On December 16, OnMicro, China’s third-largest RF front-end chip design company, was officially listed on the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. In this IPO, the company raised RMB 2.067 billion in net proceeds. According to its development plan, RMB 1.1 billion will be invested in the R&D and industrialization upgrade of 5G RF front-end chips and modules, RMB 410 million will be allocated to RF SoC R&D and industrialization projects, and RMB 560 million will be used for the construction of the company’s headquarters base and R&D center.
RF chips are core components of wireless communication systems, characterized by a vast market, high technological barriers, and a relatively low domestic substitution rate. In the digital information era, explosive growth in data traffic, diversified communication standards, and continuously increasing transmission speeds have made RF front-end chips critical components supporting the development of China’s digital economy. At present, the market share of Chinese RF front-end manufacturers remains below 15%, while their share in the high-end market represented by highly integrated 5G modules is less than 5%. Compared with international leaders such as Broadcom, Qualcomm, and Skyworks, domestic companies still lag behind in R&D investment and technological accumulation, leaving substantial room for localization and import substitution.
Since its establishment, OnMicro has completed dozens of financing rounds from angel funding to Series E, with more than 70 shareholders. Its investors include industrial players, professional semiconductor investment institutions, and well-known financial investors such as Hubble Technology Investment, Xiaomi Fund, Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group, Walden International, CMB International, and the Zhongguancun Science City Technology Investment. Among them, Xiaomi Fund and Hubble Technology Investment each hold 4.16% of the company’s shares, ranking as the fifth- and sixth-largest shareholders, respectively. Equity penetration analysis shows that Xiaomi Fund is ultimately controlled by Xiaomi Group and its founder Lei Jun, while Hubble Investment is wholly owned by Huawei.
OnMicro traces its origins to July 2012, when Qian Yongxue and Yang Qinghua co-founded Zhongke Hantianxia in Beijing’s Haidian District, the predecessor of OnMicro. In 2019, the company completed a management restructuring, with Qian Yongxue assuming the role of chairman and the company being renamed OnMicro Electronics. In the same year, Yang Qinghua exited the company entirely.
Qian Yongxue, currently 47 years old, serves as chairman and general manager of OnMicro. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Hunan University and a master’s degree in microelectronics and solid-state electronics from the Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Prior to founding OnMicro, he worked as an R&D engineer and head of R&D departments at several domestic chip companies. Between July 2012 and December 2020, he successively served as CTO, director and general manager, chairman and general manager of OnMicro in its various corporate forms.
Yang Qinghua earned his bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University and his PhD from the Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. After completing his doctorate, he served as assistant researcher, associate researcher, and master’s supervisor at the institute, focusing on CMOS RF technology. Beginning in 2017, Yang gradually withdrew from OnMicro to focus on other businesses, including Suzhou Hantianxia, and fully divested his stake in 2019. Suzhou Hantianxia operates in the SAW filter segment, which overlaps to some extent with OnMicro’s business, and the two parties have defined their relationship as “complementary competition” through formal agreements.
As of the first half of 2025, OnMicro employed 441 staff, including 204 R&D personnel, accounting for 46.26% of its workforce. The company has three core technical leaders: Qian Yongxue, chairman and general manager; Meng Hao, director and deputy general manager; and Cai Guangjie, deputy general manager, all of whom have more than ten years of experience in chip design.
OnMicro has established R&D centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Xi’an, Dalian, and Hong Kong. Based on product type and application scenarios, its R&D structure is divided into RF front-end, RF SoC, and analog R&D divisions. As of June 30, the company and its subsidiaries legally owned 125 patents, including 59 domestic invention patents, 65 domestic utility model patents, and one overseas invention patent.
The company’s core product portfolio includes a full range of 5G/4G/3G/2G RF front-end chip products for smart mobile terminals, such as RF front-end modules, power amplifiers, switches, and LNAs, as well as RF SoC chips for the Internet of Things, including low-power Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz private protocol wireless communication chips. In the RF front-end segment, OnMicro possesses multi-process chip design capabilities, covering GaAs, CMOS, and SiGe power amplifiers, CMOS controllers, and SOI switches and LNAs.
Among these products, the L-PAMiD module—featuring the highest level of integration, the greatest technical complexity, and long dominated by overseas manufacturers—was first successfully developed in China in 2023 by OnMicro in collaboration with Vanchip. To date, the company has achieved mass production of L-PAMiD, L-PAMiF, DiFEM/L-DiFEM, L-FEM, and MMMB PA modules, supporting multiple communication standards, including 5G, 4G, 3G, 2G, and NB-IoT, across a wide range of network configurations. In the RF SoC segment, its products are designed to meet diverse customer requirements for power consumption, cost, performance, and communication protocols.
Notably, OnMicro’s high-performance L-PAMiD products have been selected for projects of leading brand customers for three consecutive generations, with the latest two generations achieving full domestic supply chain localization, effectively breaking the monopoly of international suppliers. Within a short period, the company not only completed mass production of multiple high-performance L-PAMiD modules and L-DiFEM receive modules, but also advanced the R&D of Phase 8L modules and fully localized Phase 8L modules, while participating in the definition of solutions for two highly integrated module platforms. These achievements demonstrate that OnMicro has fully developed end-to-end capabilities for 5G high-integration RF front-end module solutions and holds a competitive edge, particularly in the 5G module segment. As a result, its shareholders are well positioned to benefit from the growth of China’s domestic RF front-end industry and the broader wave of import substitution.
OnMicro operates under a fabless business model, outsourcing wafer fabrication, chip packaging, and testing to third-party partners. Its key suppliers include WIN Semiconductors, Tower Semiconductor, JCET Group, and Yongsi Electronics.
In terms of customers, OnMicro’s RF front-end chips have achieved large-scale shipments to well-known terminal brands such as Honor, Samsung, vivo, Xiaomi, OPPO, Lenovo, Transsion, and realme. Its RF SoC products have been adopted by customers including Alibaba, Pinduoduo, Xiaomi, Lenovo, BYD, Segway-Ninebot, and HP. Honor has ranked among the company’s top five customers for three and a half consecutive years.
The company’s downstream applications primarily cover mobile smart terminals as well as IoT scenarios such as wireless peripherals, smart home devices, healthcare, and smart logistics. The combined revenue contribution of its top five customers—Kexin Communications, Phisemi Corporation, Samsung, Galaxy Holdings and Honor—accounted for 70.44%, 75.84%, 69.52%, and 59.07% of total operating revenue in the relevant reporting periods, indicating a relatively high customer concentration.
While continuing to deepen its presence in the consumer electronics market, OnMicro is actively expanding into professional application scenarios such as smart retail, intelligent logistics, healthcare, and automotive mobility, while accelerating its overseas expansion into high-end markets in Japan, South Korea, Europe, and the United States. With strong growth potential in professional and international markets, the company is expected to deliver greater long-term value to its shareholders.
Source: east money, sse, sina finance, stcn, eet china
