Tsinghua Unigroup Zhan Rui changes coaches: Chu Qing leaves in the dispute Acting CEO Ren Qiwei will lead the company to where?

Economic Observer Network reporter Shen Yiran On February 28, Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui (Shanghai) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui") changed its coach, and its CEO Chu Qing, who had served for three years, was dismissed by the board of directors of HIS DUTIES, and the new acting CEO will be Ren Qiwei.

Tsinghua Unigroup is a subsidiary of Tsinghua Unigroup and the only company in Chinese mainland that has the main chip capability of 5G mobile phones and commercializes it. The reorganization of the group, the change of CEO, and the sprint to the science and technology innovation board have brought great uncertainty to the chip company that is sprinting to the front line.

The time point of this change of office occurred after the bankruptcy reorganization of Tsinghua Unigroup. On February 11 this year, Wu Shengwu succeeded Zhao Weiguo as the legal person of Unigroup Zhan Rui, and according to Tianyan, Wu Shengwu was the actual controller.

On March 2, a person from Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui told reporters that the working group had investigated the company in About January and February this year, and there was no adjustment to the company at present, and the company's organizational structure had not undergone major changes. However, Tsinghua Unigroup is currently sprinting to the science and technology innovation board, and according to the requirements of the CSRC that the actual controller cannot be replaced within two years, the change of office may affect the listing process.

A long-term chip hunter told reporters that a month ago there was news that Chu Qing was going to leave his job, and in recent times, Unigroup Zhanrui has also seen the phenomenon of middle-level personnel leaving.

The new acting CEO is Ren Qiwei, focusing on the field of memory technology, with the labels of Tsinghua Department and Tsinghua Department, a person who claims to be in contact with him often told reporters that he is low-key, pragmatic, and does not often speak in public, but the department he brings is always the best profitable for the company.

Where will Ren Qiwei lead the purple light exhibition sharp?

A number of semiconductor industry people told the Economic Observer Network that it is difficult to predict the direction of Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui, the company has experienced a round of blood changes in the Chuqing period, and the possibility of the management being replaced again is also very large.

The new CEO, Ren Qiwei

According to Tianyan, on February 11 this year, Wu Shengwu succeeded Zhao Weiguo as the legal person and chairman of Tsinghua Unigroup, and Wu Shengwu was the deputy director of the Electronic Information Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the director of the Ningbo Information Industry Bureau. Ren Qiwei graduated from Tsinghua University, has a background in memory technology, and has many years of experience in studying in Europe. Memory in the chip belongs to the technical process threshold is high, oligopoly, fierce competition in the field.

Ren Qiwei returned to China in 2006 to join the Xi'an R&D Center of The German Qimonda Company, and in 2009 he promoted the acquisition of the R&D center by Inspur Group, which was restructured and rebuilt into Xi'an Huaxin Semiconductor Co., Ltd. He himself served as the general manager of the company and was responsible for the overall operation of the company, and concurrently served as the senior vice president of Shandong Huaxin Semiconductor.

Ren Qiwei entered the "Unigroup" from about 2015, in 2015 Xi'an Huaxin Semiconductor Co., Ltd. was acquired and renamed by Unigroup, Ren Qiwei served as the general manager and president of Xi'an Unigroup C*Core Semiconductor Co., Ltd., and also served as the vice president of Unigroup C*Core Microelectronics Co., Ltd., the CEO of Beijing Unigroup Storage Technology Co., Ltd. and the chairman of related subsidiaries. The Xi'an team led by Ren Qiwei occupies an important position in the strategy of Tsinghua Unigroup.

According to Tianyancha, 6 of the 7 companies in which Ren Qiwei is an executive are from the "Unigroup", including Yangtze River Storage, Wuhan Xinxin, Xi'an Unigroup Guoxin, Beijing Unigroup Storage, etc. Among them, Beijing Unigroup Storage Technology Co., Ltd. is co-appointed with Wu Shengwu, Wu Shengwu as a legal person, and Ren Qiwei as a director.

From the research background, Ren Qiwei's technical background is memory, and Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui has two technical routes, one is semiconductor technology, one is communication technology, which is not very suitable for Ren Qiwei, he from Qimonda, Xi'an Huaxin to Unigroup Storage, are focused on memory technology. The "863" project of the National High Technology Research and Development Program he undertook is also related to the new type of memory.

Chu Qing's departure

"Chu Qing was originally appointed by Zhao Weiguo, and now the time point of the change also occurred after the bankruptcy reorganization of Tsinghua Unigroup and the resignation of Zhao Weiguo," said the above-mentioned person from Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui, who said that the current working group has investigated and has not officially taken over the company, in addition to the change of CEO, there has not been seen the overall change of the leadership team.

In the three years since Chu Qing took over, Tsinghua Unigroup zhanrui has undergone the largest structural adjustment in history, during which the outside world has mixed views on Chu Qing.

Chu Qing publicly stated that he had carried out drastic reforms and rebuilt the management system for Ziguang Zhanrui. He believes that in the past, the atmosphere of the company was overstaffed, mountainous and idle, and the development of the business was frequent accidents and customer loss, and he hoped to make the team move from disorder to high efficiency through reform.

These adjustments have caused dissatisfaction among some employees and disputes with parties involved. "Even some of the old employees who have worked for many years have left, and even the key technical departments have left as a whole, in exchange for more young blood, and semiconductors is an experience-based industry, and this flow will adversely affect the company," the employee said.

Prior to coming to Tsinghua Unigroup, Chu Qing served as chief strategy officer at Huawei HiSilicon, where some of the reforms he implemented were considered to be quite "Huawei" style. The above-mentioned headhunter told reporters that in the three years that Chu Qing was in charge, a large number of Huawei HiSilicon employees flowed into Unigroup Zhanrui, and some people were even promoted by Chu Qing to key positions in the middle and high levels. There are also many people who leave, especially many old employees are "passive departures", "many people did not want to go, but the leadership reform had to go", the headhunter said.

The headhunter said that since Chu Qing took office, the turnover ratio of Unigroup Zhanrui employees has reached 30%, which has exceeded the average and belongs to a state of abnormal mobility. The above-mentioned employees said that internal disputes have always existed, and Chu Qing's departure is also something that many people in the company have foreseen.

Sharp passes

Ziguang ZhanRui has reached an important juncture, in Chu Qing's words, "trembling and trembling on the front line." Since Chu Qing took over Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui, the important goal is to sprint 5G mobile phone chips, and from the results, the company has made two generations of 5G smart phone chip solutions and achieved commercial use.

As a company that locates the "function machine", 5G has opened up its imagination space. In the first half of 2021, the company's 5G mobile phone sales revenue increased by 1458% year-on-year, but the company did not disclose the 5G revenue and the proportion of 5G mobile phones in revenue.

Mobile phone chip expert Yao Jiayang told reporters that from the specification point of view, Unigroup Zhanrui's latest generation of 5G chips T760/T770, its 6nm process is more advanced, but the selected A76 CPU architecture is relatively backward this year, such products compared to MediaTek Tianji 700/800, is a slightly outdated product, at most matching MediaTek's low-end products. The market price of the mobile phone corresponding to this chip is below 1,000 yuan. Yao Jiayang's judgment is that MediaTek should push new products on 5G low-end chips this year to cope with the offensive of Unigroup Zhanrui.

Yao Jiayang said that as a chip design company, Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui needs to pay tapeout fees to chip foundries, pay licensing fees to ARM companies, choose to exert efforts in the process, and make concessions in CPU performance, which is also due to cost considerations, so as to make the product price competitiveness better than MediaTek and seize the market of low-end 5G mobile phones.

Judging from third-party data, since 2020, Unigroup Zhanrui has the qualification to rank independently on the global chip list for the first time. According to data from the research agency Counterpoint, in the global mobile phone processor market share in Q4 2021, Tsinghua Unigroup ranked fourth in the world, accounting for 11% of the share. The only people at the front of the company are Qualcomm, MediaTek and Apple.

Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui's 4G smart machine chip has T618/T616/T610/T606/CS9863, Yao Jiayang said that the current main battlefield of Qualcomm and MediaTek has been transferred to 5G, and Zhanrui, as the only main chip supplier in Chinese mainland, will have certain market opportunities in 4G.

According to Chu Qing, 4G products have also undergone a difficult process. In the past three years, the team has made important specification changes to the T618/T610, and successfully returned to the film a year later, and achieved mass production in January and March 2020 respectively, and has now won customers such as Samsung, realme, honor, Lenovo, ZTE, Motorola, Nokia and so on.

Chu Qing once said that the company's SC9863A is a product that originally had frequent quality problems and once led to huge claims from customers, and after two large-scale improvements, it has now entered the supply chain of Samsung and realme customers.

Yao Jiayang's judgment is that the share of food grabbed by Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui is more based on 4G, and Zhanrui has shipped overseas for many years, and is currently copying the development route of MediaTek and rushing back to the middle and low-end intelligent machine market in China.