Author｜Wei Shiwei
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36氪 was informed that recently RISC-V CPU IP and solution company “Core Technology” announced the completion of a new round of financing of hundreds of millions of RMB, led by Legend Capital, Xianghui Capital, Shougang Fund, C&D Emerging Investment, Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Fund, Accurate Capital, Paradise Silicon Valley, Orange Leaf Investment followed the investment, and the old shareholders CEC Core Technology Research and Investment Fund, Linxin Investment, Zhongguancun Xinchuang Fund, Xiaomi Changjiang Industrial Fund, and Lanchi Venture Capital continued to pursue investment. This round of financing will be mainly used to increase investment in research and development of new products and tools, and accelerate the company’s technology platform innovation in the field of RISC-V chip applications.
Xinlai Technology is a company that 36氪 continues to pay attention to and reports on. It was established in 2018 and is one of the first domestic companies to build an application ecosystem based on the RISC-V open instruction set architecture and take the lead in realizing industrialized applications. Based on the RISC-V architecture, the company has developed a variety of series of CPU IP products and related software and hardware solutions, covering various application requirements from low power consumption to high performance, involving 5G communication, industrial control, artificial intelligence, automotive electronics, Internet of things, storage, MCU, network security and other fields.
Hu Zhenbo, founder, chairman and CTO of Xinlai Technology, told 36氪 that in the first three years of the company’s development, they have built a complete CPU IP product line, completed the accumulation of core technologies and the construction of key teams. Business model innovation has found a sustainable development path in the RISC-V open ecosystem.
In Hu Zhenbo’s view, the current global semiconductor IP market is still mainly occupied by foreign giants, and the basic IP technology link, especially the key core IP represented by CPU IP, has always been one of the soft spots for the development of the local semiconductor industry. However, with the development of the industry for many years, the chip industry now has the technical prerequisites for rapid customization and differentiation at the SoC level on the basis of standardized IP. further intensified.
“Faced with these opportunities and demands at different levels, domestic players need to carry out in-depth innovation in both technology and business, and in-depth integration at the ecological level can make up for the disadvantage of the industry.” He said that the birth of the RISC-V instruction set architecture is a rare opportunity. This architecture and its integrated software and hardware solutions can meet the customization needs of hardware product iterations and application scenarios in various industries.
After years of education and ecological development in the RISC-V market, the entire industry now focuses on how to use the RISC-V architecture to quickly create differentiated products. Hu Zhenbo said that CoreTech continues to be close to the market and accelerates the implementation of RISC-V through different paths.
On the one hand, the company has always linked its product R&D plans to actual market demand, and the full range of products has maturely and stably entered the mass production design of many customers. high-level complex applications. At the same time, the CPU IP of Security and Functional Safety features is also being implemented in an orderly manner, and has now entered the stage of customer integration verification and standard certification.
On the other hand, the company’s full-stack subsystem IP platform based on RISC-V CPU IP has become more and more complete. Through close technical cooperation with ecological chain partners, the output SoC subsystem IP solution has greatly reduced the user’s SoC project design. cycle. The adaptation of software drivers and tool chains based on the RISC-V architecture can also greatly reduce the one-time investment cost of customers when converting projects to the RISC-V architecture.
From the perspective of the global competitive landscape, the CPU IP market has long been occupied by the Arm architecture and Intel/AMD x86 architecture. In the past two years, Arm has first adjusted the IP licensing model. The attitude of the architecture and the RSIC-V architecture has become more inclusive and open, and the competitive situation of the entire industry is changing at any time. Then, as a leading player in the domestic RSIC-V architecture, how can Xinlai Technology maintain its competitiveness in this challenging market structure?
Hu Zhenbo believes that from a competitive point of view, Arm architecture and x86 architecture have monopolized the mobile terminal, PC and server markets for many years, and it will take time for new RISC-V players to penetrate these fields. However, in emerging fields such as AIoT, new energy vehicle electronics, and heterogeneous computing, RISC-V and other architectures stand on the same starting line, but instead have new starting advantages that some giants do not have. The rapid development and implementation of the RISC-V ecosystem is closely related to the core driving force behind it. The RISC-V architecture is a global open standard that does not belong to a single company, but a technical standard that belongs to all mankind.
“We see more and more organizations and companies in and out of the industry, and the ecological synergy of various organizations and companies at home and abroad. In terms of technological evolution, standard formulation, and application approaches, we are still constantly gathering the wisdom of all mankind.” Hu Zhenbo said that at present The structure of the RISC-V CPU IP track and the main players have been formed. In addition to Xinlai Technology, there are Taiwan’s Andes Technology (Andes Technology), the United States SiFive, and China’s local Pingtou Ge, these companies are all We seized the important time to grab the beach, and completed the early market cultivation and reserve.
Under the ever-changing international situation, the neutrality of the RISC-V architecture provides a new localization path for the research and development of domestic chips. On the one hand, the establishment of Xinlai Technology has seized the historical opportunity of early RISC-V development in China, insisted on local independent research and development from scratch, and quickly accumulated a complete IP library in three years, which can provide domestic customers. Nationally-made and fully open products have gradually built technical barriers and first-mover advantages with local attributes.
On the other hand, the R&D team of Xinlai Technology has the industry background of Synopsys, Marvell, Intel and other internationally renowned semiconductor companies, as well as rich experience in R&D of CPU, IP and software and hardware integration solutions, and the proportion of R&D personnel is as high as 84%. Among them, the company’s founder, chairman and CTO Hu Zhenbo, and CEO Peng Jianying have worked in companies such as Synopsys and Marvell, leading the team to develop a variety of high-performance and low-power CPU IP or chips, and have more than ten years of domestic and foreign leading enterprises IP Experience with SoC chip design and management.
In Hu Zhenbo’s view, the company’s R&D and operation teams have high comprehensive quality, and the company’s added value and barriers can increase with the gradual improvement of market reserves, which can further target the Chinese local market to be more grounded and agile. Sexual business innovation, which is also a big differentiating advantage of the company.
From the perspective of business model, Xinlai Technology not only provides full-stack RISC-V IP products, but also provides agile, software and hardware integrated RISC-V overall solutions. With the development of ecological effect, the company’s products will have a strong high repurchase stickiness, and the marginal cost will be continuously reduced through modular output, which will greatly meet the needs of a wide range of customers in diversified scenarios.
Since its establishment, more than 100 customers have officially authorized the use of the RISC-V CPU IP products of Xinlai Technology. In-depth partners include China Mobile, Zhaoyi Innovation, VeriSilicon, Crystal Morning Semiconductor, Feisling, Anlu Technology, Aojie Technology and other companies.
In the next year, Xinlai Technology has also formulated three major development goals:
- The first is to further develop higher-performance CPU IP and new features such as security, automotive, and intelligence, and to meet the differentiated needs of the two major tracks of AIoT and automotive electronics;
- The second is to promote the iteration of the technology platform for agile design, and to output a RISC-V-based integrated software and hardware solution more conveniently;
- The third is to carry out the verification of hard-core IP technology based on Chiplet interconnection, and to participate more openly in the demand layout of heterogeneous systems for RISC-V.
It is worth mentioning that 2022-2024 is the second three years of the growth plan of Xinlai Technology. Hu Zhenbo said: “Sinlai Technology has chosen to start from the core IP link, and has gone through the three-year start-up stage. In the new three years, the Xinlai team will continue to increase R&D investment, further accelerate the implementation of industrialization, and gradually upgrade from IP supplier to A technology platform-based enterprise that provides solution output contributes to making up for the lack of core basic technology links in the local semiconductor industry.”
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Related events
- “Core Technology” won a new round of financing of hundreds of millions of yuan led by Legend Capital, and Legend Capital led the investment2022-08-18
- Xinlai Technology completed a new round of financing2021-06-21
- Xinlai Technology completes a new round of financing: building a one-stop RISC-V design and application platform2020-12-29
- The local RISC-V enterprise Xinlai Technology has received investment from Xiaomi to accelerate the industrial ecological layout2020-08-06
- Xinlai Technology completed tens of millions of Pre-A round financing2019-09-09
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