A small firm but big mover in chip development
Print Edition
When talking about big “made-in-China” electronics, companies like Foxconn or other massive outsourcing manufacturers comes to mind.
When talking about start-up domestic companies with innovative ambitions, small companies like Micson Industrial Automation Co in the Caohejing Development Zone spring to the fore.
Compared with Foxconn’s 200,000 employees, the Minhang company is indeed small, with only about 20 people on its payroll. It develops and produces chips used in electronics.
The company has no competition from domestic counterparts, but Liu Jinsong, president of the company, is not satisfied.
“Chips are the key factors of modern industry,” he said. “No modern industrial products, from automobiles to smart phones, can survive without chips. But in China, chip development is still in its infancy.”
He noted that despite the surge in manufacture of domestic smart phones and tablets, almost all the chips used in the products are imported.
According to a report issued by PricewaterhouseCoopers past August, China will use half of the chips made in the global market this year. The proportion of chips made in China is almost negligible.
“It’s no exaggeration to say that chips are the lifeblood of a country, so what we want to do is grasp that lifeline in our hands,” said Liu.
Easier said than done.
In 2010, Liu returned from Japan and took over the start-up Micson from several college students. The name combines elements of Microsoft and Panasonic because the students who started the company believed that Microsoft produces the best software while Panasonic crafts the best hardware.
Liu said the hardest part at the onset was finding talent. He himself worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week, but that was not enough. So he asked former colleagues from Shanghai Jiao Tong University for help.
“For the first three years, we had no extra employees in marketing or sales,” Liu said. “All our employees were technical professionals. It wasn’t until the fourth year that we found our first client through inside connections.”
Micson’s crown jewel is a wafer-processing machine that turns a compact disk-sized wafer into hundreds of chips.
The first client was Jiangsu-based Changjiang Electronics Technology Co, the biggest chip testing company in the country. The company used the devise on chips for iPhones.
“Support from the company meant that our efforts paid off,” said Liu. “And everything was worth it.”
Born in Harbin in northeastern China, Liu earned a doctorate at the Harbin Institute of Technology in 1995. In 1997, he started post-doctoral research at Shanghai Jiao Tong University as a deputy professor.
In 1998, Liu went to Japan for further study and work at the University of Yamanashi. A year later, he was recruited by a Japanese company, whose president tried to persuade him to apply for Japanese citizenship.
“He promised that my wife could join the company as a software developer as well,” Liu said. “He and his family even took care of our child when both my wife and I had to work overtime.”
Liu, however, never felt that Japan would be his ultimate home. He wanted to settle in China.
“I see a very big gap between foreign companies and Chinese ones,” he said. “A Chinese factory gives the impression of roughness, dirt and unprofessionalism, but the concept of factories in other countries is not like that at all.”
Liu admitted that some of the equipment Micson uses has to be imported. That is a gap he wants to narrow.
“If we don’t do anything, the gap will always be there,” he said.
The experience in Japan did open Liu’s eyes. The company he worked thrives on for creation and breakthroughs. He said the motto of the company was: “The invention of a screw spike needs the accumulation of creation.”
Liu has been named as a “leading talent” in the Minhang District, which ushers in financial sponsorship and policy incentives. The development zone where Micson is located also provides special services to the company.
Liu’s dream is for his company to achieve breakthroughs.
“At present Micson has only several technologies matching international levels,” he said. “But we hope that we can expand into more fields. Only when the whole industrial environment improves will Micson have a brighter future.”
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