A national outstanding young scientist starts a business, with a shipment volume of millions of units. A Shanghai sensor manufacturer secures tens of millions in government financing | Early-stage project

Text by | Hu Yiting

Edited by | Yuan Silai

The MEMS sensor manufacturer "Misi Technology", which has been long - followed by Yingke, recently completed a Series A financing of tens of millions of yuan. This round of financing was led by Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation and followed by Pudong Venture Capital. Xinpai Capital served as the financial advisor for this round. The financing funds will be mainly used for product R & D and market expansion.

In the industrial field, sensors are compared to precise neurons, perceiving the subtle changes of industrial equipment.

To meet higher requirements, (Micro - Electro - Mechanical Systems) MEMS sensors are gradually replacing traditional sensors. MEMS sensors are complex systems that integrate micro - machinery, circuits, sensors, and controllers. They have advantages such as small size, high precision, low power consumption, and low cost, and have more extensive application scenarios. Many domestic manufacturers have invested in this field.

Founded in 2020, Misi Technology is engaged in the design, module packaging, and sales of MEMS sensor chips, providing a series of MEMS sensor chips/modules for industries such as industrial, civil, and medical. The company has mastered the core process technology - the "Minimally Invasive Surgery" process (MIS Process), which can cover a variety of mainstream MEMS sensors and achieve large - scale manufacturing with low cost and high yield.

Based on this process, Misi Technology has made arrangements in multiple product directions and developed a series of products such as differential pressure, absolute pressure, high - temperature pressure chips, and flow sensor chips. Currently, the absolute pressure and high - temperature pressure chips have entered the mass - production stage, and the differential pressure chips will start stable shipments from February this year.

Pressure sensor chips and products, image source: the enterprise

Dr. Ni Zao, the CEO of Misi Technology, told Yingke: "Currently, Misi's absolute pressure sensor chips are mostly used in the consumer electronics industry, including smart watches, with a shipment volume of millions of units."

In 2024, Misi Technology had cumulatively connected with more than 30 customers, covering well - known domestic enterprises in fields such as consumer, medical, automotive, industrial, and military.

In terms of the market, the overall market size of MEMS sensor chips is constantly growing. Data from Hua'an Securities shows that in 2022, the global MEMS industry market size reached $18.477 billion, and the market size of Chinese MEMS sensors reached 98.21 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 15.1%. It is estimated that the Chinese market size will reach 157.13 billion yuan this year.

In terms of technology, benchmarking against the global mainstream technology, Misi Technology launched the "Minimally Invasive Surgery" process. This process was proposed by Professor Li Xinxin from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his team. It is on par with Bosch's APS process and is one of the few third - generation pressure sensor manufacturing processes in the world.

The "Minimally Invasive Surgery" process has strong universality and wide coverage, and can process a variety of sensor chips. At the same time, it has a film - thickness precise control technology, which significantly reduces the chip area and cost while ensuring performance.

Thanks to this process, Misi Technology can reduce the chip area to one - third or one - fourth of that of competitors such as Bosch, and the differential pressure sensor chip can even be reduced to one - tenth, greatly reducing the cost of wafer usage.

In terms of specific products, Misi Technology has newly launched a high - temperature absolute pressure sensor chip, which can withstand extreme high - temperature environments. It has passed customer verification and entered the mass - production stage.

At the same time, this type of high - temperature pressure sensor chip can also be applied in high - end national fields such as aerospace and power. The chips suitable for these fields often have high technical thresholds and are expensive. They were once monopolized by foreign giants such as Kulite, and there were often supply disruptions. Currently, Misi Technology can ship tens of thousands of chips to aerospace customers annually, and the production capacity will be increased to 20,000 - 30,000 in the future.

In the future, Misi Technology will also expand into the medical and robotics fields, applying sensor chip products to high - precision and high - performance requirements such as blood pressure measurement and robot touch.

In terms of the founding team, the founding team of Misi Technology is from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The founder, Li Xinxin, is a National Outstanding Youth and a Leading Talent in Shanghai. He has published more than 200 SCI papers and has successfully authorized multiple products to enterprises for commercialization.