Interview with MRSI, Mycronic: MRSI has witnessed the rapid development of China's optoelectronics industry for 20 years
With the advent of the network era, the rapid development and application of optical communication technology has built a huge and fast communication network, bringing great convenience to people's lives. The past 20 years have been 20 years of leapfrog development of China's optical communication industry. Today, China has become the world's largest source of technology for optical communication devices, with industry patents accounting for 82.67% of global applications; in terms of production scale, China is also the world's main production base for optical communication devices. As a chip equipment supplier that has been supporting leading manufacturing in the optical communication field for more than 30 years, MRSI has witnessed the rapid development of China's optical communication industry.
Recently, Xunshi interviewed Dr. Limin Zhou, Senior Director of Strategic Marketing of MRSI Systems, and Avy, the current Senior Manager of MRSI Service and Application, who is the first employee of MRSI in China, at the MRSI Shenzhen Demonstration Center. Mr. Yi has been working at MRSI for nearly 20 years, and has witnessed the entire development process of MRSI from the beginning of its entry into China to the present, as well as the development process of China's optical communication industry from the beginning of the 21st century to the present.
Mr. Yi introduced to Xunshi: From the perspective of the optical communication industry chain, China currently has world-leading 5G equipment suppliers, and the domestic optical communication industry has also developed from the beginning of passive device production to the top 10 in the world. Optical module manufacturers Chinese companies account for the absolute dominant share of 6 companies. The design, packaging and testing of optical components in China has reached the world's leading level, and the shipments of the entire industry have achieved the world's leading position. The only shortcoming is that the design of high-speed optoelectronic chips still has a certain distance from the world's leading level. In recent years, the active research and development of domestic optical chip companies has achieved phased results, and a number of powerful start-up companies have emerged. In the field of chip design, this is the direction Chinese companies need to work hard to further improve their high-speed chip design and manufacturing capabilities. Only in this way can the overall competitiveness of the complete industrial chain from chips to devices be improved.
The investment in chips not only requires a huge investment in capital, but also manpower and time for verification and development. This is a long-term process, and the short-term results are not obvious. However, if you invest in the long-term, China has huge potential, because the domestic application market is huge. The driving force of market demand is a very effective development driver.
Talking about when MRSI entered the Chinese market, Mr. Yi recalled: In terms of active devices, the United States and Europe developed earlier. European and American companies began to set up factories in China in the early 21st century, and MRSI equipment also entered China. Among them, the most typical The company is JDSU. At first, the JDSU supply chain, raw material and equipment suppliers were all European and American companies. The development level of European and American companies in the entire industry far exceeds that of domestic companies. MRSI is also gradually entering the market through in-depth cooperation with leading companies in the optical communication industry. and expanded the Chinese market.
At that time, China's optical communication industry was mainly based on the development of telecommunication networks. The optical communication devices required by the telecommunication transmission network had high requirements for reliability and needed to meet the telecommunication standards. Therefore, the requirements for SMD equipment at that time were mainly high precision and multi-function. Until the development of optical communication in 2013, the demand for application in the data center market began to explode, and the requirement for large quantities of optical devices led to the need for SMT equipment to have higher production efficiency functions to meet market demand. Therefore, after 2015, MRSI began to focus on developing products for data centers, that is, higher-efficiency equipment. In 2017, MRSI launched the H and HVM series of placement models successively. This high-speed series of equipment has higher precision and placement speed than previous products.
With the continuous improvement of the speed of optical devices, the power consumption requirements of optical devices are becoming more and more stringent, and the integration degree of optical devices is getting higher and higher. SMT equipment needs to pack the device very tightly, therefore, new requirements are constantly put forward for the placement accuracy. At present, MRSI's HVM and H series equipment have reached the industry-leading level in terms of speed and accuracy, and are the mainstream models in the optical communication device industry.
MRSI's products have the characteristics of high precision and strong process capability, and are mainly used in high value-added fields, such as the field of communication (optical communication, microwave communication), medical field, high-power laser, and aerospace field. The largest application in China is the communications market.
Talking about the future development direction of optical communication, Mr. Yi believes that optical devices have been developing in the direction of high speed and low power consumption. The recent hot spot is silicon photonics technology. Silicon photonics may reduce the cost of devices and reduce the cost and power consumption of the entire network. At present, many large companies have invested a lot of energy in this area. In the application market, the demand for data centers accounts for a large proportion of optical communications.
The development of a new technology usually has many uncertain factors in the process of testing, so enterprises usually hope that the equipment has strong technological ability and high precision, so the enterprise research and development stage needs multi-functional equipment; when a product matures and develops In the production stage, equipment with efficient production functions is required, and the cooperation of the two equipment is more suitable for the development of the enterprise; MRSI equipment can not only meet the multi-functional requirements, but also have efficient production.
In terms of corporate advantages, Mr. Yi introduced: MRSI equipment has been fully verified by leading manufacturers for a long time in terms of accuracy, efficiency, and process capabilities, and has equipment patent protection, which is not available to friends. In the long-term cooperation between MRSI and domestic leading enterprises, the mutual trust established by the two sides enables enterprises to choose SMT equipment, and MRSI equipment can become the reference standard for enterprises.
China's optical communication industry is developing continuously, and the demand for equipment has also changed greatly. The company keeps up with the rapid development of the optical communication industry, maintains a long-term development plan, and maintains forward-looking research with leading companies. MRSI also maintains competition important reasons for power and leadership.
In December 2021, Mycronic AB's wholly-owned subsidiary registered in China - Myris Automation (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. was officially established in Shenzhen. Dr. Zhou Limin, Senior Director of Strategic Marketing of MRSI Systems and General Manager of Marius Automation (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., introduced the original intention and purpose of Marius to Xunshi.
MRSI is a leading brand of automatic, high-speed, high-precision, high-flexibility, and high-reliability placement machines, and has a large market share in the optical communication industry. Nearly half of the manufacturers of optical communication devices come from China. Chinese companies are leaders in the field of optical devices. MRSI's equipment is widely used by international and domestic suppliers of these optical devices. The reason why MRSI has become a benchmark company in the SMT equipment industry is not only because MRSI has very good product performance, but more importantly, MRSI has engineers like Avy with 20 years of industry experience. The average experience of Avy team members is more than 10 years. MRSI's level of customer service is among the best in the industry. MRSI not only provides suitable equipment, but more importantly, it can provide customers with a series of solutions and cooperate with customers to develop the product process they need. This is an important reason why we are different from other equipment manufacturers.
The original intention and purpose of MRSI to set up a company in China is to continue MRSI's customer-centric product and service advantages, and to provide customers with more intuitive product experience and application consulting services through the product demonstration center and Chinese companies; The technical and business cooperation of local companies will be more convenient, and the use of RMB settlement will save the time and cost of local customers.
When talking about the future development plan of Marius Automation, Mr. Zhou said: The company hopes to do more localized work in the near future, including equipment spare parts, application development, and localized machine manufacturing, and finally realize equipment production. The spare parts supply chain is completed in China, in addition to developing more packaging equipment that meets industry requirements and developing more applications to serve local enterprises. In recent years, the trend of optical communication industry to set up factories in Southeast Asia is obvious. In the next step, Maris can also support the transfer of production lines with MRSI colleagues in Southeast Asia and provide corresponding technical support.
Mr. Zhou and the employees of MRSI China have many years of experience in the optical communication industry, and have a deeper understanding of the design and process requirements of the optical communication industry. MRSI has more trusting relationships with customers. In the future, Marius will do more localized work to support the development of China's optical communication industry.
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