In October 2026, Macrocore Semiconductor announced the completion of its Series B+ funding round of hundreds of millions of CNY. Shortly after, the Series B++ round was also closed. The company also revealed that it will launch its Series C round in the fourth quarter, along with the share reform.
Wow, Macrocore Semiconductor's rapid-fire series of moves has turned the funding pace into a thrilling drama. Before the audience can even memorize the investor list from the previous episode, the title sponsor for the next episode is already displayed at the end.
When the news broke, many in the industry were first stunned, followed by heated discussions: In the silicon carbide (SiC) track, hasn't it just been turned into a red ocean by price wars in the past two years, with many manufacturers failing to survive and being cleared out? How can a design company making SiC devices, at this very moment, still raise hundreds of millions of CNY in one go?
This is not an unprofessional question. Anyone who has paid attention to silicon carbide in the past two years remembers the price reduction wave in 2024-2025 that almost brought the entire industry to its knees.
In 2022, a 6-inch conductive silicon carbide substrate could still be sold for over 10,000 CNY, remaining a highly sought-after product with supply falling short of demand. By 2025, the price directly fell below the 2,000 CNY mark, dropping by nearly 80% in three years. Prospectus data disclosed that the average price of 6-inch substrates from a leading substrate manufacturer fell from over 4,700 CNY in 2023 to over 1,600 CNY in 2025, a drop of more than 60%.
Substrates fell, epitaxial wafers fell, and devices were also halved. The entire industry could be described as losing money on every piece sold. Even the domestic leaders, who were highly expected, turned losses into a norm in their financial reports. In those two years, silicon carbide went from a darling pursued by capital to a red ocean that made people frown when mentioned. Industry reshuffling, clearance, and overcapacity became the keywords for our industry. The capital market also changed its attitude accordingly. Funding in the SiC track shifted from competing to invest to being highly selective. Very few could successfully get the money, let alone asset-light design companies.
It was precisely against this background that the market valuation for silicon carbide asset-light design companies once fell to freezing point.
The general consensus is that the moat of SiC lies in substrates, capacity, and processes. Why should a design company that does not grow its own substrates or build its own fabs, squeezed between giant IDM companies and substrate manufacturers, be valuable? Therefore, when this company can still raise funds, and hundreds of millions of CNY across several consecutive rounds, it is indeed worth pausing to ask: What exactly has capital seen in it?
Before discussing this company today, we must first look at the industry. Because in 2026, the wind is changing.
In the first half of this year, the silicon carbide market intensively released reversal signals: the capacity utilization rate of leading substrate manufacturers generally rebounded to over 90%, with some enterprises operating at full capacity; the price drop of 6-inch substrates significantly narrowed, with some quotes even seeing a slight rebound, while 8-inch products stopped falling, stabilized, and showed a slight upward trend. At the same time, international leaders such as Yingfeiling and Yifabandaoti took the lead in adjusting prices. Domestic manufacturers quickly followed, pushing the entire industry back into a price increase and upward cycle.
The driving force of this round is not exactly the same as the electric vehicle boom a few years ago. The computing power power supply for AI data centers has become a new growth engine. Yingweida's 800V high-voltage architecture directly boosted the demand for silicon carbide and gallium nitride. Advanced packaging, optical storage, and charging piles are all exerting force together. Industry research institutions judge that this round of supply and demand tension will last for at least more than half a year.
In short, silicon carbide is starting to warm up again after the entire industry endured a harsh winter.
So the first reason is simple: the funds raised by Macrocore Semiconductor were not raised against the trend, but by riding the tailwind of the industry cycle reversal. It is not an isolated case, but a microcosm of this round of domestic silicon carbide funding wave. To understand why it can get the money, we must first admit that this track is heating up again.
But simply saying the industry is warming up cannot explain why a design company got the money. This leads to the more critical second layer of reasons: the demand structure of silicon carbide is changing.
In the past few years, the market has almost only focused on one story: automotive grade. For 800V fast charging, automakers replaced all onboard chargers and DC-DC converters with silicon carbide. The usage per vehicle went up, and the story was grand enough, but the threshold was also high: long automotive grade certification cycles, harsh requirements for reliability and consistency, and extremely slow customer introduction. These are precisely what asset-light design companies are least good at. So in those years, the SiC stage was almost entirely occupied by IDM giants. It is not unfair that design companies could not squeeze in or raise funds.
But in this 2026 round, the real volume growth is no longer dominated solely by automotive grade, but by the medium and low voltage markets that prioritize cost-effectiveness, such as charging piles, optical storage, consumer electronics fast charging, and AI server power supplies.
Charging piles are the most typical example. The planning targets for domestic high-power DC fast charging piles continue to be raised, and the 1500V high-voltage platform has become a trend. The requirements for power devices in a super charging pile are "high efficiency, low cost, and fast iteration," which is exactly where design companies can shine.
This year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly released the "15th Five-Year Plan". The goal is simple and straightforward: by 2030, the number of charging piles nationwide must reach over 40 million. Immediately following, another mandatory national standard GB 46519 arrived, officially implemented on November 1, 2026. There is a red line in the new national standard that directly splits the technical route of the entire industry in half: the first-level energy efficiency of DC charging piles must have a weighted efficiency of no less than 96.5%. For the upstream of the SiC industry chain, this is a huge structural benefit. For details, you can refer to my previous article: New National Standard + "15th Five-Year Plan": Is the Spring of Silicon Carbide Really Coming?
*The "Plan" clearly proposes that by 2030, the total amount of charging infrastructure will exceed 40 million, with about 300,000 high-power charging facilities, forming a charging service capacity to support over 110 million electric vehicles.
This benefit was first transmitted to those players who had already secured their positions in segmented tracks. Early on, Macrocore Semiconductor did not chase the hottest automotive grade track, but first secured the charging pile segmented market. It developed from 750V, 1200V all the way to the 1500V platform, and equipped all 35mΩ, 25mΩ, and 17mΩ SiC MOSFETs. This is equivalent to using "design capability + fast iteration" to seize the first-mover advantage in the segmented market.
The same applies to optical storage. It optimized the body diode and lowered the application threshold, taking silicon carbide from "hard to use" to "easy to use," in exchange for the recognition of benchmark customers. Consumer electronics is even more straightforward. Mobile phone and laptop manufacturers use fast charging of over 200W as a core selling point. Silicon carbide can reduce the volume of transformers due to its high-frequency characteristics and is widely adopted by brand customers. However, this market is extremely sensitive to cost. Customers want devices with similar performance but significantly cheaper prices. This is precisely the niche market where large IDM manufacturers are reluctant to bend down, while design companies can travel light and enter.
Let's shift the vision to the AI side. Server power supplies and computing power power supplies are becoming new volume growth scenarios for silicon carbide. This market is also the fast eating the slow. Product iteration is measured in months. Customers want solutions that can keep up with power architecture changes and be implemented as soon as possible, rather than queuing up for large manufacturers' production schedules. For design companies, this is another soil where first-mover advantage and response speed can be monetized.
So the second reason is: the demand structure shifting from a single automotive grade pole to multiple scenarios means that the main battlefield of competition has shifted from the IDM home ground of "competing in capacity and certification" to the design company home ground of "competing in cost, iteration, and customer response".
Therefore, it is not that design companies became valuable overnight, but that the rules of the market game have partially shifted to the side where they excel.
OK, here comes the highlight. For the third reason, we need to look at the structure of the funds themselves.
This round of funding for Macrocore Semiconductor is not purely financial investment, but a combination punch of "state-owned capital + industry + listed companies". The Series B round was led by Naixinwei and UUGreenPower.
One is a large chip company, and the other is a charging module leader. Essentially, it is the binding and endorsement of the upstream and downstream of the industry chain. For the Series B+ round, Jinpu Investment and Suchuangtou: one is a top PE with a state-owned capital background, managing a scale of over 60 billion CNY; the other is a first-level financial state-owned enterprise under Suzhou City, managing a scale of over 320 billion CNY, with a 275.6 billion CNY Jiangsu provincial strategic emerging industry fund cluster standing behind it. Add to this a string of local state-owned capitals including Ningbo Gongtou, Zhenhai Industrial Fund, Nantong Strategic Emerging Industry Fund, Dongwu Innovation Capital, Xinguolian Venture Capital, and Jiangyin High-tech Zone Financial Investment Co., Ltd.
With such a spectacle, even Teacher Song Dandan would have to say: "The gongs and drums are deafening, the firecrackers are blasting, the red flags are fluttering, and the crowds are surging."
Only this time, it is not the prestige of Dama Baiyun, but the prestige of the domestic SiC track. Provincial, municipal, and district-level funds are lining up and squeezing in, listed companies are rushing to endorse, and even the charging pile leader is coming to hand out business cards. Macrocore Semiconductor sits in the main seat. In front of it are not melon seeds and fruits, but stacks of investment agreements. The banner hanging behind it writes four big characters: domestic substitution.
Let's get back to the main topic. What exactly is this money buying? On the surface, it is orders, market positioning, and growth potential. But if you think carefully, what capital is actually buying are three things:
First, a scarce target that has already verified its cash flow and customer stickiness in a boom cycle; second, the industrial layout demand of local governments to cultivate the local SiC industry and compete for the discourse power in the third-generation semiconductor field. To put it bluntly, Suzhou and Jiangsu want to leave their own fist companies in the third-generation semiconductor track; third, and the most realistic, IPO expectations. The company has clearly stated that it will launch the Series C round and start the share reform, followed by a clearly visible listing path.
It can be said that in this round of funding, half is the rising tide of the industry cycle, and the other half is capital's bet on the story of the IPO of domestic SiC device companies. The reason design companies can get money is not because they have no moat, but because they happen to stand at the intersection of the cycle, local industrial will, and listing channels.
But when the story is told to this point, it is precisely the time when calmness is most needed.
Let's talk about the data itself first. The average year-on-year increase in orders in the third quarter was nearly 300%, and the annual revenue doubled. This number is certainly eye-catching, but it is built on two premises: first, the base of the previous year was very low, and second, the entire industry is raising prices and expanding capacity. In a boom year with both volume and price rising, almost all companies with correct positioning can hand in a beautiful report card. It is not a unique capability of Macrocore Semiconductor, and it cannot be simply linearly extrapolated to double again next year.
Then there are the hidden worries about the business model. The moat issue of design companies has not disappeared because of this round of funding. The essence of Macrocore Semiconductor's operation is still the asset-light model of "design + foundry + packaging and testing".
Chips rely on top SiC wafer foundries, and more than half of the pace of capacity and technology ramp-up is in the hands of others. The deepest barriers such as substrates, capacity, and processes are still held by giant IDM companies. The value of design companies is built on "fast, accurate, and cheap". Once the capacity of giants swings back and prices start another round of involution, the first to have their profits squeezed out are often asset-light companies without heavy asset endorsements.
The price war in 2025 just passed not long ago. Those cleared out were not only heavy-asset factories, but also countless design companies supported only by stories.
There is also the countdown of capital. Multiple rounds of funding, the entry of state-owned capital, and the share reform being put on the agenda mean that the pressures of valuation adjustment mechanism, performance commitments, and listing exits have started to count down. The more enthusiastic the capital, the more vigilant one must be against valuation bubbles and the tightness of performance commitments. Financing is a good thing, but it also pushes the enterprise into an examination room where it must deliver.
Finally, the competitive landscape. The industry leaders are still IDMs like Yingfeiling, Sida, Shilanwei, and United Nova Technology (UNT), who hold the entire chain in their hands. If design companies want to stand firm at the poker table, they cannot just tell the story of domestic substitution, because this dividend is thinning. It must truly turn "design + foundry + packaging and testing" into a barrier, and prove that it can survive in the next industry headwind. This is the only test of whether it can cross the cycle.
So, let's return to the soul-searching question at the beginning: It's already 2026, why can a SiC Fabless still raise such a huge amount of money?
I think the answer is four words: cycle convergence.
This industry has just crawled out of a price war that almost wiped everyone out, and re-entered the boom channel of rising volume and prices. The demand structure has shifted from a single automotive grade pole to multiple scenarios, pulling the rules of the game to the side where design companies excel. Coupled with local state-owned capital wanting industry, capital wanting to exit, and the industry chain wanting synergy, these three forces have converged at the same point in 2026.
Macrocore Semiconductor is not the creator of this wave; it is just one of the beneficiaries who stood in the right position.
The silicon carbide industry has never belonged only to heavy-asset players, nor has it ever been a game where asset-light players can win by lying flat. This round of funding wave in 2026, rather than being the victory of Macrocore Semiconductor, is better described as the result of the combined action of three forces: the cycle, domestic substitution, and capital clearance. Money always flows with the tailwind of the cycle, but ultimately, it only rewards those who can survive the next headwind.
What is truly worth the industry questioning is not "how much money this company raised", but what barriers it has exchanged for with this money that others cannot take away.
The answer to this question will only come when the next round of industry downturn arrives.
References:
[1] Macrocore Semiconductor