The Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute has made progress in developing chips capable of operating in temperatures as low as 4 Kelvin (minus-269°C), contributing to domestic quantum and aerospace development, National Institutes of Applied Research president Tsai Hung-yin (蔡宏營) said in an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) yesterday.
The chip is the first of its kind in Taiwan and is capable of operating at 4 Kelvin, a feat that would bolster Taiwan’s quantum technology development, Tsai said.
The development of such chips would also buttress Taiwan’s development of aerospace technologies, as temperatures in outer space are close to 4 Kelvin, he said.
Photo: Ting An-yu, Taipei Times
The chip can be used in satellite communication systems and equipment, he said, adding that Taiwan’s ability to research and develop such technology removes the need to purchase them from abroad.
The Hsinchu-based semiconductor institute has also developed RAM that would allow in-memory computation, Tsai said.
The success of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry was not achieved over a short time, he said.
The industry could not be where it is today were it not for the decades of efforts of the semiconductor institute’s preceding organizations, the National Nano Device Laboratories and the National Chip Implementation Center, which fostered talent in the industry, he said.
The semiconductor institute’s ability to provide a one-stop solution, from theory to implementation and application, has been the envy of foreign academic organizations, he said.
“We are pursuing overseas collaborations in the form of seminars and tech forums to share our experiences,” Tsai said.
The semiconductor institute is willing to make its services available to academic institutions in Taiwan and around the world to create an open research-and-development platform, he said.
It is also working with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and other firms to develop the latest copackaged optics technologies, which are expected to become operational by next year, Tsai added.
Meanwhile, the National Center for High-Performance Computing in March introduced the Resilient AI Platform, primarily a business-to-business platform to facilitate the full harnessing of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, Tsai said.
The platform is part of the National Science and Technology Council’s Chip-based Industrial Innovation Program, which has set aside funds to create AI infrastructure from last year to 2028, he said.
For example, the Taichung City Government has used the system to enable collation of geolocation information simply by feeding photographs into the system, he said.
The Penghu County Government has also used the digital twin technology to create a “3D harbor,” enabling the county government to more effectively manage the ships docked there, as well as issue wind and wave warnings, as well as weather forecasts, he added.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
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