Editing by Greg Gao

Analog chip design company iSmartWare Technology won last month "The Best Innovative Product of the Year 2021" from the China Semiconductor Investment Alliance (CSIA) and JW Insights for its quick charge chip.

Established in 2014, iSmartWare Technology (珠海智融科技) is based in Zhuhai, southern China's Guangdong Province specializes in mix-signal SoC.

It released the first mobile power SoC chip that supports 18w fast charging in 2017 and quickly dominated the quick charging market. In the five years from 2016 to 2021, the company took the lead in launching USB PD fast charging power bank chips, multi-port dynamic power distribution charging chips, charging controllers supporting multi-USB PD fast charging protocols, and wireless charging transmitter chips. It has evolved to be a leader in fast charging chip field, according to the award selecting committee.

The company's cumulative chip shipments have reached 100 million units. Its customers include Huawei, OPPO, Qualcomm, Bull, ZTE, Lenovo, and Anker. In some segments, such as fast charging power bank ICs and gallium nitride multi-port fast chargers, it has gained considerable market share.

Li Xin, iSmartWare's founder and CEO, said that his company's greatest competitive advantage is the strong R&D team. Most of the team members have in-depth knowledge about SOC main control chip system and many previously worked at global analog IC companies such as TI.

The company has developed exclusive patents in fast charging, wireless charging, low-power, and high-efficiency power management IC.

In the long run, Li Xin said that iSmartWare will focus on two aspects: On the one hand, it will continue to dedicate itself to fast charging ICs, covering the whole chain of wired fast charging, wireless fast charging, multi-battery fast charging management; on the other hand, it also plans to foray into emerging areas, including BMS battery management and provide PMIC and integrated MCU SOC power management solutions.

Its goal is to gradually transfer from the consumer electronics market to the industrial electronics and even the more high-end automotive electronics market, Li pointed out.

As the semiconductor capacity shortage has disrupted industries around the world throughout 2021, iSmartWare managed to gain more sales. Li Xin noted that his clients' demands are not fully satisfied and his company needs to work with new foundry and packaging and testing firms to increase production.

According to analysts, China is the largest market for analog chips, accounting for 36% of the global total in 2020. But its self-sufficiency rate is only about 12% and the country is stepping up domestic substitution efforts in the semiconductor industry.  Chinese analog IC companies like iSmartWare are meeting opportunities for their faster growth in the next ten years.