text | Zheng Cancheng
editor | Gaoya
36 Krypton learned that the domestic industrial software service provider "Simeite" has recently completed Series A++ and Series B financing totaling 540 million yuan. It is reported that the new round of investors include China Internet Investment Fund, BYD Co., , Weihao Innovation, Hillhouse Venture Capital, Shanghai Science and Technology, Shanghai Free Trade Zone Fund, Tianshan Capital, etc. The financing funds will be mainly used in two major directions: first, continue to increase investment in product research and development, and build a national fully automatic manufacturing software solution at full speed; second, integrate and improve the product matrix and expand regional market layout through mergers and acquisitions.
"Saimete" is a company that 36氪 has been tracking and reporting on for a long time. At the beginning of its establishment, "Semet" successfully integrated three companies, "Texus", "Weixun" and "Guyao SEMI Integration", which have accumulated many years of experience in intelligent manufacturing in the semiconductor industry. Among them, "Texus" and "Weixun" are CIM solution providers, mainly targeting semiconductor, electronic assembly, new energy vehicles, equipment manufacturing and other industries; Guyao SEMI Integration focuses on equipment automation systems and provides automated production for the manufacturing industry. solution.
The core product of "Semet" is a set of intelligent manufacturing system platform that can be used in high-tech manufacturing industries such as semiconductors, photovoltaics, and LED. Specifically, platform can be divided into three major sections: production management, quality management and logistics management. The production management section is mainly based on MES (manufacturing execution), including EAP (equipment automation system), RMS (recipe management system), RTD (real-time dispatch system), APC (advanced process control system ), FDC (defect Classification control system), etc.
In addition to the production management section, the other two sections of the "Saimete" platform, quality management and logistics management, can also be split into the former consisting of SPC ( statistical process control ) and YMS (yield management system), and WMS ( The latter consists of products such as warehouse management system) and Mobile (intelligent terminal). In other words, in the three production links of production, quality, and logistics, the "Saimete" platform has completed coverage without exception. From the perspective of the production fields that industrial software can currently enter, has built a relatively complete product matrix.
At present, the intelligent manufacturing system platform created by Saimet has been successfully used in more than 100 6/8/12-inch silicon wafer, front-end and back-end factories at home and abroad, helping factories achieve high-quality and efficient automated production; another progress The point is that systems such as RTD/YMS/APC/FDC, which were still in the research and development stage in previous reports, have begun to be verified at the production site.
"Saimete" high-tech intelligent manufacturing system platform, picture source enterprise
In fact, industrial software can be divided into four major categories: design and research and development, production control, management and operation, and embedded software. Production management software MES is also a stuck area in the manufacturing process, which is especially obvious in the chip manufacturing field.
This is because the chip manufacturing field has higher requirements on the production end. When the required wafer size is larger, the corresponding industrial software must have higher stability. When MES in the chip manufacturing field faces higher requirements, many MES software are screened out, and the MES that can be selected by chip manufacturing companies cannot get PASS cards. In this case, due to the high trial and error costs and migration costs, more rigor and decision-making barriers are added to the factory customers' choices.
In comparison, CAD and EDA in industrial design and R&D software are often mentioned as bottlenecks in recent years. Since 2019, due to changes in the external environment, these two have become obviously dependent on overseas companies. However, among design and R&D software, CAD and EDA accounted for 13.6% and 13.4% respectively, ranking third and fourth in the same type of software, and are key areas for domestic substitution.
MES software seems to be widely used. In the semiconductor field of high-end manufacturing, there are very few companies that can make products. Therefore, this is also a key link that cannot be ignored for domestic substitution. "Saimete" is the first domestic supplier of intelligent manufacturing software solutions that can provide a complete set of fully automated production of 12-inch wafers. Its self-developed purely domestic CIM system platform has been used in domestic 8/12-inch wafer mass production plants. Successfully verified, this is also a small progress in this field.
Industrial software, as one of the weights and measures to measure the level of manufacturing industry, still has a lot of room for growth. According to data from the United Nations Statistics Division, China's industrial output value accounted for 28.40% of the world's in 2018; data from the Forward-looking Economist shows that my country's industrial software product revenue was 168 billion yuan; CCID Consulting data shows that the global industrial software market size is 410.7 billion U.S. dollars. Based on this calculation, the industrial software market accounts for only 5.73% of the global market. Compared with the scale of industrial output value, the growth space is nearly five times.
is placed in the Chinese market. As the only country in the world with a complete industrial system, the self-sufficiency rate of industrial software has always been insufficient. Especially in the field of semiconductor factory manufacturing, it has been monopolized by Applied Materials Company and American IBM for a long time. Many chip manufacturers have to face many difficulties such as price monopoly, bundled sales, and additional unreasonable conditions brought by foreign service providers. The development of domestic industrial software service providers has also been affected and restricted by the abuse of market position by international giants.
From the perspective of industrial development trends, the growth of industrial manufacturing in various countries is inseparable from the simultaneous growth and development of domestic industrial software. China also needs its own world-class companies to supplement and strengthen the ecological and industrial chains of the semiconductor and pan-intelligent manufacturing industries. Compared with
and CAD, EDA and other well-known high-value industrial software fields, in the application of MES software, a set of software basically corresponds to the entire life cycle of the wafer factory. The factory invests more, the migration cost is higher, and the replacement industry Software requires high trial and error costs, which is not only a barrier for existing entrants, but also a reflection of the better development potential of domestic software service providers.
In the future, "Semet" will continue to broaden its boundaries and develop in depth. In terms of 's depth, "Saimete" will delve deeply into the semiconductor industry and improve the semiconductor CIM function module; in terms of scope, "Saimete" will break out of the semiconductor field and expand into the pan-semiconductor and non-semiconductor fields. As the industry with the highest degree of automation, semiconductors are also the top of the pyramid for industrial software to reach. The accumulation and accumulation of experience in the semiconductor industry by "Semet" is a development from a high altitude, and it is also a powerful condition for expanding into other fields.
"Saimete" is headquartered in Shanghai, and has established subsidiaries and technology research and development centers in Suzhou , Shenzhen, Beijing, and Chengdu. It relies on the good industrial foundation in the four major regions of East China, South China, North China, and Southwest China to build resource interoperability. Complementing each other's strategic layout; at the same time, "Saimete" has also established subsidiaries in Singapore and Malaysia to help expand international business and achieve local delivery. As for the
team, the core team of "Saimete" has decades of experience and technical strength in building intelligent manufacturing systems in the fields of semiconductors/pan-semiconductors, rail transit, equipment manufacturing, new energy vehicles, and electronic assembly. At present, the company has more than 450 employees, of which 80% are technical personnel.
Investor perspective:
China Internet Investment Fund stated: Domestic industrial software will continue to grow in the future and has a broad market space. Semimet is determined to be "Intelligent Made in China", constantly consolidating core technologies, and successfully developing domestic intelligent manufacturing software solutions. , achieving rapid and steady growth. China Internet Investment hopes to inject more resources into the future development of Saimet to help the company accelerate its development in the business field, further enhance its core competitiveness, and achieve new leaps.
BYD Secretary of the Board and General Manager of the Investment Department Li Qian said: With its strong technical strength in the field of intelligent manufacturing software, it has developed a domestic intelligent manufacturing software platform and successfully implemented it in the difficult and demanding 12-inch wafer factory. Achieving independent controllability of semiconductor manufacturing software. In the context of manufacturing upgrading, intelligent manufacturing software has broad development prospects. We have full confidence in the Saimate team and look forward to this round of financing to help Saimate ride the wave and accelerate the development of domestic industrial software.
Li Liang, founding partner of Hillhouse , said: The market share of domestic industrial software is increasing rapidly, especially in core industries such as integrated circuits, and domestic substitution of imports is the general trend. Saimate, which has outstanding technical advantages and market development potential, is a typical representative. Saimet's self-developed intelligent manufacturing software platform has been successfully verified in 8/12-inch wafer mass production plants, and it is actively deploying in key areas such as equipment manufacturing, chemical industry, and automobiles. It has broad room for development. We believe that Saimet We will continue to create value for the high-quality development of made in China.
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