On June 4, the investment community reported that In-situ Chip announced the completion of the A-round financing of tens of millions of yuan led by the Sequoia China Seed Fund, and obtained the continued support of the old shareholders. This is also the second round of financing announced by In-situ Chip in the first half of 2021. This round of funds is mainly used to expand the technical team and increase the corresponding equipment, so as to accelerate the industrialization process of MEMS liquid flowmeter and MEMS micropump.
Suzhou In-situ Chip Technology Co., Ltd. was founded by the team of Tsinghua University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015. It adheres to the strategy of independent research and development of MEMS chip technology, design, packaging and module technology at all nodes, so as to obtain the rare ability of research and development and production of blue ocean new MEMS chips/modules in China. The silicon nitride film chip that the company has mass produced, the medical liquid flowmeter that will be launched soon and the MEMS insulin micropump under research are all typical overseas monopoly MEMS new track products.
The full name of MEMS is Micro Electromechanical System (MEMS), which is a kind of MEMS that is usually prepared on silicon wafer by IC process. At the same time, electrodes are prepared on the mechanical structure for control by electronic technology. In short, it is to use semiconductor technology to manufacture electromechanical systems on silicon wafers, and use nanoscale mechanical systems to convert external physical and chemical signals into electrical signals.
Liquid/medical MEMS chip is the key technology to lead the miniaturization, intelligence and cost reduction of medical devices. Based on this feature, MEMS chip technology is widely used in the research and development of medical devices, intelligent hardware and other fields. At present, many companies in Europe and the United States, such as Abbott and Google, have entered the medical MEMS circuit and invested a lot of resources in research and development, but it is relatively in the initial stage. In-situ chips have entered the blue ocean circuit based on their own technical advantages since 2016.
MEMS liquid micro-flow meter, the core product of in situ chip, covers the medical and home appliance scenes with huge demand with lower cost and smaller volume. Another core product, MEMS micropump, is an ideal solution for many precise drug supply scenarios such as insulin injection. The two products have broad blue ocean market space.
It is reported that the in-situ chip sensor business has made breakthrough progress and the strength of the technical team has been further strengthened. In addition, the MEMS chip OEM business launched by the company, relying on its deep accumulation of semiconductor technology, has continued to grow steadily for many years and achieved annual profit (business independent accounting).