Rewriting Success: Song Shiqiang’s Remarkable Pivot from Real Estate to Semiconductors

By Li Jian

Pushing open the door to Slkor's new headquarters, what first catches the eye isn’t chips, but a space infused with the elegance of Song Dynasty aesthetics.

Large floor-to-ceiling windows, minimalist yet refined materials, and precisely crafted lines create an atmosphere of “grace” and “serenity”—so much so that one might momentarily forget this is the headquarters of a semiconductor company in Shenzhen. Instead, it feels more like the showroom of a high-end real estate developer. Centered around the classic Song Dynasty masterpiece A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, the space incorporates architectural elements such as flying eaves, bracket sets, begonia motifs, and lattice patterns. Sitting at one end of a long table, Slkor founder Song Shiqiang said with a hint of pride, “We invested a great deal of money and effort into designing this office.”

To many, this might look like nothing more than a CEO obsessed with interior design. But in Song Shiqiang’s view, the office is the outward expression of a company’s character:

The lines, lighting, and materials remind the team to “pursue excellence”; the strict attention to detail mirrors the same rigor required in chip and connector design—parameters, yield rates, packaging quality. It’s about creating an environment that enables people to stay focused, build great products, and deliver outstanding service.

“Culture” is also a term that frequently appears in Slkor’s vocabulary—not merely in the sense of hanging paintings on the wall, but in shaping the team’s taste, judgment, discipline, and long-term mindset.

Half-jokingly, he added, “Many bosses in our integrated circuit industry are very wealthy, but not necessarily cultured. Without culture, you can’t build a great company or great products.”

 

This statement carries a blend of jest and sincerity: money isn’t the only metric—how it’s earned, how it’s spent, and the rhythm and manner in which a company’s “temperament” is built matter just as much.

This seemingly playful remark actually reflects the essence of his two major career leaps:

To build his semiconductor venture, he repeatedly invested the money earned from more than a decade in real estate into “houses on silicon wafers.” He sold properties in Shenzhen to fund tape-outs and maintain cash flow, and endured the long, capital-intensive development cycles of silicon carbide and power devices. First, he moved from being an architect who “built houses” to a real estate professional managing tens of billions in assets. Then he stepped out of real estate entirely and into semiconductors—diving into highly specialized, fiercely competitive fields such as ESD/TVS protection devices, power management ICs, connectors, and antennas.

Today, the brands he leads—Slkor and Kinghelm—have become widely recognized in the industry: Slkor focusing on power devices and third-generation semiconductors, and Kinghelm specializing in Beidou/GPS antennas, RF connectors, and related components. The “SLKOR” brand alone serves roughly fifteen thousand customers worldwide. Both companies are certified National High-Tech Enterprises with numerous patents and qualifications.

Beyond his external titles—Member of the Electronic Information Expert Database of the China Association for Science and Technology, Science Popularization Lecturer for the Chinese Institute of Electronics, Huaqiangbei Business Research Expert, and Tech Media Columnist—what resonates most with industry peers are his signature “hard-hitting quotes”:

“Before, I was building houses on land; now, I’m building houses on silicon wafers.”

“Real estate builds houses on land; semiconductors build houses on silicon wafers.”

“Semiconductors are the basic means of production in the information age; integrated circuits will be the future convergence point of societal resources.”

 

After Understanding the Industry Cycle, He Sold His House to Make Chips

 

Unlike many semiconductor founders who come from traditional engineering backgrounds, the first half of Song Shiqiang’s life had almost nothing to do with chips.

He began in architecture, starting as a frontline technician and spending years in design institutes and on construction sites: drafting blueprints, supervising engineering quality, estimating costs, visiting sites, and turning architectural drawings into real buildings. Later, he joined a major Hong Kong–funded real estate group. As the company expanded, he moved from engineering management into senior leadership, overseeing nearly a hundred design engineers and participating in project design, bidding, material selection, and full-process management. At its peak, the company’s market value in Hong Kong neared HKD 200 billion and had more than ten thousand employees.

This experience gave him a sharp instinct for “heavy-asset, long-cycle industries”—including understanding the risks at the top of a cycle and the discipline required for long-term thinking.

He witnessed the golden age of real estate firsthand. But as an insider, he also felt the industry’s “cycle pressure”: land dividends, leverage games, regulatory shifts, price wars—wave after wave. So when the sector entered a period of high volatility, he began to seriously consider one question: Which track should his next chapter follow?

When choosing a direction for his second entrepreneurial journey, Song Shiqiang spent extensive time doing his homework.

He strongly resonated with Warren Buffett’s idea of a “long slope, thick snow”:
A “long slope” means an industry with vast room for development and a long enough cycle—something that won’t fade after a brief trend.
“Thick snow” means an industry with solid profit potential—one that hasn’t yet entered the brutal stage of cut-throat pricing.

 

He consulted vast amounts of domestic and international research, built detailed mind maps and data models, and eventually locked onto a few key facts:

Around 2015, China’s chip import value had already surpassed that of crude oil—clear proof of massive semiconductor demand; a large gap still existed between China and developed countries across critical parts of the semiconductor supply chain, signaling enormous development potential and policy support; among all IC segments, power devices had moderate technical barriers, huge market volume, and strong localization momentum. Even better: production requirements could be met with lithography equipment at 40nm and above—“technically feasible, with industrial room to grow.”

“My conclusion at the time,” he said, “was that the technology gap in power devices between China and international players wasn’t too big. Fabs and packaging/testing plants didn’t require ultra-high-end equipment—sub-40nm lithography nodes were more than enough. The market capacity in China alone was close to one trillion yuan. Localization in power devices was already progressing well, and introducing or adapting foreign advanced technologies was relatively straightforward. This matched the technology path I wanted for Slkor: ‘independent and controllable.’”

On the basis of this reasoning, he made the bold decision he often mentions today:
“I gritted my teeth, stomped my foot, and decided to sell my house to invest in semiconductor power devices.”

 

The Birth of "Kinghelm + Slkor": From Trader to Chip Manufacturer

 

Around 2012–2014, Song Shiqiang began appearing frequently in Huaqiangbei—talking with component traders, shanzhai phone makers, design houses, and early-stage entrepreneurs. It was a moment of transition: Huaqiangbei was slowly exiting the feature phone era, while Xiaomi and Redmi were rising online, shaking the traditional “front shop, back factory” model with a new wave of internet-driven smartphones.

Before officially entering the semiconductor field, Song Shiqiang took what he jokingly calls a “Huaqiangbei social university” course.

As he describes it, he started at the very downstream end of the ecosystem—the materials sourcing business:
“Customers would hand us a complete BOM with dozens or even hundreds of components, and we helped them procure everything. That was ‘parts sourcing.’”

Around 2010, he and a friend co-founded a chip trading company in Huaqiangbei, supplying BOM sourcing services to various device manufacturers.

“Trading made money,” he said. “Back then, with just a dozen people, it wasn’t hard for a salesperson to earn four to five hundred thousand yuan a year. But I always felt it wasn’t sustainable.”

The reason, in his view, was straightforward. The traditional trading model had several inherent weaknesses:

No Technical Barriers: Just buying on one end and selling on the other.
No Platform Barriers: Customers could switch to another trader at any moment.
No Pricing Power: Profit came from thin margins, making it impossible to control pricing.

Even more importantly, a portion of industry profits came from “relationship-based sourcing,” which fundamentally clashed with the disciplined engineering-management mindset he had brought from real estate.

During these years, Song Shiqiang and his team made a formal strategic decision:
Transition from a chip trader to a true manufacturer—build their own products.

“We set today’s direction around 2015–2016,” he recalled, “and that’s when we truly began as a manufacturer.”

 

Even more striking was that this transformation didn’t center on just one product line—but on two teams, two companies, and two entirely different engineering knowledge systems, all advancing in parallel: one focusing on analog and protection chips—Slkor; the other specializing in antennas and connectors—Kinghelm.

“At that time, Slkor and Kinghelm were developing side by side with two independent teams,” Song Shiqiang recalled. “It was extremely challenging.”

Beginning in 2014, Song Shiqiang restructured Shenzhen Kinghelm Electronics Co., Ltd., the first “building” he erected in the semiconductor world. Kinghelm’s core technical team included experts from Tsinghua University, the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, and several overseas returnees—collectively focusing on RF/microwave signal transmission, wireless communication modules, and the R&D and manufacturing of Kinghelm-brand Beidou/GPS antennas, connectors, and specialized navigation/positioning antennas.

The name “Kinghelm” itself embodies the company’s cultural identity: it means “navigation mark”, symbolizing direction and guidance, while also echoing the classical Chinese ideal of “inner sage, outer king—accumulating virtue to carry success.” This philosophy serves as Song Shiqiang’s ethical and cultural benchmark for the company.

Building upon the Huaqiangbei components trading experience, Kinghelm rapidly expanded into three structured product lines:

● Beidou/GPS antennas, RF components, micro adapters
● Broadband data connectors, terminals, socket series, and automotive wiring harnesses
● Industrial connectors and customized special-purpose antenna assemblies

This dual-track expansion—two companies, two teams, two deep-tech paths—was bold, demanding, and uncommon in the semiconductor industry, yet it laid the foundation for the Kinghelm/Slkor ecosystem that exists today.

 

Kinghelm quickly achieved major milestones: it secured multiple invention patents and software copyrights in the Beidou navigation field, obtained ISO9001 certification, earned recognition as a National High-Tech Enterprise, and joined key industry organizations including the China Satellite Navigation Association, China Information Industry Chamber of Commerce, and Guangdong Connector Association.

This marked Song Shiqiang’s first step in industrializing the semiconductor supply chain—transforming from Huaqiangbei trade counters to independent R&D and formal production, laying the foundation for a structured supply chain ecosystem.

Not content with Kinghelm’s rapid growth, Song Shiqiang expanded further into semiconductors. By chance, he connected with a power device team from Yonsei University in South Korea developing third-generation SiC MOSFETs. While the team had internationally leading technology, their local market was limited and highly competitive. Meanwhile, China offered a vast emerging market with growing demand for SiC power devices.

Leveraging guidance from Tsinghua University microelectronics experts and experienced domestic power device engineers, Song facilitated collaboration that led to the founding of Shenzhen Slkor Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Under the SLKOR brand, the company promoted and sold the Yonsei team’s SiC MOSFETs and SiC SBDs, targeting applications in new energy vehicle motor drives and high-end photovoltaic inverters.

The name “SLKOR” itself reflects this early international partnership:

• S from Song Shiqiang’s English name, Smith Song

• L from the Korean co-founder, Lion Lee

• KOR for Korea

• Micro symbolizes “making a living in microelectronics.”

“For the first five or six years, tens of millions were invested without immediate returns,” Song Shiqiang recalled. Initially, Slkor’s SiC portfolio included only eight models: 4 MOSFETs and 4 diodes. With high technical requirements, limited market volume, and lengthy certification cycles, the early stage was exceptionally challenging—but it laid the groundwork for the company’s long-term success.

 

“SiC products come with high technical requirements, long development cycles, and limited customer bases, often yielding minimal profit.” To sustain the company, Song Shiqiang sold several of his Shenzhen properties, earning the nickname “the property-selling entrepreneur on silicon wafers.”

After years of perseverance and accumulation, Slkor’s product line has grown from the initial eight SiC models into a comprehensive matrix of power and signal devices:

Industrial and Automotive-Grade Products:

• Silicon Carbide (SiC) diodes and MOSFETs

• High-power IGBTs

• Applications: new energy vehicle electric drives, power equipment, solar photovoltaics, UPS, telecom systems, medical equipment, and more

Consumer and General-Purpose Products:

• High/medium/low voltage MOSFETs, super-junction MOSFETs (CoolMOS)

• Thyristors, bridge rectifiers, Schottky diodes, general-purpose diodes/transistors

• Hall sensors, high-speed optocouplers, electrostatic discharge (ESD) diodes, transient voltage suppression (TVS) diodes

• Power management ICs

• Applications: smartphones, laptops, smart robots, smart home appliances, LED lighting, 3C digital products, and beyond

Meanwhile, Kinghelm deepened its focus on Beidou/GPS antennas, RF components, broadband connectors, and industrial special connectors, forming a synergistic yet independent business line.

Song Shiqiang emphasizes this synergy: “Our Kinghelm and Slkor grow together, fight the market together, and share good experiences and customers.”

On the brand front, SLKOR has become a recognized name in the semiconductor industry:

• Its official website ranks first-page keywords like high/medium/low voltage MOSFETs, thyristors, bridge rectifiers, Hall sensors, high-speed optocouplers, Schottky diodes, ESD, and TVS

• Overseas, Google and Bing index hundreds of thousands of entries

• Offline, Slkor operates two flagship stores in Huaqiangbei, directly serving surrounding traders and design houses, reinforcing its market presence.

 

Slkor's Best-Selling Product Models

 

Review After Burning Tens of Millions: Slkor’s “Dimensionality Reduction Strike” from the SiC Track

For Slkor, the silicon carbide (SiC) journey was far from smooth. Every new product—from design and tape-out to mass production—was a high-cost, high-uncertainty gamble:

"Every time a new product is designed or a process iteration is made, we must constantly communicate with fab engineers, thoroughly understanding the parameters while considering the production line equipment's capabilities before daring to tape out. Each round takes about a year and costs at least three to four million yuan."

Slkor’s first 1200V SiC field-effect transistor required four full tape-outs before achieving successful mass production.

According to cost estimates from the cooperating Korean fab at that time, one tape-out cost around 4 million RMB—meaning that just this product alone consumed tens of millions in tape-out investment, excluding packaging, testing, certification, and promotion costs.

Even after a successful tape-out meeting performance specifications, profitability was not guaranteed:

• SiC is a high-end niche market with high unit prices but small total volume.

• Customer qualification cycles are long, and small-batch verification does not ensure large orders.

• Initial production scale was too small and costs too high, making price competitiveness difficult, with many batches eventually cleared at discounted prices.

Song Shiqiang later reflected: "Technical teams often don't know how complex business is; business people don't understand the boundaries of technology." He prefers to call the money spent “tuition fees” rather than losses.

Looking back, his conclusion is blunt: "It wasn’t that Slkor’s technology wasn’t good enough; it was that the track was too narrow and the pace too fast. If we had put all our resources into this track from the start, we could have easily been dragged down."

Around 2017, Slkor made a crucial strategic pivot: while maintaining the SiC “high ground,” the company applied its power device expertise to larger-volume mainstream markets—developing high/medium/low voltage MOSFETs, launching IGBTs for inverters and clean energy, deploying thyristors, bridge rectifiers, Hall elements, and expanding into series like TVS/ESD diodes, Schottky diodes, high-speed optocouplers, and power management ICs.

Using his own analogy, it was a “dimensionality reduction strike on the market”—leveraging technical expertise and supply chain systems honed during the SiC phase to capture the larger, faster-moving general power device market. This allowed the Slkor brand to survive, stabilize, and gain a foothold, validating the strategic adjustment.

The Test of the Shortage Crisis: Passing with a "Long Slope, Thick Snow" Mindset

 

Navigating the 2020 Chip Crunch: Slkor’s Strategic Supply Chain Moves

In the second half of 2020, the pandemic, combined with soaring demand from consumer electronics and communications, triggered a rare global chip shortage.

• Remote work and online education surged demand for computers, tablets, and printers.

• US sanctions on Huawei constrained wafer capacity for other customers.

• Widespread adoption of fingerprint recognition chips in smartphones and smart locks further strained supply.

Upstream fabs faced tight capacity, midstream agents and Huaqiangbei merchants began hoarding at scale, and downstream terminal manufacturers engaged in panic buying, pushing prices upward.

"At that time, Slkor was still a new brand with modest sales, but because we usually paid attention to supply chain security and maintained a certain safety stock, we actually expanded our market share," Song Shiqiang recalled.

Crucially, during this period of massive price hikes, Slkor did not succumb to indiscriminate profiteering:

• Internally, they accelerated efficiency and compressed costs to manage risks within their scale.

• Externally, they shared benefits with customers, helping downstream partners resume production and maintaining supply chain balance.

"Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself. Upstream capacity is tight, costs are rising, we will increase prices where necessary, but we won’t raise prices indiscriminately, and certainly not seize the opportunity for a quick, drastic profit grab," Song emphasized.

In the following years, as import substitution gained momentum, Slkor shifted supply chain nodes from overseas to domestic partners:

• Wafer tape-outs moved from Korea to local fabs.

• Capable packaging and testing companies in regions like Taizhou were selected.

This strategy strengthened domestic supply chains, reduced dependency on foreign sources, and kept operational risks under control, positioning Slkor for long-term growth.

 

"Captain's Mindset": Management is Harder, and More Important, than Technology

 

Song Shiqiang on Business Management: Steering the “Slkor Warship”

When discussing business management, Song Shiqiang often uses a vivid analogy: a “warship.”

"As the captain of the Slkor warship, my first constraint is time. Both Kinghelm and Slkor are my personal investments and management. Their technologies, products, markets, and customer groups differ, so I have organized two sets of knowledge engineering systems, brand engineering systems, management organization systems, supply chain systems, and warehouse systems. For a company to develop faster and better, the captain’s role is crucial," he explains.

For Song, semiconductors are a heavy-asset, high-investment, long-return-cycle industry—technology matters, but the real differentiator often lies in management, organization, and culture.

To ensure long-term growth, he simultaneously built several foundational “bases” within Slkor:

• SLKOR brand support system

• R&D and production system

• Supply chain system

• Talent training system

For every key position, he emphasizes hiring top-tier industry talent, providing them with the autonomy to excel.

"Company development is inseparable from talent; talent is the ceiling of a company’s growth," he states.

His long-term vision is equally deliberate:

• “Accumulating strength for a great leap” defines Slkor’s characteristic approach.

• “Sitting on a cold bench for ten years” reflects the mental preparation for achieving greatness.

• Technology layout and product development plans are mapped on a five-to-ten-year horizon.

At the institutional and cultural level, he insists on comprehensive, strict rules and regulations, enforced rigorously, alongside a positive corporate culture, a warm and responsible corporate ethic, and attention to protecting the industry ecosystem.

In Song Shiqiang’s view, making money matters, but in a “long slope, thick snow” industry, only companies with both systems and warmth, both capability and responsibility, have the potential to endure and thrive over the long term.

 

Content Creator: From Documenting Huaqiangbei to Serving Global Engineers

Unlike many semiconductor entrepreneurs, Song Shiqiang combines his business acumen with a passion for content creation, making him a thought leader in the industry.

During his Huaqiangbei trading days, while managing business operations, he observed industry trends and began writing, documenting the past and present of the electronics hub:

• The evolution of Huaqiangbei from Wanjia Department Store, Women’s World, Men’s World into a bustling electronics street.

• How the “front shop, back factory” model scaled into massive shipments of products like TWS Bluetooth earphones.

• The shift from feature phones to smartphones, and the crushing of shanzhai brands by Xiaomi and Redmi.

"I’ve been collecting materials and writing about Huaqiangbei’s history for the past two years," he shares with pride.

While many were focused on counter negotiations, Song was studying long-term industry trends behind the scenes.

This dedication earned him the label of “both a merchant and a scholar”:

• Member of the Electronic Information Expert Database of the Chinese Institute of Electronics / China Association for Science and Technology.

• Recognized as a Huaqiangbei business research expert, systematically analyzing the area’s industrial evolution.

• Columnist for platforms like Sohu Tech, writing industry insights and popular science articles, with works reposted by the People’s Daily app.

Within his companies, Song turns this content capability into brand strength:

• SLKOR and Kinghelm websites serve as both product manuals and technical libraries.

• Technical articles, application cases, and solutions are continuously shared through internet promotion and e-commerce platforms, forming a “content + product + channel” strategy.

• Today, Kinghelm and Slkor websites receive over 200,000 daily visits, becoming hubs for learning, knowledge sharing, and peer exchange in the electronics and semiconductor community.

 

In Song Shiqiang’s perspective, this is an area where many domestic semiconductor manufacturers lag behind global leaders: international semiconductor companies provide highly professional, systematic product manuals, application notes, and engineering case studies, while many domestic firms treat their official websites as mere “electronic business cards,” offering little truly engineer-focused content.

He envisions Slkor and Kinghelm not only as device manufacturers but also as content creators and community builders—helping engineers solve real problems while strengthening brand influence. He emphasizes that success isn’t measured by follower counts or short-term traffic, but by practical value:

"Content must be useful to engineers; products must be valuable to customers. Do these two things well, and traffic will naturally come."

Kinghelm (www.kinghelm.net) and Slkor (www.slkoric.com) are actively expanding into international markets, collaborating with global platforms like DigiKey and CORESTAFF, fulfilling over a thousand orders per month. Company and product information consistently ranks highly on Google and Bing, and the Slkor “SLKOR” brand has already earned global recognition, reputation, and influence.

 

Slkor Semiconductor Application Engineers Debugging Samples

 

No Short-term Winds, Only Long-distance Running: Building a Patient Semiconductor Company

From CEO of a Hong Kong-funded real estate company to a semiconductor leader “building houses” on silicon wafers; from a Huaqiangbei parts sourcer to the dual-brand founder of power devices and Beidou antennas; from the early SiC exploration where “tens of millions poured in without a ripple” to today’s high-growth business landscape—Song Shiqiang has navigated an extraordinary career transformation over the past decade.

Summed up in one sentence, his entrepreneurial journey is: emerging from the real estate cycle, applying engineering and management logic, and building a patient, resilient company in the semiconductor industry.

His story is not about “overnight riches”: he hasn’t chased short-term trends for explosive growth, flooded headlines with financing news, or shouted hype from the stage.

Song Shiqiang often emphasizes that semiconductors are the basic means of production in the information age, and integrated circuits will be the convergence point of resources in the future information society.

For someone who has witnessed skyscrapers rise from the ground, building “houses” again on silicon wafers is both fate’s second round and a personal testament to long-termism in China’s semiconductor industry.

His vision for Slkor is clear and enduring: “Aspiring to become a leading domestic semiconductor company.”

This is not a short-term slogan to achieve today, but a cause to pursue over ten, twenty, thirty years—developing the company into a voice of influence and leadership in the electronics and semiconductor sector. For this “serial property-selling entrepreneur,” perhaps that horizon is just long enough.

 

 

 

With the steady growth and rising influence of Slkor Semiconductor and Kinghelm Electronics in the domestic market, the company is entering an exciting new phase of rapid expansion. To accelerate our global business footprint and drive brand internationalization, we are actively seeking two Overseas Sales Managers to join us in exploring wider global opportunities.

Slkor Semiconductor boasts a diverse and high-performance product portfolio: from analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and V/F & F/V converter chips to high-end solutions like silicon carbide (SiC) diodes, SiC MOSFETs, IGBTs, and fifth-generation ultra-fast recovery power diodes, serving industries such as new energy vehicles, high-end equipment, communications, power, solar photovoltaics, medical devices, and industrial IoT.

Our general-purpose products include Schottky diodes, ESD protection diodes, TVS diodes, and other standard diodes and transistors. Power devices cover high/medium/low voltage MOSFETs, thyristors, and bridge rectifiers. Power management ICs include LDOs, AC-DC, and DC-DC chips. We also offer sensors, high-speed optocouplers, and crystals/oscillators, widely used in smartphones, laptops, robots, smart homes, IoT devices, LED lighting, 3C digital products, smart wearables, and the Internet of Everything.

Slkor’s sister company, Kinghelm, serves over 10,000 customers worldwide. Its products include Beidou/GPS dual-mode antennas, Bluetooth, WiFi, Zigbee, NB-IoT, LoRa, UWB antennas, and supporting RF jumper cables. Kinghelm’s product lines have expanded to include board-to-wire connectors, board-end sockets/terminals, signal switch series, and three major series: automotive/motorcycle wiring harnesses, industrial/medical/research special cables, and custom non-standard products.

Together, Slkor and Kinghelm provide complete, end-to-end solutions for electronic product companies, empowering customers to succeed across diverse applications and markets.