It Is Urgent To Accelerate The Inflow Of Capital To Promote Industrial Upgrading And Talent Accumulation

? ? ? Strong market demand, the influx of entrepreneurs, the overall upgrading of the industrial level, these factors are attracting capital to the chip design industry.

In the past three years, the chip industry has become one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Venture capital and open market investment from Dawan district and even China are also actively pouring into the chip industry. More than half of the capital is first interested in chip design.

? ? ? VC (venture capital institutions) and PE (private equity investment institutions) contacted by the reporter, including Shenzhen Lihe Kechuang Venture Capital Co., Ltd., Shenzhen innovation investment group, Shenzhen Bugu tianque, etc., all said that the current investment market has "fully researched the chip industry".

? ? ? He Tao, director of the investment department of Lihe Kechuang Venture Capital Co., Ltd., told reporters that investment in the chip design industry should not only consider the technical level, but also pay attention to the business model. In addition, the institutions believe that capital should encourage the industry to produce gazelle enterprises, leading enterprises, leading enterprises and even giant enterprises.

? ? ? At present, the chip design industry seems to have become a trillion level of large-scale industry. The reporter combs the data of Qingke, it orange and other data institutions and finds that VC and PE have accelerated to flow into chip design start-ups in recent years. In terms of valuation, most chip design start-ups have obtained valuations ranging from 100 million yuan to 1 billion yuan, and a few enterprises have obtained valuations of billions or even tens of billion yuan. In addition, a number of chip design leaders listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Shanghai Stock Exchange and Hong Kong Stock Exchange have reached the market value of 100 billion yuan.

Many segments of chip design are attracting capital attention.

He Tao told reporters that at present, the investment community prefers the so-called "track" investment, and one of the criteria is the product market capacity.

Shi Xiaomei, chief researcher of semiconductor industry in the investment development research center of Shenzhen Venture Capital Group, also said that investors will pay more attention to the ability of entrepreneurial teams to create "explosive money".

According to market information, the current chip design fields favored by investors include but are not limited to AI chip, RF filter chip, EDA software, Internet of things communication chip, LED control chip, biochip, sensor chip, power device, automobile MCU, etc.

Due to the vast market space, capital seeks opportunities in the field of chip design. According to the data of Yunxiu capital, in 2020, the venture capital financing of the whole chip industry has exceeded 140 billion yuan, of which 67.2% and about 94 billion yuan will flow to the chip design sector.

However, the chip industry is actually "one will succeed, ten thousand bones wither", the choice is very important.

Looking at the noisy market situation, Shi Xiaomei pointed out that "in the rising period of the industry, many teams are eager to try, and there are also many star teams. Overseas returnees, graduates from famous universities and management of large companies are gathered together. However, the ultimate factor determining the success or failure is the pursuit of technology and the progress of commercialization." Shi Xiaomei said that the investment team must use rich experience and specific observation to make a correct judgment.

At present, the shortage of wafer production capacity and the dispersion of industry layout are the outstanding problems of the whole industry. Professor Shi Longxing, leader of the expert group of China IC design innovation alliance, pointed out that domestic chip design enterprises should improve the problems of "small and scattered" and "homogenization".

VC and PE play an important role in integrating resources.

Shi Xiaomei pointed out to reporters: "start up companies need to keep warm, and venture capital institutions can bridge and provide a platform."

When there is a shortage of production capacity and resource disconnection in some links of the industrial chain, the resources provided by venture capital institutions may assist the entrepreneurial team to realize the "landing" of products and "at the right time".

Wang LIANGHAI, partner of Shenzhen Bugu tianque, has more than 30 years of industrial experience. He told reporters that investment institutions are profit seeking, but the chip industry is a slow industry that needs to be precipitated and has certain contradictions. He called on the industry to pay more attention to high-quality enterprises and avoid "bad money drives out good money".

Zhang Chi, a partner and head of the Fund Department of Lihe Kechuang venture capital, also pointed out that investment is a matter of "everyone picking up firewood and burning high", calling on the industry to "concentrate on doing great things".

In fact, in the long run, there is no contradiction between the profitability of capital and the incubation of high-quality enterprises“ Leading and giant enterprises can effectively compete with foreign counterparts, so as to attract and retain talents. " Wang LIANGHAI said.

He believes that human resources are the most critical factor for chip design enterprises to improve output value.

Talent accumulation is urgent

As the "science and technology innovation center" of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, Shenzhen is the largest chip design and sales City in Dawan district and even in China.

In Shenzhen, chip design companies are scattered in the famous "Yuehai Street office", Shenzhen Bay, Xili, Bantian and other areas, like the transistor in the chip.

In Dawan District, in addition to Shenzhen, the chip design industry in Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Hong Kong and other cities is actually quite large. This has led to the continuous expansion of the market practitioners.

According to the data of integrated circuit design branch of China Semiconductor Industry Association, the number of employees in China's chip design industry will be about 200000 in 2020. However, the consensus of the industry is that the scale of talents needs to be doubled at least, that is, there is still a gap of 200000.

The shortage of talents, like technical barriers and market barriers, has become the main three major problems for domestic chips. The relevant responsible persons of Xihua technology and ruimeng technology expressed their concern about the shortage of talents in the chip design industry. They believed that the current talent accumulation in the industry was insufficient, and the proportion of new generation fresh troops flowing into the industry still needs to be further improved.

Professor Yu Hao of South University of science and technology proposed that we should cooperate with the further development of chip design industry to do a good job in public awareness education.

"Now we need to entrust professional headhunters, encourage internal staff recommendation, online recruitment, etc., and search for talents nationwide in a multi pronged way." Xihua technology chief technology officer Bai Songrong said.

Bai Songrong pointed out that chip design companies attach great importance to the recruitment of engineers. Xihua technology interviews every job seeker by several executives, so that job seekers have the opportunity to fully understand the company.

Feng Bingjun, founder of ruimeng science and technology, proposed to strengthen the combination of production, teaching and research in Colleges and universities, and guide talents to flow to the domestic chip industry as much as possible. At present, many domestic chip talents have gone to foreign chip "big factories", or even transferred to other industries.

In order to continue to "blood" to the industry, the state is starting from the university education to train talents. In 2015, the Ministry of education, the national development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of science and technology, the Ministry of industry and information technology, the Ministry of finance, the State Administration of foreign affairs and other relevant departments jointly issued the notice on supporting the construction of demonstration microelectronics colleges in relevant universities. At present, 28 demonstration microelectronics colleges have been built in China, which will not only deliver "new blood" to the chip design industry, but also deliver talents to the manufacturing, packaging and testing, equipment, materials and other aspects of the chip industry chain.

Shenzhen Hong Kong Institute of microelectronics, South University of science and technology in Shenzhen, is one of the 28 demonstration microelectronics colleges in China. Yu Hao, vice president of the college, told reporters that the cultivation of chip talents in Colleges and universities is part of China's "new engineering" education.

Yu Hao said that with the development of the chip industry into the national economic system, the public's understanding of Microelectronics will become deeper and deeper, hoping to stimulate young people's interest in applying for microelectronics.

Focusing on the national strategy, microelectronics education, which belongs to the category of "new engineering", has been reformed in recent years. According to the discipline structure of microelectronics undergraduate education, Yu Hao suggested that a system should be established according to certain steps. A complete discipline system should include theoretical teaching, competition, scientific research paper guidance, practice and other contents. Through "more experiments, more design, more hands-on" to cultivate talents more suitable for the needs of the industry. In addition, the cooperation between universities and local leading chip enterprises is also an important channel to guide graduates to flow into domestic chip enterprises.

At present, South University of science and technology has reached a willingness to cooperate with the Hong Kong University of science and technology, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the University of Hong Kong and the University of Macau in Dawan District, and has signed a cooperation framework agreement to formulate plans for Undergraduate Exchange, joint training of course oriented master students and doctoral students. Yu Hao mentioned that South University of science and technology will be committed to guiding graduates to work in Dawan district.

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