According to ChinaTimes’ report, Big Fund II is once again making strategic moves, this time targeting a stake in Tsing Micro Technology, a company specializing in reconfigurable computing chips.

Reconfigurable architecture chips possess extensive general computing capabilities, making them essential for addressing high computing power demands. Big Fund II’s investment is a proactive step to position itself in the upcoming computing power market, avoiding potential “bottleneck” crises.

Amidst the pressure of technology restrictions from the United States, Big Fund II, tasked with supporting the development of domestic semiconductor companies in China, has been active in recent investment initiatives.

At the end of October this year, Big Fund II invested CNY 14.5 billion, participating in the capital increase of the memory production project at ChangXin XinQiao.

ChinaFund News reports that Tsing Micro Technology’s main business focuses on innovative research and development, as well as industrial applications of reconfigurable computing chips.

Tsing Micro Technology recently underwent a business change, with the addition of ten institutional shareholders, including National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Phase II (Big Fund II), GigaDevice, CMB International, and Beijing Zhongguancun Science City Technology Growth Investment Partnership, among others. The registered capital of the company increased from approximately CNY 33.18 million to around CNY 38.9 million, with Big Fund II holding a 5.8824% stake.

The report highlights that Tsing Micro Technology’s technical team originates from the reconfigurable computing team at Beijing Tsinghua University’s Institute of Microelectronics. The team has been selected for three consecutive years (since 2021) in EETimes’s “Silicon 100: Startups Worth Watching” list.

Tsing Micro Technology’s Co-founder and CTO, Peng Ouyang, stated in November 2022 that faced with the explosive growth in the demand for computing power due to artificial intelligence, mainstream GPU chips require significant investment and cannot meet the “computing power black hole” brought about by the development of large models. He emphasized that reconfigurable computing chips are a solution to this challenge.

Since 2019, Tsing Micro Technology has undergone multiple rounds of financing. In January 2019, angel investors included Baidu and Focus Media. Subsequent Series A funding involved investments from SK Hynix in South Korea, Green Pine Capital Partners, and SenseTime, among others. Series B financing was led by CDB RW Funds, with participation from SenseTime and Legend Capital.

Read more

• [News] China’s Big Fund Drive Changxin Xinqiao towards 3-Year Memory Chip Mass Production
• [News] With two October Investments, Big Fund Phase II Commits Nearly 19 Billion RMB

(Photo credit: Tsing Micro Tech)