According to data from MIR, the scale of China's stepper motor market exceeded CNY 3.2 billion in 2025, of which the industrial stepper system market reached approximately CNY 2 billion, a year-on-year growth of 5%. As policies related to the "15th Five-Year Plan" are gradually implemented, manufacturing investments and equipment upgrades are expected to continue bringing new demand space to the stepper motor market.
Market Size and Growth Trend of China's Stepper Motor Market from 2021 to 2028 (Unit: Million CNY)
Data Source: MIR DATABANK
Stepper motors are mainly divided into technical routes such as two-phase, three-phase, and five-phase based on the number of phases. Among them, the five-phase stepper motor has the highest requirements for precision and stability and is the most "special" route. Compared with two-phase and three-phase stepper motors, five-phase stepper motors feature a smaller basic step angle, smoother operation, lower vibration, and higher precision. They possess strong application value in equipment with high requirements for motion precision and operational stability, such as semiconductor and optical communication devices.
However, for a long time in the past, the five-phase stepper motor market has always been dominated by Japanese brands represented by Oriental Motor. Its PK/PKP series five-phase stepper motors currently cover multiple specifications including 20mm, 28mm, 42mm, 56.4mm, 60mm, and 85mm. Especially in the field of high-precision equipment, relying on early product layout and long-term application accumulation, it occupies a large market share.
In contrast, domestic five-phase stepper products are more concentrated in specifications such as 28mm, 42mm, and 60mm. The small specification of 20mm has not yet formed widespread domestic supply.
01. A 20mm Motor: Why Is It So Hard to Go "One Size Smaller"?
Compared with two-phase and three-phase steppers, the five-phase stepper is inherently a product route that places more emphasis on motion performance, and the 20mm small-specification product is one of the most difficult to develop among them.
For precision equipment, every size reduction in the frame means more compact mechanisms, lighter moving parts, and greater design space. However, a motor cannot be realized simply by scaling down the size. In a smaller space, torque, precision, vibration, temperature rise, and consistency all need to be rebalanced; at the same time, finer wire diameters and higher assembly precision requirements also mean that more costs need to be invested in mold development and manufacturing processes, while the market scale for small-specification products is relatively limited. This is why domestic five-phase stepper motors in China are still mainly concentrated in specifications such as 28mm, 42mm, and 60mm, with relatively few 20mm products.
Thus, a noteworthy question arises: When will domestic five-phase steppers cover the 20mm specification?
02. Filling the 20mm Gap: A Team with 11 Years of Stepper Motor Experience
In recent years, as the demand for independent and controllable supply chains and domestic substitution continues to advance, a group of domestic enterprises deeply engaged in the motion control field have begun to increase R&D and product layout, with five-phase stepper motors becoming one of the noteworthy directions.
Founded in 2015, Ruite Jishu is one of the earliest and most deeply accumulated manufacturers in the domestic five-phase stepper field.
In 2026, Ruite Jishu officially launched the 20mm flange five-phase motor, with a step angle of 0.72°, available in single-axis/dual-axis configurations, enabling higher positioning precision.
With the completion of this specification, Ruite Jishu's five-phase stepper motors now cover mainstream specifications such as 20mm, 28mm, 42mm, and 60mm, becoming one of the manufacturers with the most complete stepper specification coverage in China.
However, for Ruite Jishu, the 20mm is not a trial starting from scratch.
In 2018, Ruite Jishu launched domestic high-end five-phase stepper drivers and motors, including two solutions: pulse control 5R42 and bus control 5ECR42, and opened a motor factory in Changzhou in the same year. From drive algorithms and drivers to motor manufacturing, Ruite Jishu adheres to a fully independent R&D route, being one of the few domestic enterprises with full-chain independent R&D capabilities for stepper systems.
After years of accumulation, its five-phase stepper products have received feedback from an increasing number of downstream demands. In 2026, benefiting from the rapid development of industries such as optical communication and semiconductors, the sales volume of Ruite Jishu's five-phase stepper products achieved significant growth. More and more equipment manufacturers are beginning to shift from traditional Japanese solutions to domestic five-phase stepper solutions. Currently, Ruite Jishu has established cooperative relationships with multiple leading manufacturers in the fields of optical communication coupling equipment and chip testing equipment, and the market recognition and industry penetration rate of its products continue to improve.
03. Directly Benchmarking Against Japanese Brands, How Far Has Ruite's Five-Phase Stepper Come?
After the product models are gradually perfected, what truly needs to be verified is whether the performance can meet the actual equipment requirements.
Especially for five-phase steppers, merely comparing motor size, basic step angle, or rated parameters is difficult to fully reflect the actual differences between products. Therefore, a truly meaningful comparison requires controlling test conditions as much as possible to allow products from different brands to run under the same conditions.
Ruite Jishu previously conducted such a test.
Ruite Jishu's 28CM005-D V3.0 was compared with a similar five-phase stepper product from a certain Japanese brand, using the same 5R42 five-phase stepper driver, and repetitive positioning tests were conducted on the same test platform and under the same test conditions.
The test results show that under specific test conditions, the repetitive positioning precision of Ruite Jishu's product is at a similar level to that of the tested leading product.
Of course, a single test cannot prove that the two products are completely equivalent in all performance indicators.
Therefore, this comparison is not the endpoint. Currently, Ruite Jishu is also advancing tests with products from more replaceable manufacturers and further extending the verification to real equipment. For equipment manufacturers currently using Japanese five-phase steppers, they can also further examine the performance differences between domestic solutions and original products through actual installation and operation.
From the perspective of domestic substitution, the significance of such direct tests lies in proactively using mature Japanese products as technical references and finding gaps through specific indicators.
04. Domestic Five-Phase Steppers in Optical Module Coupling Machines
Having a full range of models is just a ticket to enter; what truly determines whether a product can enter the equipment is still actual application.
The optical module dual-FA coupling machine is one of the core equipment on optical communication production lines. This equipment precisely adjusts optical components through high-precision multi-degree-of-freedom motion platforms on the left and right sides, and completes processes such as automatic light finding, alignment, dispensing, and curing combined with optical power feedback. It has high requirements for the low-speed stability, multi-axis synchronization, repetitive positioning precision, and long-term operational reliability of the motion control system.
In actual applications, equipment manufacturers often face two major troubles:
First, under the working conditions of high-frequency sweeping for light finding and frequent emergency stops of the motor, the instant of emergency stop is highly prone to generating slight residual vibrations at the micrometer-level alignment precision due to the heavy-load inertia. The platform cannot be locked instantly, leading to extremely slow convergence of the light-finding algorithm and making it difficult to stabilize the yield rate. Second, issues such as prolonged delivery times and unstable supply of imported five-phase stepper systems often subject the delivery rhythm of the whole machine to the control of others.
To address these pain points, Ruite Jishu provides an overall solution of high-performance five-phase stepper drivers + supporting five-phase motors.
On the one hand, targeting the motion characteristics of the coupling machine platform during frequent start-stop, reciprocating motion, and load changes, Ruite Jishu optimizes the algorithm for the braking process. Through the anti-inertia braking smoothing algorithm, it reduces the swing caused by mechanical load and inertia during emergency stops, enabling the platform to enter a stable state faster after stopping. On the other hand, addressing the issue of "easy to replace products but hard to modify equipment" in the domestic substitution process of equipment, its supporting motors benchmark imported original five-phase motors in terms of electrical specifications, characteristics, and wire ports. They can be directly wired and deployed to complete the replacement without changing the original high-rigidity mechanical structure.
Currently, Ruite Jishu's high-performance five-phase stepper solution has been applied to optical communication optical module coupling machines such as 400G, 800G, and 1.6T, covering scenarios such as FA coupling machines, Lens coupling machines, COB coupling machines, and optical module testing equipment, and has been applied in mass production machines of multiple leading optical communication enterprises.
In the dual-side FA coupling machine case, the solution is applied to a 12-axis multi-degree-of-freedom coupling cooperative system. The XYZ axes of the micro-motion platform achieve a repetitive positioning performance of ±0.05μm, while the anti-inertia braking smoothing algorithm improves the inertial swing during the platform stopping process.
From the perspective of actual application, Ruite Jishu has not only completed the domestic substitution of the five-phase stepper system but also achieved adaptation to the precision motion control requirements of optical module coupling machines based on the original equipment structure.
From product launch to performance testing, and then to real equipment application, what is verified is not just a specific five-phase motor, but the capability of Ruite Jishu's entire 'driver + motor' stepper system. This is exactly what equipment manufacturers value most when evaluating domestic substitution.
05. From a Niche Category to a More Complete Stepper Product Layout
When the vision is further expanded from the niche category of five-phase, you will find that the five-phase stepper is just one facet of Ruite Jishu's stepper product layout.
Up to now, Ruite Jishu has focused on the R&D, production, and sales of stepper motors and drivers for more than ten years, forming a stepper product matrix covering full specifications and multiple scenarios. It has achieved full coverage of different technical routes such as open-loop steppers, closed-loop steppers, and bus steppers, as well as two-phase, three-phase, and five-phase. Relying on excellent product performance and a comprehensive category layout, its products have been widely used in dozens of industrial automation fields such as 3C electronics, semiconductors, optical communication, packaging machinery, laser engraving, new energy lithium batteries, and photovoltaic equipment, accumulating rich industry application cases.
After years of R&D and product accumulation in the stepper field, Ruite Jishu has expanded 'model selection' from a single specification to the entire stepper product line. For equipment manufacturers, the value of this layout is not just "more products", but the ability to obtain more complete model selection and supporting support under the same product system according to the motion control requirements of different equipment.
Conclusion
The localization of five-phase steppers is a facet of the independent and controllable precision motion control industry chain. The 20mm is just a beginning—enabling China to have its own high-performance five-phase stepper system is the further goal. Although the five-phase stepper is just one niche category, it can relatively intuitively reflect the evolution process of domestic stepper products from specification perfection and performance verification to actual application.
For stepper motor enterprises, what supports domestic substitution is not just the launch of a specific product, but long-term technical accumulation, product development, and application experience, and on this basis, gradually forming a product system covering different technical routes, specifications, and application requirements.
From two-phase to three-phase, and then to five-phase, the technical routes of stepper motors are continuously subdivided with the downstream equipment demands. Although the five-phase is just one of the subdivided directions, from the completion of specifications such as 20mm to performance verification and then to actual application, it also reflects the process of continuously improving the capabilities of domestic stepper products.
In the future, as equipment puts forward higher requirements for precision, miniaturization, stability, and control capabilities, the domestic substitution of stepper motors will no longer be limited to a single model or a single scenario, but will further extend to more complete product coverage and broader application fields.