Editing by Xin Lanhua

Shenghe Microelectronics (晟合微电) won "The Best New Company of the Year Award" for its AMOLED display driver IC success last December. 

The award was presented by China Semiconductor Investment Alliance (CSIA) and JW Insights.

Shenghe was founded in 2018  and based in Zhaoqing, of southern China’s Guangdong Province. It develops AMOLED chips and provides equipment and various tests for OLED display panels, and TFT LCD panels. It has applied for over 60 patents in related fields.

Shi Wei, general manager of Shenghe, said in an interview that his company will consolidate its technical advantages of small-size OLED driver chips while making efforts toward those for medium-size displays such as mobile phones and tablets.

Shenghe broke through the technical barriers in AMOLED driver chips after years of technical research, China’s panel material sector with more technological independence.

Shenghe volume manufactured the first 40-nanometer wearable OLED driver chips in the world in May 2018.

In the last three years, it increased its product line for mobile phones, wearable devices, and specific applications.

Shenghe’s achievements in 2021 are in two product series. One is the OLED driver chip for low-power, small-screen wearable devices, capable of substituting overseas competing products. The other is the third-generation driver chip for the mobile phone, which has greatly improved the curve algorithm and has been volume produced.

Though the epidemic and geopolitical issues in the past two years brought tight supply, Shi said that his company is only slightly impacted in its production capacity. Because OLED is aligned with the foundry’s strategy and Shenghe has maintained years of close cooperation with foundries and OEM manufacturers.

In the first quarter of 2022, Shi disclosed that Shenghe will launch a small-size wearable product highly competitive internationally.

For small size screen devices which require low power consumption, Shenghe tries to decrease the frequency from 1Hz to 0.75Hz or even to 0.5Hz. In the mobile phone field, it will offer a high refresh rate product with a frequency higher than 120Hz.

Shi explains that the significant growth of the tablet market owes to the wide usability of tablets. In 2022, Shenghe will allocate 70% of R&D personnel to medium-size products.