Digital Signal Processor Firm Haawking Secures Round-A Financing

Haawking, a Chinese digital signal processor firm, has recently announced its completion of round-A financing totaling nearly 100 million yuan ($14.9 million), following joint investment from BYD, Megmeet and other industry players, 36Kr reported on July 7. The funds are mainly to be used for the acceleration of product R&D, team expansion, and the promotion of chip production and batch delivery.

Haawking was established in January 2019. It focuses on the R&D of digital signal processors (DSPs) with independent property rights. The founding team hails from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and was previously the core scientific research team of the National Engineering Research Center for Specialized Integrated Circuit Design (NECFAD).

Haawking has a team size of more than 70 people, with R&D personnel accounting for nearly 70%. The core team members have more than 10 years of experience in chip design and finished product development, and have applied for dozens of patents related to computer architecture. Li Renwei, the founder and chairman of the company, is a doctor of computer application technology from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an associate researcher from the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has presided over or participated in many national major scientific research projects.

A DSP chip is a microprocessor that can process various digital signals quickly and in real time. It is widely used in various fields such as communication, computer, consumer electronics, and more, and attracts Texas Instruments (TI), ADI, NXP, NXP, Microchip and AMD. According to data from ChinaIRN.com, the global DSP chip market will reach 21.6 billion yuan in 2020 and is expected to reach 34.9 billion yuan in 2026, with a CAGR of 6.8%.

The first RISC-V DSP chip of Haawking was successfully released in July 2020. At present, the company has launched the HX2000 series product lines, including the 2802X, 2803X, 2833X, 28002X and other products, which are aimed at white goods, motor driving, digital power supply, photovoltaics and energy storage, new energy vehicles and other industries.

It is worth mentioning that Haawking has independently developed its own Haawking IDE development tool, and has provided customers with a complete algorithm library and driver library to help customers reduce migration costs and effectively shorten the development cycle.

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In terms of product implementation, Li Renwei believes that the biggest market space of Haawking is mainly in the control DSP market, which competes with international entities. Specifically, new energy vehicle storage and photovoltaics, white goods, digital power supply and other fields are the key markets to be expanded by the company.