5G RF chip company Litong Communications completed Pre A round of financing of approximately 100 million yuan

Recently, Beijing Litong Communications Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Litong Communications") completed a Pre A round of financing of nearly 100 million yuan, led exclusively by Heli Capital.

Litong Communications originated in Zhongguancun, Beijing. The team includes communication experts from Tsinghua University, senior experts in the RF chip design industry, and entrepreneurs with many years of entrepreneurial experience. They have rich experience in RFIC chip development and communication RF modules and system development capabilities. The company is committed to the research and development and industrialization of RF-related chips, and the development and application of reconfigurable RF chips, RF modules and professional communication systems. The company's products can be used in vertical application fields such as mobile communications, Internet of Vehicles, special communications, radio and television, white spectrum applications, the Internet of Things, industry-specific networks, as well as medical care and biosensing. At present, Litong Communications has completed the research and development and testing of 5G small base station RF chips and has entered the mass production stage. The second 5G macro base station RF chip has begun full mask tape-out.

2020 is the first year of 5G communication, and 5G is moving from trial commercial use to formal commercial use. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the number of 5G base stations nationwide exceeded 130,000 in 2019. Due to the higher communication frequency and smaller base station coverage radius, 5G base stations require a larger base station density and small base stations to supplement network optimization. The total market size of 5G base stations is estimated to be about hundreds of billions of yuan. In addition, the private network markets such as smart grids, public security private networks, railway private networks, emergency private networks, and military self-organizing networks also have a large demand for RF transceiver chips. The huge market demand is currently almost monopolized by foreign semiconductor giants, and the domestic market, which is in urgent need of being filled, makes the entire 5G RF transceiver chip field full of expectations for emerging local innovative companies.

Litong Communication has a high positioning, a broad market, high difficulty and strong technology. The team has gathered a group of senior communication and RF chip experts with more than 20 years of industry experience. The founder Hou Weibing is a doctor from Tsinghua University and a senior engineer. He has rich entrepreneurial experience and technical capabilities in the fields of signal transmission, wireless coverage, digital TV, etc., and is a serially successful entrepreneur.

Zhang Biao, executive partner of Heli Capital, said: "5G is a national strategy, and the 5G industry will bring about a trillion-level emerging industry. Companies focusing on 5G innovative technologies have great opportunities. 5G base station RF chips are highly monopolized by foreign companies. There is a large gap in domestic self-research capabilities, and product supply is almost blank, which is a typical "bottleneck" product. Litong's team is professional, pragmatic, and has rich experience and resources. After rigorous inspection and product verification, we are full of confidence in Litong's products and team."

Hou Weibing, founder of Litong Communications, said: "We have been deeply involved in the communications field for decades, and the advent of the 5G era has accelerated the implementation of the project. Several partners of Heli Capital have decades of experience in the semiconductor industry, and each of them has a pair of "eagle eyes". The Heli Capital team is not only very familiar with the products, but also has rich practical experience in marketing and industry expansion, and has very professional judgment on products, teams and markets. In the early stage of communication with Heli Capital, several partners of Heli actively invested a lot of resources and provided great support in project management, supply chain, wafer production and other aspects. The team is very honored to meet such a professional investor in the industry. We firmly believe that with the strong support of Heli Capital, the project will soon make breakthrough progress and bring rich returns to investors."