1999年,在国家工业和信息化部（原信息产业部）的直接领导下，在发改委、财政部、科技部、商务部、北京市人民政府和中关村管委会等有关部门的大力支持下，由多位来自硅谷的博士企业家在北京中关村科技园区创建了VIMICRO中星微电子有限公司，启动并承担了国家战略项目——“星光中国芯工程”,致力于数字多媒体芯片的开发、设计和产业化。

近二十年来，“星光”数字多媒体芯片产品已被成功推向全球市场，广泛应用于个人电脑、宽带、移动通讯和信息家电等高速成长的多媒体应用领域, 产品销售已经覆盖了欧、美、日、韩等16个国家和地区，客户囊括了索尼 、三星、惠普、飞利浦、富士通、罗技、华为、联想等大批国内外知名企业, 占领了全球计算机图像输入芯片60%以上的市场份额,使我国集成电路芯片第一次在一个重要应用领域达到全球领先地位,彻底结束了“中国无芯”的历史。2005年，VIMICRO中星微电子在美国纳斯达克证券市场成功上市，成为第一家在纳斯达克上市的具有自主知识产权的中国芯片设计企业。此外, VIMICRO中星微电子还是中国“数字多媒体芯片技术国家重点实验室”的依托单位，并承担了国家发改委、信息产业部、科技部、商务部等多项重大项目。针对国家智能视频安全网和物联网产业发展需求，VIMICRO中星微电子组织制定了安全防范视频安全数字音视频编解码（SVAC）国家标准，为维护国家安全和安全生产做出了贡献，走出了一条具有中国特色的高科技发展之路。

2016年初，VIMICRO中星微推出了全球首款集成了神经网络处理器（NPU）的SVAC视频编解码SoC，使得智能分析结果可以与视频数据同时编码，形成结构化的视频码流。该技术被广泛应用于视频安全摄像头，开启了视频安全智能化的新时代。自主设计的嵌入式神经网络处理器（NPU）采用了“数据驱动并行计算”架构，专门针对深度学习算法进行了优化，具备高性能、低功耗、高集成度、小尺寸等特点，特别适合物联网前端智能的需求。

VIMICRO中星微电子坚持自主创新，先后突破十五大核心技术，申请了4000多项国际和国内专利，并两次荣膺年度国家科技进步一等奖。

Vimicro was founded in 1999 in Beijing by entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley with initial funding from China’s Ministry of Information Industry. The Company is headquartered in Beijing’s Zhongguancun high-tech district and has several R&D centers and sales offices throughout mainland China, as well as an office in Silicon Valley. The Company’s initial product portfolio was comprised of advanced mixed-signal multimedia chips, which were sold domestically and internationally, gaining as customers such leading global PC makers as HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, and others, launching the global proliferation of Internet chatting and video conferencing. Vimicro successfully completed an initial public offering on November 15th, 2005, becoming the first fabless semiconductor IC maker from China listed on the NASDAQ. In 2010, Vimicro began its push into the China domestic video security market. The Company is a co-initiator and co-developer of SVAC (Security Video and Audio Coding), the Chinese domestic standard for use in video security applications. In 2016 Vimicro released China’s first Neural Network Processor (NPU) which is dedicatedly designed for Deep Learning. This NPU was integrated into an IP Camera SoC which can generate structural video stream with AI analytic result tapped. With embedded NPU, IP Camera SoC can deliver a total solution of intelligent visual sensing, compression and transmission for Internet of Things. Vimicro’s strong technology base has won the first prize of the National Science and Technology Advancement Award twice, in 2005 and 2013 respectively. The Company has filed for more than 2000 patents.