Generative AI redefines electronic solution design, and "Exponential Technology" completes tens of millions of angel round financing | 36Kr exclusive.
Author | Lin Qingqing
Editor | Yuan Silai
36Kr has learned that "Index Technology" has recently completed a tens of millions of yuan angel round of financing. The investors are Qi Fu Capital, Hua Gai Capital, Hou Lang Capital, and a leading PCB manufacturer. Hou Lang Capital serves as the long-term strategic financial advisor.
"Index Technology" was established in 2023 and is a company focused on the application of artificial intelligence technology in the field of electronic design solutions and manufacturing. The company optimizes the traditional R & D process of electronic products through generative AI technology, providing an automated generation service from product requirements to PCBA production drawings and supporting embedded codes.
Generative AI has made significant progress in recent years, especially showing great potential and application value in multiple fields such as text generation, image generation, and audio processing. As an important branch of the AI field, the generative AI market is continuously growing and developing rapidly.
In the past, traditional electronic scheme design relied entirely on manual labor, which was time-consuming and had a low fault tolerance rate. The application of generative AI technology in electronic product design can improve design efficiency and innovation ability by automating the design process, optimizing performance, and ensuring compliance with design rules.
In the electronics industry, generative AI is reshaping the way PCBA is created.
PCBA design, that is, Printed Circuit Board Assembly design, is a key link in the manufacturing of electronic products. It involves assembling electronic components onto a printed circuit board through soldering or other methods to realize the functions of electronic devices.
According to statistics from Zhiyan Consulting, the global PCB market size reached approximately 81.7 billion US dollars in 2022, and it is expected to maintain a stable growth trend in the coming years. The Chinese PCB market size reached 309.6 billion yuan in 2023, and it is expected to reach 330 billion yuan by 2024.
Circuit boards can be divided into single-layer boards, double-layer boards, multi-layer boards, and flexible boards according to the number of circuit layers. Four-layer boards are often considered a watershed because they provide enough layers to achieve more complex circuit designs while maintaining a relatively low cost. Four-layer boards generally include two signal layers and two power/ground layers, which helps improve the performance of the circuit, such as reducing crosstalk and improving signal integrity. In addition, the design and manufacturing process of four-layer boards is relatively mature, thus providing a good balance between cost and performance.
In the fields of consumer electronics, automotive electronics, etc., PCBA with less than four-layer boards for miniaturization and high performance has the characteristics of a large market, wide application, multiple types, and fast demand. For example, smart home appliances, small household appliances, lighting products, electronic toys, and power supplies that can be seen everywhere in daily life are all four-layer boards and below. Many excellent innovative companies such as JLCPCB and Huaqiu Electronics have emerged for the PCB manufacturing enterprises in this market.
Based on this, the "Index Technology" team chose to enter the PCBA market with less than four-layer boards.
It is understood that the main product solutions of "Index Technology" include AFH-L4 and AFH-F3.0. Among them, AFH-L4 has been applied in the LED lighting industry and can automatically generate production files and supporting embedded codes for the electronic design scheme according to the needs of LED lighting products. The final state of the L4 model can achieve the complete generation of the entire industry of PCBA with less than four layers. And AFH-F3.0 is the third-generation digital pilot platform based on AFH technology, which can fully automatically complete the function and performance tests of PCBA to improve production efficiency.
Actual application diagram of AFH - LED software
Actual application diagram of AFH - LED software
This technological innovation significantly shortens the design and prototyping cycle. It is expected that in the future, the design time can be reduced from the traditional 15 to 60 days to 1 to 5 days, and the number of iterations of new product design can be reduced from 3 to 5 times to 1 to 2 times.
Facing the continuously booming generative AI application market, Ye Qunsong, the founder of "Index Technology", believes that "In the future, more and more excellent companies will combine generative AI with industrial sub-scenarios. However, to achieve and do this well, it requires the cross-combination of excellent algorithm capabilities and strong application capabilities in the industrial field. The threshold for vertical industry AI applications should not be underestimated."
In terms of the team, the founder Ye Qunsong has more than 15 years of experience in hardware product demand mining, supply chain management, development and mass production at Honeywell and RIGOL, as well as consumer electronics AI application experience; the core team is composed of top domestic artificial intelligence, full-stack technology in the electronic industry, PCB full-stack design experts, and market management veterans.