Before 2017, the domestic production rate of China's 10G chips was about 50 percent, while the optical chips above 25G were only 3 percent, because this technology has been monopolized by developed countries such as the United States. In recent years, this decade-long technology monopoly has finally been broken by a person, she is the world-famous talented Mao Wei. How did Mao Wei break the chip monopoly? What are the legends in her? Click on it and start talking now!
Born in 1978, Mao Wei is a native of Qidong, Jiangsu Province, whose parents are ordinary people and have no prominent family background. From an early age, Mao Wei has shown extraordinary talent, and the middle school she attended is the famous local "Xueba Middle School" Qidong Middle School, which has cultivated a large number of outstanding talents, and in such a school, Mao Wei is still an outstanding existence.
In the stereotype, girls seem to be born without the mathematical talent of boys, but Mao Wei is not, her science results are very good, and she is often selected by teachers to participate in competitions. At that time, Mao Wei's biggest wish was to participate in the International Physics Olympiad, at that time, there was no one around to support her, even her parents thought that girls' talents in science would be worse than boys, but Mao Wei proved herself with practical actions.
After entering high school, Mao Wei's science grades were still far ahead, including physics, of course, so she was selected by her teacher to represent the school in the national physics competition. The national competition is different from the local competition, each participant is the local leader, Mao Wei participated in the 1995 edition, there are more than 200 players, and the final selection of the Shangjing team is only 25 people, the competition is very fierce.
From the beginning of the audition, Mao Wei showed extraordinary physical talent, no matter how tricky and complex the problem, she can always find the answer, in this way, she successfully became one of the 25 people, entered the Peking University Affiliated High School National Physics Experimental Class, and this is not the last stop. Among these 25 people, 5 more people will be selected to form a national team to participate in the International Physics Olympiad, which is Mao Wei's dream. After several months of training, Mao Wei did not slack off for a moment, frantically brushing questions, after 8 theoretical examinations and 4 experimental examinations, Mao Wei finally became a member of the national team with his own talent and realized his dream.
On July 7, 1995, at the age of 17, Mao Wei came to Australia to face 225 talented players from more than 50 countries around the world. The whole exam has a total of 3 calculation questions and 2 experimental questions, the exam time is 5 hours and 5 and a half hours respectively, for the difficulty of the exam paper, I think everyone who has participated in the Olympiad will not forget. When doing the calculation questions, Mao Wei felt that only the first question was a little difficult, and the remaining two questions were very simple, and she handed over the answer sheet perfectly in only 3 hours.
When it came to the experimental exam, Mao Wei easily completed the first question, but unfortunately, she delayed some time when completing the second question and failed to complete it perfectly. However, in the case of some mistakes, Mao Wei still won the gold medal, and also won the first prize, the highest overall score, and the highest female student's performance. In 26 years, she is the first girl to win the championship, she not only proved herself, but also used practical actions to break the stereotype that "girls are not as good as boys in science". In this way, Mao Wei became famous and won the title of "the world's first talented woman".
The scariest thing is not that others are better than you, but that people who are better than you work harder than you. After winning the International Physics Olympiad, Mao Wei became a prominent figure in her hometown, and Qidong Middle School simply put her name and photo directly into the students' homework books. In the face of such talents, Tsinghua University naturally can not let go, they threw an olive branch to Mao Wei, in this way, Mao Wei became a member of Tsinghua University, the direction of study is the Department of Electronic Engineering physics and optoelectronic technology major.
After graduating from Tsinghua University, Mao Wei did not rest on her laurels, but chose to go to the University of California, Berkeley to continue her studies, in fact, before Mao Wei went abroad, many world-class colleges and universities such as Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California State University in the United States sent her admission letters, and the truth that "gold shines everywhere" was best reflected in her.
During his studies at the University of California, Mao Wei met his other half, Dr. Bai Yun, and the two often sat down to discuss some esoteric academic issues, and over time, the two had feelings for each other and entered the palace of marriage. In the eyes of the outside world, they do not seem to have any "romantic" feeling from knowing each other to falling in love, but in the eyes of the two, such a relationship is the most comfortable.
While harvesting love, Mao Wei did not slack off in her studies, she successfully obtained a doctorate in physics and entered a world-class chip company. Americans have always been very generous to excellent talents, And during Mao Wei's work, his annual salary reached an astonishing million dollars, and the house he lived in was also a garden house in a bustling area, and the quality of life was very superior. With such living conditions, I believe that most people will not be willing to give up, but Mao Wei has made an amazing decision.
When a Chinese telecom entrepreneur went to the United States on a business trip, he once met Mao Wei, who inadvertently mentioned that the quotation of American companies for optical chips above 25G is very high, but they monopolize this technology, let alone themselves, and no one in China dares to bargain with the United States.
At that time, Mao Wei was engaged in the field of optical communication and wireless communication, including 4G, 5G communication, silicon photonic technology, etc. In such a working environment, Mao Wei was very clear that the communication technology of the United States was the world's top level, and they monopolized that other countries wanted to make optical chips above 25G. Although this is an objective fact, the United States has taken this opportunity to open its mouth and attack China at will, which makes Mao Wei, who is a Chinese, absolutely unacceptable, she has talent and ambition, and she decided to give up her work in the United States and devote herself to the construction of the motherland.
In 2014, Mao Wei took care of all the work, proposed to resign, and let the boss persuade him or put forward attractive conditions, Mao Wei was not moved, and returned to the motherland with his lover Bai Yun.
In 2014, a Chinese expert in the field of communications said that in five years, the 25G optical chip in the United States would disappear from the Chinese market, and China could master this technology on its own. At that time, 97 percent of the chips on the Chinese market were imported, and this technology was monopolized by the United States, but the expert's words were not open to words, but Mao Wei gave him confidence.
When she was in the United States, Mao Wei's annual salary was millions of dollars, but she resolutely returned to China for the development of her motherland. After returning to China, in order to no longer let China be subject to the problem of chips, she found an investment institution, registered 100 million funds, and opened a Feiang Communication High-tech Company, and the company address was selected in her hometown of Nantong, Jiangsu.
Mao Wei also has her own views on the reasons why advanced chip technology has always been monopolized by the United States, she understands that China's exploration of the chip field is actually not a lot, but because this exploration requires a lot of money and is not necessarily successful, so not many capitalists are willing to invest in this project. Capitalists would rather import high prices from abroad than spend money on innovation. Mao Wei's view is to the point, she knows the importance of optical information and optical network, with the development of the times, this technology will be applied to medical, transportation and even security and other aspects, in order to break through the technological innovation as soon as possible, Mao Wei with the elite team to work without sleeping.
Technological innovation is a difficult process, except for Mao Wei, other members of the research in optical communication technology have not reached a very deep level, therefore, the entire research and development process, there have been a variety of problems, but they have not given up. Under the leadership of Mao Wei, the whole team fought hard for 3 years and finally realized the development of 25G high-end optical communication chips.
After many tests, in 2017, the performance of this chip in all aspects has reached the top level, and Mao Wei put it into mass production. In this way, Mao Wei once again won a well-known title of "chip female wizard", she and her team, broke the technology monopoly of American companies for 10 years, so that China no longer need to import this chip at a high price, not only that, this chip is also exported abroad, "Made in China" once again has a chance to compete with "Made in the United States".
With such great achievements, Mao Wei did not stop here, in 2018, she delivered a speech entitled "100G, 400G, the opportunities and challenges of China's core", boldly predicting that China will definitely independently design and develop more high-end optical communication chips.
On October 1, 2019, at the military parade ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China, Mao Wei appeared at the ceremony as an outstanding returnee. When she received the invitation to watch the ceremony, Mao Wei was very excited, and before leaving, she also specially wore a bright red top to express her congratulations on the birthday of the motherland.
After the ceremony, Mao Wei said with excitement:
"As a scientist, I just did what I should do and can do, and the motherland has given me such courtesy, I will cherish it more, go one step further, and strive to do my best for China's strength in the world."