Hao Yue, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hao Yue and his team have achieved major innovations in wide bandgap semiconductors from core equipment, materials to devices
Microelectronics technology has changed and will continue to profoundly change our world, in the next few decades, microelectronics technology will continue to lead the development of high and new technologies, and constantly change the living environment of human beings
The core of the high-tech battle is the talent struggle. This requires continuous expansion and expansion of the scope of integrated circuit talent training, and improve the quality of integrated circuit talent training to alleviate the "lack of core and less soul"
Wen | Xu Zuhua, a reporter for the news weekly "Lookout."
Mobile phones, computers, household appliances... These electronic products, which are closely related to life, are inseparable from the development and application of microelectronics technology. Satellites, missiles, radars, communications, electronic countermeasures... The high-end electronic equipment that these modern national defense relies on is also inseparable from the progress of microelectronics technology.
Microelectronics technology is a technology that uses semiconductors as materials and microfabrication as the main means to realize the miniaturization and miniaturization of electronic systems, mainly manifested as semiconductor devices and integrated circuit chips.
It is the rapid development and promotion of this technology that communications, networks, computers and other technologies have been developed at a high speed, big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, smart cities, etc. have become a reality, and cutting-edge technologies such as nanotechnology and quantum technology have been rapidly promoted.
"Microelectronics has changed and will continue to profoundly change our world. The development level and industrial scale of microelectronics technology have become an important indicator of a country's economic strength and scientific and technological strength. Hao Yue said.
Hao Yue is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a professor at Xidian University, and a well-known expert in microelectronics in China. He has pioneered and led the development of China's third-generation semiconductor electronic devices and materials, created the theoretical and technical system of China's third-generation semiconductor gallium nitride epitaxial growth, device structure and manufacturing process, realized the major innovation of China's nitride semiconductors from core equipment, materials to devices, and made important contributions to China's third-generation semiconductor electronic devices in the international leading ranks.
Recently, around the innovation and development issues related to microelectronics technology such as semiconductors and integrated circuit chips, the reporter of "Lookout" Newsweek interviewed Hao Yue.
Microelectronics are not microscopic
"Lookout": You often say that "microelectronics are not micro", how to understand?
Hao Yue: "Microelectronics are not micro" mainly expresses the important role of microelectronics technology in national development.
Microelectronics technology seems to be based on micro-processing, but it is the cornerstone of the modern information industry and information society.
The development of microelectronics technology can make integrated circuit chips have the characteristics of high speed, high density, high reliability, low power consumption and low cost. Among them, the low power consumption of the chip is particularly important, which not only saves energy, but also means greatly improving the convenience of electronic product applications and improving the reliability of electronic products.
In the next few decades, microelectronics technology will continue to lead the development of high and new technologies, continuously change the living environment of human beings, and continuously promote human development and progress.
Lookout: What breakthroughs have you and your team achieved in the field of microelectronics?
Hao Yue: At present, all integrated circuit chips in the field of microelectronics are realized in semiconductor materials.
Semiconductor materials are a type of solid materials with conductive properties between conductors and insulators, mainly including silicon and germanium, which are called first-generation semiconductors, gallium arsenide and indium phosphide, and wide bandgap materials known as third-generation semiconductors.
Band gap is a fundamental concept in solid state physics, and its width determines whether the conductive properties of a semiconductor are biased conductors or insulators. In general, the wider the band gap, the more the conductivity of the semiconductor is biased towards the insulator. The reverse is biased towards the guide body.
Since the mid-to-late 1990s, my team and I have insisted on the study of wide bandgap semiconductors, after more than 20 years of arduous exploration, the team aims at the international frontier, focusing on gallium nitride, silicon carbide, as well as gallium oxide and diamond semiconductor devices and materials research direction, has realized the innovation of semiconductors from core equipment, materials to devices, and made China enter the international leading ranks in this field.
For example, the nitride semiconductor materials and core equipment, advanced gallium nitride microwave and millimeter wave high-power, high-efficiency electronic devices and ultraviolet optoelectronic devices, the efficiency of gallium nitride microwave power devices increased to the international highest record of 85%, the experimental results almost reached the limit of semiconductor microwave power device power conversion, to achieve China's major breakthrough in this field. At present, the core technology and products of gallium nitride have been widely used in China's 4G and 5G communication base stations, advanced radar systems, power electronic systems, ultraviolet LEDs and other fields.
Today, our National Engineering Research Center for Wide BandGap Semiconductors and the State Key Laboratory of Broadband Gap Semiconductor Technology have become important bases for scientific research, talent training, academic exchanges and achievement transformation of wide bandgap semiconductor materials and devices at home and abroad, leading the independent development of wide bandgap semiconductor research and serving industrial engineering applications.
Professor Hao Yue (second from right) leads a team of teachers in the GaN device reliability test
Break through the integrated circuit industry
"Lookout": What is the current status of China's microelectronics technology and industrial development?
Hao Yue: After years of development, China's semiconductor chip and integrated circuit industry has made great progress, becoming the world's largest integrated circuit consumer market, and some technical fields even have a trend of parallel with international counterparts.
However, in general, China's semiconductor and integrated circuit industries are large but not strong, and there is still a big gap compared with the United States, Japan and some European countries. Enterprises focus more resources on the application technology level and industrialization, and urgently need to strengthen original innovation.
"Lookout": How to strengthen the breakthrough ability of the integrated circuit industry?
Hao Yue: First of all, we must closely integrate production, education and research, increase the research and industrialization of key core technologies, and establish the ability of integrated circuits to develop and continue to innovate. Overall, we now emphasize more on products and technologies and less on capabilities. In the future, in order to make the integrated circuit industry achieve sustained and overall development, we must work our capabilities and work the close integration of production, education and research.
Secondly, it is necessary to enhance the core competitiveness of industries and enterprises, accelerate the breakthrough of key products, promote products from usable to usable, easy to use, durable and practical, and at the same time promote the implementation of products to capabilities, and promote the real "growth" of the integrated circuit industry.
Finally, we must continue to implement the policy of expanding domestic demand, increase policy support for the microelectronics industry, further increase investment, optimize the investment and financing environment, support the mergers and acquisitions of advantageous enterprises, and avoid low-level competition, vicious competition and disorderly competition. Semiconductor chips need long-term continuous innovation and development, if the enterprise has no profit is difficult to support innovation, therefore, to ensure the orderly and healthy development of enterprises is the key to ensure the sustainable development of the integrated circuit industry.
Form an innovative culture and atmosphere "from 0 to 1"
Lookout: What does it mean that you named the team "Core Nation"?
Hao Yue: There are three main considerations for naming the team "core country".
The first is to encourage the team's scientific research direction to adhere to two principles from beginning to end: one is the national demand, and the other is the international frontier. Among them, national demand is the first principle. Our scientific research work should be under the premise of national needs, determine the main direction of attack, set the direction, aim at the international frontier to struggle and work hard.
The second is to encourage the team to always promote the development of the chip industry as the main goal. Chips are the food of the information society, and without chips, there can be no various products of the information society. China is the world's largest chip consumer market, and Chinese chips account for only about 20% of the world market, the importance and urgency of developing the chip industry is self-evident, and the road to independent research and development is long and arduous.
For so many years, we have been striving to promote the development of the semiconductor and chip industry through the transformation of scientific research results. The Shaanxi Semiconductor Pilot Technology Center, which we led the establishment, is committed to the research and development and innovation of key semiconductor cutting-edge technologies, and has become an important base for talent training in the semiconductor industry and an important source of technological innovation in Shaanxi Province. Led by team members and based on the National Engineering Research Center for Wide Bandgap Semiconductors, we have also created entities such as the Guangzhou Third Generation Semiconductor Innovation Center of Xidian University and the Wuhu Research Institute of Xidian University of Electronic Science and Technology to actively serve the construction of the National Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the yangtze River Delta integration development strategy, add fuel to the training of national integrated circuit talents, and lay a solid foundation for industrial upgrading.
The third is to create an atmosphere of innovation. To solve the core technology problems of China's chip integrated circuits and promote the electronic information industry to become bigger and stronger, we need all kinds of innovative soil and cultural atmosphere. Starting from a little bit, I donated all the 2 million yuan of the 2 million yuan prize that won the highest science and technology award in Shaanxi Province in 2019 to the school to set up the Core Science and Technology Innovation Fund, hoping to drive the school to form an innovative culture and atmosphere of "from 0 to 1", encourage our teachers and students, and gradually form the soil for innovative talents and innovative achievements.
At the end of 2020, our team achieved a high-value transformation of more than 40 patents of 30 million yuan. According to the provisions of the school's scientific and technological achievements transformation management measures, 80% of this funding can be used for cash rewards for completers, considering that there is still a gap in the self-financing funds for the construction of the national engineering research center for wide bandgap semiconductors, everyone has given up the cash awards and unanimously agreed to invest the bonuses in the construction of the national engineering research center for wide bandgap semiconductors, contributing to the national scientific research and education platform and adding a handful of firewood.
"Lookout": What do you think of the current talent training situation in the field of integrated circuits?
Hao Yue: In the final analysis, the fiercely competitive chip in the world is a high-tech battle, and the core of the high-tech battle is the talent struggle. This requires continuous expansion and expansion of the scope of integrated circuit talent training, and improve the quality of integrated circuit talent training to alleviate the "lack of core and less soul".
I believe that there are two aspects of talent training in the field of integrated circuits that need to be strengthened. The first is the construction of a basic curriculum system. In particular, it is necessary to ensure that the basic and backbone courses such as physics and mathematics have sufficient hours and reasonable content, and are systematically taught to students; second, practical courses. The government, schools, enterprises and other parties should be mobilized to vigorously build an integrated circuit education platform. The National Integrated Circuit Industry-Education Integration Innovation Platform Project, which is currently being implemented and constructed, is good news in this regard, and it is believed that the future will play an important role in the training of integrated circuit innovation and application-oriented talents.
Lookout: What do you think of "from 0 to 1"?
Hao Yue: In the face of the urgent requirements of China's "14th Five-Year Plan" period and longer period of development, scientific and technological workers should pay more attention to independent innovation and achieve more breakthroughs from "0 to 1".
In science, "0" does not mean that there is nothing, but that it has not yet been discovered, invented and created. How to extract key scientific questions from the vast sea of basic research is the key to truly guiding us to achieve a breakthrough from 0 to 1.
"From 0 to 1" not only needs long-term accumulation of knowledge, but also has instant inspiration; it needs to be long-term and stable to do basic research for a long time, and it is also necessary to focus on the areas of comparative advantage and highlight the key points; it is necessary to explore freely, and it is also necessary to provide support for long-term strategic goals from the source or the bottom.
From the perspective of accelerating breakthroughs, I think there are two points that need to be focused. First, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of major scientific and technological platforms such as national laboratories. Give full play to the advantages of the new national system, integrate superior resources, through major scientific platforms such as national laboratories, vigorously and orderly promote the unveiling of the institutional mechanism for innovative research, concentrate on achieving breakthroughs from "from 0 to 1", and focus on fighting key core technologies.
The second is to improve the mechanism of international cooperation and exchange. Do not reject the crowd, the party is the river and the sea. A healthy model of international cooperation should make full use of international intellectual resources in a controllable and open source manner. The so-called controllable means to create a long board of asymmetric advantages in a number of fields and create new advantages for China to participate in international cooperation and competition; the so-called open source is to communicate with each other and absorb the strengths of all on this basis, implement a more active and open talent policy, actively participate in the organization of major national scientific research programs, international big science plans and big science projects, comprehensively promote intellectual property rights, international cooperation and competition, create a good environment for the free flow of technological elements across borders, and promote us to continuously achieve world-first results. ■