Chinese 'Chip' Heart, How Far from the World Level

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, October 30, 2002

Chinese 'Chip' Heart, How Far from the World Level

The development target for the IC product brought out by the Ministry of Information Industry in the "10th Five Year Plan" is by the year of 2005 to turn out 20 billion IC chips nationwide with a sales value to reach 60-80 billion yuan in the people's currency. This accounts for around 2-3 percent of the world output, which is sufficient for 30 percent needs in the domestic chip-market. Of course, the Chinese IC industry is still at the initial stage and arduous efforts must be made if it wants to overtake the advanced level of the developed countries in the west. But how far is China still away from the "chip" heart?

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The integrated circuit technology with the Micro CPU at the core has always been one of the two key technologies in information industry, the"heart" of the information technology of the modern times. The development target for the IC product brought out by the Ministry of Information Industry in the"10th Five Year Plan" is by the year of 2005 to turn out 20 billion IC chips nationwide with a sales value to reach 60 ��C 80 billion yuan in the people's currency. This accounts for around 2 - 3 percent of the world output, which is sufficient for 30 percent needs in the domestic chip-market. Towards the year of 2010 it requires the nationwide IC product to come to 50 billion chips with a sales value of around RMB 200 billion yuan, taking up about 5 percent of the world market share and meeting the 50 percent needs of the domestic market. Of course, the Chinese IC industry is still at the initial stage and arduous efforts must be made if it wants to overtake the advanced level of the developed countries in the west. But how far is China still away from the"chip" heart?

To breakthrough the bottleneck of talents required

There are two unavoidable facts ahead of us. One is that all major products brought out by large-sized IC manufacturers in China at present are not designed by domestic designers; the second being that almost all the key chips of the large household electric appliance, mobile phone-sets and computers domestically produced are not designed by Chinese designers.

There are quite many software and computer institutes in China but institutes specially dedicated to the design of IC product are in the few. The IC design is a newly booming science in China and the relevant specialty in the Chinese institute of higher learning is microelectronics. Up to now, microelectronic specialties set up in institutes of higher learning in the country are only up to a dozen or so and every year sees no more than 300 graduated from the IC designing and microelectronic faculties. And so the IC designers are found less than 4,000 in China while the number comes to some 400,000 in the United States. However, China probably needs some 300,000 designers as such by the year of 2010. Therefore, according to the analysis of persons in the trade, the utterly destitution of IC talents has already become the bottleneck hindering the development of the IC industry in China. Nevertheless, the Chinese people prove evidently competent in the design of the IC product. One finds a special explanation of the IC, i.e. the "INDIAANDCHINESE" in the USA and there prevails a saying in the semiconductor business, namely IC means"Integrated Chinese".

Let chip-making get onto the production line

Not long ago, the "Dragon Chip 1" designed and brought out by the Computer Institution of the CAS has made its appearance into the world, making China bid adieu to the history in which China had no chip of its own. During recent years China has been engaged in the research of the large-scaled integrated circuit, hoping to master through its own efforts the technology at the core of the chip. But before that, more than 10 units, such as the Arc CPU had already set a foot in the study of it and as learned, there are at least a dozen of units which are engaged in the research and manufacture of chips in China now. However, attention must be paid to that the research of chip has to be closely combined with the industrialization and nobody would like to see that the result laboriously worked out can only be put aside for enjoyment instead of actual use. To make it short, for developing the Chinese chips the crucial matter is to speed up the industrialization of the technology.

Tang Zhimin, director for system configuration research and person in charge of Dragon Chip 1 of the Computer Institution of the CAS is of opinion that the application of the Dragon Chip is significant in the two aspects. One is the safety and security of the nation, which include that of national defence and information. Take technological equipment for instance, if foreign chips are used the cut of supply would mean a failure of the equipment. Secondly, if taking a look at the industry the Chinese electronic product and equipment can only remain a cripple for processing and assembling with imported materials if it has no chips of its own at the kernel. However, Li Jun, president of the Shuguang Tianyan Information Technology Ltd., the first client of Dragon Chip adopts an optimistic attitude about the perspective of the chip. He says, an important symbol of the industrialization means a great distribution and sales to occupy the market. The Dragon Chip finds its market superiority in such sensitive sectors as those that require safety and security, e-administration and e-businesses, etc. The coming-to-light of the Dragon Chip has afforded us with means and conditions for creating the safety environment.

In view of the industry development as a whole, China has stricken an astonishing speed in the development of its own chips. As learned, In December 2001, the Ministry of Science and Technology approved in order the 7 places of Shanghai, Xi'an, Wuxi, Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou and Shenzhen to open up bases for the IC industrialization. In the five years to come, Shanghai is going to put in 150 billion yuan for developing the IT industry with half of the capital dedicated to the development of the IC product so as to set up 10 production lines for chips. And we've also learned from Beijing's plan for the construction in the development of microelectronic industry. By the year of 2010, Beijing will fulfill the construction of 20 production lines for a large-scale production of chips of higher quality and 200 companies for the special designing of IC card, and Beijing will be able to reap over RMB 200 billion yuan from its IC industry.

By People's Daily Online

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