The 21st Macronix Golden Silicon Awards was participated by 255 teams of nearly 1,000 teachers and students from 33 higher education institutions. The NYCU team became the biggest winner in the competition with 2 Golden Awards, one Bronze Award, one Best Creativity Award (in the Design Category), and one Golden Award (in the Application Category).
Led by Associate Professor Yen-Cheng Kuan of the International College of Semiconductor Technology and Professor Chih-Wei Liu of the Institute of Electronics, Ching-Wen Chiang, Chia-Jen Liang, Yu-Chuan Li, and Indian student Shabirahmed B. Jigalur co-developed high-resolution, multi-user, anti-jamming radar systems applicable for the millimeter wave W band, winning the Golden Award and Best Creativity Award in the Design Category. These systems provide each vehicle with a unique radar system code, which receives reflected signal during transmission and interprets and receives signals from neighboring vehicles to accurately calculate its distance with other vehicles and obstacles. This greatly enhances the safety of automated driving.
Led by Professor Sheng-Di Lin and Associate Professor Chia-Ming Tsai of the Institute of Electronics, An-Tai Hsiao, Chun-Hsien Liu, Yu-Jie Fang, and Li-Chih Ko co-developed an active lidar system that incorporates a CMOS single-photon avalanche diode array, suppresses environmental noises, and is resistant to interference, winning the Golden Award in the Application Category. The system establishes an optical transmitter and a photodetector using the near infrared of the lidar system of a vehicle and calculates the distance between the vehicle and external objects using the computer according to the back-and-forth time difference of the beam. This solves the light source insufficiency caused by the camera employed in an automated vehicle for collision avoidance as well as the mutual interference between vehicle radar systems, improving the safety of automated driving.
Led by Professor Ke-Horng Chen of the College of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Yu-Yung Kao, Shu-Yung Lin, Fei Huang, and Yu-Chun Luo co-developed a fully integrated gallium-nitride (GaN)-on-silicon gate driver and a GaN switch with temperature-compensated fast turn-on technique for enhancing reliability, winning the Golden Award in the Design Category. GaN, an increasingly prominent third generation semiconductor material, features a high electron mobility transistor structure. It surpasses the operating frequency and performance of a conventional silicon-based power converter and improves the resistance switch chips of the existing chargers, attaining size reduction, power improvement, and loss reduction and further meeting the demand of consumer charger, data center, 5G, and electric vehicle markets.
At the closing ceremony, Miin Wu, Chairperson of the Macronix Education Foundation, expressed acknowledgements to the collaborative support by industrial, government, and academic experts, which have made the Macronix Golden Silicon Awards a critical stage for teachers and students of electric machinery and electronics in Taiwan to demonstrate diverse creativity and tremendous research and development capacity. Professors have also encouraged students to face different challenges. Macronix Golden Silicon Awards has contributed greatly to the technological development in Taiwan because of talent cultivation, which plays a major role in continual technological evolution.
Chinese version: https://www.nycu.edu.tw/news/2415/