US-China tech war: mainland universities rush to expand semiconductor programmes in drive for self-sufficiency

China’s Ministry of Education has made semiconductor science and engineering a priority academic programme
That has encouraged more universities across the country to establish new schools dedicated to the field related to integrated circuits

Semiconductors

Coco Fengin Beijing

Published: 7:00pm, 28 Jun 2021

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Universities across mainland China are rushing to set up new schools and departments focused on semiconductors, in a push to develop more skilled talent to support Beijing’s strategic goal of chips self-sufficiency amid the country’s intense hi-tech rivalry with the United States.

Shenzhen Technology University, an institution of higher education established in 2018 by southern Guangdong province and the coastal city known as China’s Silicon Valley, announced last week that it has set up a school focused on integrated circuits (ICs) in cooperation with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, the mainland’s largest and most advanced chip foundry.

The new school will enrol 60 students this fall, training them to become highly skilled talent for IC design and manufacturing, according to the university.

That followed the announcement in April by Tsinghua University to open a specialised IC college at its Beijing campus “amid the country’s significant strategic needs”. This new school was based on the university’s original department of microelectronics and nanoelectronics as well as its department of electrical engineering.

Universities in the eastern cities of Hangzhou in Zhejiang province and Nanjing in Jiangsu province as well as in landlocked Anhui province in eastern China have also announced new colleges focused on semiconductor education to train a skilled workforce for the industry.

Shenzhen Technology University, located in the southern coastal city’s Pingshan District, has set up its own school focused on the field of integrated circuits. Photo: Handout.

Those initiatives have come amid the Ministry of Education’s move upgrading IC science and engineering as a priority academic programme, which has encouraged the country’s universities to establish new schools dedicated to that field.

The ministry has added 37 majors for bachelor degrees of students entering university in September. About half, or 18, of these majors are related to computing, artificial intelligence and electronics disciplines, such as quantum information science and smart transport.

Before the new wave of semiconductor-related academic programmes, Beihang University, previously known as Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, last year renamed its school of microelectronics to “IC science and engineering”. Shenzhen University, Shandong University and South China Normal University have each established semiconductor institutes in 2019.

China’s chip push could be stymied by delays in US machinery imports

The increase in IC-related academic programmes shows how China is doubling down on efforts to build up its semiconductor industry, which has been hampered by Beijing’s tech and trade war with Washington, and a shortage of hi-tech talent in spite of the billions of dollars invested by the country to develop a world-class domestic chip supply chain.

As part of the 14th five-year plan, Beijing aims to increase the country’s spending on basic scientific research, including on semiconductors, to 8 per cent of total research and development expenditure.

The lack of semiconductor talent, however, continues to be a drag on China’s attempts to catch up with the West in advanced technologies. To fill that gap, Chinese semiconductor firms have been trying to lure more talent from Taiwan, especially veteran executives.

There were almost 512,000 people working in China’s semiconductor industry at the end of 2019, which would hardly meet the sector’s demand for a workforce of 745,000 by 2022, according to a white paper from the China Centre for Information Industry Development.