News on China's scientific and technological development.

Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail to remove luxury seats


A staff member walks by a high-speed train at Shanghai Hongqiao railway station, east China's Shanghai, on Feb. 20, 2011. The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway started a test-run on its Shanghai section on Sunday. The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail service provides a five-hour link between the twin cosmopolitan cities in China after it is fully operational by mid 2011. Preparations have been made for a test-run, which will be launched soon. (Xinhua/Chen Fei)


The Shanghai-Nanjing and Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railways began operation in 2010. The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway is expected to be operational by the middle of 2011.


A China Railway High-speed (CRH) train leaves Shanghai Hongqiao railway station for a test-run in Shanghai, east China's Shanghai, on Feb. 20, 2011. (Xinhua/Chen Fei)



"Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail to remove luxury seats
14:21, April 20, 2011

The operators of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail that is scheduled to be put into operation at the end of June will remove luxury train seats and lower the operating speed in order to better meet the needs of common passengers by charging lower fares, the railway authorities said on April 19.

Earlier, the new trains for the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway were all produced under the standard of running at the maximum speed of 380 kilometers per hour and at the normal speed of 350 kilometers per hour. However, according to the latest provisions by the Ministry of Railways, the maximum speed of the trains will be lowered to 300 kilometers per hour and the aviation-grade luxury seats will be replaced by standard seats.

"China's high-speed railway sector has set safety, reliability, economy and availability to common people as the new emphasis, attempting to enable more common passengers to enjoy the convenience of high-speed railways," a transport expert who declined to give his name told reporters.

Although foreign high-speed trains also run at speeds up to 400 kilometers per hour and some even more than 500 kilometers per hour, foreign operators all left sufficient safety redundancy for the trains when putting them into actual operation. This is why the highest operating speed of high-speed railway trains in developed countries stands at only at 320 kilometers per hour.

Furthermore, after the speed of a railway train exceeds 320 kilometers per hour, the costs of energy consumption for the train will double for a rise of every 10 kilometers per hour in the speed. Therefore, high-speed operators cannot focus only on lifting operation speeds but rather select an operating mode that can best fulfill practical needs and is most economically feasible.

After the operation speed for the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway is lowered, a non-stop high-speed train is expected to complete the journey between Beijing and Shanghai in five hours, instead of four hours as originally planned.

To compete for high-end commercial passengers with the aviation sector, the operators of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway once planned to use aviation-grade train seats as its biggest selling point. They added not only VIP cabins similar to first-class aircraft cabins to the trains but also commercial cars equipped with flatbed seats.

However, luxury facilities on most high-speed trains are being removed and will be converted into common high-speed trains with only first and second-class seats. This will help enlarge the fare difference between the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway and air travel, as well as lift the passenger occupancy rate.

By People's Daily Online"

China New Body Scanner

Taiwan develops revolutionary heart-attack drug


Most heart attacks happen when a clot in the coronary artery blocks the supply of blood and oxygen to the heart. A blockage that is not treated within a few hours causes the affected heart muscle to die. (Image: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Diseases and Conditions Index)



"Taiwan develops revolutionary heart-attack drug
Publication Date：04/21/2011
Source： Taiwan Today
By Meg Chang

A clot-busting drug that treats heart attacks using a combination of stem cells and nanomaterial was unveiled by the National Science Council on April 21.

“The medication is based upon a blend of proprietary nanomaterial with growth factors and stem cells,” project leader Yeh Chen-sheng said. “It is administered by direct injection into the heart.”

Yeh, a professor of chemistry at Tainan-based National Cheng Kung University, said the drug targets vascular congestions and clears clogged carotid arteries. “The nanomaterial carrying the growth factors and stem cells then dissolves and is metabolized by the kidney,” he added.

According to Yeh, existing medication often fails to work as it has been diluted below effective levels before reaching the heart. “Direct injection overcomes this issue, with preliminary testing on lab mice showing heart functions increasing by 50 percent without any significant side effects,” he said.

“The next step is to conduct trials with intravenous injections and then run lab tests on larger animals.”

The drug was developed under the auspices of a three-year NSC project commencing 2010. Team members include Patrick C.H. Hsieh, professor at NCKU’s Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, and Ho Ja-an, professor at the Department of Biochemical Science and Technology, National Taiwan University. (JSM)

Write to Meg Chang at [email protected]"

Re: Taiwan develops revolutionary heart-attack drug

If it works, the stent industry will collapse.

The WSJ could not resist adding a political spin on it.
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Invasion of the Chinese Body Scanners?

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Scott Olson/Getty Images
A sign informs travelers about Millimeter Wave Detection technology used in full body scanners at Midway Airport Dec. 15, 2010 in Chicago, Illinois. China has developed its own scanner that claims to do a better job of protecting privacy.

More In Technology

On a quest to boost innovation and make China a global technological power, Beijing for years has trumpeted homegrown technologies in everything from mobile communications to trains to microprocessors.

The latest project getting pumped? A locally-developed body scanner.

“Unlike those produced in the U.S., this scanner can detect prohibited objects while also guarding people’s privacy,” the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported late Thursday, citing an executive at the product’s manufacturer.

The scanner can automatically delete personal information when it completes its task, the report said, citing Jia Zhong, general manager of Tianjin Chongfang Science &Technology Company.

Full-body scanners deployed in airports have proven a lightning rod with certain sections of the traveling public in the U.S. since the machines can see through people’s clothes. The devices have also come under fire over concerns about radiation exposure.

The Chinese scanner has also solved the radiation issue, according to Xinhua. The X-ray radiation the device emits is “negligible,” the news agency said, equal to one-thirty-sixth of the radiation a airline passenger is exposed to when flying from Beijing to Shanghai.

The Chinese body scanner “uses an anti-scattering X-ray mechanism to detect nonmetal objects such as ceramic knives, explosives, drugs, plastic weapons and liquid bombs,” Xinhua said.

The report didn’t say whether China’s government is explicitly backing the project, but it said the body scanner has “independent intellectual property rights” and its maker plans to deploy 1,000 units each year in a variety of venues including airports, railway stations and customs crossings. Xinhua said a group made mostly of experts from Beijing’s elite Tsinghua University developed the body scanner, which was exhibited at a seminar in southern China’s Guangdong province this week.

This isn’t the first time Chinese scanners have made headlines. In 2009, Chinese censors blocked online search results and websites mentioning Namibia after anti-corruption officials in the African country began scrutinizing Nuctech Co., a Chinese company linked to the son of Chinese President Hu Jintao that had sold cargo scanners to its customs agency. Hu’s son Hu Haifeng wasn’t a suspect, but he was questioned as a witness.

The Chinese public’s relatively resigned attitude towards government monitoring may help the new body scanners avoid the public-relations disaster that accompanied the unveiling of their U.S. counterparts. There’s no guarantee, however, that new technology will experience commercial success, even with the benefit of government support.

For instance, China has extensively promoted a locally-developed standard for third-generation mobile communication, called TD-SCDMA, for use by network operators and mobile phone makers overseas.

But state-run China Mobile remains the only carrier in the world to operate a major network using it. Similarly, government-backed researchers in China have struggled for years to promote self-developed computer chips, known by the name Godson or Loongson, while a Chinese security protocol for wireless networks, called WAPI, has likewise failed to gain major traction.

Can a China-developed body scanner break the mold? Mr. Jia seems to hope so: “It has a competitive export price,” he said in the Xinhua report.

– Owen Fletcher. Follow him on Twitter @owenfletcher

China develops phase-change RAM



First PCRAM chip with China's self-owned intellectual property rights manufactured in Shanghai
English.news.cn 2011-04-20 18:33:33


Song Zhitang (L), a researcher at Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, works with his colleague in the laboratory in Shanghai, east China, on April 20, 2011. The first phase-change random access memory (PCRAM) chip with China's self-owned intellectual property rights was manufactured recently; jointly by Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation and Microchip Technology Incorporated. The chip has a memory volume of 8MB. (Xinhua/Liu Ying)


A researcher shows the first phase-change random access memory (PCRAM) chip with China's self-owned intellectual property rights in Shanghai, east China, on April 20, 2011. (Xinhua/Liu Ying)


A researcher, from Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, demonstrates the voice function of the first phase-change random access memory (PCRAM) chip with China's self-owned intellectual property rights at a laboratory in Shanghai, east China, on April 20, 2011. (Xinhua/Liu Ying)




Shanghai Institute's PCRAM test chip was made on 200-mm diameter wafers.



"China develops phase-change RAM
Peter Clarke
4/20/2011 7:55 AM EDT

LONDON – The Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences – working with foundry chipmaker SMIC and Microchip Technology – has announced it has developed phase-change random access memory (PCRAM) that is based on Chinese intellectual property, according to a Xinhua report.

The 8-Mbit memory, scheduled for mass production later this year, is intended for use as a replacement for NOR flash in applications such as mobile storage and RFID, according to Chinese language reports in translation. It is relatively modest in capacity, compared with available flash memory but for China the development is intended to break the foreign control of memory chip production and has been accompanied by the filing of about 200 patents, the reports said.

The PCRAM was manufactured jointly by Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and Microchip Technology Inc., according to Xinhua, the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China. No details were provided of the geometry of the manufacturing process or plans to scale the manufacturing or produce devices with increased capacity.

While it is expected that SMIC could act as a foundry manufacturer of the relatively modestly sized memory it is not yet clear what the role of Microchip (Chandler, Arizona) is in the development of the memory.

Phase-change memory – like NOR and NAND flash – is nonvolatile, providing power-saving opportunities. Its operation is conventionally based on the change of resistance as a chalcogenide glass changes state from amorphous to crystalline under the heating effect of a current passing through a thin film. Although theoretically superior to DRAM, SRAM and flash memory on a number of counts it has yet to reach mainstream commercial adoption.

Micron and Samsung are in the lead. Samsung has developed a 512-Mbit PCRAM test chip on a 60- to 65-nm manufacturing process which has achieved some deployment in Samsung mobile phone. Micron, through its Numonyx acquisition has a 128-Mbit device on 90-nm process. Numonyx was also working on a 1-Gbit phase-change memory on a 45-nm process.

The Shanghai Institute's PCRAM test chip was made on 200-mm diameter wafers but details of the manufacturing process technology or whether it is based on chalcogenide material were not discussed in Chinese language reports.

A voice demonstration has confirmed that the chip can read, write and erase, according to Xinhua. The patents cover technologies ranging from the distribution of materials, structures and chip design to means of testing. China plans to be able to supply 60 percent of its own memory IC requirements within 10 years."

These are developed in Shanghai, but are probably either manufactured in Taiwan or Singapore, maybe even Italy. Designing a chip is not hard, making it is the hardest part.

pugachev_diver said:

These are developed in Shanghai, but are probably either manufactured in Taiwan or Singapore, maybe even Italy. Designing a chip is not hard, making it is the hardest part.

Click to expand...

From the article on "China develops phase-change RAM":

"The PCRAM was manufactured jointly by Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and Microchip Technology Inc., according to Xinhua, the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China. No details were provided of the geometry of the manufacturing process or plans to scale the manufacturing or produce devices with increased capacity."

It was jointly manufactured. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) is a Chinese foundry. Please stop making untrue statements, unless you have evidence to support them.

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"Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation ("SMIC"; NYSE: SMI; SEHK: 981) is one of the leading semiconductor foundries in the world and the largest and most advanced foundry in Mainland China, providing integrated circuit (IC) foundry and technology services at 0.35-micron to 45/40-nanometer. Headquartered in Shanghai, China, SMIC has a 300mm wafer fabrication facility (fab) and three 200mm wafer fabs in its Shanghai mega-fab, two 300mm wafer fabs in its Beijing mega-fab, a 200mm wafer fab in Tianjin, and a 200mm fab under construction in Shenzhen. SMIC also has customer service and marketing offices in the U.S., Europe, and Japan, and a representative office in Hong Kong. In addition, SMIC manages and operates a 300mm wafer fab in Wuhan owned by Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation.

For more information, please visit http://www.smics.com"




Name: SMIC Shanghai
All fabs are located in China to better serve the Chinese market. The SMIC 200mm wafer capacity is 150k per month. 300mm capacity is: 130/90nm 20k per month, 65/55nm 60k per month, 45/40nm 50k per month, 32/28nm 60k per month.

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pugachev_diver said:

These are developed in Shanghai, but are probably either manufactured in Taiwan or Singapore, maybe even Italy. Designing a chip is not hard, making it is the hardest part.

Click to expand...

If you have nothing intelligent to say please refrain from opening your mouth It is very annoying with your snide remark. If you don't like nobody forced you to read

Hendrik_2000 said:

If you have nothing intelligent to say please refrain from opening your mouth It is very annoying with your snide remark. If you don't like nobody forced you to read

Click to expand...

Thank you Hendrik. Pugachev_diver is starting to get on my nerves. He also disparaged China's space atomic clock without proof and he was wrong about that too.