Huinengtai Semiconductor, the rise of domestic new stars in the charging market

Electronic Enthusiasts Network (Text/Huang Shanming) We are now in the era of intelligence, and the carrier of intelligence is usually in smart phones, smart homes, smart cars and other products, and electricity is the power source of smart products. Under these conditions, fast charging technology has become the standard for these electronic products. As Apple does not include power adapters in mobile phones, and many manufacturers have begun to follow suit, the huge power adapter market is open to third-party manufacturers, and a new era has arrived.

On the other hand, it can be noted that the USBPD standard, as the most common general standard, also developed rapidly during this period. As a semiconductor company that is positioned to focus on high-performance digital-analog hybrid circuits and high-performance power management design, and a total solution provider for the USBPD ecological chain, Huinengtai Semiconductor is standing in the wind and is about to rise into the wind.

USBPD will unify the market

Xie Renjian, chairman and CTO of Huinengtai, said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from Electronic Enthusiasts.com that the trend of USBPD unified charging protocol standard has been foreseen since around 2016, but the trend was not obvious at that time. By 2021, the USBPD unified protocol standard has a relatively certain trend. And this trend, Huinengtai had foreseen as early as that year, and resources and products were developed and invested in this direction, and the layout was made in advance.

Xie Renjian, Chairman and CTO of Huinengtai

Apple no longer comes with the operation of the power adapter, but it has accelerated the pace of protocol unification. On the other hand, the China Telecom Terminal Industry Association recently issued the “Technical Specifications for Fast Charging of Mobile Terminal Integration”. It is foreseeable that in the next two to three years, USB PD fast charging and domestic private agreements will eventually be integrated to form a unified and complementary standard. Huinengtai also participated in the formulation of the USBPD standard and the domestic integrated fast charging standard, and can clearly see the future evolution direction of fast charging technology.

USBType-C and PD ecological chain expansion

And fast charging is not limited to mobile phones and laptops. Xie Renjian said that smart home products are developing rapidly and vigorously. Equipment such as projectors, fascia guns, gimbals, power tools, flashlights, shavers, drones, game consoles, etc., have basically begun to use USB Type-C interfaces and are equipped with USB PD fast charging technology. Huinengtai also launched the corresponding HUSB238, HUSB311 and other chips for industrial layout.

USBPDSink chip HUSB238

As smart homes begin to develop towards USBType-C and USBPD fast charging, it has also brought prosperity in another field. The unified standard interface has also increased the demand for USBType-C cables equipped with E-Marker chips. According to the USBType-C standard, when the transmission current exceeds 3A or the cable transmission rate is greater than USB3.0, the cable must be equipped with an E-Marker chip.

E-Marker chip HUSB332A supporting USB4

Xie Renjian said that in the past, there was no chip in the cable, but after Apple began to equip the Lightning cable with Apple’s dedicated E-Marker chip, the market became accustomed to using the chip on the charging cable. E-Marker chip Acceptance becomes higher. The needs of the E-Marker market are mainly in two aspects, one is high-current fast charging, and the other is high-speed data transmission. These two markets will generate the demand for E-Marker. Huinengtai’s market share in E-Marker chips in 2021 will reach the world’s first, and will continue to make efforts in this field in the future to maintain its leading position.

From nobody to the world leader

Now Huinengtai has achieved the first domestic USBPD3.0 non-PPS certified protocol chip, the first domestic USBPD3.0PPS certified protocol chip, the first domestic USBPD3.0 certified E-Marker chip in the fast charging market, The first domestic E-Marker chip to support Raiden III and other achievements, the customer group includes Lenovo, Huawei, Samsung, LG, Xiaomi, Anker, Belkin, Asus, ABB and other internationally renowned companies, and has been highly recognized by customers.

But in the past, chips in the domestic fast-charging market basically relied on imports, and the market was afraid to avoid domestic chips. Especially after the Samsung explosion incident, the safety level of power management has been raised to a more important position by manufacturers again. Enterprises are not willing to take risks to support domestic products. It is a safer choice to choose mature foreign products.

Xie Renjian believes that a few years ago, domestic enterprises had a low starting point, lacked strong awareness of quality, and lacked rich experience. However, in recent years, they have made rapid progress, with great progress in quality and performance. Taking Huinengtai as an example, the reason for the rapid progress is due to the construction of the team. The team is based on the core talents of world-class multinational enterprises such as ADI and TI. In terms of product design, testing, reliability and product operation, etc. All have rich experience. After they left ADI and TI, they brought the rich experience accumulated over the past ten years into Huinengtai, which also makes Huinengtai not inferior to these world-class enterprises in terms of product design concept and quality control. To impress customers with product quality, so as to expand their market share.

At the same time, different from other companies, Xie Renjian believes that if the company wants to achieve longer-term development, it is not through price wars or substitutions, but technical innovations in products, so as to achieve better quality and lower costs. Lower and more innovative, only such semiconductor companies are meaningful and can go further. Also because of its good quality, it has been recognized by first-class manufacturers and customers, so they have endorsed it, and then won more customers, forming a virtuous circle.

Of course, the research and development of chips is a long process, and technology also needs to be accumulated and precipitated slowly. Compared with the international leading manufacturers, domestic enterprises are still in a state of gradually catching up. But fortunately, compared with overseas companies, the advantage of domestic companies is that they are close to the supply chain, can respond quickly to the needs of customers’ products, and have better services than foreign companies.

At the same time, in terms of patents, Huinengtai adheres to the road of technological innovation and has more than 40 patents of various types, including more than half of domestic invention patents and a number of PCT patents.

In terms of product development, Huinengtai also proposed the idea of ​​creating explosive models. Xie Renjian mentioned that the products in the market basically follow the 28 principle, that is, 80% of the products are not profitable, and only 20% of the products can be profitable. Therefore, Huinengtai focuses on creating explosive models, and does not deliberately pursue the diversification of products, so as to ensure that every product that comes out is a high-quality product.

Of course, it is very difficult to create popular models, so Huinengtai established a professional market team to conduct preliminary market research and analyze customer needs, etc., to accurately explore customers’ pain points and real needs. This can minimize detours and avoid misjudgment on the market.

As a company closely integrated with the domestic supply chain, Huinengtai can immediately understand the needs of customers in most cases and clarify the problems that customers want to solve. The products produced in this way will neither have insufficient functions nor have too many redundant functions. Customers do not need to pay for redundant functions, and can just meet the needs of customers. The competitiveness of this product must be the strongest.

Grow together with the industry

Huinengtai Semiconductor completed the A round of strategic financing in mid-2020, and recently completed the A+ round of strategic financing, ushering in a period of rapid development. The team was born out of ADI and TI, which also allows the company to quickly get closer to international companies in terms of technology and quality control, and also gives Huinengtai a certain advantage in the design of the digital-analog hybrid system and DC-DC power management chip.

In the next two years, Huinengtai will focus on providing the overall solution of USBPD and on the construction of the USB Type-C ecological chain. Of course, there will also be innovations in technology. Taking the fast charging chip as an example, Huinengtai will combine the USBPD chip and the power management chip to make a higher-integrated chip, which can give full play to the enterprise’s digital-analog hybrid technology. advantage.

60WPD power supply reference design for vehicle front loading (based on Huinengtai HUSB350 and ADILT8390)

At the same time, in the vehicle market, Xie Renjian said that the next 10 years will be an opportunity for the development of electric vehicles. For example, the PD fast charging in vehicles also has a huge market demand. Taking Tesla as an example, there are USB Type-C interfaces on the front and rear to realize fast charging. In the future, various cars will be equipped with in-vehicle USBPD fast charging as standard. Huinengtai will also take this as an opportunity to enter the automotive field. look for opportunities.

In addition to the above two areas, Huinengtai will also develop overall solutions for USBType-C and USBPD. For example, in terms of power management, it will make breakthroughs in the direction of digital processing signal transmission and provide an overall solution for USBType-C.

Huinengtai continues to be optimistic about the fast charging market. At least in the next 5-8 years, this field will still maintain rapid growth, and the market space is larger than we imagined. Some people think that the future market will reach 100 billion output value. Xie Renjian believes that this estimate is reasonable. Huinengtai will also deploy in this market in advance and grow together with the industry.