After over three years of preparations and with the support of the Zhongguancun Management Committee, Haidian district government, the Beijing Municipal Economic and Trade Bureau, the Beijing Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and other departments, the Zhongguancun IC Park opened to the public on Monday.

After over three years of preparations, Zhongguancun IC park opens to the public. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The park covers an area of 220,000 square meters, and more than 30 leading integrated circuit enterprises have entered so far, which will produce an annual output value of nearly 24.8 billion yuan and over 1,700 patents every year.

Yin Yong, deputy mayor of Beijing, attended the event and delivered a speech. Zhai Lixin, director of the Zhongguancun Management Committee, presided over the opening ceremony. Dai Binbin, the head of Haidian district, and Zhao Changshan, chairman of Zhongguancun Development Group, attended the opening ceremony.

Yin Yong, deputy mayor of Beijing attended the event and delivered a speech. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Yin remarked that integrated circuit design, as a key link of the integrated circuit industry, is playing a pivotal role in the transformation from "Made in Beijing" to "Created in Beijing”. The opening of the Zhongguancun IC Park means that an industrial structure of "Designed in the North, Manufactured in the South" has come into being,

That structure will effectively solve the problems of insufficient development space, an imperfect ecological environment and incomplete facilities for integrated circuit enterprises in Zhongguancun and even the whole city.

Zhai Lixin, director of the Zhongguancun Management Committee, presided over the opening ceremony. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Yin pointed out that "To achieve this, we must have a high starting point and high-level operations. Second, we must continue to optimize the business environment and promote the rapid development of the industry. Third, we must innovate the working mechanism and accelerate the cultivation of talents."

At the opening ceremony, the Zhongguancun Management Committee awarded the park a plaque recognizing its importance to the IC industry.

After the opening of the park, it will rely on professional technology platforms to integrate resources of universities such as Tsinghua and Peking and the Chinese Academy of Sciences to promote the growth of integrated circuit design enterprises and industrial innovation.

Basic information of the park

Located in the south area of Zhongguancun No.1, Zhongguancun IC Park covers an area of 60,000 square meters and has total construction of 220,000 square meters. The project was launched on September 29, 2015 and completed on June 30, 2018.

Liu Hang, deputy inspector of the Zhongguancun Management Committee awards a plaque to the park. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Listed as a key project of Beijing and Zhongguancun Science Park, the IC park aims to attract a group of well-known IC design companies from China and abroad through five years of operation, to cultivate a group of innovative enterprises with independent, controllable and alternative technologies, and to promote the transformation and industrialization of original technologies.

To date, over 30 leading integrated circuit enterprises with international influence and independent intellectual property rights have been introduced, including Bitmain, Gigadevice Semiconductor, Beijing Zhaoxin and Vionvision. Their annual output value will reach nearly 24.8 billion yuan, or 10% of the total output value of the national integrated circuit design industry.

It is estimated that by 2020, the park will have gathered 150 upstream and downstream enterprises with integrated circuit design as their core, with annual output value exceeding 30 billion yuan and tax revenue of nearly 5 billion yuan.

Focus at the next step

The first step is to consolidate the incubation service system of the park and build a professional incubator for IC design, especially for SMEs. Then it will be necessary to innovate the "rental conversion equity + stock option investment" model, establish an equity relationship with the enterprise, and introduce IC design start-up companies to accelerate the growth of SMEs.

Dai Binbin, head of Haidian district, delivers a speech at the event. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The second step is to set up an IC achievement transformation fund to invest in and incubate early-stage high-quality enterprises and projects, and especially to support the original technologies and cutting-edge projects of colleges, universities and research institutions.

The third is to continuously improve the park's industrial service platform, build a brand of "Chip Power" at the Zhongguancun IC Industry Forum, hold various industrial connection activities, create inspection, testing and intellectual property operation platforms, and add smart parks, IC science and technology museums to provide enterprises with professional and customized service.

The fourth step will be to complete the fund investment of the national IC industry, provide a national industrial platform for the industrial development of the park, improve the ecological chain of the IC industry, expand the strategic investment and industrial layout in the field of IC design, and explore a new mode of "industry plus finance".