MOSFET is a very unfamiliar professional term, but most people may not know that this semiconductor component is indispensable in computers, mobile phones, and all electronic systems that we keep close to our hands in our daily work and life. ------MOSFETs are used wherever there is electricity. The energy and energy conversion, input and output, storage, and control necessary for the operation of electronic systems all rely on this key semiconductor component.
Xi'an Semipower Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as Semipower), established in 2008, is a high-tech enterprise engaged in the production, research and development, and testing of high-end semiconductors. It is also the first enterprise to introduce international MOSFET technology to China. Shenzhen, a subsidiary of Semipower In 2003, Southern Core Technology Co., Ltd. cooperated with international R&D teams from Samsung and Fairchild to independently develop MOSFET devices that belong to China's independent technology intellectual property rights. Taking root in Xi'an for nine years, the 13-year entrepreneurial journey, along with the growth of China's semiconductor industry, is also a nine-year struggle for Semipower. Speaking of Semipower, from the initial establishment of the company, the establishment of the R&D team, having its own brand products, to the unveiling and establishment of the power device testing and application center, and becoming the authoritative power device testing platform through CNAS&ILAC certification, in nine years, Semipower has become one of the domestic Top-ranked device design company...Recalling all this, Luo Yi felt a lot of emotion. Because Semipower started relatively early in the domestic power device field and has core independent intellectual property rights and a world-class R&D team, in the past nine years, product sales have been rising steadily due to its high reliability, high stability and high cost performance, and the market has The market share has gradually increased, and it has established a good reputation and brand image in the industry. Semipower's growth has benefited from the rapid development of the semiconductor industry. At the same time, Semipower's progress has also promoted the development of this industry. As for the development of the semiconductor industry in Xi'an, as An entrepreneur with a nine-year entrepreneurial history in the local area, Luo Yi's entrepreneurial history and strategic vision for company deployment, his love and thinking for the industry, his focus on making good devices, and his ingenuity in strengthening the brand are truly admirable. .
Luo Yi studied at Northwestern Polytechnical University in 1983, majoring in aerospace engines. After graduation, he worked and studied in a military industry enterprise in Guizhou. He then joined Shenzhen Lenovo headquarters as the head of the purchasing department. After his business capabilities were greatly improved, he joined Samsung China's only The agent Pioneer Electronics served as the vice president of sales and began to contact the semiconductor industry.
Although Luo Yi had a smooth career in the sales industry and was able to earn millions a year in the 1990s, in Luo Yi's understanding, it was always difficult to untie a knot: why is the core of the electrical equipment produced by the Chinese themselves? Do power devices have to be completely imported from abroad? He feels that the gap in power devices in China should be filled by himself, so that the soul of national industrial manufacturing can be firmly held in the hands of the Chinese themselves. In 2002, when domestic MOSFETs still needed to be imported on a large scale from Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea, Luo Yi chose to start a business. Luo Yi sold his overseas HOUSE and added his many years of savings to introduce a technical team of 13 people from abroad to develop China's power device technology. By introducing the technical strength of foreign experts, he supported the domestic technical team and developed China's semiconductor technology. The team members are all semiconductor experts who have worked for large companies such as Samsung and Fairchild, and the introduction cost exceeds one million US dollars.
Since the 1990s, Japan has become a developed region in the international power electronic device industry. The main device companies include Toshiba, Fuji and Mitsubishi. Europe is also a developed region in the global power electronics industry. Major companies include Infineon, ABB, Semikron, etc. Luo Yi targeted international giants as his competitors from the beginning. "It was a better entry point for me at that time. Power semiconductors were a process that started from scratch in China. The high cost performance of our products was very popular in the country. My years of sales work have laid a solid customer base, so Semipower's products have always been We have always had a good sales channel. We have very strict control over product quality. The rigorous work style of our design team and the support of upstream manufacturers ensure that our products are recognized by customers. and active cooperation provide a strong guarantee for our quality and lay a good foundation for the sustainable development of the company." ---Luo Yi said.
Our country has released "Made in China 2025", which outlines the overall direction and development plan for industrial transformation and upgrading in the next ten years. In this process, power semiconductors play an irreplaceable role. However, similar to the integrated circuit industry, there is also a huge gap between the development level of my country's power semiconductor industry and the international advanced level. As a leader in Shaanxi's power semiconductor industry, Luo Yi, how does he view the development status of the domestic semiconductor industry and the entrepreneurial environment in Xi'an?
Reporter from West China Network: It has been nine years since Xi'an Semipower was established. What do you think is the biggest difficulty encountered in the process of starting a business?
Luo Yi: Semipower actually did not encounter any big difficulties in the entire process of entrepreneurship and growth, because there are relatively few companies making power devices in China, and we have many partners. For example, friends such as Silan Micro, Huahong Manulife, Huatian Technology, Founder Micro, and Guanghua have all given us great support at different stages of our development. We have always attached great importance to technology development, product quality control, and communication with end customers, so it has always been a benign development process. If we really want to talk about the difficulties we encountered, I just want to talk about intellectual property protection in China. Back then, we imported technology from abroad and spent a lot of money and energy on training our own engineers. However, when our products were in the upstream wafer generation When the factory was producing, the other party did not perform the contract well, sold our products privately, and released our technology to other domestic manufacturers, which was harmful to us. But if we think about this issue optimistically, it can be considered that we have made some contributions to the localization of power devices.
Reporter from West China Network: The technology leakage at that time was a harm to Semipower. Do you think the current industrial environment is better?
Luo Yi: There are many factors that affect the market environment, and intellectual property protection is only one of them. Nowadays, compared with the past, the law is becoming more and more strict on the protection of intellectual property rights of enterprises, and enterprises are becoming more and more aware of self-protection of intellectual property rights. The reason why we were hurt in the past was because we did not use the law to effectively protect ourselves. The current industrial environment should be better than before. After more than ten years of hard work, China's semiconductor products have gradually been recognized by the world and increasingly accepted by major international manufacturers. Domestic supply-side reforms have given more domestic devices the opportunity to replace imported brands. The state's support for the semiconductor industry has also given domestic semiconductor companies more financial support and new development opportunities. However, the current semiconductor investment boom has also brought many new problems, because there is more hot money in the market now. Under the catalytic effect of capital, many companies will cut corners and reduce product quality due to investors' requirements for financial indicators. to achieve the purpose. This kind of behavior will have a negative impact on healthy development companies. I think it is disgraceful to lower the quality of one's products just for the sake of performance. Entrepreneurs should always maintain self-respect and self-discipline.
Reporter from West China Network: Product quality is the foundation of an enterprise. What do you think of the quality of domestic products now?
Luo Yi: I think domestic enterprises should create an atmosphere in which they should not just focus on the country, but should have a global perspective, and should regard world-class product standards as our product standards, so that we should first put ourselves Product quality comes first. When we compete with world-class products, we compete on quality first, and cost-effectiveness second. If domestic products do not pay attention to quality, it will damage the big trademark of "Made in China".Once a domestic brand goes abroad or is adopted by a foreign company, your products represent Chinese quality. More than once, we have encountered foreign manufacturers who have had quality problems using domestically produced components, and will no longer use Chinese brands in the future. Because in their eyes, Chinese products only have low prices but no quality guarantee. We really don’t want any more companies to do such things that harm national brands. While domestic brands are pursuing cost-effectiveness, they must also make great efforts to improve the durability and reliability of their products. Our company's products have maintained an excellent record of zero customer complaints during more than ten years of cooperation with internationally renowned companies such as Huawei, Microsoft, and Google. We are very proud that in recent years, through joint efforts with wafer factories and packaging factories, our peers and friends have continuously improved their design and process quality, and the quality of their products has also continued to improve. Chinese semiconductor companies are providing more and more excellent products to the global electronics industry. The product market has gradually moved from the low-end market many years ago to the mid-to-high-end product market.
Reporter from West China Network: Xi'an Municipal Party Committee Secretary Wang Yongkang proposed at the Silk Road Expo: "We must build a good brand of hard technology in Xi'an across the country!" What do you think of Xi'an's hard technology environment?
Luo Yi: I understand that hard technology mentioned by Secretary Wang includes two aspects. One is the high-end manufacturing of Industry 4.0, and the other is the construction of local brands for high-tech products. There is a difference between high-end manufacturing and traditional manufacturing. If Xi'an wants to improve hard technology, it must introduce more high-end talents, especially leading talents.
There are many colleges and universities in Xi'an, and there are many college graduates every year, but Xi'an still lacks industry leaders. The high-tech industry is not a talent-intensive industry, but an industry that needs leaders to lead. This is the particularity of the industry. At present, the Xi'an government is providing increasing support to science and technology enterprises, including the introduction of preferential policies for the introduction of leading high-tech talents, which will be beneficial to Xi'an's introduction of leading talents and the development of science and technology enterprises. Our company plans to introduce more high-level talents from abroad this year to solve the problem of lack of talents in our company. We understand that another meaning of the hard-tech Xi'an brand requested by Secretary Wang is to have more made in Xi'an in terms of technological products. Our company's own brand of products "SAMWIN" has been a famous brand in Shaanxi Province for many years. We are working hard to obtain the title of Chinese famous brand. This will be the first Chinese famous brand from Shaanxi in the semiconductor industry. Regarding the resources we need, the construction of the wafer fab in Xi'an and the expansion of Huatian Technology's production lines in Xi'an are all good for the hard technology environment. The government has expectations for the development of enterprises and strongly supports their development. The environment for hard science and technology in Xi'an will become better and better.
Reporter from West China Network: In response to the call of the Party Central Committee and the State Council to vigorously develop "mass entrepreneurship and innovation", Xi'an is vigorously promoting mass entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship. What do you think of the entrepreneurial environment in Xi'an?
Luo Yi: There was a post some time ago "Who can start a business in Xi'an except Xi'an and Xi'an son-in-law?" The content is a bit extreme, but there are some opinions worth pondering. Leaders at all levels in Xi'an are very good to enterprises and hope that enterprises in Xi'an will grow. They provide good hardware facilities and policy support for mass entrepreneurship and innovation enterprises and individuals. Regarding mass entrepreneurship and innovation, my understanding is that new fields are suitable for entrepreneurship, while mature fields require innovation. Xi'an's entrepreneurial environment should be first-rate in the country: strong government support, many university research institutes, relatively low housing prices and other factors make Xi'an a very suitable city for entrepreneurship. If Xi'an wants to become an innovative city, it must be more tolerant and promote talents in an eclectic way. It is not only a Xi'an for Xi'an people and Xi'an sons-in-law, but an international Xi'an. As far as our company is concerned, our employees come from all over the country, and we also have foreign employees. We still need to expand the number of foreign experts. We invite many foreign experts to Xi'an every year for technical exchanges. In terms of innovation, we invest 20% of sales every year in the development of new products and the construction of laboratories. I believe that without innovation, enterprises will have no vitality and lose the value of their existence.
Reporter from West China Network: Compared with Silicon Valley in the United States, what is the gap between Xi'an and developed areas such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen?
Luo Yi: Once, I accompanied the senior vice president of Flextronics to visit Xi'an. After he finished the visit, he asked me a question. He said, "Mr. Luo, Xi'an has so many high-rise buildings and so many industrial parks, but in life, What famous brands are made in Xi'an?" I thought about it for a long time, but couldn't answer it. This question is actually asking what companies can serve as Xi’an’s science and technology business card? Shenzhen has Tencent, Hangzhou has Alibaba, Beijing has Ziguang, and Silicon Valley has countless world-class companies. These leading companies are the city’s technology business card. This may be the Xi'an brand of hard technology that Secretary Wang proposed to build. Once I went on a business trip to Silicon Valley in the United States. A friend in the semiconductor industry accompanied me in California for a week or two. He only worked through the Internet during our breaks because their working methods are very flexible and efficient.Silicon Valley does not have many industrial parks or entrepreneurial parks, and many companies even do not have decent offices, but this does not affect their entrepreneurial innovation. The development of the high-tech industry relies on the combination of innovative design and advanced manufacturing. It is the aggregation of knowledge, thinking and resources. It does not necessarily rely on formal planning such as entrepreneurial parks and industrial parks. Xi'an has many excellent universities, scientific research institutes and other high-quality resources, as well as many developing companies like ours. If everyone can promote each other and complement each other's resources, we will definitely be able to catch up with developed regions such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and have the opportunity to become China's Silicon Valley!
Reporter from West China Network: You are now a well-known entrepreneur. What advice do you have for future entrepreneurs?
Luo Yi: I am not a well-known entrepreneur. To be precise, we are still entrepreneurs because our company is still in the process of entrepreneurship and growth. I slowly found my entrepreneurial direction while working. Under the guidance of my seniors, I chose the right time to start my own entrepreneurial journey. Entrepreneurship is about having ideals and realizing ambitions. Entrepreneurship has nothing to do with making money or having fun. This is my advice to future entrepreneurs.