On the R & D and Innovation Problems Faced by China's Sensor Industry

Sensors have also gradually penetrated into various fields of national defense society and economy, and have gradually spread from traditional industrial and automotive electronic products, communications electronic products, consumer electronics special equipment and other fields to military engineering, aerospace technology, medical, environmental protection, meteorology and other electronic equipment fields. Its applications have penetrated into all walks of life in the national economy, and sensors used in new fields have already occupied about 15% of the market.

Because the sensor has the characteristics of more varieties and less batches, according to incomplete statistics, there are 12 categories, 42 categories, more than 6000 varieties, more than 20,000 specifications, many product specifications, and scattered applications, such as about an ordinary household car. Install dozens to nearly one hundred sensors.

Since 2015, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has made smart manufacturing engineering a breakthrough in "Made in China 2025's main direction of attack, involving standards, engineering, pilot demonstrations, etc .. Implementing smart manufacturing engineering, popularizing digital factories, and establishing pilot demonstrations It is impossible for the workshop to leave the application of the sensor, and the technical level and industrial application ability of the sensor itself in China are obviously insufficient, which leads to the promotion of intelligent manufacturing.

Sensors are an international oligopoly, and China relies heavily on imports. Global sensor resources are trending like oligopolistic aggregation. Large foreign companies dominate the sensor market. In recent years, international sensor giants represented by Honeywell, Siemens, ABB, etc. have merged and reorganized and internationally collaborated to seize the sensor height. Accelerating the expansion from the high-end market to the low-end market, the monopoly situation is increasingly apparent.

Turning our attention to China, at present, although there are many domestic sensor companies, most of them are small and micro enterprises, which have few core technologies and weak innovation capabilities. For example, domestic samples are generally analyzed and mapped by foreign samples (prototypes). At best, they are a little integrated and innovative. "Clone", the development of new principles and the development of new devices are rare.

In addition, the domestic sensor product series is incomplete, and high-end and high-precision products are imported in large quantities. The measurement accuracy, temperature characteristics, response time, stability, reliability and other indicators are far from abroad. At present, sensor imports account for 80%, and sensor chip imports account for 90%. Such as high-precision, high-stability low-micro differential pressure sensors (range≤1KPa), high differential pressure, high static pressure sensors (range ≧ 3MPa, static pressure ≧ 60MPa), domestic supply capacity is not yet available, basically rely on foreign imports.

As a technology-intensive industry, sensors require high-strength and continuous investment in R & D, engineering, and large-scale production. In this regard, some industry insiders said that the state can strengthen the top-level design, increase the investment of strong industrial special funds, implement chain breakthroughs around sensitive materials, optical glass, MEMS technology, inspection and testing, talent training, etc., and drive the development of sensors with the host machine. In order to gradually break through the constraints of sensors in the next five to ten years.