36Kr Exclusive | Skyworth Leads a Multi-Tens-of-Millions Yuan Exclusive Investment in This Enterprise, Which Reduces Silicon Carbide Cutting Loss to Within 40 Microns

Author: Ou Xue

Editor: Yuan Silai

Yingke has learned that Zhongwei Precision Instrument Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhongwei Precision Instrument"), a high - end industrial laser equipment manufacturer, has recently completed an angel + round of financing of tens of millions of yuan, exclusively invested by Skyworth Capital. The funds will be mainly used for market expansion, production capacity improvement, and new product development.

Zhongwei Precision Instrument was established in November 2024 and focuses on the R & D and manufacturing of high - end industrial laser equipment such as silicon carbide ingot laser stripping, diamond laser stripping, and water - guided laser precision machining. Chen Jingyu, the founder of the company, is a researcher at the University of New South Wales in Australia and has long been engaged in the integrated development of special chips. Sun Hongbo, the chief scientist, is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Tsinghua University, and is a pioneer in the field of nonlinear laser ultra - precision manufacturing.

Different from most laser equipment companies in the market, Zhongwei Precision Instrument positions itself as a laser precision machining technology platform, covering the entire chain from mechanism research, process development to engineering implementation. Its equipment has entered the mass - production verification stage of leading customers in fields such as silicon carbide substrate cutting and diamond processing.

The company's current core business focuses on two major directions:

One is the silicon carbide substrate laser slicing equipment. The self - developed pulse programmable and crack - oriented induced growth technology of Zhongwei Precision Instrument can stably control the slicing loss within 40 microns, far lower than the common industry level of 80 - 120 microns.

Currently, the silicon carbide industry is experiencing a critical window period for the upgrade from 6 - inch to 8 - inch production lines. According to Chen Jingyu's judgment, the downstream demand has been expanding rapidly in the past two years. The demand for silicon carbide devices in data center power supplies has increased significantly, and products in the consumer electronics field such as air conditioners and refrigerators have also begun to use silicon carbide power devices to replace traditional silicon - based devices.

However, the industry still faces core bottlenecks. As 8 - inch silicon carbide becomes the main line for cost reduction in the industry, the loss rate in the substrate cutting process has become a key sticking point.

According to the company's actual measurement, the slicing speed of its 6 - inch silicon carbide is 15 - 20 minutes, and that of 8 - inch is 25 - 30 minutes. Zhongwei Precision Instrument can produce one more slice for every eight slices cut, bringing significant cost reduction and efficiency improvement to customers.

At the same time, Zhongwei Precision Instrument's laser technology can achieve low - loss control and can achieve breakthrough applications in the field of SiC wafer back - thinning. It can replace the grinding and polishing process for SiC wafer back - thinning, helping SiC wafer manufacturers reduce costs and increase profits. Instead of grinding into powder, laser stripping can be used, enabling the secondary utilization of SiC stripping slices.

The Zhongwei Precision Instrument team holds 6 - inch, 8 - inch, and 12 - inch SiC wafers processed by self - developed SiC laser stripping equipment (Source: the enterprise)

The other is the diamond laser processing equipment. For the stripping, cutting, and polishing of single - crystal/polycrystalline diamonds, Zhongwei Precision Instrument has achieved a frosted white processing effect, avoiding the common problem of material surface graphitization and blackening of competitors, thus eliminating the subsequent grinding process and can be directly used for regrowth.

In addition, Chen Jingyu revealed that Zhongwei Precision Instrument will start delivering quantum chip processing devices to customers from July to August this year. This business extension verifies the scalability of Zhongwei Precision Instrument as a laser precision machining technology platform - from the cutting of super - hard materials to the processing of core components of quantum computing.

The company has currently received invitations from several leading customers to enter their production lines and is expected to enter more production lines for Demo verification starting from June.

As the exclusive investor in this round, Skyworth Capital has invested in several companies in the upstream and downstream of the silicon carbide industry chain. Chen Jingyu, the founder of Zhongwei Precision Instrument, said that the companies invested by Skyworth Capital cover key links such as substrates, epitaxy, and devices, which can effectively help the company directly connect its equipment with downstream customers.

The following is an interview summary between Yingke and Chen Jingyu:

Yingke: The silicon carbide industry is currently highly competitive. How does the company find opportunities at this point?

Chen Jingyu: Currently, selling one 6 - inch silicon carbide wafer results in a loss. All the cost - reducing measures in the entire industrial chain have been taken, except that the loss in the cutting process has never been well - controlled. Reducing the loss from 250 microns in wire cutting to 80 microns in laser cutting is already a significant step, but we have reduced the loss to within 40 microns and can still further control it to within 30 microns. This means that customers can produce at least one more slice for every eight slices cut, which is the competitiveness they need most now. As the 8 - inch production lines are about to be scaled up on a large scale, the cutting loss will be the key to determining who will win.

Yingke: How does the company view the market window in the era of 8 - inch silicon carbide?

Chen Jingyu: It is expected that the second half of this year will be the first year of 8 - inch production line construction. Leading customers have obtained environmental impact assessments, infrastructure construction has been launched one after another, and equipment selection is in progress. The core purpose of 8 - inch wafers is to reduce costs. If the cutting loss cannot be controlled, the advantages of 8 - inch wafers cannot be realized. So this window is decisive for us.

We can stably control the loss within 40 microns, and the equipment can start mass production on the day it enters the production line. These are all very important. Now, it's not us looking for customers, but customers urging us to enter their production lines.

Yingke: From silicon carbide to quantum chips, where are the company's technological boundaries?

Chen Jingyu: We are not just a company that makes silicon carbide cutting equipment, but a laser precision machining technology platform. The core ability of the team is to thoroughly study the interaction mechanism between different lasers and different materials - whether it is cutting silicon carbide, cutting diamonds, or processing quantum chips, the underlying ability is the same. The company's laboratory has currently completed the ultra - thin slicing verification of 12 - inch silicon wafers, and the loss can be controlled within 1 micron. Once the platform is established, different application scenarios are just different outputs.

Investor's view:

The person in charge of Skyworth Capital said: Currently, the global SiC substrate is in an industrial cycle of rapid capacity expansion and the transition from 6 - inch to 8 - inch. Traditional cutting methods are difficult to meet the requirements of industrial upgrading, and the industrialization of 8 - inch production lines is accelerating in 2026. For a long time, the industrial laser cutting equipment in the upstream has been monopolized by foreign enterprises, posing a high risk of being "held back". Zhongwei Precision Instrument has now launched relevant products and obtained orders from important customers. This is because the team has mastered the most core optical path control technology of ultrafast cold laser cutting equipment and has fully independent and controllable capabilities in four aspects: mechanism exploration, process development, optical optimization, and system design, with a good development prospect in the future.