60 years of persistence and innovation. In the 1950s, Wang Shouwu did not shoulder the heavy responsibility of the Party and the country. What were the main manifestations?

Wang Shouwu: the core creation of 60 years.

□ Hua

19 19, born in a noble family in Suzhou, came to Shanghai with his father at the age of 4.

During the period of 1940, he studied in the United States and obtained his master's and doctor's degrees from Purdue University.

From 65438 to the early 1950s, he returned to China with his family, participated in the establishment of the first semiconductor laboratory in China, and obtained many "China First" achievements. 1960s, participated in the establishment of Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and promoted the successful development of the first GaAs laser in China.

In the1980s, he was appointed to be in charge of the research of domestic large-scale integrated circuits and their processes.

In the 2 1 century, the VLSI industry in China was still concerned in the 1980s.

Anyone who is familiar with microelectronics technology in China may know that there are three pillars in this field, namely, three doctors who came back from abroad in the early days of liberation and academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences Huang Kun, Xie Xide and Wang Shouwu.

Huang Kun and Xie Xide made great achievements in lattice dynamic scattering theory and surface state physics, respectively, while Wang Shouwu focused on semiconductor device physics, emphasizing on application. Today, the first two of these three outstanding scientists have passed away, and the only one alive is Mr. Wang Shouwu. Compared with Huang and Xie, Wang Shouwu's popularity is low, which may be related to his practical work in scientific research and industrialization.

This year is the 50th year for Wang Lao to promote the successful development of the first GaAs laser in China, and the 63rd year for him to return to China as the first batch of overseas returnees. In the mid-1980s, during Wang Lao's work in promoting the industrialization of integrated circuits in Shanghai, the author had the honor to participate in the reception, so he had the opportunity to meet this famous scientist in the industry. After that, I had several opportunities to meet him, the most recent one was at his daughter's house in America last year. At that time, he had a clear head, a strong memory and a loud voice, but he was hard of hearing. Although he is 94 years old, Wang Lao has always been concerned about the production of VLSI industry in the motherland.

Since then, I really want to write out what I know about Academician Wang Shouwu, and let more people know that there is such a pioneer in the field of semiconductor technology and integrated circuit industry in China.

A "sea returnee" from a famous family

Wang Shouwu, 19 19, was born in Suzhou. His father Wang Jitong (1876~ 1948) is a scholar studying in Britain. On 1927, he set up the academia sinica with Mr. Cai Yuanpei, and he has profound attainments in mathematics and electromechanical aspects. Wang Shouwu came to Shanghai with his father at the age of 4, and basically lived and studied in Suzhou and Shanghai as a teenager.

On the eve of high school graduation, the year-end exam of the school and the graduation exam of Suzhou were delayed because of repeated malaria attacks. He couldn't enter Tsinghua, Yanjing and other famous schools, so he had to follow the advice of his eldest brother who had studied in Germany and enter the German cram school of Tongji University. A year later, he returned to Suzhou Middle School to take the exam and got a high school diploma before he officially became a student in the Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering of Tongji University.

194 1 After graduation, Wang Shouwu worked in the factory for several years and then transferred to Tongji University to teach. 1945 After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Wang Shouwu, full of the vision of "saving the country through science", entered the Graduate School of Purdue University in Indiana in June of that year and obtained a master's degree. Because of his excellent grades in all subjects, the school funded him to study for a doctorate. At this time, the emerging quantum mechanics attracted Wang Shouwu's interest, so he turned from engineering mechanics to the study of the laws of microscopic particle motion, and stayed in school to teach after receiving his doctorate two years later.

1949 New China was founded, especially after the Korean War broke out in 1950, Wang Shouwu, who was in the United States, was eager to return home. On the grounds of visiting his widowed mother, he seized the opportunity to return to the motherland on 1950 with his wife, Ms. Ge Xiuhuai (Shanghai), who was studying in the United States, and his daughter who was under one year old. So, Wang Shouwu began his career of serving the country.

A sudden attack from scratch

From 65438 to 0956, under the personal leadership of Premier Zhou Enlai, China formulated a 12-year long-term plan for scientific and technological development, and semiconductor technology was listed as one of the four major scientific research priorities at that time. The relevant departments of the central government decided that famous scholars such as Huang Kun, Xie Xide and Wang Shouwu would make a surprise attack on personnel training and pioneering research.

Wang Shouwu's study in the United States mainly focused on physics itself, but he knew the importance of semiconductor work, resolutely interrupted other scientific research projects, devoted himself to semiconductor research, and established the first semiconductor laboratory in China in the Institute of Applied Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences. His first concern is the preparation of germanium, the most basic material in transistors.

While grasping the purification of germanium materials, he personally led the design and manufacture of the first single crystal furnace for drawing semiconductor germanium materials in China, and successfully drew the first germanium single crystal in China at the end of 1957. In the same year,165438+from the end of June to the beginning of the following year, Wang Shouwu cooperated with his colleagues to successfully develop the first batch of germanium alloy junction transistors in China, and mastered the doping technology in germanium single crystal, which can control the electrical indexes such as conductivity type, resistivity and minority carrier lifetime of germanium single crystal and meet the requirements of device production.

1957, when Dr. Lin Lanying returned to China, Wang Shouwu personally went to the hotel where she stayed, and successfully transferred her to the semiconductor working group as the head of the material research group to draw the silicon single crystal. With the joint efforts of Wang Shouwu, Lin Lanying and the research group,1July, 1998, the first silicon single crystal in China came out.

In order to promote the research of the second generation (transistor-type) electronic computer in China, under the leadership of Wang Shouwu and others, China Academy of Sciences 1958, 109 set up the earliest transistor factory in China, engaged in mass production of germanium high-frequency transistors. In the absence of personnel and equipment, the staff of the whole factory fought hard until the end of 1959, and provided 12 varieties and 145 thousand germanium transistors for the development of 109 B computer, and completed the production of devices needed by this computer. In the history of science and technology development in China, few products, especially those in cutting-edge scientific research fields, can achieve the whole process from scratch within two years.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, entrusted by the State Science and Technology Commission and the China Academy of Sciences, Wang Shouwu began to build the Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. 1960 In September, the Institute was established, and Wang Shouwu was appointed as the first deputy director, who was fully responsible for scientific research management and preparation for branch development. Later, a lot of work was done on test equipment and unified standards, especially on the research of the first GaAs laser in China, and a semiconductor test center was established.

Be ordered to shoulder the heavy responsibility again

During the Cultural Revolution, Wang Shouwu was treated unfairly and slandered, but he still lost no time in reading literature and keeping a close eye on the rapidly developing integrated circuit technology in the world.

In the late period of the Cultural Revolution, Premier Zhou asked the Chinese Academy of Sciences to attach importance to basic theoretical research. Wang Shouwu immediately seized this opportunity and made a deep discussion on avalanche relaxation oscillation in Geng Shi devices. Related papers were read at the annual meeting of 1975 in american physical society, which was well received by foreign counterparts. This paper was published in China Science.

1978 10 The main leaders of Chinese Academy of Sciences invited Mr. Wang to be responsible for the research of 4000-bit MOS random access memory. This is a large-scale integrated circuit. It takes more than 40 steps to make an electronic circuit consisting of more than1.65,438+0,000 transistors, resistors, capacitors and other elements on a unit silicon wafer with a square of less than 4×4 mm If the single process integrity rate reaches 95%, the final process integrity rate of the chip is only 13%. It is difficult to make samples with a certain yield.

Wang Shouwu started with stabilizing the process, followed the process of film, carefully checked each process of the process line, and asked the person in charge of each process to determine their respective operating procedures in detail. It shall be strictly implemented after setting, and shall not be changed at will without the consent of the process director.

1980, just after the Spring Festival, the superior asked Wang Shouwu to be the director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences 109 Factory to promote 4K large-scale integrated circuits and conduct integrated circuit production experiments to improve the yield and reduce the cost.

At that time, microprocessors developed rapidly in the world, and computers were about to be introduced to the society, so it was a trend to enter the family. Therefore, the production of large-scale integrated circuits and the development of supporting equipment and basic materials have become the top priority. 1983, Wang Shouwu, who was over 60 years old, was once again appointed as the leader of the integrated circuit advisory group of the the State Council Electronics Revitalization Leading Group and the semiconductor professional group of the State Science and Technology Commission, which provoked the burden of national leaders in the battle for large-scale integrated circuits.

Academician as factory director

Looking back on Wang Shouwu's experience and contribution, one unit and position has to be mentioned, that is, the first semiconductor device factory in China-Chinese Academy of Sciences 109 Factory (predecessor of Institute of Microelectronics of Chinese Academy of Sciences). All the words introducing Wang Shouwu will have the following expression: 1958. He personally founded the Chinese Academy of Sciences 109 factory and realized the mass production of germanium high-frequency transistors. From 1980 to 1986, he was also the director of China Academy of Sciences 109 factory.

Why did the academician agree to be the factory director? In this regard, Zhang, former Party Secretary of Chinese Academy of Sciences 109 Factory, and Director of General Office of 109 Factory once wrote an article introducing:

The direct reason why Wang Shouwu returned to the 109 factory he founded more than 20 years ago is to ensure that the scientific research results are smoothly transformed into production plans, and that the modern import line of the 109 factory that has been approved by the state is more advanced and scientific, which can play an exemplary role. The deeper consideration is that, after analyzing the development trend of the international integrated circuit industry at that time and the present situation of the integrated circuit industry in China, he thinks that the integrated circuit industry in China will only have a way out if the manual workshop-style production mode is transformed into a modern industrialized production mode. For industrialized integrated circuit production, the production line must be a controlled production line with stable conditions, stable equipment, stable operation, stable technology and scientific management. In other words, Mr. Wang is making a brand-new exploration with a high sense of responsibility for the national integrated circuit industry.

Zhang He gave an example. Industrial production requires high purity and must be transported by pipeline. In order to ensure the quality of gas, Mr. Wang requires that the gas pipeline that is tens of meters long should be able to be evacuated, and the vacuum degree should remain unchanged for 24 hours. However, almost all the gas meters used in the pipeline have slight air leakage, which can not meet this requirement. What shall we do? He asked everyone to take apart the parts one by one, analyze the function of each part, find out the cause of air leakage, and fix the remedy for the case. Finally, the problem was solved.

Persistent "Class 8 fitter"

Wang Shouwu is knowledgeable and meticulous in his work. He is almost persistent in trying to find out why everything happened.

He made a detailed analysis and test of basic auxiliary materials, ultra-pure water (purity above 99.99999%) and MOS chemical reagents. He repeatedly compared, revised and optimized the design layout. In order to improve the yield of integrated circuits, he requires that the yield of each process should be above 95% and the intact rate of key processes should be above 99%.

His example is more important than his words and deeds, and everything starts from himself. The equipment, instruments and meters used have been carefully overhauled and tested, and necessary transformation and innovation have been carried out. Mask aligner oil spill, unstable aluminum thickness and density performance in the evaporation table, and frequent minor faults in the elliptical polarization thickness gauge ... all these are caused by him squatting on the spot, even lying on the ground to check the reasons, changing parts and solving them one by one.

There is a domestic slicer that has been abandoned for a long time, and it is still needed in the old business. The maintenance technicians repaired it several times, but they couldn't. Wang Shouwu did it himself, and analyzed the mechanical action principle of the machine, the functions of various parts of the control circuit, possible problems and so on. And discuss with you to encourage you to fix it. In his sixties, he squatted on the ground with everyone for several hours, finally found out the problem, repaired the circuit, reworked and replaced the lead screw, and rejuvenated this old equipment.

There are countless examples of this. So that Wang Shouwu enjoys the nickname of "Class 8 Fiddler Scientist" in the industry.

It took him a year to raise the highest batch yield of 256-bit MOS RAM to an unprecedented level in China at that time, and the highest batch reached 40%. It was second only to Japan in Asia at that time.

Unforgettable "Shanghai Edge"

At that time, Shanghai was the main base of China's integrated circuit industry, undertaking 80% of the country's integrated circuit production. Wang Shouwu often came to Shanghai during that period because he organized and led the research and development and industrialization of large-scale integrated circuits. At that time, the author worked in the large-scale integrated circuit battle group in Shanghai, and I had more opportunities to contact him. What impressed me most was that he fought day and night, never cared about working hours, and always tried his best to help young people without reservation. Where there are the most difficulties and problems, there is his figure.

265438+At the beginning of the 20th century, Mr. Wang Lao, who was over 80 years old, came to Shanghai twice to care about the yield, cost, quality and supporting capacity of Shanghai VLSI production, and went deep into the front line of SMIC factory in Zhangjiang, Pudong to learn about the integrated circuit enterprises such as Belling, Advanced and Xinke.

The scientific and technological personnel who participated in the battle of large-scale integrated circuit industry with him in Shanghai still miss the unforgettable years of fighting day and night for the development of national large-scale integrated circuit industry under the leadership of Mr. Wang.