Source36氪•Stalecollected in 23m
Zhichuangxin Secures Funding for RISC-V and OpenHarmony Integration
Strategic push to build a complete 'dual-open' hardware/software ecosystem using RISC-V and OpenHarmony.
30-Second TL;DR
What Changed
Raised Pre-A funding from investors including Qidi Star and DeepLink (Shenkaihong).
Why It Matters
The collaboration aims to reduce reliance on foreign CPU architectures by creating a complete, localized software-hardware stack for IoT and smart devices.
What To Do Next
If you are building IoT devices, investigate the compatibility of your current firmware stack with RISC-V and OpenHarmony to prepare for future hardware diversification.
Who should care:Developers & AI Engineers
Key Points
- •Raised Pre-A funding from investors including Qidi Star and DeepLink (Shenkaihong).
- •Focuses on 'dual-open' strategy: integrating RISC-V architecture with OpenHarmony OS.
- •Already shipping millions of RISC-V units annually, targeting smart home and industrial applications.
Deep Insight
AI-generated analysis for this event — not the original article.
Enhanced Key Takeaways
- •Zhichuangxin (Zhichuangxin Technology) is strategically positioning itself to address the 'bottleneck' of domestic chip supply chains by focusing on the RISC-V instruction set architecture as a neutral alternative to ARM and x86.
- •The company's core technical team consists of veterans from Alibaba's T-Head (Pingtouge) semiconductor division, leveraging their prior experience in developing the XuanTie series of RISC-V processors.
- •The partnership with DeepLink (Shenkaihong) specifically targets the 'OpenHarmony for RISC-V' adaptation layer, aiming to solve the fragmentation issues typically found in early-stage open-source hardware-software integration.
- •Beyond smart homes and industrial control, the company is actively exploring 'edge-side' AI acceleration capabilities within their RISC-V SoCs to support local large model inference.
- •Qidi Star's investment signifies a broader trend of state-backed or incubator-led capital flowing into the 'Xinchuang' (Information Technology Application Innovation) sector to foster domestic OS and hardware independence.
Competitor Analysis
Primary Focus
- Zhichuangxin (RISC-V + OpenHarmony)
- OpenHarmony Integration
- StarFive (RISC-V)
- High-Performance RISC-V SoCs
- Allwinner (ARM/RISC-V)
- Consumer/Industrial SoCs
OS Support
- Zhichuangxin (RISC-V + OpenHarmony)
- Deep Optimization for OpenHarmony
- StarFive (RISC-V)
- Linux/RTOS/OpenHarmony
- Allwinner (ARM/RISC-V)
- Android/Linux/OpenHarmony
Market Segment
- Zhichuangxin (RISC-V + OpenHarmony)
- Industrial/Smart Home
- StarFive (RISC-V)
- Edge Computing/Development Boards
- Allwinner (ARM/RISC-V)
- Consumer Electronics/Tablets
| Feature | Zhichuangxin (RISC-V + OpenHarmony) | StarFive (RISC-V) | Allwinner (ARM/RISC-V) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary Focus | OpenHarmony Integration | High-Performance RISC-V SoCs | Consumer/Industrial SoCs |
| OS Support | Deep Optimization for OpenHarmony | Linux/RTOS/OpenHarmony | Android/Linux/OpenHarmony |
| Market Segment | Industrial/Smart Home | Edge Computing/Development Boards | Consumer Electronics/Tablets |
Technical Deep Dive
- Architecture: Utilizes high-efficiency RISC-V cores optimized for low-power consumption in IoT environments.
- OS Integration: Implements a customized OpenHarmony kernel adaptation layer to ensure hardware abstraction for RISC-V instruction sets.
- AI Capability: Incorporates dedicated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) blocks within the SoC design to handle lightweight AI workloads at the edge.
- Interconnect: Supports standard industrial communication protocols integrated directly into the silicon to reduce external component count.
Future ImplicationsAI analysis grounded in cited sources
Zhichuangxin will achieve a 15% market share in the domestic OpenHarmony-based industrial controller market by 2027.
The strategic alignment with DeepLink provides a direct channel into the rapidly growing OpenHarmony industrial ecosystem, bypassing traditional OS adoption barriers.
The company will release a RISC-V SoC capable of running native OpenHarmony 'Large Model' features by Q4 2026.
The current focus on edge-side AI acceleration suggests a roadmap toward integrating NPU-heavy architectures designed specifically for local LLM execution.
Timeline
2024-05
Zhichuangxin Technology is officially incorporated by former T-Head executives.
2025-02
Company achieves initial tape-out of its first-generation RISC-V SoC for smart home applications.
2026-03
Zhichuangxin enters a strategic partnership with DeepLink to standardize OpenHarmony support on RISC-V hardware.
2026-07
Company secures Pre-A funding round led by Qidi Star and DeepLink.
- 2024-05Zhichuangxin Technology is officially incorporated by former T-Head executives.
- 2025-02Company achieves initial tape-out of its first-generation RISC-V SoC for smart home applications.
- 2026-03Zhichuangxin enters a strategic partnership with DeepLink to standardize OpenHarmony support on RISC-V hardware.
- 2026-07Company secures Pre-A funding round led by Qidi Star and DeepLink.
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