Hubei Daily: Chen Changqing, founder of the company

All media reporter of Hubei Daily reports

Wuhan youweixing Technology Co., Ltd., founded by Professor Chen Changqing, is committed to manufacturing China's own semiconductor UV cores. Only two years after its establishment, it has entered the "Gazelle enterprise" of optical valley. By the end of last year, the annual output value had exceeded 40 million yuan. In 2019, the output value is expected to reach 70 million yuan and the profit will exceed 10 million yuan.

On March 26, all media reporters of Hubei Daily interviewed the entrepreneurial team.

An integrated circuit board is stuck in the R & D "neck"

A small semiconductor UV LED lamp, the energy is amazing, just like the artificial "little sun". More than 99.99% of the bacteria can be eliminated by installing them on air conditioners and water purifiers; the flowing water source can be purified into drinking water by the U.S. Navy installed on the military water jug; 99.9% of hepatitis C virus can be killed by irradiation for 5 minutes

Chen Changqing introduced that semiconductor UV LED can be widely used in disinfection and sterilization, medical treatment, optical fiber curing and other fields. For a long time, semiconductor UV LED chip technology has been monopolized by foreign enterprises.

After studying abroad for many years, Chen Changqing became an expert in the field of UV LED materials and chips. After returning home, he worked in Wuhan National Laboratory of optoelectronics, Huazhong University of science and technology. "You have advanced technology in hand, why don't you let it go to the market?" In 2015, Wuhan Institute of optoelectronic industry technology issued an invitation to Chen Changqing.

The support from the University and the invitation from the Institute of industrial research ignited his entrepreneurial passion. In October 2015, the company obtained the first financing from Huagong venture capital; in January 2016, Qiao Feng, Chen Changqing's college roommate and partner of Suzhou hi tech venture capital fund, extended an olive branch, and the company obtained round a investment of the fund.

On the way to start a business, Chen Changqing also encountered a "neck jam.". "The trouble is in the R & D stage." He recalled that one of the key processes in the production of UV LED products is the preparation of integrated circuit boards. It is necessary to "proofread" the products on the surface mount production line, and complete multiple process procedures such as printing, mounting, reflow soldering and testing.

In Wuhan, some large enterprises with SMT production lines do not accept small batch and personalized orders, and small workshops can not meet the high-end demand of products. Forced to do so, youweixing has to find a factory in Guangzhou to commission production, which is not only costly, but also limited in research and development.

The public service platform delivers nanny like services

Learning that youweixing is in trouble, Wuhan Institute of optoelectronic technology offered a helping hand. On the public service platform of ITRI, there are a number of professional third-party surface mount production lines dedicated to the R & D and industrialization test of start-ups. Even a sample can be produced, and can be modified and iterated at any time.

The platform has completed more than 120 small integrated circuit board samples for youweixing, the total price is only more than 7000 yuan, and the cost of each circuit board sample is less than 60 yuan. Even so, the platform still arranges special personnel to produce it with an independent production line, and tracks the quality and usage of samples. "ITRI's platform is no less than Stanford University." Chen Changqing sighed.

In the 1980s, Stanford University led the way to research and production, creating Silicon Valley.

Chen Changqing and his team focused on R & D and successively conquered the core technologies of semiconductors.

Epitaxial growth is the most important semiconductor process for manufacturing deep UV LED, which directly affects the quality and cost of products. In this field, SETI is the world's leader in technology, and can prepare AlN single crystal films with thickness of 0.3 μ M.

After efforts, we have prepared AlN single crystal thick film with thickness of 10 μ m, which is tens of times of that of American company.

In order to achieve higher power density ultraviolet light, more lamp beads should be packaged and integrated on the same area substrate. In this process, whether the heat dissipation can be more effective becomes the key to the success or failure of the technology.

After repeated tests, the R & D personnel selected aluminum nitride ceramics as the substrate, and used the world's advanced flip eutectic technology for packaging, which reduced the thermal resistance to less than 5.5k per watt, far lower than the level of 20K per watt of foreign enterprises.

Up to now, Chen Changqing's team has applied for more than 20 patents and successfully developed the world's advanced core materials, chips and devices for UV LED.

Strengthen the "moat" and march into the 10 billion market

With excellent products, how to find a breakthrough in the market?

By chance, Zhang Jianbao, the general manager of the company, and Dai Jiangnan, the technical director of the company, heard from their classmates that a printing equipment company used UV LED light source to quickly solidify the ink pattern, which had good effect and many orders. However, due to the fact that all UV LED lamps are imported from abroad, the price is not low, and the after-sales service can not keep up with it. Therefore, domestic substitutes are urgently needed.

Soon, youweixing with excellent technology, successfully won the company's order. Since then, Chen Changqing's team has opened up new territory in wine bottle screen printing, optical fiber coating, liquid crystal and other fields.

In 2017, youweixing became one of the youngest "Gazelle enterprises" in optical valley.

The rapid development of youweixing has made Chen Changqing's team more confident. In 2017, youweixing established its holding subsidiary, Hubei Shenzi Technology Co., Ltd.

Chen Changqing introduced that youweixing's industrial direction is near ultraviolet LED products with wavelengths of 320-400 nm, while deep violet technology aims at deep ultraviolet LED chips and applications with wavelengths between 200 and 320 nm.

Deep ultraviolet technology threshold is higher, mainly used for sterilization, this market size will exceed 10 billion yuan. Once the product is mature, it can be disinfected and sterilized if it is directly installed on air conditioner, water purifier, refrigerator and automobile.

Deep UV LED technology, in addition to sterilization, but also fresh. "Tomatoes irradiated with deep UV LED light can extend the shelf life of 6 days." Chen Changqing said that if deep UV LED lights were installed on the cold chain logistics trucks and the fresh-keeping containers of large supermarkets, the fresh-keeping period of fruits, vegetables, seafood and meat could be extended.

At present, the LED chip products of DUVTek are comparable with those of LG, a leading enterprise in South Korea, in some technical indicators, and have obtained orders from well-known domestic home appliance manufacturers. "In the field of deep ultraviolet, deep violet technology will become an important Chinese power." Chen Changqing is full of confidence in the future.

Jianghui

One of the important reasons for the difficulty in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements is the lack of investment in the pilot stage and the lack of an intermediate platform from laboratory scientific and technological achievements to industrial technology.

When youweixing builds its own UV core in China, the key moment is stuck in the "proofing"; Dr. Zhang Guanggu, a returnee from Optics Valley, invented and developed an "affordable anticancer drug", but suffered from the lack of a suitable pilot platform locally. Similar to "medium obstruction", it is not uncommon to see achievements transformed.

The key to solve the difficulty of transformation of scientific and technological achievements is to break the "middle obstruction" in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. In the innovation chain, more public service platforms should be built.

The platform is not simply a "bridge" between technology and market, but to achieve deep integration and provide all-round services. The service platform of Wuhan Optoelectronic Industry Research Institute and the pharmaceutical R & D instrument platform of Optical Valley Biological city provide intimate services for achievement transformation enterprises.

Wu Gao Feng will arrive, flowers and butterflies come from. Only by breaking the "middle obstruction" restricting the transformation of scientific and technological achievements can the flower of innovation produce fruitful results.