In recent years, with the rapid rise of China's local high-tech companies, China's semiconductor industry is also facing new opportunities and challenges. China exportsemi Network had the honor to interview Liu Jiping, Chairman of Shenzhen Hangshun Chip Technology R&D Co., Ltd. In this issue, let us discuss the current situation and future of China's semiconductor industry going overseas.
Opportunities for Chinese local brands to go overseas
Looking forward to the current industry situation, opportunities for China's local brand semiconductor suppliers can be viewed from the following aspects.
First of all, the overall market demand is still growing rapidly. In recent years, China's semiconductor industry has achieved rapid development, with sales increasing from 788.5 billion yuan in 2017 to 1,242.3 billion yuan in 2021.
Secondly, local manufacturers continue to improve through technological breakthroughs and innovations. With the rise of domestic substitution, China's semiconductor industry is gradually developing healthily, with a compound annual growth rate of 22.8%. This provides domestic semiconductor brands with opportunities for technological breakthroughs and innovation to enhance their competitiveness in the global market.
Furthermore, with the rise of the new energy vehicle market, smart cars are a huge market opportunity for China's semiconductors. China has many independent brand smart car companies that have steadily increased their global market share. They will drive China's semiconductor industry chain and supply chain, giving China Local chips bring huge market opportunities. At the same time, there are opportunities in the international market . Currently, there is still a supply shortage problem in the global semiconductor market, which provides Chinese semiconductor products with opportunities to enter the international market. Therefore, in general, Chinese semiconductor brands have broad development space and opportunities in overseas markets, but at the same time they also need to continuously improve their technology research and development capabilities and product quality to adapt to the increasingly fierce international competition environment.
Four major challenges faced by Chinese local brands going overseas
While facing opportunities, challenges are essential. At this stage, China’s local brand suppliers will mainly face four major challenges:
Technical challenges: In the current global semiconductor industry chain, compared with internationally renowned brands, Chinese local brands entered the market late, have a certain gap in R&D investment, and have weak technology accumulation. Therefore, they still face severe challenges in the field of mid-to-high-end semiconductor technology. Therefore, to improve technological innovation capabilities, local brands need to accelerate the narrowing of the gap with international advanced levels.
Market competition challenges: Competition in the global semiconductor market is fierce, and all parties are seeking to reshape the global semiconductor industry chain. Internationally renowned brands have long held a large share advantage in most fields. Therefore, how to seize the advantageous market of international brands in a fiercely competitive environment requires local brands to improve their product innovation and localized service capabilities.
Quality challenges: Semiconductor quality optimization and reliability verification are inseparable from market applications. This is also a disadvantage of local brands compared to international brands.
Legal challenges: Countries have strict legal and regulatory restrictions on the import and use of semiconductor products. Chinese semiconductor brands need to understand and comply with these regulations to avoid encountering legal risks when entering overseas markets.
Hangshun Chip ’s Four Countermeasures to Face Challenges
Technical challenges: Hangshun Chip will continue to increase investment in research and development, introduce and cultivate high-level technical talents, and cooperate with domestic and foreign scientific research institutions to enhance technological innovation capabilities.
Market competition challenges: Hangshun Chip deeply understands the needs and rules of the target market, formulates flexible market strategies, and at the same time strengthens brand building and marketing promotion to increase its visibility and influence in overseas markets.
Quality challenge: Hangshun Chip has established a strict quality control system and actively participates in relevant international standard certifications. In October this year, Hangshun Chip obtained the ISO 26262 highest level ASIL D certification, and its automotive products also passed AEC-Q100 reliability and safety certification.
Legal challenges: Hangshun Chip has hired a professional legal advisory team to understand and comply with the laws and regulations of various countries to avoid encountering legal risks when entering overseas markets.
Hangshun Chip ’s overseas experience products
After years of unremitting efforts, Hangshun Chip has passed the highest level ASIL D certification of ISO 26262, and has established a development process and quality management system that fully comply with the requirements of ISO26262:2018 standards. At the same time, Hangshun Chip has built an automotive MCU chip team with strong functional safety management capabilities and both professional skills and management capabilities. At present, many products have passed AEC-Q100 reliability and safety certification, and the product quality and performance are completely comparable to the first-class international brands.
Figure 2: Hangshun chip product display
Hangshun Chip's main products for overseas markets are MCUs, as well as passive components such as EEPROM, NOR Flash, and power management. The main features of its MCU products are high compatibility, high reliability, and high cost performance. Many MCU software and hardware are compatible with foreign brand products, and general development tools are also convenient for users to use. Moreover, the products are designed according to industrial grade requirements. At the same time, similar products are priced very competitively. Technical support and after-sales service are mainly provided by local agents or distributors, supplemented by online support from the original factory. In recent years, successful cases of LED light control, motor control and other applications have been implemented in the Indian market.
Hangshun Chip ’s overseas experience: brand marketing
Hangshun Chip's brand marketing in overseas markets mainly uses a variety of methods and channels: First, taking into account the trend of globalization, the company established an overseas official website to display the company's brand image in overseas markets to help partners and customers learn more about Hangshun Chip dynamics and product technology.
Secondly, Hangshun participates in international industry exhibitions every year, such as the Munich Electronics Show, the Hi-Tech Fair, etc., to comprehensively demonstrate the product advantages and technical strength of Hangshun chips to overseas markets.
Furthermore, Hangshun Chip has established good cooperative relationships with many industry media and association alliances, and through the voice and perspective of a third party, it can more objectively convey the brand value of Hangshun Chip to overseas markets.
A guide for Chinese semiconductor manufacturers to go abroad
When Chinese semiconductor brands are marketing in overseas markets, they first need to clarify their target markets and customer groups. Understand their needs, consumption habits and cultural background in order to develop products and services that better meet their needs.
Secondly, brand building is very important. Establish and maintain brand image by providing high-quality products and services, as well as good after-sales service. At the same time, various marketing channels, such as social media, industry exhibitions, public relations activities, etc., are used to increase the brand’s visibility and influence.
In addition, cooperating with Chinese partners is also a good way. For example, the market can be expanded by cooperating with Chinese electronics manufacturers to integrate Chinese semiconductor products into their products.
Finally, complying with local laws and regulations and respecting local cultural customs are also the keys to success in overseas markets.
The founding vision of Hangshun Chip :
With HK32MCU as the core , we will build a Hangshun borderless ecological platform-level enterprise .
Major development milestones of Hangshun Chip :
Shanghai Hangshun Microelectronics was established in 2006
In 2013, Shenzhen Hangshun Chip Technology R&D Co., Ltd. was officially established.
In 2014, we independently developed and mass-produced LCD display driver chips.
Independently developed and mass-produced power management chips in 2015
Independently developed and mass-produced EEPROM memory chips in 2016
In 2017, Wang Xiang established the HK32mcu/soc R&D team to formally develop 32MCU/SOC and established the Chengdu R&D center. It won the title of National High-tech Enterprise
In 2018, China's first forward design PIN TO PIN software fully compatible (M3 core 32-bit MCU-HK32F103 family) was mass-produced. China's first forward design PIN TO PIN software was fully compatible (M0 core 32-bit MCU-HK32F030). /031 family) Mass production of M3 core HK32F103 family in July Mass production of M0 core HK32F030/031/04A in September
In 2019, mass production of the world's first 32-bit MCU-HK32F030M/0301M family for less than 1 yuan was launched. Hangshun's patented M3+FPU high-performance floating-point processing 32-bit MCU-HK32F39A family was mass-produced.
In 2020, China's first world-class 20nA ultra-low power consumption 32-bit MCU-HK32L0XX family will be mass-produced for mass production of optical modules. The 32-bit MCU-HK32ALG31 family will break the foreign monopoly and mass-produce ultra-low-power Bluetooth BLE SOC-HK32W0XX family to mass-produce 5G. The founder of SOC dedicated to optical modules led the senior management team to refine the three cornerstones of corporate culture: mission, vision, and values. Corporate culture construction and implementation projects are in full swing
In 2021, China's first ARM+RISC-V multi-core heterogeneous SOC-HK32U1009 family will be launched for mass production of IoT security, built-in FOC hardware acceleration algorithm motor driver and other dedicated 32-bit MCUs. Launch of dedicated SOCs for AI voice recognition, AI image recognition, etc.
Mass production of more than 300 models of Hangshun HK32MCU from 29 major families in 2022
