Lizhao Technology Raises Tens of Millions in Pre-A Round, Monolith Capital Co-Invests

Shanghai-based Lizhao Technology, a supplier of RF and plasma systems — critical components for semiconductor equipment — recently announced it has raised tens of millions of RMB in a Pre-A round. The company has also brought on board Song Wei, former general manager of AIXTRON China, as VP. Monolith, China Fortune-Tech Capital, and Lingang Sci-Tech Innovation Investment participated in the round.

Founded in August 2022 and headquartered in Shanghai's Minhang District, Lizhao Technology specializes in RF and plasma systems for semiconductor process equipment.

The founding team hails from prestigious universities and research institutions at home and abroad, with years of experience developing advanced semiconductor equipment and over a decade in RF power system R&D and manufacturing. They bring deep expertise spanning fundamental research, product development, process application, and market expansion. The company's chief scientist is an associate professor and PhD advisor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University who previously conducted high-frequency power electronics research at a top US institution.

VP Song Wei, a Beihang University graduate, previously served as AIXTRON China's general manager. Before joining Lizhao, he held senior executive roles — including China GM and sales director positions — at several prominent Western companies: Varian, Applied Materials (AMAT), MKS, Kateeva, and AIXTRON.

Lizhao founder Zhao Kui said the team has built substantial expertise and a comprehensive footprint across RF technology, power electronics, control systems, and algorithms. High-frequency power electronics, a subset of RF technology, faces a severe global talent shortage. Semiconductor RF power supplies demand megahertz-level power electronics capabilities. Core team members have been working in this field since 2012, making them one of the few Chinese experts internationally.

Moreover, product algorithms must integrate with semiconductor processes, requiring familiarity with plasma processing techniques and strong foundations in mathematics and physics. Lizhao excels at aligning its algorithm research and optimization with customers' actual process requirements.

The Smith chart is a polar plot of the reflection coefficient, developed in 1939 by P. Smith at Bell Labs as an aid for solving transmission line problems. Used correctly, it allows engineers to determine the matching impedance of seemingly complex systems without any calculation.

VP Song Wei said: "Given semiconductor industry security requirements and real market demand, the RF plasma field needs a high-quality, high-efficiency team with scientific backgrounds to break through China's technical ceiling as soon as possible — to challenge and ultimately surpass the industry leaders in the global market." That's why, after the company's initial product development succeeded, he joined Lizhao, hoping to leverage his extensive market application experience to accelerate its growth.

China's domestic semiconductor RF power supply market is projected to exceed 5 billion RMB. However, domestic companies have limited technical积累 in this space, with American firms MKS and AE, Japanese companies Daihen and Kyosan, and German manufacturer Hüttinger controlling over 95% of the market.

Plasma is ubiquitous throughout the universe, often considered the fourth state of matter alongside solid, liquid, and gas. In practical applications, plasma technology has already found widespread use, particularly in pan-semiconductor manufacturing processes.

Currently, aside from wet processing, plasma applications cover nearly every major semiconductor process segment: etch, atomic layer deposition (ALD/ALE), physical/chemical vapor deposition (PVD/CVD), ion implantation, dry strip, photolithography, and even chemical mechanical planarization (CMP). Plasma generation and application systems have thus become one of the fundamental subsystems in semiconductor equipment, alongside vacuum systems, gas delivery systems, optical systems, and transfer systems.

Lizhao Technology's main products are plasma RF power supplies with their supporting systems, and remote plasma source (RPS) systems. These products' basic function is to generate plasma in relevant semiconductor process equipment and enable various processes.

The plasma generation and working principles differ across each process. For example, most advanced etch systems require RF power supplies with pulse modulation capability, so the etching plasma has generation and neutralization phases, enabling stable etching in the process-specified direction. In some atomic layer deposition processes, to match the rapid pulse release of precursor gases, RF power supplies need sophisticated frequency modulation capabilities to quickly and stably reduce the RF reflection coefficient.

Addressing these technical requirements, Lizhao developed its 13.56MHz and 400KHz RF power supply series within a year of founding. Certain key performance parameters have reached international advanced levels: power adjustable to 0.1W precision, pulse frequency from 2Hz to 50KHz, duty cycle from 1%-99%, and proprietary MOFT frequency modulation (Model-Oriented Fast Tuning) enabling sub-millisecond high-speed impedance matching. These capabilities effectively satisfy diverse process requirements, making Lizhao the first domestic provider to offer solutions for advanced etch and atomic layer deposition processes.

In the remote plasma source (RPS) domain, the company is developing a product for 12-inch wafer strip, oxidation, and cleaning applications, with sampling and testing for key customers expected by year-end.

The Lizhao team stated that under current complex international circumstances, fundamentally resolving supply chain security for domestic semiconductor equipment is urgent. Lizhao Technology's vision is to leverage its solid industrial technical foundation to build a world-class Chinese RF plasma solutions company.

Monolith said that RF power supplies are core devices for plasma generation, and high-performance, high-power RF power supplies are essential equipment for domesticating advanced processes. Currently, RF power supplies are almost entirely import-dependent and urgently need to be localized. Lizhao Technology has a rare internationally leading R&D team in China, combined with deep upstream and downstream industry积累, which will greatly help in overcoming technical challenges and achieving successful commercialization. Monolith is optimistic about the localization prospects for RF power supplies and believes Lizhao can become a future industry benchmark.