【Industry News】New power of Gallium Oxide industry

A story of building a bridge of industrialization——Qi Hongji

      Qi Hongji’s family often doesn’t know where he is, spending 3 days a week in Hangzhou, 3 days in Shanghai, and possibly traveling back and forth between the two cities on the other day, plus occasional business trips.

      Qi Hongji has two identities, each with “optics”: as a scientist, he is a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, developing a variety of essential materials or components for high-power laser science installations; as a manager of technology achievement transformation and maturation, he is currently the director of the Hangzhou Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics. 

      At the beginning of the establishment of the Institute, it was planned to select a batch of high-quality scientific research achievements for maturation and industrialization on the incubation platform. Qi Hongji carefully selected a high-tech material that he thought could be directly transformed, but unexpectedly, it was directly rejected by the Institute: “This material is used on radiation detection instruments for special occasions. The technology is good, but the market demand is small and the project growth space is limited.” 

      “I was particularly touched at the time. Many researchers, including myself, did not realize that they actually did not understand what kind of achievements are suitable for transformation, let alone how to achieve transformation.” Qi Hongji said. 

      Jumping out of the identity of a scientific researcher and examining scientific and technological achievements with a market perspective.

      In the end, Qi Hongji recommended a new generation of semiconductor gallium oxide materials: the laboratory research started early, the results are fruitful, the technical barriers are high, and more importantly, the application fields are wide and the growth is good. 

      After three years of unremitting efforts, Qi Hongji ushered in his first “highlight” moment outside of scientific research. The gallium oxide material incubation effect was recognized by the market, and the Hangzhou Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics formed a virtuous cycle of self-development. 

      Now, Qi Hongji travels around in Shanghai and Hangzhou, and his goal is no longer limited to the research and development and achievement transformation in his own research field. He continuously improves the platform level of the Institute to boost more good achievements to empower the economy and society. In just a few years, the Institute has successfully attracted more than 20 optoelectronic companies to incubate.

       “General Secretary Xi Jinping requires continuous improvement of  transformation of scientific and technological achievement and the level of industrialization, which has pointed out the direction for our striving.” Qi Hongji said, “We will continue to improve the transformation system of scientific and technological achievement and strive to build a bridge for high-tech industrialization.”

National Science and Technology Workers’ Day | Wang Yuangang: Independent Innovation, Deeply Cultivating Gallium Oxide Power Devices.

      As a science and technology worker, Wang Yuangang has been sticking to the front line of scientific research for more than ten years since he started working. He has been engaged in the research of ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor power devices for a long time. He stays true to his original aspiration and keep his feet on the ground. He has achieved a number of research results in the field of gallium oxide power devices, which has promoted the rapid development of China’s ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor power device.

      Gallium oxide has the triple advantages of high withstanding voltage, low conduction resistance, and low cost. It is a strong competitor for the next generation of power devices. In order to achieve a breakthrough in key technologies of gallium oxide as soon as possible, Wang Yuangang led the team to overcome difficulties and forge ahead. Aiming at the characteristics of gallium oxide materials, he proposed new terminal structures such as local thermal oxidation terminals and self-isolated thin-layer heterojunction terminal expansion for the first time, overcoming a series of difficulties such as difficulty of terminal design and low breakdown voltage caused by the lack of p-type gallium oxide doping technology. For the first time in the world, the power quality factor of β-phase gallium oxide diodes exceeded the limit of SiC materials, and actively carried out application verification of gallium oxide power devices to accelerate the application process of gallium oxide power devices.

Publicity of the environmental impact assessment report to Suzhou Gaoyao Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. for the development and industrialization of gallium oxide epitaxial wafers and key CVD equipment

      According to the relevant regulations of the environmental impact assessment and approval procedures for construction projects, the Zhangjiagang Free Trade Zone Management Committee of Jiangsu Province has accepted the environmental impact assessment documents of the following construction projects. The acceptance status is now publicized. The publicity period is 10 working days for the report and 5 working days for the report form.

Shizuishan attracts talents from all over the place by taking rigid-flexible and economic policy 

      Zhang Xuefeng, a doctor of Ningxia Jujingyuan Crystal Technology Co., Ltd., recently told reporters that gallium oxide has great application value in key fields such as high-speed railways and aerospace. Last year, He Jilin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the Zhongyuan Key Metal Laboratory, threw an olive branch to him. The two sides established a joint research and development base to promote the mass production of gallium oxide single crystal materials.

“Staying lonely is the key for early investment in technology.” Zheng Juncong, a management partner at Xiangfeng China said

      Xiangfeng China’s management partner Zheng Juncong pointed out that since he himself was involved in investment in semiconductors as early as the beginning of the 21st century, the semiconductor industry has been a track that his team paid much attention to when Xiangfeng China was founded.

      “China is a consumer country with a lot of electronic products. Producing new electronic products requires support of various semiconductors to provide underlying technology. At the same time, we believe that the semiconductor industry is an industry with technical barriers.” Zheng Juncong added, “And what we consider more about the underlying logic is what kind of trends will happen next, what kind of chips will be needed to support these new emerging platforms, and which kind of chip companies we will look for.” 

      It is precisely based on the perspective of “top-down” and industrial-and-market  that Xiangfeng China led Horizon’s A-round financing as early as 2016, which has become one of the top providers for car intelligent chips in the current market. 

      However, over the past few years, Xiangfeng China has not been seen behind several domestic GPGPU companies that are most sought after in China.

      According to Zheng Juncong’s explanation, there are two reasons for why Xiangfeng didn’t invest: First, the team. Xiangfeng is more inclined to the teams that have backgrounds and experiences of making chips previously or have technology. “We will make a move only if we think we can do it.” Second, valuation. Xiangfeng  cares about the valuation and our investment returns, for we need to be responsible to LP.”

      Zheng Juncong emphasized that even if the business of some domestic leading semiconductor companies has been challenged in the past period of time, Xiangfeng still believes that semiconductors are a promising subdivision field and will continue to make early investments in the semiconductor field.

      “We will continue investing in automotive-grade chips and IoT chips. At the same time, we have also begun to lay out the third-generation semiconductors represented by gallium nitride and silicon carbide and the fourth-generation semiconductors represented by gallium oxide, where there are not much attention paid to this market yet. We believe that he application space of these products will be very wide, especially on the platform of electric vehicles.” Zheng Juncong revealed.