bioinnovel Chapter 150 Shocking the Industry
Chapter 150 Shocking the Industry
Five days after the conclusion of the Flying Bird Technology Summit.
2020 11 Month 2 Day.
If the shock of the summit day was like a pebble thrown into a lake, then the next five days were like ripples spreading into a tsunami.
First, there was a collective surge of media coverage in the drone industry.
Hongyuan Feiniao unveils its "Lightweight Armor": a 0.25mm carbon fiber nanocomposite plate, revolutionizing the understanding of materials science!
This is the headline on YuChen.com. As the largest drone industry portal in China, they dedicated three full pages to reporting on this summit.
From S1 to Light Armor: Five Cards from a Shenzhen Startup – Why Are They Making DJI Nervous?
This is the headline of 36Kr's in-depth report. The article provides a detailed analysis of Hongyuan Feiniao's "five-card" strategic loop and, for the first time, includes Hongyuan Feiniao in its list of "potential threats to DJI."
"Bionic Spider Silk + Interlayer Prestress: The Materials Science Revolution Behind Lightweight Armor"
This is a technical analysis article from TMTpost. They conducted in-depth interviews with three materials science professors, who unanimously agreed that if the technical parameters of the lightweight armor are accurate, then Hongyuan Feiniao is already at the forefront of the world in the field of carbon fiber composite materials.
"Shocking! A drone company has created the world's strongest carbon fiber sheet?"
This is a headline from Huxiu, typical of their style. The article's core argument is that the value of lightweight armor extends far beyond drone fuselages; its applications cover trillion-dollar markets including phone cases, automotive lightweighting, spacecraft shells, and building protection materials.
Su Chen: I only wanted to build a DRIE, but I ended up building light armor first.
This is the title of a tech media outlet. Although it's a bit clickbait, it accurately captures the strategic connection between light armor and DRIE.
In addition to technology media, CCTV's technology channel also aired a special report on the third day after the summit:
"Shenzhen entrepreneur Su Chen and his team have successfully developed 'Light Armor,' a graphene-reinforced carbon fiber nanocomposite material. Its strength is more than three times that of aerospace-grade carbon fiber, while its thickness is only 0.25 millimeters. The successful mass production of this material marks a major breakthrough for my country in the field of advanced composite materials and is expected to break the foreign technological monopoly in high-end carbon fiber materials..."
Although CCTV's report was only three minutes long, it was extremely important.
This is because it means that the authorities have taken notice of Hongyuan Feibiao, and that the technological value of the light armor has been recognized at the national level.
Even the Global Times published a commentary: "How can a 26-year-old make the entire carbon fiber industry tremble?"
In a short time, the keywords "light armor", "bionic spider silk", and "Hongyuan flying bird" surged into the top ten of Weibo's trending topics. There were more than 200 Q&A posts on Zhihu about "the technical principles of light armor", and a large number of popular science videos appeared on Bilibili, with the most viewed video reaching 800 million views.
But what truly surprised Su Chen was not the media's reaction, but the reaction from industry clients.
Within five days of the summit's conclusion, Hongyuan Feiniao's business email received over 300 inquiry emails.
Some of them came from China—
A research institute under AVIC inquired whether light armor could be used as a stealth shell for military drones.
BYD's New Energy Vehicle Division inquired whether Light Armor could be used as a lightweighting solution for electric vehicle bodies.
Huawei's Consumer Business Group inquired whether lightweight armor could be used as a back panel material for high-end mobile phones.
There's even a company that makes high-end mountaineering equipment that wants to use lightweight armor to make trekking poles and ice axes.
There are also some from abroad—
Toray Industries, Inc. of Japan—the world’s largest manufacturer of carbon fiber—sent a carefully worded email expressing “great interest in your company’s carbon fiber nanocomposite technology and hopes to explore the possibility of technical cooperation.”
Hexcel, the world’s second-largest manufacturer of carbon fiber prepregs, also sent a similar email.
Even a vice president of Boeing's supply chain management department contacted Hongyuan Feiniao's overseas business manager via LinkedIn to inquire about the application prospects of light armor in the aviation field.
What made Su Chen even more amused and exasperated was that some customers were extremely eager to get their products. They even offered, "We can provide the carbon fiber prepreg raw materials ourselves, as long as Hongyuan Feiniao can use a weaving machine to perform the 'light armor' processing for us!"
This made Su Chen suddenly realize a problem.
Hongyuan Flying Bird... quietly transformed into a "carbon fiber processing plant"?
A materials processing plant that specializes in handling the intermediate stages?
That won't do.
Su Chen leaned back in his office chair, frowning as he thought for a long time.
The core competitiveness of Light Armor lies in the "layer-by-layer vapor deposition + pulse hot pressing" process of the weaving machine, rather than the carbon fiber prepreg itself. Therefore, it is technically entirely feasible for customers to bring their own raw materials for processing.
Moreover, to be honest, the profit margin for processing supplied materials is extremely high—because Hongyuan Feiniao does not need to bear the cost of raw materials, but only needs to charge a processing fee. According to the current market conditions, the processing fee for one cubic meter of "light armor" can be more than 500 yuan, while the processing cost of the weaving machine (electricity + gas + labor + equipment depreciation) is only about 60 yuan.
In other words, the gross profit margin for processing supplied materials is as high as 88%.
It is higher than the 85% of self-produced and self-sold products.
But Su Chen knew that this path wouldn't last long.
Because if Hongyuan Feiniao relies on the processing of supplied materials in the long term, it will gradually lose control over upstream raw materials. Once carbon fiber giants like Toray or Hexcel understand the technical principles of lightweight armor (although even if they understand it, they may not be able to manufacture it), they can completely cut off the supply of carbon fiber prepreg, trapping Hongyuan Feiniao in the raw material stage.
This is similar to the situation where some companies were held hostage by chip shortages back then.
So Su Chen made a decision—he could accept processing of supplied materials, but only as a short-term transition.
In the long run, Hongyuan Feiniao must establish its own carbon fiber prepreg production line.
Fortunately, the acquisition of Pengcheng New Materials has been completed. Although the hot pressing equipment in that small factory was second-hand, it could be modified to produce carbon fiber prepreg specifically for light armor.
Su Chen immediately dialed the phone number of the process engineer in charge of the Pengcheng New Materials renovation:
"The renovation plan needs to be accelerated; I'll add another 200 million to the budget. We must achieve self-production capacity for carbon fiber prepreg within one month."
After hanging up the phone, Su Chen opened his business email and began replying to the more than 300 inquiry emails one by one.
But he did not accept it all.
He follows a simple principle for screening: priority is given to those who can bring cash flow to Hongyuan Feiniao in the short term, followed by those who can cooperate in the long term and do not conflict with the core business, and all those that may leak technical secrets are rejected.
Invitation for "technical cooperation" between Toray and Hexcel?
Politely reply, "Thank you for your interest, but there are no plans for cooperation at the moment."
A private message from Boeing's Vice President of Supply Chain?
Forward this to Lin Wei, asking her to arrange a preliminary video conference to understand the other party's needs, without involving any technical details.
Inquiries from AVIC and Huawei?
Su Chen personally replied, expressing his willingness to provide samples for testing and arranging a meeting for next week.
What are BYD's solutions for lightweight vehicle bodies?
They accepted the offer, but were placed behind AVIC and Huawei in the queue.
As for the company that makes hiking poles... Su Chen smiled and shook his head, but still politely replied that their current production capacity was limited and they were temporarily unable to accept orders from the consumer goods sector.
After finishing dealing with the emails, Su Chen leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and thought for a while.
The Qingjia project is now basically on track. The daily operations can now be handled by Lin Wei and Zhang Haotian.
Lin Wei is responsible for business development and customer management.
Zhang Haotian is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the web weaving machine and process optimization.
Su Chen himself must focus his main energy back on DRIE.
Because he never forgot his original aspiration—the pioneering project. To achieve self-sufficiency in MEMS sensors and break through foreign blockades.
Light armor is the ammunition depot, G1 is the city wall, but DRIE is the heart.
Without DRIE, everything is just a castle in the air.
Thinking of this, Su Chen opened his eyes, picked up his phone, and sent a message to Chen Guodong at the Suzhou laboratory:
"Guodong, I'm going to Suzhou the day after tomorrow. We'll discuss the details of the cavity amplification scheme in person. Has Shen Zhiming finished compiling the plasma parameter data?"
Chen Guodong's reply came almost instantly:
"It's all sorted out! Engineer Shen said he also found some interesting data anomalies that might be helpful for cavity amplification. We'll discuss it in detail when you arrive."
"good."
After sending the message, Su Chen placed his phone on the table and looked out into the distance through the floor-to-ceiling window.
The skyline of Nanshan District in Shenzhen shimmers with the lights of countless homes against the night sky. In the distance, the iconic DJI Sky City building stands out prominently against the night backdrop.
Su Chen looked in that direction, his eyes calm and resolute.
He knew that the shockwaves from the summit were now spreading toward that building.
He also knew that DJI would definitely make some moves next.
But he wasn't afraid.
Because he has five cards in his hand, and his opponent doesn't know how strong those five cards really are.
……
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away.
At the closing ceremony of SAMPE North America 2020, the world's largest exhibition of carbon fiber composite materials, in San Jose, California, a topic unexpectedly stole the show.
"Have you heard? A Chinese drone company has released a carbon fiber nanocomposite plate, only 0.25 millimeters thick, which is said to be indestructible even with a hammer."
"I watched the video, it's insane. If the data is real, it's the biggest breakthrough in the carbon fiber field in nearly two decades."
"People from Toray have already contacted them, but they were reportedly rejected."
"What about Hexcel?"
"They rejected me too. It seems this company doesn't want technical collaboration; they just want to do it themselves."
"That would be troublesome. If they really could mass-produce it..."
The speaker did not continue speaking.
But everyone present understood what he hadn't finished saying—if Hongyuan Feiniao could really mass-produce lightweight armor, the global carbon fiber composite materials industry would undergo a fundamental change.
The global carbon fiber market is currently dominated by three giants: Toray Industries of Japan, Hexcel of the United States, and Mitsubishi of Japan.
But no one can achieve the level of light armor.
It's not that I don't want to do it, it's that I can't.
Interlayer prestressing locking, layer-by-layer vapor deposition, and pulsed hot pressing—each of these three core processes requires extensive original research and development. More importantly, these three processes require a specialized piece of equipment called a "web weaving machine," which is itself a self-developed device by Hongyuan Feiniao.
In other words, even if you understand the principle, you still can't build a web weaving machine.
Without a net-weaving machine, you can't make light armor.
This is remarkably similar to the predicament faced by lithography machines back then—not because they didn't understand the principles, but because they couldn't manufacture the equipment.
Therefore, the carbon fiber industry professionals at the SAMPE exhibition had extremely mixed feelings.
On the one hand, they were shocked by the technological level of the light armor, and on the other hand, they felt a vague sense of fear—because if Hongyuan Feiniao really mass-produced the light armor and entered mainstream markets such as aviation, automobiles, and consumer electronics, the market share of traditional carbon fiber composite materials would be greatly eroded.
After all, for the same level of protection, lightweight armor only requires one-third the thickness and weight of traditional carbon fiber plates.
What does this mean?
This means that products using lightweight armor will be lighter, thinner, and stronger than products using traditional carbon fiber.
In almost all application scenarios, light armor is overwhelmingly superior.
"Damn it."
A senior engineer at Hexcel muttered a curse under his breath.
He knew very well that if Hexcel's management hadn't rejected the technical exchange program with Chinese carbon fiber companies in 2019, Hexcel might have been able to learn about China's progress in the directional production of carbon nanotubes much earlier.
But it's too late to say anything now.