This science and technology park accounts for half of Beijing's chip design. Why?

GigaDevice, Zhaoxin, Bitmain, Wenan Intelligent... the integrated circuit design "V-shaped" composed of leading enterprises, unicorns, backbone forces, and start-ups is taking off in the northern part of Haidian. The carrier IC-PARK is emerging and becoming another rising technology landmark in Zhongguancun.

In less than a year since its opening, this park with a construction area of ​​only 220,000 square meters has attracted more than 50 integrated circuit design companies, creating nearly 50% of Beijing's integrated circuit design output value, and its unit land output value has surpassed Zhongguancun Software Park in one fell swoop. This is Zhongguancun Integrated Circuit Design Park (hereinafter referred to as "IC-PARK")!

As the name suggests, IC-PARK focuses on the integrated circuit industry and the "design" link. It is a technology park tailored for chip design companies. It is jointly developed and operated by two municipal state-owned enterprises, Zhongguancun Development Group and Capital Real Estate. The park officially opened on November 16, 2018 and entered the operation period.

How did IC PARK build an industrial ecosystem in just a few years in the face of a capital-intensive, technology-intensive, and talent-intensive industry like chips? On the eve of the third "Core Power Beijing" Zhongguancun IC Industry Forum, Miao Jun, chairman of Zhongguancun Integrated Circuit Design Park, accepted an exclusive interview with reporters.

Integrate into life and create a technology park without walls

Caption: The scene of the summer food festival hosted by IC PARK

In August 2019, at the height of summer at IC PARK, as soon as night fell, bustling crowds gathered here to eat skewers, drink beer, and watch performances... In 10 days, more than 100,000 people participated in the summer carnival held by IC PARK. This grand occasion far exceeded the original concept of the park, and also proved the desire of the park and surrounding residents for excellent commercial facilities and strong consumption potential.

Technology needs life, and life should be integrated with technology. IC-PARK arranged scientific research and office work in an orderly manner at the beginning of its planning, and this integration has generated strong vitality.

Image caption: Miao Jun, Chairman of Zhongguancun Integrated Circuit Design Park

"Commercial space is an essential element of life in the park, and its maturity reflects the perfection of the park. In the science and technology parks we built before, we always wanted to separate industry and life, and put distance in between. But in actual use, we found that people should be more oriented." Miao Jun said. Unlike many science and technology parks that neglect supporting facilities, IC PARK has planned a space of 20,000 square meters and filled it with rich supporting facilities for life, culture and sports.

The reporter saw in the park that many office buildings have reserved ground floor shops, including brand restaurants such as Starbucks and Burger King, as well as popular online restaurants such as Malubianbian and Coconut Chicken that are popular among young people, and high-end restaurants that match business negotiations are about to open their doors to welcome customers. At the same time, the park has also introduced employee canteens and 24-hour convenience stores to meet the daily needs of employees. In addition, the park has built Beijing's only 2,000-square-meter professional integrated circuit science and technology museum, a 4,200-square-meter library, and a 2,400-square-meter IC International Conference Center... Wandering in the park, the green spaces and squares everywhere provide a refreshing communication space.

In IC PARK, most of the business, life and communication needs can be met without leaving the park, and the open space layout without walls benefits surrounding businesses and residents. "Before, there was no concentrated business district in northern Haidian, and the commercial facilities in the park have greatly improved the overall business district in northern Haidian."

IC PARK integrates technology with life, and connects and shares the park and the outside world. It uses advanced planning concepts and mature business operations to provide excellent infrastructure for IC companies and talents.

Combining light and heavy industries to build a high-value industrial ecosystem

Since the land was acquired in 2015, IC-PARK has spent two and a half years on carrier construction. However, carrier construction is only the foundation, and the content is more important. "How to attract excellent enterprises to the park, form an industrial ecology with industrial organizations and industrial services, and let the industrial ecology feed back to enterprises to make them bigger and stronger? This is a science and a subject," said Miao Jun.

Figure: Real view of Xinchuang Space in Zhongguancun Integrated Circuit Design Park

Entering 2019, IC-PARK, which has fully entered the operation period, has devoted its greatest efforts to the construction of the industrial ecosystem, consolidating the industrial ecological system supported by the industrial platform and with "incubation + college + fund" as nodes.

First, IC-PARK has built a platform covering 11 industrial functional services and established the "Zhongguancun IC Industry Service Hall" to provide enterprises with one-stop services such as EDA (electronic design automation), IP (reusable modules), MPW (multi-project wafers), financing services, and comprehensive services.

Many of these services are achieved by introducing market-oriented professional forces. For example, the park introduced the electronic design platform Zhongguancun Xinyuan, which provides chip flow, IP and other services; introduced Jiwei.com, which provides public communication and information release for the chip industry; introduced MiG Lab, a cooperative inspection and testing platform. In addition, the secretariat and liaison office of the Design Branch of the China Semiconductor Association are also located in the park.

Based on the platform, the three asset-light modules of fund, incubation and academy have also been fully launched to solve the funding, technology and talent problems that plague IC companies.

In terms of financial support, IC-PARK adopts a comprehensive innovative model.

First, IC-PARK has established a stock subscription pool. When an IC enterprise moves in, IC-PARK will sign a stock subscription agreement with the enterprise. The price of the stock subscription is not agreed upon, but it is agreed that the park can enjoy priority stock subscription rights in the next round of capital increase and stock expansion of the enterprise.

"The industrial park is no longer a bystander in the development of the companies that move in, but has established a blood relationship through equity; on the other hand, the endorsement of the state-owned industrial park can promote corporate financing." Miao Jun pointed out the significance of the "stock option pool" model.

Second, IC-PARK established the Zhongguancun Integrated Circuit Industry Fund with a total scale of 1.5 billion yuan. The first phase of the fund has successfully raised 300 million yuan, and more than a dozen projects have completed due diligence and entered the investment stage.

"In terms of investment methods, the fund does not seek controlling stakes. Generally, the shareholdings are between 3% and 10%. In this way, we provide financing support to enterprises and grow together with them," Miao Jun introduced.

IC-PARK's 3,000-square-meter incubator "Core Innovation Space" has also begun operations. The incubator is mainly for small and micro enterprises, ranging from one or two people to more than a dozen IC design companies, which can conduct independent research and development in the park or cooperate with large companies in the park. The incubator is equipped with a luxurious team of mentors to guide entrepreneurs.

The "Core College" established in 2019 connects the last mile between IC talent schools and enterprises through training. On the one hand, the Core College provides a way for in-service IC talents to improve themselves, so that park employees can learn while working; on the other hand, the Core College has established close ties with the microelectronics colleges of six well-known universities in Beijing, making the park a training base for universities.

Through the linkage of "one platform and three nodes", IC-PARK's industrial ecology has been comprehensively consolidated.

Benchmarking the factory and aligning with the world-class industrial parks

In fact, among the numerous integrated circuit technology parks in China, IC-PARK is still a newcomer.

Since the country issued the integrated circuit industry outline in 2014, all regions have attached great importance to the integrated circuit industry and invested a lot of money and space resources to build professional parks. The birth of a large number of new parks has led to a surge in the number of IC parks.

"From a national perspective, among the professional integrated circuit industrial parks, Shanghai started earlier and is more advanced, forming a full industrial chain of design, production, packaging and testing. For example, Shanghai Zhangjiang Integrated Circuit Port has a long history, rich industries and a considerable area."

Miao Jun believes that compared with its predecessors, the latecomer IC-PARK has its own characteristics and advantages.

"The biggest advantage of IC-PARK is actually also Beijing's advantage, that is, it is intensive in talent, technology, projects and capital. Beijing has the largest number of companies with an integrated circuit design scale of over 100 million. The six microelectronics colleges of Beijing's key universities, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, output a large number of results and talents every year. This is also unique to Haidian Zhongguancun." Miao Jun pointed out.

Moreover, Beijing has planned an integrated circuit industry structure of "design in the north, manufacturing in the south", with IC design mainly concentrated in Haidian. The government fully supports the clustering of IC design companies in Haidian in terms of policies.

So, which park does the newly emerged IC-PARK consider as its benchmark? Miao Jun’s answer is Zhongguancun Software Park.

Zhongguancun Software Park is located in Xi'erqi, Haidian District, Beijing, and its online name is "Houchang". Its unit output reaches 800 million yuan/hectare. It has strong strength of gathering leading large enterprises and has attracted well-known companies such as Didi, Baidu, Tencent, Sina, and NetEase.

"I think IC PARK should learn from Zhongguancun Software Park and achieve a high concentration of leading enterprises, a clean and beautiful environment, and complete supporting facilities. This is what we should focus on learning," Miao Jun said. "There are also some emerging science and technology parks in China that are developing very fast. For example, science and technology parks in Nanjing and Hefei also have a lot to learn from."

On the eve of the rise of artificial intelligence and against the backdrop of Sino-US economic and trade frictions, as a service provider in the IC industry, Miao Jun is full of confidence in the future.

"After this period of close contact, I feel that independent innovation in integrated circuit design is constantly developing and becoming more and more prosperous. Although it was a little weak in the first half of this year, it feels that more and more companies have come to the park in the second half. Many good companies and good projects have found the park. Some are newly established, some have applications, and some have scenarios, and want to move into the park; some companies have been reorganized and formed new entities to enter the park. These companies are not doing PPTs for publicity, but are actually doing research and development and marketing."

Growing together with enterprises, Miao Jun said that IC-PARK will promote the development strategy of the park, take integrated circuit industry service provider as its development goal, move towards a world-class integrated circuit professional design park, continue to improve hardware, consolidate the soft environment, enhance service methods, and build an industrial ecology for integrated circuit design.

Q&A

Reporter: Last year, the output value of enterprises settled in the park reached 24.8 billion yuan. Will there be further growth this year?

Miao Jun: The output value and tax revenue of the park mainly rely on the contribution of settled enterprises. The output value can only be formed when leading enterprises lead and small and medium-sized enterprises gather together. There will definitely be new growth this year because we have more and more enterprises entering the park, but the specific data has not yet been counted. From the perspective of settled enterprises, there are now more than 50 IC design companies in total, and it is expected to be basically full by the end of next year. The goal is 150 settled enterprises, 30 billion yuan in output value, and 5 billion yuan in tax revenue. We are working hard towards this goal.

Reporter: Have IC design companies been affected by the Sino-US economic and trade frictions this year?  

Miao Jun: There is some impact. We usually communicate with some company leaders about these things. The impact has both positive and negative aspects. The positive impact is that due to the Sino-US economic and trade frictions, especially the restrictions on integrated circuits, some domestic IC design companies with strong capabilities have more business sources. There are also negative impacts. Some technologies are clearly not provided to certain companies, and the turnover of some domestic IC companies that provide intermediary services has declined.

There have been many discussions on this topic in the industry. We should treat it with a calm attitude and strengthen independent research and development and business exchanges more actively, because IC is a highly international industry after all, and we cannot develop behind closed doors. I personally believe that the Sino-US economic and trade friction cannot block or stagnate IC design, but can only promote us to find ways to advance it, so that we have a greater voice and a more advantageous position.

At this "Core Power Beijing" forum, some of the guests we invited will have very professional knowledge and insights. I suggest that you can listen to more explanations at the forum.

Reporter: The Science and Technology Innovation Board has brought new opportunities to chips. Does IC PARK have any targeted cultivation plans?

Miao Jun: It is in the cultivation stage. There are A-share listed companies such as GigaDevice and unicorn companies in the park, but medium-sized enterprises are being gradually cultivated. First, we need to recruit them to form a cluster, and then we need to follow up on some companies in a targeted manner. Zhaoxin and Wen'an Intelligent in the park have potential. In the next step, there will be better companies settled in the park, and we are also working hard to attract them.

Reporter: Building an industrial ecosystem is very expensive. As a policy-based park, have you considered the economic benefits?

Miao Jun: Industrial development is an industry with long investment and slow output. We cannot rely on industrial platforms to make money. We should provide services on industrial platforms for free if possible, or offer preferential prices as much as possible. By building such industrial platforms, we can promote enterprise development.

Our real income comes from two parts: one is basic rent, and the other is investment income. Investment will gradually become the largest income in the later stage. "Property value-added, operation value-preservation, investment value-added" is our overall strategy.

Building a park is not like building real estate, which requires quick entry and exit, but building an industry is a long-term business. Moreover, IC PARK is a national-level science and technology park, and our main task is to increase the value of assets and maintain their value, which is the responsibility of state-owned enterprises. Our more important responsibility is to cultivate the enterprises stationed in the park and provide them with a better industrial environment and industrial conditions, so that the integrated circuit industry can have more hope. This is also an important requirement for fulfilling the social responsibility of state-owned enterprises, and we are unwavering in this regard.

Reporter: Integrated circuits are closely integrated with upstream and downstream applications. Will the park expand its scope based on IC design in the next step?

Miao Jun: IC design should be combined with applications. Currently, IC design companies account for 80% of our park. The next step will be to increase the entry of application companies, such as smart hardware, operating systems, network security, Internet of Things and other companies, which will enable the park to form business interactions.