Picoheart, a Singapore-based affiliate of ByteDance, earlier this month invested an undisclosed amount to acquire a 9.5 per cent shareholding in state-backed InnoStar, which is headquartered in Shanghai, according to data from company registry information provider Qichacha.
That investment was made “in hopes of utilising the memory chips produced by InnoStar in Pico’s VR headsets”, a representative of Beijing-based ByteDance said on Thursday.
The deal has made ByteDance the third-largest shareholder of InnoStar, behind the 28.8 per cent stake of Hong Kong-incorporated Memris Asia Pacific and 26.3 per cent interest of Shanghai Alliance Investment, owned by the Shanghai municipal government, according to company records.
A sample of InnoStar Semiconductor’s resistive random access memory chip. Photo: InnoStar
Founded in 2019, InnoStar is a domestic leader in the development and production of resistive random access memory (ReRAM) chips, which provide lower power consumption and faster storage retention capability. The company was first in the country to produce ReRAM chips using 28-nanometre process technology.
ByteDance has also established an in-house semiconductor design team. A ByteDance representative said in 2021 that the company was exploring [business opportunities] in the artificial intelligence chip arena.
InnoStar Semiconductor’s headquarters in Shanghai. Photo: InnoStar
ByteDance’s self-developed chips, however, are not for sale, Yang Zhenyuan, the company’s tech lead on algorithms and data, said in 2022. Its chips are used in video compression and decompression, as well as cloud computing applications.
ByteDance, however, last year initiated a restructuring at Pico that was said to have resulted in hundreds of job cuts amid falling global demand for AR and VR headsets.
IDC said global AR and VR headset shipments declined 8.3 per cent year on year to 8.1 million units in 2023. It projected demand to recover this year, with growth of 46.4 per cent, thanks primarily to the introduction of new products like Apple’s Vision Pro.
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