Literature/Literature Science and Technology Society
When Chen Jin was named a series of honors such as "Shanghai Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Leader" and "Changjiang Scholar", no one thought that this was a complete fraud, let alone that the so-called "Hanxin" project he presided over was a complete scam.
More than 20 years ago, China's various businesses were in a period of rapid development, and chips were also one of them. However, due to the late start, we can only introduce low-end equipment or parts from some developed countries for assembly, and cannot independently design and produce chips. In a wave of innovation, Chen Jin entered the public's vision.
Chen Jin was a graduate of Tongji University and earned a doctorate in the United States, and later worked for IBM and Motorola, both of which were leaders in the chip industry at the time. When Chen Jin returned to China to join Shanghai Jiao Tong University, his quick thinking and beautiful resume made him the leader of the chip research and development project.
In general, it takes about ten years to research a chip from scratch. However, Chen Jin began to establish a research and development center in 2001, and announced the successful development of "Hanxin No. 1" in 2003. According to Chen Jin, "Hanxin No. 1" integrates more than two million components and has the world's leading computing level. This major achievement caused a national sensation, and the project was subsequently included in the national "863" program, and Chen Jin was known as the "father of chips" in China.
"Hanxin No. 1" was followed by "Hanxin No. 2" and "Hanxin No. 3", Chen Jin continued to bring breakthroughs, which once made all Chinese people full of confidence in independent research and development of chips. In just a few years, Chen Jin received 1.1 billion yuan in scientific research funds and applied for more than 40 patents.
1.1 billion yuan is not a small amount even today, let alone more than 20 years ago. At that time, the departments were careless in order to achieve mass production of China's own chips as soon as possible.
In order to deceive trust, and then continue to cheat funds, Chen Jin played a hand to steal beams and change columns. Through his former colleagues at Motorola, he purchased 10 of the most advanced Motorola chips at the time. Then ask the workers to grind off the logo on it and spray it with the logo of "Hanxin No. 1". In addition, in order to make the chip demonstratorable, he also downloaded the code from the Motorola website through his brother in the United States and asked people to modify it. After that, he directly demonstrated the modified code as the code of his chip.
The Hanxin No. 1 demo device can play three songs, but it can only play these three songs because there are only three songs in the source code. But with this fake product, coupled with the so-called chip "drawings", the expert group in charge of the review at that time unanimously recognized the results of "Hanxin".
In the three years from 2003 to 2006, Chen Jin did not let Hanxin mass-produce, although he founded the so-called semiconductor industrial park, but in fact only hired a furniture design company to design the appearance of the chip. In 2006, a post appeared on a forum exposing Chen Jin's fraud, and subsequently, more and more evidence exposed Chen Jin. People finally found that Chen Jin's so-called project team, including himself, only three people, was just a small workshop. Although Chen Jin's own education is true, his previous fields of study and work were chip testing, and he had no ability to design and develop chips.
When people began to investigate Chen Jin, they found that his office was already empty. Further investigation revealed that he had registered a shell company in the United States in 2002, all premeditated, and that he had transferred fraudulent scientific research funds through American banks to his account. After more than half a year of investigation, the official admitted Chen Jin's fraudulent behavior, and the whole country was in an uproar for a while.
Because the research and development of chips is indeed very expensive, people have no doubt about his application for large scientific research funds. What is even more hateful is that because the relevant laws were not sound enough at that time, Chen Jin did not receive any criminal punishment, but was only removed from his post. To this day, Chen Jin is still at large in the United States, and the funds taken away cannot be recovered.
The "Hanxin" incident has brought great damage to China's chip industry. The huge loss of research funds has led to a lack of funding for other potential real research and development projects. Chen Jin took 1.1 billion yuan with him, leaving behind China's hard-hit chip industry. And this incident has dealt a worse blow to the confidence of Singaporeans, especially relevant practitioners, than the loss of funds. Fooled Chinese people no longer believe that China can develop its own chips, and the development of China's chip industry has stalled for 13 years. It was not until the rise of SMIC and Huawei that people rekindled hope, and domestic chips also embarked on the right path of independent research and development under the suppression of Laomei.
Now that the chip competition at the national level has entered a white-hot stage, we still have to be highly vigilant for similar incidents to happen again. Looking back at the whole process, Chen Jin's means of counterfeiting were not clever, and there were problems such as the number of chip pins being wrong at that time, but the audit team composed of a number of experts, because of the idea of quick success, coupled with Chen Jin's use of the information gap between China and developed countries at that time, actually let this loophole "Hanxin" project pass the audit.
In recent years, the state has once again increased subsidies for the semiconductor industry, but there have also been "Wuhan Hongxin" and "Jinan Spring Core" and other unfinished projects. Compared with the outright fraud of "Hanxin", these projects may be regarded as "business failures". However, the root of its failure is mostly inseparable from blind investment with great joy, rather than solid research and development, which we should also pay enough attention to.
Summary:
At present, independent research and development of the chip industry is imminent, because it is the key to whether drones, Internet of Things, supercomputers, aviation equipment and other fields will be "stuck in the neck". The "Hanxin" project fraud incident has brought a huge blow to China's chip industry, and it still makes people palpitate. However, in the face of the current suppression of Laomei, we have no way back, we can only carry out independent research and development to the end.
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