simply look at the CPU, may be just a problem of computing power, but the analog end needs to be a signal in the process of various interference feedback to the digital system, digital-analog combination means a complex system to peel off the cocoon of integration integration, and then developers can quickly apply the application to the ground, why can Zhirong Technology be unique in the same type of products, product features are so distinctive? It relies on our efficient feedback mechanism of digital-analog combination. ”
Relying on the strong combination of digital and analog capabilities, Zhirong Technology is gradually integrating the new materials of wide bandgap semiconductors into various products in the research and development layout of new tracks such as battery power management, vehicle-grade power devices, and high-voltage devices. In this regard, Huang Xinjian elaborated that although there is a relatively high cost risk in the early stage, it is still extremely worth trying: "Gallium nitride materials are actually quite expensive at present, and there are very few optional surfaces, many people are asking us, you are going to try these things now, how to weigh the cost problem? My answer is to make the size of the power management device small, the efficiency of energy conversion to be high, such as putting the charging module into the TV backplane and 5G base station, so that the wiring is more perfect, which is the starting point for our research on new materials. ”
The vision of zhirong technology in the future is to gradually advance from the consumer electronics market to industrial electronics and even more high-end automotive electronics market, in addition to the reliability and stability of products to a higher level, it is imperative to increase investment in research and development and strengthen the exploration of new technologies.
Conclusion Simulation chip talents need experience point empowerment, Zhirong Technology is ready to be a "long-distance runner"
Analog integrated circuits have a completely different technical evolution route from digital integrated circuits, the pursuit of high signal-to-noise ratio, low distortion, high reliability and stability, in order to achieve the size, power consumption, cost and other key goals, talent reserves and training is crucial, Huang Xinjian has a lot of feelings about this: "Analog engineers are more difficult to train, and the growth time is longer, it is not only related to a complete training system, 'experience value' often needs to be accumulated in the actual project in practice." ”
With the development of the domestic semiconductor industry, under the top-level design guidance of the national strategy, with the support of policies, capital and customers in all aspects and dimensions, Zhirong Technology is determined to give full play to its own technical advantages, create intelligent innovative products that meet the needs of users, make long-term achievements in the "post-fast charging era", actively lay out a new growth curve, and become a leading "long-distance runner" in the analog chip market with a steep slope.