CPU Chip Company Quillion Technology Ceases Operations
Quillion Technology, which has been in operation for more than half a year and was working on general-purpose computing and data center solutions, informed all staff on August 5 that the company would cease its operations, LatePost reported on August 10.
The Shenzhen-based Quillion Technology was founded at the end of 2021 and was in the process of developing high performance, energy-efficient CPU chips. Up to now, Quillion Technology completed two rounds of financing totaling about 600 million yuan ($89.04 million). Angel investors include the founders of many semiconductor enterprises such as Silergy Corp, Shixin Technology, Omin Vision and Bestechnic, while the company’s Round A investor was Lightspeed China Partners.
The core personnel of Quillion Technology are Lin Wei and Wang Qian. Lin Wei has 25 years of industry experience and has participated in the development of Intel’s Server CPU Itanium and Huawei’s HiSilicon smartphone CPU Kirin. A number of people close to the matter said that the company stopped operating because partners could not reach a consensus on control rights, resulting in poor financing.
According to LatePost, the letter for all employees of the company said that Quillion will pay their August salary in full, but starting September 5, it will only pay the salary according to the minimum wage standard in Shanghai, that is, 2,590 yuan per month.
The company currently has about 50 employees, most of whom earn from 50,000 yuan to 80,000 yuan a month. Some people close to the company believe that the current salary arrangement is to let employees leave voluntarily to avoid compensation for layoffs.
About a month ago, the company made the latest round registration change with the Industrial and Commercial Administration, and Lin Wei is no longer the legal representative of the company. But Lin never left the company. Last Friday, Lin appeared in Quillion’s Shanghai office and apologized to some employees in person, but did not disclose the company’s next plan.
Before June this year, the company was still vigorously recruiting and had issued nearly 40 new offers, hoping that candidates would join the company as soon as possible. However, since July, candidate on boarding had been suspended.
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A person close to the company commented that “Quillion has not announced its dissolution, but it is no different from dissolution”, and its measures of paying the minimum wage will have the effect of dismissing employees. However, the IP purchased by the company is still a valuable asset, and it is not excluded that the company will operate again after reorganization.