After three years of facing the wall, Senguoke finally broke through the wall and entered the BLDC driver chip industry with small steps and fast progress.

Jiwei.com News: "After singing along the river, I turn my head eastward, studying various sciences to help the poor. I have been facing the wall for ten years to break through the wall, and even if I jump into the sea, I am still a hero." In 1917, Premier Zhou Enlai wrote this poem when he went to Japan to study, showing his lofty ideal of carefully studying many sciences in the hope of saving China from the brink of extinction like a giant dragon that breaks through the wall. "Facing the wall for ten years to break through the wall" still encourages future generations to concentrate on research and make great achievements.

A hundred years later, in 2017, a "war without gunpowder" in the semiconductor field is about to cover China and the United States. That year, my country's trade deficit in the chip industry reached 1.2 trillion yuan, while my country's trade surplus was 2.87 trillion yuan. The chip industry has always been a major pain point in my country's development and a key area that has been "choked" by foreign countries in recent years. Realizing domestic chip substitution in various fields has become the "big business" of semiconductor people at the moment.

In recent years, 5G, AI, autonomous driving and other fields have attracted a lot of attention, but a field that not many people pay attention to is BLDC (brushless DC motor). In 2018, its global market size reached 15.36 billion US dollars, and institutions predict that it will maintain a growth rate of 13% in the past five years. In the current international trade context, the demand for localization of BLDC chips has increased. In the process of localization of BLDC driver chips, Sen Guoke has accurately grasped the development opportunities. After entering this field in 2018, after several years of intensive research on special processes, it has developed a mainstream product series that meets market demand, helping BLDC products to achieve import substitution.

Based on unique technology, Sen Guoke strives to break through barriers

In 2018, the production and sales of automobiles were adjusted downward, prompting Yang Chengjin to consider the need to add product lines other than Vision-ADAS to offset the risk of cyclical adjustments; the ZTE ban made Yang Chengjin, chairman of Sen Guoke, and the management team realize the coming of the import substitution 2.0 opportunity, and Sen Guoke formulated the management concept of "special technology + import substitution". To this end, Yang Chengjin and the Sen Guoke management team worked together to find chip product types that can be used in automotive electronics, industrial and consumer electronics, and can also use special processes to achieve import substitution.

After several months of market analysis and research, Yang Chengjin combined the team's capabilities and finally chose the BLDC driver chip. After in-depth market analysis and research, he believes that the motor driver chip market has the following characteristics: "First, an average car uses more than 40 motors, and the corresponding drive solutions are either ASIC driver chips or MCUs; at the same time, BLDC has also been widely used in the industrial and consumer markets, and is spreading like wildfire."

In addition, BLDC drive products are in line with Senguoke's business management philosophy of "special technology + import substitution". Yang Chengjin believes: "This series of products generally requires high-voltage HV technology, and medium and low voltage use BCD technology, which is in line with the nature of special technology. The current largest market for BLDC is in China, whether it is automotive grade, industrial grade, or consumer grade, it is the largest market in the world; although the automotive grade is mainly supplied by imported international brands, a small number of domestic brands have begun to enter the market for industrial and consumer grade products, replacing international brands."

After careful planning, based on its understanding of the market, Senguoke decided to first develop industrial-grade and consumer-grade BLDC drive products, and then enter the automotive-grade BLDC market after establishing a foundation. In addition, it created a two-pronged technical development route of "chip + core algorithm" to ensure Senguoke's long-term competitive advantage in the BLDC field.

After nearly three years of development, brushless motors are rapidly replacing brushed motors in the domestic market, and highly integrated single-chip solutions are replacing complex multi-chip solutions. From the current perspective, the market development trend is very consistent with Senguoke's original expectations, and Senguoke has grasped the timing of entering the BLDC driver chip market very well.

Accurate judgment and layout of the market is only the first step into this field. Yang Chengjin said frankly: "It took several years of continuous polishing in product research and development, manufacturing, and technology of BLDC driver chips to achieve a breakthrough in this field."

BLDC driver chip mounted on the circuit board

After three years of "facing the wall", Senguo Technology finally "broke the wall" and achieved independent control of consumer-grade BLDC driver chips. Yang Chengjin introduced to Jiwei.com: "At present, the three-phase BLDC drive solution equipped with the core motor drive algorithm independently developed by Senguo Technology has been launched on the market and has begun to be applied to some small household appliances, personal care products such as fascia guns, and E-bikes and other products."

Small steps and fast running into the "wilderness" of BLDC driver chips

In fact, after opening a window on BLDC driver chips in 2018, as the research in this field deepened, Yang Chengjin was "surprised" to find that the field of motor driver chips is a vast "wilderness".

There are no accurate statistics on the market to show how big this field is. However, from the fact that motors consume 60% of the world's electricity in a year, we can imagine how big the market for motor driver chips is. And motor driver chips are widely used, which is one of the reasons why data statistics are more difficult.

Taking the application field of three-phase BLDC drive products as an example, Yang Chengjin introduced to Jiwei.com: "From refrigerators, air conditioners, range hoods, fans, air purifiers and other large and small household appliances to hair dryers, massagers, pan-tilts, landscape water pumps, fascia guns, drones, VR equipment and other smart home devices, from electric vehicles, balance vehicles, scooters and other transportation tools to cleaning, gardening, construction sites and other scenes of electric tools, there are places for three-phase BLDC drive chips."

BLDC driver chip is used in fascia gun

After discovering this vast wilderness, Sen Guoke decided to adopt the strategy of small steps and fast progress, that is, after entering a niche application field, it would first mature the promising projects, and then move forward in small steps and fast progress into other projects in this field or another niche field.

Under this strategy, three years later, Senguoke's product line has begun to take shape, forming a model that mainly uses single-phase and three-phase BLDC dedicated driver chips with internally integrated motor drive core algorithms; in addition, there are two series of products, gate drive and power MOSFET, serving the motor drive solution. The core components of the motor drive solution are the main control MCU with control algorithms, gate drive, and power devices.

At present, Senguoke's three-phase BLDC drive products have been launched on the market, and single-phase BLDC drive chips have also made progress. Yang Chengjin revealed: "Senguoke's single-phase BLDC ASIC driver chip is in the engineering batch testing stage. The initial test performance and stability can completely replace imported similar products. It is expected that the market will be mass-produced in early 2021."

Driven by industries such as automotive electronics and smart home, BLDC drive products are also experiencing rapid development. In order to better follow the development trend of the industry and cope with new challenges and competition, Sen Guoke is also actively improving the core competitiveness of BLDC products. Among them, process development is the key. At present, Sen Guoke's process node is 180nm BCD 8-inch wafer. Yang Chengjin said: "In 2021, we will consider entering the 130nm BCD 12-inch wafer. Through the rapid adoption of new processes, we can reduce product costs, increase gross profit margins and market share."

In addition to products, market control is also one of the core competitiveness of an enterprise. In terms of rapid response to market demand and customer demands, Sen Guoke has strengthened its ability to independently develop multiple types of motor core drive algorithms in response to the needs of different application markets, and provides one-stop semiconductor parts supply capabilities for motor drive products, using good customer service and strong technical strength to ensure competitiveness; at the same time, Sen Guoke has also established a fast-response FAE team to provide turn-key technical service capabilities for downstream partners; in addition, it keeps abreast of the latest market trends, maintains a high degree of sensitivity to market trends, develops some targeted chip products and core algorithms in advance, makes good technical reserves, and takes a step ahead to ensure the first opportunity.

After clearly grasping the market competitiveness, Senguoke pays more attention to the strategic planning of products and technologies. In terms of chip products, it relies on advanced wafer technology and advanced packaging technology to provide the motor drive industry with chip products with higher integration, better reliability and better cost performance; in terms of motor drive control algorithms, first, it strives to expand the algorithm library for different types of motors for different applications, second, it works hard to shorten the time cycle of motor tuning, and third, it creates a "chip + algorithm + Turn-key" three-in-one service capability.