wavelength range of 0.03 mm to 3 mm, lying between microwaves and infrared radiation. As the last underutilized segment in the electromagnetic spectrum, terahertz waves bridge the boundary between the micro and macro worlds. Originating from the depths of the electromagnetic spectrum, terahertz waves, with their characteristics of high frequency, non-contact operation, and no ionizing radiation hazards, have demonstrated enormous application potential in the field of industrial inspection. In recent years, China has also regarded the development of terahertz technology as a key driver for promoting industrial upgrading and enhancing international competitiveness. Documents such as the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Science and Technology Development and Opinions on Scientific and Technological Innovation Supporting High-Quality Development have repeatedly included terahertz technology development in the category of national key development technologies.

With the increased emphasis on terahertz technology development at the national level, many enterprises have also laid out plans in this field, among which Taijing Technology (Nanjing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Taijing Technology") has achieved particularly rapid development. Relying on its profound technical accumulation, strong R&D team, and keen market insight, Taijing Technology has, within 5 years since its establishment, gradually led China’s terahertz technology to the international forefront. It has realized independent innovation, R&D, and industrialization of high-performance terahertz chips and equipment that are leading domestically and even internationally, driving China’s industrial inspection field toward greater precision, efficiency, and intelligence.

Terahertz technology, as an emerging technical field, was proposed in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s. Numerous scientific research institutions and enterprises in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and other countries took the lead in carrying out R&D and application of terahertz technology, gaining profound technical accumulation and first-mover advantages in this field. Zhao Yan, the founder of Taijing Technology, obtained his doctorate from Southeast University and then pursued further studies overseas, focusing on research in the field of silicon-based terahertz integrated circuits. In 2020, the diverse manufacturing landscape in China greatly inspired Zhao Yan’s desire to return to his home country to start a business. Combining his technical accumulation in the terahertz field, Zhao Yan resolutely decided to return to China and established Taijing Technology (Nanjing) Co., Ltd. in Nanjing in 2020.

Nanjing boasts a solid industrial foundation, covering industries such as electronic information, new energy, and intelligent manufacturing, providing broad market space and practical demand for the application of terahertz technology in industrial inspection. In addition, Zhao Yan stated: "As a national high-tech development zone, Nanjing Jiangbei New Area provides a friendly business environment for start-ups, which is conducive to Taijing Technology’s growth. Moreover, Nanjing is rich in university resources, making talent recruitment relatively convenient with moderate labor costs, which helps the company recruit high-quality talent."

In the early days of Taijing Technology’s establishment, the application of terahertz technology in China mostly focused on a few fields such as human security inspection and communications. Although the industrial inspection market is large in scale and aligns with the national strategy of manufacturing upgrading, market demand is relatively fragmented, posing challenges for enterprises in product R&D, market promotion, and after-sales services. Faced with this situation, Taijing Technology rose to the challenge: it conducted in-depth analysis of market demand, devoted itself to product definition, and continuously launched standardized and modular sensor products based on self-developed silicon-based terahertz chips. It quickly explored application scenarios in multiple industrial inspection fields, and the path of independent R&D and industrialization began to show results.

As Taijing Technology continued to deepen its efforts in the field of silicon-based terahertz technology, it gradually made a name for itself in industrial inspection. However, due to the low market maturity of terahertz technology in industrial inspection, significant capital investment was still needed for technology R&D and market development. During a municipal roadshow event, Taijing Technology came to the attention of Nanjing Innovation Investment Group. It was this connection that enabled Taijing Technology to achieve accelerated development with the support of capital.

After more than a year of in-depth communication and project research, in June 2022, Nanjing Innovation Investment Group invested several million yuan in Taijing Technology through a municipal-level talent fund. Wang Shuli, General Manager of the First Investment Department of the Venture Capital Group, said: "Taijing Technology has realized the transmission and sensing of terahertz frequency signals through innovative technologies, making large-scale civil applications of terahertz technology possible. Its technology is highly difficult and scarce, offering high investment value for money."

"The injection of this fund has accelerated the sales of the company’s terahertz products in manufacturing production lines—which will be a milestone in the history of terahertz technology development," Zhao Yan explained.

In addition to strong financial support, Nanjing Innovation Investment Group also made full use of its industrial resources to promote exchanges and cooperation among portfolio companies. By linking its investment ecosystem, the Venture Capital Group introduced Nanjing Yingshixing (another portfolio company) to Taijing Technology, facilitating in-depth technical and business cooperation between the two parties. Currently, the two sides have launched project cooperation in the field of semiconductor equipment consumables inspection: Nanjing Yingshixing uses Taijing Technology’s high-precision terahertz displacement sensors to detect the diameter and thickness of pipelines in semiconductor equipment. This initiative is expected to successfully promote terahertz technology to the semiconductor equipment field. In the future, the two parties will further deepen cooperation in multiple dimensions such as terahertz electrical property detection and imaging analysis, jointly explore more diversified application scenarios, and work together to drive terahertz technology innovation and industrial upgrading.

As one of the "top ten strategic technologies for the future", terahertz technology is regarded as an important cornerstone of the next-generation information technology industry, with both domestic and foreign entities laying out plans in this field. However, for a long time, the application and development of terahertz technology in China have been relatively underdeveloped, with a lack of mature and comprehensive product systems. At the same time, bottlenecks such as low integration, low yield, and high costs of terahertz compound semiconductor processes have greatly restricted its promotion and application in civil and commercial fields.

Constrained by cost factors, the application scenarios of terahertz technology have long been limited to high-end fields such as aerospace and remote sensing. Taijing Technology, however, took a different approach and chose CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) technology as a solution to the problem of high costs. This technology has significantly reduced the production cost of terahertz products, making it possible for terahertz technology to penetrate into large-scale civil fields. Compared with traditional production technologies, CMOS not only greatly reduces the production cost of terahertz chips through its high integration and mature production lines but also performs better in terms of power consumption and heat dissipation. In addition, CMOS technology is highly compatible with silicon-based materials, making it easier for terahertz chips to integrate with other silicon-based circuits to form more compact and efficient inspection systems.

After addressing the major pain point of cost, enterprises still need to accurately grasp customer needs and provide high-quality services to gain a firm foothold in the market. Zhao Yan said: "Taijing Technology provides agile customer services. Team members often visit customers’ production lines to accurately identify customer needs, ensuring that product development goals are clear and aligned with customers’ actual application requirements. Furthermore, if problems arise in customers’ production lines, the company’s technical personnel will arrive on-site within 24 hours to help resolve them." This series of measures not only demonstrates Taijing Technology’s professional capabilities and market sensitivity but also earns it the trust and recognition of customer manufacturers, helping the company rapidly accumulate customer resources and expand its market scale.

Although Taijing Technology is one of the early enterprises in China to lay out R&D and production in the terahertz field, in such a highly technology-intensive industry, only by continuously deepening technological innovation can it maintain its advanced position. Taijing Technology has adopted a strategy of developing from single-channel to multi-channel products and using modular design, which has significantly accelerated the pace of product iteration and greatly improved the market adaptability and competitiveness of its products. At the same time, it has built a second technical moat through full-stack in-house development, continuously optimizing and upgrading the algorithms and architectures required for system integration to consolidate and expand its leading technical advantages.

After 5 years of continuous accumulation and development, Taijing Technology has achieved a series of milestone breakthroughs in the terahertz field. One of its chips, with an operating frequency close to 500 GHz, has set a new record for the operating frequency of similar products in the industry and can support high-precision, high-stability industrial inspection applications. In addition, Taijing Technology has built a product system centered on high-precision terahertz imaging analyzers, cost-effective terahertz modules, and real-time imaging systems. These products can be widely applied in multiple industrial fields such as photovoltaics, new energy vehicles, and power storage batteries. They not only fill the gap in China’s terahertz technology application in industrial inspection but also drive China’s industrial inspection technology to catch up with and surpass advanced foreign technologies.

Currently, terahertz technology is ushering in unprecedented development opportunities. With the global surge in demand for high-quality industrial inspection solutions and the rapid development of fields such as intelligent manufacturing and new energy, terahertz technology—with its unique non-contact, high-precision inspection capabilities—has become a key technology for promoting industrial upgrading and improving production efficiency in multiple fields, including industrial inspection, medical imaging, and communication transmission. For domestic terahertz enterprises, challenges such as long technical accumulation cycles, slow industrialization processes, and low market awareness also place higher demands on their innovation capabilities and market expansion capabilities.

As one of the leading enterprises in China’s terahertz technology field, Taijing Technology has successfully built a diversified product line covering high-performance silicon-based terahertz chips, high-precision imaging analyzers, and real-time imaging systems.

On this basis, Taijing Technology is accumulating momentum for the company’s sustainable development by optimizing business paths and empowering the construction of an industrial chain ecosystem. "At present, Taijing Technology has established a relatively mature business path: one path is to directly target segmented markets, where the company provides solutions directly to equipment manufacturers or end-users to quickly accumulate successful business cases and open up the market. The other path is to cooperate with large system integrators to jointly develop downstream application markets and accelerate business volume growth," Zhao Yan introduced. Taijing Technology has demonstrated a high degree of market sensitivity and strategic flexibility in responding to different customer types. Through in-depth integration and exploration of the industrial chain, Taijing Technology has successfully promoted the wide application and popularization of terahertz technology in various industries and fields, and gradually built an industrial ecosystem centered on terahertz technology.

Its diversified product system, unique business development path, and leading products and technologies have given Taijing Technology the confidence and courage to continuously explore the boundaries of its business. Taijing Technology is actively responding to national calls by orienting its product R&D toward industries prioritized by national development. It has made active layouts and plans in new energy, aerospace materials, semiconductor inspection, and other fields, aiming to provide mature terahertz product support for the development of these cutting-edge sectors. Regarding the industrial inspection field, where it already has in-depth technical accumulation, Zhao Yan said: "In the future, Taijing Technology is very likely to become a pioneer and leading enterprise in the application of AI in terahertz industrial inspection. The company will strengthen the application of AI in the industrial inspection process to improve the efficiency and accuracy of terahertz technology in industrial inspection."

Nanjing Innovation Investment Group, as a solid backing and partner of Taijing Technology, also expressed its expectations and prospects for Taijing Technology’s future development. Wang Shuli, General Manager of the First Investment Department, said: "We are deeply honored to grow together with Taijing Technology and witness its gradual recognition by the market. We look forward to Taijing Technology continuously expanding its technical boundaries and promoting the better application of silicon-based terahertz technology in civil fields. In the future, Nanjing Innovation Investment Group will continue to pay attention to Taijing Technology’s development, actively provide post-investment services, and build a resource-sharing and exchange platform to help Taijing Technology achieve sustained, healthy, and high-quality development."