A brief introduction to Zhirong Technology's comprehensive layout in the 100 billion fast charging market

Smartphone battery life has always been a pain point in the industry. Due to limited battery capacity, how to improve the user charging experience has become the key to differentiated competition among brand manufacturers. With the popularization of USB C ports, mobile phone fast charging technology has emerged; at the same time, a group of domestic manufacturers who have seen the development opportunities of the fast charging industry have also begun to make plans - Zhuhai Zhirong Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhirong Technology") is one of the best.

Go with the flow and take advantage of the trend

In 2014, USB C port was first used in consumer electronics products. At the end of the same year, an experienced chip team officially founded Zhirong Technology in Zhuhai. In July 2017, Zhirong Technology officially mass-produced 18W PD fast charging chips. At this time point, Apple introduced PD fast charging technology in laptop products for the first time. This move boosted the domestic fast charging market and made Zhirong Technology one of the first companies to enjoy the industry dividends. In July 2020, Apple introduced PD 20W fast charging in iPhone products for the first time and announced the cancellation of the original adapter. This move completely detonated the accessory fast charging market. Zhirong Technology took advantage of the trend and became a leading chip brand in the fast charging industry.

Recently, Zhirong Technology CTO Deng Qin accepted an exclusive interview with Jiwei.com reporter. Deng Qin introduced: "The main force of Zhirong team has more than 15 years of industry experience and has worked in many well-known chip design companies at home and abroad; they cooperate well with each other and are familiar with industry customers and product definitions; the cumulative shipments of the projects they led or participated in are nearly 1 billion; many years of analog chip design accumulation, coupled with familiarity with the market and a very accurate grasp of customer needs, uphold an empty cup mentality, insist on learning from customers, constantly innovate, and accompany customers to expand their territory in the field of fast charging."

Jiwei.com learned that the core team of Zhirong Technology has many years of deep experience in PMIC and mixed-signal SOC R&D and product development. Not only does it have deep accumulation in power management chips, but it also has rich experience in large-scale SOC development. It is capable of R&D of high-power power chips, and can also realize the R&D of complex digital logic such as MCU. It is good at mixed-signal SOC design and is a rare comprehensive technical team in China.

Years of industry experience and tacit cooperation among the team enable Zhirong Technology to grasp demand trends and customer pain points at the first time. Talent has always been the first competitive advantage of chip companies. This year, Zhirong Technology will further strengthen its efforts to attract talents.

Deng Qin said: "Zhirong is eager to recruit talents and has always opened its doors to welcome elites in chip design, system design, marketing, production testing, etc. In terms of talent introduction, in addition to continuously expanding campus recruitment, absorbing outstanding graduates and conducting internal training, we are also actively introducing external talents to enhance R&D capabilities and broaden our technical direction. Introducing key talents is not limited to form, and we are also actively setting up R&D branches in other cities."

Ingenuity and originality, emphasis on patents

The rapidly growing fast-charging market has attracted more and more companies to participate in it, and competition has gradually intensified for fast-charging chip design companies. Faced with the current competitive situation in the industry, Deng Qin believes that consumer electronics naturally have a huge user base and the total market volume is large enough. Taking adapters as an example, the global annual shipment of mobile phones exceeds 1 billion units, and the number of laptops exceeds 200 million units. The amount of accessories is several times the original amount, which gives start-ups a chance to survive. Moderate and healthy competition is conducive to the technological evolution of the entire industry. With the precipitation of time, the great waves will wash away the sand, and only excellent teams can withstand the tempering of the market and finally stand out.

Talking about the competitive advantages of Zhirong fast charging products, Deng Qin concluded: "First of all, it is because our products support more complete protocols. In addition to supporting PD, they support most mainstream private fast charging protocols, including QC2.0/3.0/3+/4.0+/5.0, PD, VOOC, SCP, HVSCP, AFC, PE, etc. At the same time, we have obtained official authorization and passed the certification of PD, QC, and VOOC protocols."

"In addition, we have pioneered the dynamic power allocation technology for multi-port chargers and own patents for related technologies. We have the largest market share in high-power multi-port adapters, especially GaN multi-port chargers, and have been recognized by customers. At the same time, integrating high power and protocols is also our advantage," Deng Qin added.

Deng Qin believes that the entire fast charging market is currently showing a trend of miniaturization and high power. At the same time, as GaN applications become more mature, its cost is reduced, and there are more and more peripheral supporting options, its advantages of high efficiency and small size will be further brought into play. Laptop chargers will partially overlap with mobile phone chargers and gradually become standardized. In addition to wired fast charging, wireless fast charging will also gradually become popular.

In this context, Zhirong Technology will also launch iterative products for multi-port GaN chargers to cope with the upgraded demand and consolidate its market position in multi-port adapters. It is reported that this product can provide greater power, higher efficiency and better fast charging compatibility, while allowing customers to introduce mass production more conveniently and quickly; at the same time, Zhirong Technology will also improve the fast charging protocol chip series products, and launch ASIC series products for cost-effective customers, and MCU series products for system brand customers. In addition to wired fast charging, the wireless fast charging market will also be expanded, and wireless charging chips have also begun to be shipped.

It is reported that since the launch of Zhirong fast charging products, the shipment volume has reached 10KK level, and its cooperative customers include well-known companies such as Huawei, OPPO, Qualcomm, Bull, ZTE, Lenovo, Anker, etc. As its products are continuously upgraded and improved, more brand customers will emerge in the future.

Perfect layout and embrace the future

Deng Qin said: "Zhirong's strategy this year is mainly focused on the expansion of the fast charging ecosystem. On the one hand, it is to continuously improve its own product line to form a complete and cost-effective fast charging solution. On the other hand, it is to find like-minded upstream and downstream partners, cooperate in depth, complement each other's strengths, and make full use of the energy of partners and channels to bring Zhirong's products to all directions. Finally, it is necessary to persist in the development and investment of high-efficiency, high-precision, and low-power analog technology platforms for a long time, be friends with time, adhere to long-termism, and look at the competitive situation for more than ten years to make layouts."

In addition to consumer electronics, automotive electronics has received increasing attention in recent years. Deng Qin said: "The trend of electric vehicles is getting stronger and stronger. The electrification of automobiles has brought another huge chip market, which will exist for a long time. Most of the new forces in car manufacturing, especially electric vehicles, are in China, so domestic chip companies have every opportunity to enter the automotive pre-installation market. At present, fast charging ports and wireless charging have gradually begun to be adopted in luxury brand cars. In the future, the demand for charging and discharging, battery management, circuit systems, control systems, communications and entertainment systems will bring another wave of long-term and huge demand to the chip industry."

Under the background of the Sino-US chip trade war, the capital market is flocking to the semiconductor industry, financing is becoming less difficult, and startups are springing up. However, Deng Qin believes that this year's production capacity problem may be the first hurdle everyone has to face, and how to survive and gain a foothold in a certain field has become everyone's top priority; as time goes by, investment institutions may shift their investment focus to basic fields or companies with a certain revenue scale.

He pointed out: "As the industry shows a situation of flourishing, horizontal integration and mergers and acquisitions will gradually emerge. In the future, some large analog chip platforms will emerge in China, constantly attracting outstanding talents and teams to join, and become basic chip companies similar to TI. Zhirong Technology has always been adhering to the attitude of actively embracing the capital market, and is happy to see more high-quality investors become our shareholders and accompany us in our continued growth."

Looking at the current situation, the trend of domestic chip replacement is clear. Zhirong Technology has become a leader in mixed-signal SOC with its solid R&D capabilities and keen market control, and its future is promising.