Qilingxin announced that it will cease operations and has just completed 600 million yuan in financing

Qilingxin announced that it would cease operations and had just completed 600 million in financing

Qilingxin announced that it would cease operations and had just completed 600 million in financing. Qilingxin’s official website shows that the company was established in 2021 , the core team comes from mainstream chip companies in China and the United States, with profound CPU technology foundation and rich mass production experience. Qilingxin announced that it will cease operations and has just completed 600 million financing. Qilingxin announced that it will cease operations and has just completed 600 million in financing 1

Recently, there are market rumors that the ARM CPU startup Shenzhen Qilingxin Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Qilingxin") has ceased operations and will soon Bankruptcy.

Last Friday, a netizen posted that "Qilingxin announced that it will cease operations at 6 o'clock tonight." An employee of Qilingxin broke the news on a workplace social platform. The company issued a notice saying, "You don't have to go to work this week" and "The company has stopped operating."...

According to Lei Feng.com, as soon as it was approached Industry insiders at Qilingxin revealed that Qilingxin has indeed encountered some difficulties and is currently in a state of suspension of operations. According to information obtained by Jiwei.com from people close to Qilingxin, the rumors are basically true, but it is not bankruptcy but may be reorganized.

Just three months ago, Qilingxin announced the completion of angel round and Series A financing totaling RMB 600 million. Angel round investors include the founders of many semiconductor companies such as Silicon Lijie, Shixin Technology, Weill Technology, and Hengxuan Technology. The Series A investor is Lightspeed China.

In fact, only one month after its official announcement of financing, news of a thunderstorm in Qiling Core circulated on the Internet. And now, the news that it has "ceased operations" and gone bankrupt is all shocking.

Official website information shows that Qilingcore was established in November 2021. The core team comes from mainstream chip companies in China and the United States. They have profound CPU technology background and rich mass production experience. The company is committed to high-performance general computing and data center solutions, providing autonomous, controllable, energy-efficient general-purpose chips.

The collapse of Qilingxin may be related to Wu Xiongang, the former head of ARM China

Now, there is a recruitment notice on the official website of Qilingxin, recruiting digital back-end engineers and chips Verification engineers and chip design engineers. However, this recruitment news stayed on February 17, 2022, and has not been updated for more than 5 months. Some netizens had previously questioned when it would restart recruitment.

Once upon a time, this company was once famous and spent a lot of money to recruit people, which caused heated discussions in the industry.

Last month, there was news of executive changes at Qilingxin. Qilingxin’s core technical staff include Lin Wei from Alibaba Pingtouge Meiyan P10, who has joined the company since its establishment.

Lin Wei is a senior technical expert in the chip industry. He has entered the chip industry since 1997 and has participated in the development of Intel Itanium processor (x86 architecture server CPU) and Huawei HiSilicon Kirin CPU (Arm architecture mobile phone CPU). He joined Pingtou Ge in 2019.

According to Qichacha, Lin Wei will no longer serve as the company’s general manager and executive director starting in July this year, and Wang Ying will take over.

The departure of core technical personnel will inevitably affect the company’s chip research and development progress. It is reported that since its establishment, Qilingxin has not yet achieved mass production of chips. Even, according to Leifeng.com, the company has basically not started developing products yet, and is still in the development stage of team preparation and waiting for IP. The Enterprise Innovation Evaluation Laboratory shows that as of June 6 this year, Qiling Core has no published patent applications.

Some people believe that Qilingxin’s collapse may be related to Wu Xiongang, the former head of ARM China.

One theory is that the real boss behind Qiling Core is actually Wu Xiongang, the former head of ARM China.

On a workplace social platform, some netizens said that it was precisely because of Wu Xiongang’s complicated relationship with ARM that Qilingxin’s ARM-based CPUs were unable to move forward. Not long ago, the dispute between Wu Xiongang and ARM China's control was heated up. In the end, this two-year dispute came to an end with Wu Xiongang's exit.

Qilingxin’s CPU is based on the ARM architecture, and its chip research and development needs to be authorized by ARM. If the actual controller behind it is Wu Xiongang, Qilingxin’s chip authorization is likely to be affected. Qilingxin announced that it will cease operations and has just completed 600 million in financing 2

Recently there are rumors that the ARM CPU start-up Qilingxin is about to go bankrupt. This Friday, a netizen posted, "Qilingxin tonight at 6 o'clock Announcing the cessation of operations. ”

Leifeng.com learned from an industry insider close to Qilingxin that Qilingxin has indeed encountered some difficulties and is currently in a state of suspension of operations.

Qilingxin’s official website shows that the company was founded in 2021. The core team comes from mainstream chip companies in China and the United States. They have profound CPU technology background and rich mass production experience. The company is committed to high-performance general computing and data Central solution, providing independent controllable, high-energy-efficiency general-purpose chips.

Previous media reports stated that Qilingxin’s core technical staff include Lin Wei from Alibaba Pingtouge Meiyan P10. He has entered the chip industry since 1997 and has participated in Intel The development of Itanium processor (x86 architecture server CPU) and Huawei HiSilicon Kirin CPU (Arm architecture mobile phone CPU), joined Pingtou Ge in 2019. However, information shows that Lin Wei no longer served as the company’s general manager and executive director in July this year, and Wang Ying took over.

Three months ago, Qilingxin announced that the company had completed angel round and Series A financing totaling approximately 600 million yuan. Angel round investors include the founders of many semiconductor companies such as Silicon Lijie, Shixin Technology, Weill Technology, Hengxuan Technology, etc., and Series A investors include Lightspeed China.

An industry insider close to Qilingxin told Leifeng.com that the company has not yet started product development and is still in the development stage of team preparation and waiting for IP.

Regarding the widely circulated statement on the Internet, the real boss of Qilingxin is Wu Xiongang. After Wu Xiongang was dismissed from ARM, the company’s IP authorization was blocked. Another industry insider close to Qilingxin said, “It has nothing to do with ARM. , mainly due to discord in the company team."

At present, Qilingxin’s official website still has a “recruitment notice for talents”, recruiting digital back-end engineers, chip verification engineers and chip design engineers. The information will be updated on February 17, 2022. . Qilingxin announced that it will cease operations and has just completed 600 million in financing 3

It is reported that Qilingxin notified all employees last Friday that the company will cease operations with immediate effect.

Qilingxin was established at the end of 2021 and has so far completed two rounds of financing totaling approximately 600 million yuan. Angel round investors include Silicon Lijie, Shixin Technology, Weill Technology, Hengxuan Technology and many other semiconductors The founder of the company and the Series A investor are Lightspeed China.

It is understood that when Qilingxin launched its first round of financing, Wu Xiongang, the former chairman of ARM China, contacted some investors for it.

Wu Xiongang was sent to China by Arm headquarters in 2006 to be responsible for sales, and later served as the head of Arm China. Since 2018, he has served as the head of the joint venture company Anmou established by Arm and Chinese capital. Chinese Chairman.

In June 2020, Arm, as a shareholder of Arm China, wanted to remove Wu Xiongang but failed. In April this year, Arm China completed industrial and commercial changes, Wu Xiongang no longer served as chairman, and the dispute over Arm China's control was settled.

One of the specific contradictions in the control dispute is the investment fund Alphatecture founded by Wu Xiongang in 2019. People close to Arm said that the fund invested in some Arm customers and had a conflict of interest with Arm China. The establishment of the fund was not approved by the board of directors of Arm China. Wu Xiongang said that Ambou China’s board of directors knew about the matter and agreed.

Alphatecture invested 127 million yuan in Arm’s customer Hengxuan Technology in 2019, accounting for 3.2% of the shares. Hengxuan Technology later landed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in 2020, with a current market value of approximately 19 billion yuan. The founder of Hengxuan Technology is also one of the investors of Qilingxin.

The core personnel of Qilingxin are Lin Wei and Wang Qian. Both of them worked at Alibaba Pingtouge Meiyan and were P10. Lin Wei has 25 years of industry experience and has participated in the development of Intel server CPU Itanium and Huawei HiSilicon mobile phone CPU Kirin.

Many people close to the matter said that Qilingxin ceased operations because the partners could not reach a consensus on control rights, resulting in financing difficulties.

The obtained letter from all employees of Qilingxin stated that the reason for the cessation of operations was that "partners did not cooperate with financing." The letter is signed to Qilingxin Company.

The letter to all employees also stated that Qilingxin will pay the August salary in full. Starting from September 5, wages will only be paid according to Shanghai’s minimum wage standard, which is 2,590 yuan per month.

Qilingxin currently has nearly 50 employees, most of whom earn a monthly salary of around 50,000-80,000 yuan. Some people close to Qilingxin believe that the current salary arrangement is to allow employees to leave their jobs voluntarily to avoid layoff compensation.

About a month ago, Qilingxin completed the latest round of industrial and commercial changes, and Lin Wei is no longer the company’s legal representative. There are reports that Lin Wei has left. It is understood that Lin Wei has not left Kai Ling Xin. Last Friday, Lin Wei also appeared at Qilingxin's Shanghai office and apologized to some employees in person, saying "I'm sorry to everyone", but did not disclose the company's next plans.

We learned that Qilingxin had purchased an ARM IP license before ceasing operations. There were previous reports that Qilingxin ceased operations due to difficulty in obtaining ARM IP, which is not true.

Before June this year, Qilingxin was still vigorously recruiting talents, issuing nearly 40 new offers, and hoped that candidates would join the company as soon as possible. But starting in July, the candidate onboarding process was gradually suspended.

The salary package previously offered by Qilingxin exceeded that of its peers. When recruiting IC verification engineers with 3-5 years of work experience, most ARM CPU startups will give a monthly salary of 30,000-60,000 yuan, while Qilingxin can give 60,000-90,000 yuan. A CPU/SoC performance modeling engineer who has worked for 3 to 5 years can get an annual salary of about 1.1 million yuan at Qilingxin.

A person close to Qilingxin commented, "Although Qilingxin has not announced its dissolution, it is no different from disbanding." Its move to pay the minimum wage will have the effect of dismissing employees. However, the IP purchased by Qilingxin is still a valuable asset, and it is not ruled out that the company will operate again after the restructuring.