An ECNU Spin-off: SPARKSTIME

SPARKSTIME is a technology enterprise founded in October 2024 at East China Normal University’s Dalinghaowan incubator by Liu Shanmin of ECNU’s School of Communication and Electronic Engineering (School of Integrated Circuit Science and Engineering), under the university’s “full empowerment” policy and through equity-for-intellectual-property contribution. The company focuses on quantum precision measurement and is dedicated to the development, manufacture and integrated engineering deployment of active hydrogen masers for time and frequency reference, and has received research funding for technology transfer from the Dalinghaowan Science and Technology Commission.

Worldwide, the only manufacturers able to mass-produce hydrogen masers are Microchip/Microsemi of the United States and VCH of Russia, and American hydrogen masers are under a full embargo for China’s defence research and production. SPARKSTIME is currently the only private enterprise in China with independent core intellectual property for hydrogen masers and complete process manufacturing technology; its masers meet the requirement for 100% domestic content in core equipment. The company has filed 17 invention patents, with 7 invention patents and 3 utility model patents granted.

Main Products / Technologies

The hydrogen maser is a product of the close union between quantum physics and electronic information science, and one of the time and frequency standards (reference scales) that describe the motion of matter and changes of state. As a high-precision time and frequency standard, hydrogen masers are widely used in satellite navigation, communication networks, astronomical observation and scientific research. As global competition intensifies and digital technologies create growing demand for precise time synchronization, hydrogen maser technology has become one of the key pillars of modern technological development. In satellite navigation systems in particular — GPS, BeiDou and Galileo — the performance and stability of the atomic clock directly determine positioning accuracy and system reliability. Yet with the rapid development of spaceflight, communications and cross-platform data-link integration, conventional hydrogen masers — bulky and heavy — can no longer meet the needs of low-Earth-orbit satellites, deep-space probes and cooperative swarm platforms.

In 2023 the team of Associate Researcher Liu Shanmin at East China Normal University developed and launched a new generation of 10 kg ultra-compact active hydrogen maser — currently the only one of its kind in China and the smallest active hydrogen maser in the world. The 10 kg ultra-compact active hydrogen maser offers excellent frequency stability and uses the most advanced process integration technology under fully self-owned intellectual property, meeting 100% domestic content requirements. It is suited to spaceborne applications (next-generation navigation satellites, LEO internet satellites and others), to autonomous cooperative navigation, positioning and timing systems on medium and large equipment platforms of all types, and to ground-based time keeping, metrology, scientific research and engineering.

At the end of October 2025, East China Normal University donated an ECNU-2310 high-precision active hydrogen maser, developed by the team of Associate Researcher Liu Shanmin, to the Kashgar Station of the Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The Kashgar Station handles national land observation, space science satellite data reception and tracking and control for dozens of satellites, and is known as the “western gateway” of China’s space tracking and control network. The maser will improve the station’s time reference accuracy more than tenfold, strengthen tracking and control for deep-space probes such as Chang’e-4 and Tianwen-2, support optimization of the BeiDou system, and provide sub-nanosecond time synchronization for transport, power and communications along the Belt and Road, supporting the growth of the digital economy.

Company Honors

The company has established strategic partnerships with user organizations including the First, Fifth and Eighth Academies of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the Second and Third Academies of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, and China State Shipbuilding Corporation. Related projects have won an Excellence Award at the finals of the 2024 Haiju Talent Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition and a Silver Award in the spatial information field at the 2025 Shanghai Integrated Development Innovation Competition, and the project leader, Liu Shanmin, was selected for support under the 2024 Shanghai Oriental Talent entrepreneurship programme.

Technical Cooperation and Enquiries

Organizations interested in cooperation are welcome to contact us.

·Office of Science and Technology, East China Normal University  Tel: 021-62966212  Email: cdzhang@admin.ecnu.edu.cn

·SPARKSTIME  Tel: 15900800268  Email: smliu@lps.ecnu.edu.cn