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【Project business card】

The Qitai Sensor Internet of Things Industrial Park project is a key project in Hunan Province. After more than ten years of hard work, Qitai Sensing has overcome the key core technologies and processes in MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical System) sensors, filling the gaps in the country, and enabling large-scale industrialization of high-end sensors with independent intellectual property rights. In January this year, the first domestic pressure-sensitive sensor chip production line built by the company was successfully put into operation, and mass production is expected to be realized in August this year. After the second phase reaches production, it can produce 20 million pressure-sensitive sensor chips per year, and the annual output value of packaged sensors will exceed 15 billion yuan.

A "small button" with a diameter of no more than five or six millimeters can very accurately convert pressure data into electronic signals and transmit them to the receiving and processing terminal you want-such as the ESP (Electronic Body Stability System) well-known to car owners. This "small button" sensor must be used. For a long time, this kind of core technology and high-end sensor market has basically been dominated by European, American and Japanese companies.

In 2019, the ice of monopoly began to melt. On January 16, the first domestic pressure-sensitive chip production line with completely independent intellectual property rights was officially opened in Liuyang High-tech Zone.

"The first batch of products was successfully rolled off the line, and the trial conditions are good!" Today, at Hunan Qitai Sensing Technology Co., Ltd., Chairman Wang Guoqiu picked up a box of "small buttons" and confidently told reporters, "Similar to Western developed countries Compared with the products, I dare not say that it exceeds, at least it can be said that they belong to the first phalanx."

[R&D] Ten years of sharpening a sword, the "Chinese core" of mathematics professors

Wang Guoqiu, born in 1963, has another identity: professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Mathematics and Statistics of Hunan Normal University. I studied mathematics at Hunan Normal University. After studying and working at the National University of Defense Technology for more than ten years, I returned to my alma mater to teach mathematics, but his research was on sensor technology. Wang Guo Qiuxiao called this a "hobby."

The inter-bank "hobby" stems from the enthusiasm for "China Chip". Moreover, Leonardo also said that mathematics is the foundation of all science.

"In the area of ​​integrated circuits and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), our country's foundation is very weak. In the 1960s, Europe, America and Japan began to take off, but we were delayed due to the 10-year Cultural Revolution." Wang Guoqiu said. , This delay is twenty or thirty years behind.

In 2000, the state promulgated a series of policies to support the development of the integrated circuit industry, setting off a boom in integrated circuit investment.

Seeing the opportunity, Wang Guoqiu co-founded a digital technology company called "SMIC" and developed my country's first digital image and video compression codec chip with completely independent intellectual property rights in 2003. At that time, DVDs entered thousands of households, but all the decoding chips had to be imported from abroad, and each DVD had to pay a few dollars for the use of patented technology.

Only innovation will not be controlled by others. In 2006, Wang Guoqiu established Qitai Sensing Technology Co., Ltd. with the "first pot of gold" earned in SMIC with 2 million yuan, and shifted the research focus to more widely used pressure-sensitive chips, and decided to industrialize the way.

From "SMIC" to "Qitai", Wang Guoqiu's sincere family and country feelings continue. "Why is it called Qitai? Our English is CHNTEK, Chinese technology, it sounds like Qitai."

However, the development of pressure-sensitive chips is far more difficult than Wang Guoqiu expected.

"You ask me how many experiments I have done? Where can I remember it! I only remember that the burnt base material is this kind of'small buttons', one basket and one basket."

"To buy materials, buy equipment, and do experiments, the 2 million yuan will soon be gone, and I owe a lot of debts, and people will come to collect debts during the New Year."

...

Wang Guoqiu admitted that in the face of various difficulties, he almost collapsed and almost gave up, "Fortunately, I finally survived."

In 2013, the "fortress" of the key technology of pressure-sensitive chips was finally overcome.

[Settled in] "I have confirmed my eyes", the park invested 40 million yuan to build a factory building

The "marriage" between Qitai Sensing and Liuyang High-tech Zone is a warm story.

"After a few contacts, it's like falling in love, just like falling in love." Wang Guoqiu said that in 2015, he brought his technology and scientific research team to Liuyang High-tech Zone, which is dominated by intelligent manufacturing, and the two sides signed a settlement agreement. In March of the following year, the foundation of the Qitai Sensor Internet of Things Industrial Park project covering an area of ​​100 acres was laid.

Facts have proved that for both parties, they have "confirmed their eyes and met the right person."

Wang Guoqiu must not forget that because the investor’s funds came later than the agreed time, the decision-makers of the Liuyang High-tech Zone decided to "give the green light" and invested 40 million yuan in the construction of factories to help the company tide over the difficulties. "There is no precedent for the establishment of factories in the park. I did not expect it!" He said that he has been to many places. The "nanny-style" services provided by the relevant departments in Liuyang and the park are particularly impressive.

Solved the worries, Wang Guoqiu led the team to step up process research and development and production line design.

In the integrated circuit industry, the six parts of equipment, materials, design, production, testing, and packaging constitute the upstream and downstream industrial chain, and an enterprise generally only targets one of them. However, Wang Guoqiu’s pressure-sensitive chip line involves high pressure and high temperature, and the base material is not ordinary silicon, but special metal, and the size is not standard. Therefore, it is impossible to directly purchase and use existing equipment to replicate mature silicon technology. From materials and equipment to technology and craftsmanship, no one can provide a complete supporting system, and must be self-sufficient and self-sufficient in research and development.

“It took seven years to overcome key technologies, and another three years to develop core production processes and joint research and development of key equipment.” Wang Guoqiu said with emotion that many processes and technologies of Qitai Sensing rely entirely on independent research. At present, Qitai Sensing has applied for 11 invention patents, 6 utility and appearance patents, and has mastered a large number of core processes.

The day before New Year's Eve, Wang Guoqiu released the good news of "the production line has been connected" in the WeChat Moments. He told reporters that the first batch of products officially rolled off the line on January 16 and was put into use in the fire water pressure Internet of Things system on January 29—that is, a pressure-sensitive sensor chip is placed in the fire hydrant to store water and The water pressure situation can be fed back to the fire department and community owners in real time, which will eliminate the dilemma of frequent lack of water available at the fire scene.

How does the product perform? Wang Guoqiu uses the words "excellent performance" to describe it. "This foreign similar product costs five to six thousand yuan, and we can win it for two thousand yuan."

[Prospect] "Small buttons" big market, with an annual output value of up to 15 billion yuan

Qitai Sensor Internet of Things Industrial Park is located on Yongyu North Road, Liuyang High-tech Zone. There are several gray buildings in the industrial park, and the office building and factory area seem to be quiet.

Only when you walk into the production building can you feel the atmosphere of seizing the day and being methodical. Wei Xiaolin, who came to Qitai Sensing from a research institute in Beijing, is the chief engineer of the company. He brought reporters "fully equipped" from the more than ten auxiliary facilities on the first floor to the 2000 square meter "ultra-clean workshop" on the second floor. ", visited one by one, and carried out on-site science popularization.

The reporter noticed that the auxiliary facilities on the first floor were all unattended, only one employee was discharging the chip substrate pre-processing workshop, and only a few engineers were monitoring the data in the ultra-clean workshop on the second floor. Wei Xiaolin introduced that pressure-sensitive chips are technology-intensive products. The company's production line has more than 40 links, and most of the processes are automated.

The auxiliary facility room provides environmental protection and supporting services such as materials, water and gas for the "ultra-clean workshop". "Pressure-sensitive chips are extremely demanding on the production environment. There can be no more than 100 dust particles with a diameter greater than 0.5 microns in a cubic foot of space, which is much higher than the cleanliness requirements of a hospital operating room; the water used for cleaning is so pure that it cannot be drunk. , Because there are no other elements except H₂O.” Wei Xiaolin explained that if impurities adhere to the substrate material, the film layer of the chip will not be firmly bonded, which will affect the performance and life of the chip.

A metal strip that is thick with a pinky finger and looks like stainless steel is placed in a high-precision CNC machine tool. After 1 minute, it becomes a smooth and shiny "small button"-this is the base of the chip. After pretreatments such as grinding and polishing, these substrates will be sent to the "ultra-clean workshop" upstairs, where they will go through many processes such as automatic sorting, cleaning, deposition, photolithography, and testing, and then packaged into sensors.

The reporter picked up the "small buttons" that were ready to be encapsulated and found some patterns on the front. Wei Xiaolin said that if you put it under a microscope at 500 times, you can see densely packed circuits.

According to reports, after the pressure-sensitive sensor chip production line is pulled through, there will still be a three-month yield ramp-up period to ensure a yield rate of more than 90%. After that, after another 3 months of testing to ensure that there are no quality problems, mass production is expected in August this year.

Pressure-sensitive chips can be used in military industry and rail transit, civil vehicles, fire protection, smart cities, petrochemicals and other fields. Different fields have different requirements for sensors and different prices. Thousands of thousands.

“It is estimated that 500,000 pressure-sensitive chips can be produced this year, and the output value can reach more than 500 million yuan after packaging into sensors. The annual production capacity of the first phase is designed to be 6 million pressure-sensitive chips, and the second phase will also start construction in the second half of the year. In the future, it will be able to produce 20 million pressure-sensitive chips per year, and the annual output value of encapsulated sensors will exceed 15 billion yuan.” Wang Guoqiu said that compared with imported products, Qitai Sensing not only has an advantage in terms of price, but also has an advantage in terms of service. Customized production according to the requirements of the buyer.

At present, Qitai Sensing focuses on the smart city and transportation rail field, and has received orders from customers in the rail transit field and fire department. The next step is to enter the field of automotive smart sensing, which is a huge market.

【Live connection】

Reporter: Qitai sensing project is about to be mass-produced. What does this mean for Liuyang High-tech Zone?

Yu Hui, Secretary of the Party Working Committee of Liuyang High-tech Zone: Qitai Sensing is an important project introduced in the process of high-quality development of Liuyang High-tech Zone. The project has also received great attention from the provincial party committee and government. This year we are going to apply for the "5 100" projects in Hunan Province. The park will follow the path of "registration-application for high-tech enterprises-listing" to promote Qitai to become bigger and stronger.

At the same time, the entry of projects such as Qitai Sensing and Tianyue Silicon Carbide will definitely give play to the adsorption effect of leading projects and attract more smart equipment and carbon-based materials upstream and downstream enterprises to settle in the industrial chain. We will adhere to the new development concept, aim at the general goal of high-quality development, focus on the two themes of "Industrial Project Construction Year" and "Business Environment Optimization Year", and strive to build an industrial ecosystem of multi-chain integration of industry, innovation, talents, and policies. Form cluster development, make every effort to build a first-class "central core valley" in the country, and comprehensively build intelligent manufacturing highlands, industrial new cities, entrepreneurial blessed land, and ecological parks.

Media link: https://www.icswb.com/h/102884/20190226/586695_m.html