Hengqin Speeds Up The Construction Of Microelectronics "Production, Teaching, Research And Application" Ecology

Under the trend of further strengthening the basic ability of the bottom layer, Hengqin will play an important role based on its dominant position.

The "overall plan for the construction of Hengqin Guangdong Macao deep cooperation zone" (hereinafter referred to as the "plan") has clearly pointed out that Hengqin Guangdong Macao deep cooperation zone should vigorously develop integrated circuits and accelerate the construction of microelectronics industry chain with characteristic chip design, testing and detection; At the same time, we should build the demonstration bases of production, learning and research of Macao University of science and technology and other institutions with high standards, build technology innovation and transformation center, and promote the cooperation zone to become an important fulcrum of international science and technology innovation center in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.

At present, in Hengqin, a number of joint research institutes cooperating with external universities have been established in succession. The subsequent industrial fund set up by Zhuhai will be implemented. Combined with the sufficient industrialization resources in Guangdong Province, the perfect industry university research and application ecology will accelerate the realization of Guangdong Province's goal of building the third pole of integrated circuits.

At the same time, Macao is attractive to international resources. An industry personage told the 21st century economic report that the universities in Macao have strong scientific research strength in the semiconductor field. On the one hand, more importantly, they can attract more international high-end design resources to enter the mainland market with the help of Macao's regional attributes.

"The location attribute of Hengqin makes it have certain advantages in docking with international resources," the person said, adding that giving full play to this advantage will better support the accumulation of potential energy in the domestic semiconductor field.

The basic point of building a nest to attract Phoenix

In the process of historical development, Zhuhai's integrated circuit industry has the opportunity to develop.

Since the 1990s, entrepreneurs in the electronic field from Taiwan came to Zhuhai, and gradually built up the accumulation of major semiconductor industry links.

Under the attraction and driving effect of this industry, corresponding enterprises and human resources have accumulated, chip design companies have increased, Zhuhai has a preliminary accumulation in the development of semiconductor industry, and relevant talents in the semiconductor field in Guangdong Province also have a foundation to retain.

Macao itself also has such a historical precipitation. At present, the University of Macau, which occupies a vanguard position in the field of digital analog mixing, has accumulated its early IC specialty from overseas talents.

In the 1990s, microelectronics experts from Portugal came to Macao for study. In the process, they discovered that the University of Macao could further expand its research and master's degree courses, and unexpectedly spawned a top laboratory team in the field of communication subdivision - "State Key Laboratory of analog and mixed signal VLSI" of the University of Macau.

According to reports, the microelectronics team has published more than 40 academic papers at ISSCC, an international top conference in the field of integrated circuits. Its influence and R & D strength are similar to those of world-famous universities, Intel, Samsung and MediaTek, especially in analog and mixed signal chips.

This means that Zhuhai and Macao's unique historical, cultural and scientific and technological accumulation has its own attraction of technological capability. The bridgehead status of Hengqin will accelerate the integration and exchange of these elements.

At the same time, Zhuhai's R & D capability has also been strengthened in recent years. According to the statistics of R & D (Research and development) of the whole society in the Pearl River Delta, Zhuhai's R & D growth rate in 2019 is 17.5%, the second in the province. The proportion of R & D in GDP increased by 0.29 percentage point, also ranked in the top three, showing a rapid growth trend.

At present, there are four semiconductor listed companies in Zhuhai, and there are also head wafer factories in the third generation semiconductor field. On the whole, Guangdong Province presents a similar trend, that is, it has advantages in chip design field, the third generation semiconductor market is blooming at many points, and the strength in packaging and testing and manufacturing is gradually accumulating.

Under the guidance of the scheme, the regional attraction effect brought by the promotion of talents, entrepreneurship, livelihood cooperation and interconnection will bring substantial significance to the construction of a more perfect semiconductor industry ecology.

Integration of production, teaching, research and Application

Based on the University of Macau and other universities with head innovation strength, in recent years, some core industrialization forces in Guangdong Province are also accelerating the implementation of commercial products.

A researcher from a semiconductor design company in South China told 21st century economic news that his company cooperated with many universities on different technical aspects of semiconductors every year. The cooperation with the University of Macau is also among them, especially in the field of analog chips. The University of Macao has brought great help and inspiration to its company in the research and development of commercial chips.

"For example, if I encounter difficulties in the chip R & D process, or have relatively weak ability in circuit and other fields, I will list specific application topics or forward-looking R & D topics, and contact universities to see if they can be completed. The Microelectronics R & D center of the University of Macau has many R & D ideas every year, which are published in top journals, bringing a lot to enterprises Innovative thinking, "he added.

The Microelectronics R & D center mentioned here takes the "State Key Laboratory for analog and mixed signal VLSI" as the technical subject, and sets up Hengqin branch of the State Key Laboratory to undertake the research on advanced technologies in the field of microelectronics and the transfer and transformation of achievements.

It is reported that the projects undertaken or incubated by the Microelectronics R & D center mainly include wireless communication, analog-to-digital converter, power management, high-speed communication interface and microfluidic biological detection. By the end of 2020, the center has undertaken more than ten scientific research and commercial projects including key R & D projects of the Ministry of science and technology, with a total investment of 10 million yuan.

Of course, not all of these collaborations are ultimately commercialized. The person said that because of the content published in top journals, the research and development of the Australian university team in the field of digital analog mixing is more inclined to the frontier field, and the cooperation between the company and the university is more focused on the accumulation of forward-looking technology trends. "When we see some of these technologies and think that these directions are worth trying in mass production, we will carry out targeted and in-depth cooperation. Of course, in the cooperation of cutting-edge technologies, the practicability will not be particularly high, which is also a normal trend. Almost one of the 10 innovative solutions can be successful. Our cooperation also considers how to achieve a closer to full score."

Based on the huge and mature industrial resources and mass production capacity in Guangdong Province, through better interaction between university resources and industrial resources, the proportion of commercialization of academic ability will be further increased, and Guangdong Province can accelerate the accumulation of R & D advantages, and even have more expectations in terms of major national strategic projects.

In essence, because semiconductor is a subject that needs to integrate mathematics, physics, chemistry and many other disciplines, it is difficult to cultivate talents in this field, and it takes a long time. Most of the related majors in China have been set up in recent two years. Therefore, even in China, the shortage of semiconductor talents is a difficult problem to solve in the short term, and it is also the core proposition of strengthening the ecology of semiconductor industry.

Based on the importance attached to overseas "high-quality and top-notch talents" in the plan, as well as the historical advantages and practical accumulation of Macao and Zhuhai Hengqin, it will play a key role in accelerating the construction of closed-loop ecological system for talents and production, teaching, research and application in the field of microelectronics.