Chips are not just business opportunities, they are also Taiwan’s guardian angels! From environmental sensing to smart epidemic prevention, how does chip technology protect us?

The impact of environmental quality on us is everywhere, including health and economic factors. The Blackfoot Disease Memorial Hall in Beimen Township, Tainan, bears witness to the damage caused by water pollution; the Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, has set up meteorological observation stations in tea-growing areas such as Nantou and Chiayi, hoping to record environmental information in a scientific way to improve agricultural production. In recent years, the media has frequently reported news about PM 2.5 air pollution and carbon monoxide poisoning, which are closely related to health. Semiconductor factory production requires strict control of environmental quality. If technology always comes from human nature, then sensors that can monitor environmental quality will certainly attract much attention.

Environmental sensors are widely used and therefore come in many types. If they are to be popularized, factors such as price, size, and power consumption must also be considered. In recent years, due to the rapid development of the semiconductor industry, it has been possible to develop tiny and diverse environmental sensing chips that meet considerations of price, size, and power consumption. Imagine if these environmental sensing chips were placed in mobile phones, homes, communities, farmlands, factories, and even telephone poles or street lights in the future, they would not only be able to monitor the environment in real time, but also collect environmental big data over time to help track diseases, improve water quality, Industrial upgrading, etc. to improve the quality of life.

Environmental sensing chips are everywhere. “Sensing capability” is the foundation for realizing intelligence.

Semiconductor-related technologies developed by high-tech companies such as TSMC are also widely used in the development of sensor chips. For example, the well-known Nintendo Wii and Switch use motion sensor chips to realize somatosensory games. Due to its power consumption advantage, it is currently widely used in consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, providing more convenient and diverse human-computer interaction.

Our team, including the author and four professors from National Tsing Hua University, including Li Shengxian, Wang Yulin, and Ke Zhenghao from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, foresaw the impact and importance of environmental sensing integrated with the Internet of Things and big data technologies on health and industry. Therefore, we used the Ministry of Science and Technology to The Moon Shooting Project combines the diverse expertise of both parties and the practical experience of the semiconductor industry chain to develop environmental sensing chips such as temperature and humidity, pressure, noise, infrared, airborne particles, heavy metals, and spectrometers, and integrate the aforementioned sensors according to the application field. The chip, together with signal processing and wireless transmission chips, realizes an intelligent and multi-functional environmental sensing hub.

The above environmental sensing chip can be easily integrated with mobile phones, home appliances and other devices. Its application can be as small as personal or home. For example, individuals can monitor air quality in real time through mobile phones. Through the data collected by everyone, environmental information at different times and regions can be recorded (such as Google Traffic); it also has important reference value for future medical care, disease management, factory pollution, and even house sales.

As for home use, in addition to well-known products such as air boxes, environmental sensing chips in home appliances can also be used to confirm the effectiveness of kitchen smoke exhaust, or control the operating mode of air conditioners, etc. Regarding the industry, there are too many to list, such as the temperature and humidity conditions in the tea garden mentioned above, as well as water quality monitoring for agricultural irrigation to avoid cadmium rice pollution incidents. In short, the demand for environmental sensing chips is ubiquitous, and the ability to sense is the basis for achieving intelligence.

Take advantage of Taiwan, the Silicon Island! Connecting the semiconductor industry chain, a national team of sensor chips is taking shape

After more than 30 years of hard work, Taiwan has established a complete chain and cluster of upstream and downstream semiconductor industries, which is also an important economic lifeline of our country. Our team understands the advantages of domestic technology. Through the industry-university alliance established by the author and graduates and friends serving the industry, we work closely with domestic industry players in systems, design, manufacturing, packaging and testing to develop environmental sensing chip-related technologies. Completely connect China's semiconductor industry chain to form a national team of sensor chips.

For example, the temperature, humidity, pressure and infrared sensing chips are made using TSMC's process, the heavy metal water quality sensing chips are made using Jingyuan Optoelectronics' process and ASE packaging, and so on. Among them, Professors Wang Yulin and Ke Zhenghao also founded two new startup companies respectively.

Due to the impact of the epidemic, there is a huge demand for many environmental sensing chips that assist in rapid inspection, such as infrared sensors. In addition, sensing chips are also gradually being used in some high-priced products such as machine tools, medical equipment, etc. Therefore, sensor chips have become a key strategic technology, and have also continued the influence and importance of my country's semiconductor industry.

Sensor chips open up new business opportunities for smart epidemic prevention and rapid screening

The COVID-19 pandemic happened during the execution of this project, which also enabled several sensor chips developed by the team to have more opportunities to be used, such as the aforementioned infrared sensor chip.

In addition, Professor Ke Zhenghao's miniature spectrometer "Shenguang Precision Rapid Screening Instrument", as shown in Figure 3, has the characteristics of small size and high speed compared with commercially available medical spectrometers. Therefore, it has been introduced into the medical system (including Kaohsiung Xiaogang, Tamsui Mackay Hospital and other hospitals) assisted in the interpretation of rapid screening test strips and also conducted rapid screening for 5,000 people in Wanhua area.

Because the "Shenguan Precision Rapid Screening Device" is easy to carry and has high accuracy, it will have the opportunity to move out of hospitals and be widely used by individuals or families in the future. A large amount of data can be obtained based on this, which can be analyzed by professional institutions to create higher derivative benefits. Therefore, the "Shenguan Precision Rapid Screening Device" was awarded the National Innovation Award (Top 50 Epidemic Prevention Technologies) and obtained the U.S. FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) certification, which not only fully demonstrated its commercial value, It can also be seen that chips are not only business opportunities, but also the guardian angels of Taiwan and even the world.