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“The integration of China and science was first created by a group of ‘national talents’, the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ overseas specially recruited returnees’.”

“The original intention of establishing the company was mainly three points. First, it was to industrialize all our scientific research results; second, after the US sanctions occurred, many domestic companies felt more and more that they were always under the control of others on chips, so they accelerated Domestic substitution and solving the “stuck neck” problem have become our core drivers; third, from the perspective of the entire market, around 2018, the domestic artificial intelligence and chip industry, including 3D vision, intelligent manufacturing, high-end consumption,the medicalBeauty, autonomous driving and other application fields are on the eve of the market explosion, and then we feel that the potential of this market is huge, so we choose to enter the market. “

When talking about the original intention of the integration of science and technology, its co-founder and CTO Dr. Liu Xin said so.

As the only one in China with self-developed “MEMS chip + SOC chip + core algorithm”, and can provide a completeAIAs an enterprise of +3D chip and module products, Zhongke Fusion has always firmly practiced the concept of “transforming scientific research achievements into market-oriented products that benefit mankind”. It is also based on this that the integration of China and Science has gradually shifted from “academicization” to “commercialization”.

Transition from “academic” to “commercial”

“From academia to business is a principle that the Chinese Academy of Sciences has been practicing since its establishment – transforming scientific research results into market products to benefit the society. Especially after the reform and opening up, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has further accelerated the pace of marketization.” Dr. Che Hanshu, Co-CEO of TechConvergence, said.

“Actually, relying on the accumulation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for many years, in addition to incubating the integration of Chinese science and technology, the Suzhou Institute of Nanotechnology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has also successfully transformed from ‘academic’ to ‘commercial’, and achieved good results. Suzhou Institute of Nanotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences It has also hatched more than a dozen listed companies, and the output value of intelligent sensing alone has exceeded 100 billion yuan.”

It is understood that Sino-Science Fusion, established in 2018, was incubated at the Suzhou Institute of Nanotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and entered the 3D imaging market with MEMS structured light 3D sensing modules to provide 3D visionsensorsolution, available forrobot, medical cosmetology, automatic driving and other fields. Zhongke Fusion has independently developed a 3D visual intelligent sensing module, which has core technologies such as MEMS precision optics, high-precision 3D vision and artificial intelligence algorithms, and high-energy-efficiency 3D SoC computing power chips.

At present, Zhongke Fusion has a total of more than 100 employees, including more than 10 doctors and more than 70 masters, and has a “dream team” that is amazing in the industry.

From the perspective of the background of the core team, Dr. Wang Xuguang, the founder of Sino-Science Fusion, graduated from the Department of Materials Science and Technology of Tsinghua University in 1999, and then went to the United States for further studies, and obtained a doctorate from UT Austin University. Dr. Wang Xuguang was engaged in the research of chip materials and processes while working at AMD/Spansion and Seagate in the United States, and was then called back to China by the “Chinese Academy of Sciences Overseas High-end Talents Introduction Program” in 2010. He continued to engage in and be responsible for the research and development of SSD controllers. Experience in complete R&D and product development of devices, circuit design, algorithms and systems.

In addition, Dr. Liu Xin, the co-founder and CTO of China Science and Technology Fusion, obtained a Ph.D. The mass-produced chip R&D plan cooperated by international companies and was responsible for the successful tape-out of dozens of chips, and was later called back to China by the “Chinese Academy of Sciences Overseas High-end Talents Introduction Program” to continue to work on artificial intelligence algorithms, high-efficiency computing processor chips, and optical MEMS-based Research on imaging systems, etc.

“Our founding team not only has rich experience in product research and development, but also has sufficient market practice and management experience in large enterprises.” When faced with the topic of “from studying academia to becoming an enterprise”, Dr. Che Hanshu’s sentence seemed simple and straightforward. Bai’s explanation just points out the profundity of the integration of Chinese science and technology.

Perhaps it is precisely based on this combination that the capital sees the great development potential of the integration of China and Science in the future. In just over four years, Sino-Tech Fusion has successfully completed four rounds of financing. Among them, in 2021, it will directly complete two rounds of financing, the Pre-A round and the A round, with each round of financing reaching tens of millions of yuan.

According to reports, Sino-Tech Fusion has launched a B-round financing plan this year, and prioritizes strategic investment in leading Industrial capital.

Not only did it perform well in terms of financing, but also performed well in terms of revenue. Since receiving the first order from the market, Sino-Tech Fusion has run like a wild horse running wild. Its revenue has shown multiple growth every year. Taking 2022 as an example, its revenue will increase by 2.4 times year-on-year.

“This year it is expected to increase by 3.5-4 times year-on-year.” Dr. Che Hanshu said confidently.

The reason for such confidence is that the application of 3D vision in the Chinese market has just begun, especially with the continuous release of downstream application demand, its future incremental potential is huge. This point can also be seen from the growth rate of the domestic 3D vision market in previous years.

Data show that in 2021 Chinamachine visionThe market size is 13.816 billion yuan (this data does not include the scale of automation integration equipment), a year-on-year increase of 46.79%. Among them, the 2D vision market is about 12.665 billion yuan, and the 3D vision market is about 1.151 billion yuan. The recovery of traditional industrial products has also brought vitality to machine vision, and the growth trend is obvious.

It is estimated that by 2025, the scale of my country’s machine vision market will reach 34.9 billion yuan, of which the 2D vision market will exceed 29.1 billion yuan, and the 3D vision market will exceed 5.7 billion yuan.

In this regard, Zhang Gaonan, managing partner of Huaying Capital, the A+ round investor of Zhongke Financing, also publicly stated: “3D vision technology has a wide range of application scenarios at the industrial end, and it is a huge incremental market.”

At the same time, Zhang Gaonan is also optimistic about the products and future development of the integration of China and science in the long term. Zhang Gaonan said: “In the field of micron-level high-precision high-speed detection within 10 meters, Zhongke has integrated and opened up a completely independent MEMS dynamic structured light underlying core manufacturing process and drive control technology, and integrated ultra-low power consumption in the front end. The dedicated AI processor greatly reduces the cost of use. The MEMES dynamic institutional light technology integrated by China Science and Technology has extremely high technical barriers and scarcity. Its core 3D smart camera modules and module products can be widely used in applications such as biometrics, Machine vision, medical imaging, smart home, automatic driving, game film and television, AR/VR design and many other application scenarios that require 3D modeling and space recognition. Huaying has long been optimistic about the future development of the integration of science and technology, and looks forward to working with the company to accelerate The intelligent process of domestic technology.”

“Domestic Substitution” under Deep Cultivation Products

The key to the reason why Sino-Tech Fusion can stand out from the crowd of start-up companies and achieve a series of debut achievements lies in its “product strength”.

At present, the products of Zhongke Fusion mainly include chip products, module products and industrial products.

Taking chip products as an example, it is understood that the algorithm underlying code, hardware acceleration operator, chip architecture, chip circuit, etc. of the 3D+AI VDPU intelligent visual data processing chip integrated by China Science and Technology are independently developed, integrating multiple self-developed calculations. The acceleration engine can perform real-time high-speed adaptive signal acquisition, analysis and processing to better ensure the accuracy of optical imaging. At the same time, the chip supports a variety of general-purpose peripherals, including MIPI, Gigabit Ethernet, USB2.0/3.0, etc., and can also be developed and used as a general-purpose embedded system, which has a very good promotion prospect in terms of industry applicability.

3D+AI VDPU intelligent visual data processing chip

The first-generation 3D+AI VDPU intelligent visual data processing chip integrated by Zhongke adopts a highly mature CMOS production process, and has been mass-produced and widely used in its self-developed 3D intelligent medical medical camera Turnkey module solution. The latest second-generation 3D+AI VDPU intelligent visual data processing chip, its ecological openness has changed from the first generation only supporting China Science Fusion’s own 3D imaging algorithm to now supporting the respective 3D imaging algorithms of companies in related industries , with better algorithm compatibility, covering more application scenarios. The second-generation chip will soon be used in the next-generation 3D camera module of Zhongke Fusion.

MEMS micro-mirror projection chip

At the same time, the optical MEMS micro-mirror projection chip integrated by Zhongke is also in the steady development and mass production. The chip is based on electromagnetically driven MEMS micro-mirror technology. Among them, the 1.6mm diameter small target surface micro-vibration mirror has been mass-produced in 2020, and the second generation of 4mm diameter large target surface micro-vibration mirror was successfully mass-produced last year, achieving greater driving force and stronger projection Power, longer working distance, larger imaging field of view.

High precision MEMS laser projection module

Compared with the current standard imported American chip products, the optical MEMS micro-mirror projection chip of Zhongke Fusion can reduce power consumption by 10 times and chip volume by 20 times; while another 3D+AI VDPU intelligent visual data processing chip Then the power consumption can be reduced by 30 times, and the volume can be reduced by 10 times. Based on these two chips, Zhongke Fusion has polished and formed a set of “high integration, high reliability, high precision, high performance, low power consumption (four high and one high) Low)” is a MEMS laser projection module and a 3D smart camera Turnkey module.

Laser micro-galvanometer 3D smart industrial camera Turnkey module

Laser micro-galvanometer 3D smart industrial camera Turnkey module (on-site real shot)

In terms of industrial products, Zhongke integrates the latest high-precision 3D vision sensor core technology for smart manufacturing and smart logistics, high-precision MEMS laser projection modules and product-level laser micro-galvanometer 3D smart industrial camera Turnkey modules (PRO series) , quite bright. This series of products not only has the advantages of large format, large depth of field, high reliability, high integration, and high performance, but also can achieve low power consumption and high precision.

Taking PRO WR_200_5W as an example, this product is widely used in industrial grabbing, logistics unpacking and palletizing and other scenarios, and has three advantages at the same time: first, super-large field of view, super-large depth of field, and the world’s top FOV; second, using high-power laser light source , the ability to resist ambient light interference is extremely strong; third, the 12-megapixel color camera helps AI segmentation.

From the perspective of application scenarios, according to Dr. Liu Xin, the current series of products under the Fusion of Science and Technology are mainly used in scenarios such as intelligent manufacturing, warehousing and logistics, and medical aesthetics.

Taking the medical field as an example, Dr. Liu Xin introduced that projects such as orthodontics, cervical lumbar disc herniation, and girls’ medical aesthetics all need to be treated based on human physical characteristics. The integration of Chinese medicine and science can help machines better obtain 3D information of the human body, providing doctors with Provide auxiliary medical advice.

At present, Zhongke Fusion has completed the deployment and certification of well-known leading enterprises in the fields of automobiles, auto parts, tires, refractory bricks, 3D applications, and 3D solutions. Cooperative customers include Tesla, Weilai, Sany Heavy Industry, JD.com, SINOMACH, Deepblue Technology, Mecamand, etc.

In the future, with the further development of technology and the continuous efforts of domestic enterprises such as Sino-Tech Fusion, domestic substitution will be further accelerated.

At this moment, Zhongke Fusion is bringing the latest chips and all series of modules to participate in the 24th Shenzhen Industrial Exhibition of ITES2023 (Booth 12-Q33, Hall 12, Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center (Baoan) ) and Shenzhen International Sensor and Application Technology Exhibition (Booth 8C11, Hall 8, Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center (Futian), March 29-31, 2023). Looking forward to your on-site visit and communication!