Crazy semiconductor 2020 total financing of more than 50 billion yuan!

The arrival of the epidemic at the beginning of the year has had a lot of impact on the capital market. But in the world shouting the capital winter at the same time, the semiconductor market has a different fate.

On the one hand, all kinds of semiconductor enterprises have IPO, to enter the pioneering board of science and technology. On the other side are enthusiastic investors, whose money seems to have flowed into semiconductors this year.

Among them, the national big fund (Phase II), China Kechuangxing, Walden Technology, Huawei Hubble, Xiaomi Changjiang as the representative of various kinds of capital frequently, increasing the weight to bet on artificial intelligence (AI), communications, third-generation semiconductors and other chip markets, those small and medium-sized start-up enterprises established from 2018 to 2020 are also popular.

Crazy semiconductor industry

Semiconductor Industry Watch collated the financing of semiconductor manufacturers so far this year (as of December 31) and found that this year has been a crazy year for China's semiconductor industry. First of all, let's take a look at the financing situation last year. According to the report, more than 80 chip companies are expected to receive a new round of financing last year, with the highest amount of financing reaching hundreds of millions of US dollars, with a total financing amount of more than 13 billion yuan.

This year, more than 170 chip companies have received a new round of financing, with a maximum financing of nearly 4 billion yuan, with a total financing of more than 50 billion yuan. The number and total amount of financing enterprises are more than double that of last year.

According to the incomplete statistics observed by the semiconductor industry, there are 11 large single investments with a financing amount of more than 1 billion yuan, and two with a financing amount of more than 10 billion yuan, namely SMIC South and Ruili Integration. The highest is US $2.251 billion (about 15.78 billion RMB) in the south of SMIC, and the lowest is more than 1 billion RMB for Yunshang Lifei.

From the round point of view, about 40% of the financing process is in round An or before, which shows that China's semiconductor enterprises are still in the early stage of development. Most of these financing amounts are tens of millions of yuan. Compared with the 100 million yuan financing obtained by no enterprises last year, some enterprises, such as Jushi Technology, Yuntian Semiconductor and Core Park Technology, have all received financing of more than 100 million yuan this year. The second is strategic financing, accounting for about 20%. A huge amount of financing has been born in the strategic financing, such as US $2.25 billion in SMIC South, RMB 15.65 billion in Ruili integrated financing, RMB 2 billion calculated by Yi Siwei, RMB 1 billion in Lifei in Yunshang, and nearly RMB 1.5 billion in Stevie, etc.

It is worth mentioning that Xinhuazhang, Xinda, Zhixin Semiconductor and Chengdu time Science and Technology were all new companies born in the first half of this year, involving EDA, automotive chips and AI chips respectively, and all obtained rapid financing within this year, which shows that the capital is still full of confidence in the semiconductor market.

11 companies raised more than 1 billion yuan

When the market capitalization of some semiconductor companies broke through hundreds of billions this year, semiconductor stocks repeatedly brushed new highs. But in fact, the strength of the 11 semiconductor companies that have received financing of more than 1 billion yuan this year is also not to be underestimated.

1. The south of SMIC

As a subsidiary of SMIC, the first chip foundry unit in mainland China, SMIC South has attracted a lot of attention since its inception in December 2016. in 2018, SMIC received a strategic investment of US $351 million from Kechuang Group, the first phase of the National University Fund and SMIC Shanghai.

Driven by the popularity of SMIC's sprint board this year, SMIC South received a joint capital injection of US $2.25 billion from the second phase of the National Foundation and the second phase of the Shanghai Integrated Circuit Industry Fund on May 16. it is also the largest financing for China's semiconductor industry so far this year.

At present, SMIC South is mainly responsible for cooperating with SMIC's R & D and mass production of processes with 12-inch 14nm and below, facing the next generation mobile communications and intelligent terminal market.

It is understood that SMIC Southern plans to build two IC production lines with a capacity of 35000 wafers per month, and has shipped the first batch of related manufacturing equipment in August 2019. This year, its production capacity will increase from 3000 wafers per month at the end of 2019 to 15000, with a total investment of $10.24 billion planned for future expansion.

2. Ruili integration

On December 14, the updated industrial and commercial information shows that the second phase of "Big Fund", Anhui State assets, Zhaoyi Innovation and another Zhu Yiming control enterprise, Xiaomi Changjiang Industrial Fund and other institutions have invested in Changxin Storage parent company Ruili Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd.

Data show that Ruili integrated Changxin Storage successfully mass-produced 19nm DDR4/LPDDR4/LPDDR4X chips in the third quarter of 2019, and has been adopted by Weigang Technology, Jiangbolong FORESEE and other storage brand manufacturers. In addition, Changxin Storage also plans to launch 17nm DDR5/LPDDR5, 10nm process products, from chip design to wafer manufacturing and PCB modules are independently completed by Changxin Storage.

The latest round of financing of Changxin Storage has introduced a number of investors outside the state-owned assets of Hefei, with a financing price of 15.65 billion yuan.

It is reported that Changxin Storage will use this investment in the research and development of more advanced DDR5 memory. In the previous DDR4 memory production, Changxin Storage still uses 19nm DDR4 technology to build, while in the follow-up planning, it will continue to develop the related processes of 16-19, 14-16, 12-14nm. According to the official statement, it will be able to complete the research and development of domestic DDR5 within 2-3 years.

3. Yi Siwei (ESWIN)

Yiswei's predecessor, Beijing Yiwei Technology Co., Ltd., was established as early as March 2016. After four years of M & A development, it was reorganized and established Beijing Yiwei Technology Group Co., Ltd. in February this year. Four months after the restructuring, Yi Siwei received round B financing jointly led by Junlian Capital and IDG Capital, with a total amount of more than 2 billion yuan, with a post-investment valuation of 10 billion yuan.

At the beginning of its establishment, Yi Si Wei mainly focused on the field of display chips. In the past four years, through the acquisition of companies, it has gradually expanded its business to areas such as intelligent computing acceleration chips, smart connection chips and chip closed testing.

At present, Easwell has three major business departments: chips and solutions, silicon materials and advanced closed testing, among which the chip mainly provides four types of chips: display and video, smart connection, smart things and intelligent computing acceleration. it covers application scenarios such as mobile terminal, smart home, intelligent transportation and industrial Internet of things.

4. BYD Semiconductor

BYD Semiconductor was born under the door of BYD, an established company in China's automobile industry. Since the news that BYD Semiconductor has completed its internal restructuring and sought an independent listing emerged on April 14 this year, the market share price of BYD Motor has soared from more than 50 yuan to more than 80 yuan. The news also directly ignited the war in the field of accelerated layout of semiconductors by automobile companies, and countless capital quickly focused on BYD Semiconductor.

It is understood that BYD Semiconductor mainly develops chips and power devices, including power semiconductor devices, IGBT power modules, power management chips, CMOS image sensors and sensor and control chips.

From 1.9 billion RMB in round A financing on May 27 to August 13, BYD quickly won the favor of more than 18 investment institutions and companies from well-known semiconductor companies such as SK Group, Arm and SMIC, as well as Xiaomi Group, Lenovo Group, CITIC Industrial Fund and Sequoia Capital China.

5. Niigata Semiconductor

Nippon Semiconductor is a semiconductor company that mainly provides 300mm (12-inch) semiconductor wafers, which is 100% owned by Shanghai Silicon Industry Group. Since its establishment in June 2014, it has been promoting the development of autonomous and controllable 300mm semiconductor wafers in China, and undertakes a number of major national science and technology special tasks.

At present, Niigata Semiconductor has completed the research and development of 300mm wafer for 40-28nm nodes, which is widely used in many fields, such as memory chip, logic chip, analog chip, IGBT power device, communication chip and so on.

6. Bishi science and technology

Founded on September 9, 2019, Bishi Technology mainly develops a general-purpose computing software and hardware technology system to provide integrated solutions for intelligent computing.

According to the future development planning path of Bishi Technology, it will first focus on the field of cloud general-purpose intelligent computing chips, and gradually expand to AII training and reasoning, graphics rendering, high-performance general computing and other fields.

Bishi Technology has received a total of four rounds of financing from June 16 to November 29 this year, of which the financing on June 16 was as high as 1.1 billion yuan, led by QiMing Venture Partners, IDG Capital and Walden International. Exactly a month later, Bishi Technology also received strategic financing for Juyuan Capital Investment.

7. Yigatong Science and Technology

Yijiatong Technology (referred to as "ECARX"), founded on May 4, 2016, is a strategic investment and independent automobile intelligent technology company of Geely holding Group. Yijatong Technology focuses on core technology products such as automotive chips, intelligent cockpits, intelligent driving, high-precision maps, big data and vehicle networking cloud platforms.

At present, Yijiatong Technology has formed a chip matrix of four major sequences and a variety of core products, including: high-performance automotive gauge-level digital cockpit chip E series, full-stack AI voice chip V series, advanced driving assistance chip AD series, micro-control processor M series.

On October 26 this year, Yijiatong Technology announced that it had received 1.3 billion yuan in round A financing, led by Baidu and followed by Hainer Asia Venture Capital (SIG), which was valued at more than 10 billion yuan. This round of financing is mainly used for technology research and development, chip streaming, global market expansion and so on.

8. Wo Sai Technology

Wesai Technology was established in December 2012 in Silicon Valley (Hesai Instruments Inc.), USA and settled in Shanghai Jiading in October 2014. its main business is the R & D and manufacture of laser CH4ane telemetry system and lidar as well as related industry applications.

Since its launch in 2017, Hesai's independently developed products such as Pandar64, PandarGT (micromirror solid-state lidar) and Pandora (multi-sensor fusion) have won the favor of more than 100 of the world's top self-driving and robotics companies.

Wesai Technology completed round C financing on January 7, 2020. this round of financing was jointly led by Germany's Bosch Group and Light Speed, followed by on Semiconductor of the United States, QiMing Venture Partners, Dutong Capital, Singapore Axiom, etc., with a total financing amount of 173 million US dollars (about 1.13 billion RMB). This financing has also set a new record for the highest single financing in the lidar industry.

9. Cloud from science and technology

Yuncong Technology Group Co., Ltd. (Yuncong Technology for short), hatched from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is the first artificial intelligence leader to build three major national platforms and participate in the formulation of national and industry standards. it is also the backbone of the country's new infrastructure development.

Since its establishment in 2015, Yuncong has completed five rounds of financing, with a cumulative financing amount of more than 5.3 billion yuan. On May 13, 2020, Yuncong completed a new round of financing with a total size of 1.8 billion yuan. Among the investors in Yuncong's round of science and technology, in addition to the China Internet Investment Fund, the Shanghai State-owned Enterprise Reform and Development Equity Investment Fund, Guangzhou Nansha Financial Control, the Yangtze River Delta Industrial Innovation Fund and other government funds, it also includes industrial strategic investors such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Haier Capital.

10. Encourage the sky to fly

Founded in Shenzhen in 2014, specializing in the field of visual intelligence, it has developed into a "full-stack" AI technology platform company with both AI algorithm, AI chip and big data platform. For public safety, social governance, new business, AIoT and other fields, Yantian Lifei provides AI products and solutions, which have been applied in more than 100 cities and regions, including Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Qingdao, Chengdu, Dongguan and Southeast Asia.

Overall, the company has a bright performance in the capital market, with a cumulative financing of more than 2 billion yuan in half a year. After completing 1 billion yuan of financing at the beginning of the year, the company introduced more than 1 billion yuan of strategic financing on September 28th. The investors are Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Construction and Development Group and China CLP International Information Service Co., Ltd. And CLP Capital Investment Holdings Co., Ltd., which are subordinate to China Electronic Information Industry Group. After the completion of this round of financing, SDF has become the largest institutional shareholder in Yuntian Lifei.

11. Stevie

Stevie Technology was founded in 2011, the main business is CMOS image sensor chip design, product applications include security surveillance, machine vision, vehicle imaging and consumer electronics.

Since its establishment, Stevie has focused on the independent innovation and research and development of cutting-edge visual imaging technology, and has won the favor of many front-line customers with many top technological achievements in the industry, such as super-star-level night vision full-color imaging technology, Stack BSI global exposure technology, single-frame HDR technology and near-infrared enhancement.

On October 24th, Stevie officially announced the completion of a new round of financing of nearly 1.5 billion yuan. This financing is led by the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, Xiaomi Industry Investment Fund, China Banking International and China Merchants Telecom Fund. Wentai Technology, Chuanyin Holdings, SMIC Juyuan, China Internet Investment Fund and Sequoia Capital China, Haitong Kaiyuan and several other active private equity institutions jointly invested, Guangyuan Capital, Lenovo Venture Capital and other existing shareholders continue to follow.

AI, Communication and the third Generation Semiconductor

AI and 5G are still hot this year, and the third generation semiconductors seem to have entered an explosive period. Both SiC and GaN, have made great strides in the past two years. Domestic manufacturers have also accelerated the relevant layout.

First of all, there are AI-related manufacturers, the number of enterprises that have obtained financing is as high as 22, including some manufacturers with a financing amount of more than 1 billion RMB, such as Yuntian Lifei in strategic financing of more than 1 billion yuan, while at the same time raising nearly 1 billion yuan in Pre-IPO, and cloud raising 1.8 billion yuan in round C of science and technology. Although the AI chip still has the problem of landing application, the capital is very optimistic about this market, and the amount of investment has repeatedly exceeded 1 billion.

Secondly, there are communications-related manufacturers, and the number of enterprises that have obtained financing is as high as 15, including core park technology, Nuoleng technology, core ploughing optoelectronics, core wing information technology and other manufacturers have raised more than 100 million yuan.

Then there are the third-generation semiconductors. In 2019, there are not many third-generation semiconductor companies that have access to financing, such as Weixin Optoelectronics, Tyco Tianrun and so on. But this year, more and more companies are getting financing. Among them, there are nitrogen silicon technology, excellent gallium technology, prospective technology, super core star semiconductors, Tongguang crystal, Zhanxin electronics, etc., but most of these enterprises' financing stage is in round An or before, which proves that the third generation semiconductors in our country is still in the initial stage. however, from the development of the past two years, more and more enterprises are getting financing, which will be a good start.

Conclusion

We haven't reached the last day yet, but we already have a general understanding of semiconductor financing for the whole year (if there will be no major events at the end of the year).

It is not difficult to find that although the whole world economy is full of instability this year, the enthusiasm of capital for the semiconductor market is high. Since the beginning of this year, China's semiconductor market has poured into a large amount of capital. So that China's semiconductor industry can develop more smoothly with the help of a large amount of capital.

But we can not be taken lightly, some industry insiders pointed out that this phenomenon is not necessarily a good thing, there is overheating of capital. Therefore, we should take a more calm view of the development of China's semiconductor industry, so as to better promote the growth of domestic semiconductors.