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【Member News】Qi Hongji of Fujia Gallium: Running at the "Gallium" Speed of Science and Technology Industrialization
日期：2025-04-01阅读：149
Last summer, Qi Hongji took to the streets of Zhongguancun in Beijing to complete a 10 km run.
A small bungalow at the Beijing Rongke Information Center was the end of the run. It is also the starting point of "Lenovo".
In 2022, Qi Hongji formed a relationship with Lenovo. That time, as Hangzhou Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, FuJia Gallium founder, director, he took part in the star of Lenovo business CEO special training class (hereinafter referred to as the "CEO special training class") entrepreneurship training, filling the short board of researcher’s entrepreneurship, and has formed the habit of running.
Since then, entrepreneurship, scientific research and running have become the "iron triangle" of Qi Hongji's daily life. In his view, these three have the same underlying logic: start without hesitation, enjoy the challenge process, and achieve self-transcendence.
Just like continuously achieving the goal of running volume when running, Qi Hongji also ushered in the milestone of business development.
The first domestic 6-inch Gallium Oxide single crystal and epitaxial wafer growth line created by Fujia Gallium Industry has started construction in Fuyang, Hangzhou, which will achieve an annual output of 10,000 pieces, further accelerate the industrialization process in this field, and ultimately help China seize the strategic highland in the field of fourth-generation semiconductor materials.
"Gallium Oxide is simply God's gift to mankind." In Qi Hongji's heart, a small Gallium Oxide crystal can burst out the power to change the world.
"Compared with monocrystalline silicon materials, power electronic components prepared by Gallium Oxide can withstand higher voltages and greater currents, and have lower high-voltage on-off losses, which is a typical representative of fourth-generation semiconductor materials." Qi Hongji said that Gallium Oxide is an indispensable member of the future industry. The power electronic devices prepared by Gallium Oxide have the advantages of high performance and low cost, and have broad application prospects in high-voltage and high-current scenarios such as data centers, rail transit, photovoltaic inverters, high-power communication and new energy vehicle charging.
In this regard, Qi Hongji took new energy vehicles as an example to introduce the application advantages of Gallium Oxide. To further increase the speed of the battery, new energy car companies are gradually improving high voltage electrical system voltage, "if the Gallium Oxide preparation of power devices, can work under the trend of high voltage to improve motor efficiency, reduce the battery heating, while reducing manufacturing costs, is expected to shorten charging time and a quarter of the now."
Advantages and potential future applications based on their performance, and attaches great importance to the world of Gallium Oxide materials technology research and development, it has become one of the strategic highland of global competition.
It is reported that Japan is the country of the earlier research on Gallium Oxide technology, in 2011 began to vigorously in related research and implementation is expected in the summer of 2025 small sales of Gallium Oxide power device. In addition, the United States has also begun to strengthen the research of Gallium Oxide materials in recent years.
What makes Qi Hongji proud is that in the field of Gallium Oxide scientific research, China has been in the first echelon in the world. Through continuous exploration and practice, Fujia Gallium, founded by him, has reached the threshold of industrialization of Gallium Oxide device process line.
As early as 2004, the institute where Qi Hongji works, as one of the earliest teams in China, began to study Gallium Oxide crystals, mainly engaged in the design, simulation, growth and performance characterization of Gallium Oxide single crystal materials, forming a distinct feature and advantage.
In 20 years of scientific research work, he has presided over more than 20 national and provincial projects, and accumulated rich experience in the research and development of photoelectric crystal materials and components.
In 2019, the Fuyang District government of Hangzhou City approached the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, hoping to introduce its high-tech to the local area to achieve industrial transformation and upgrading. Subsequently, the two sides jointly set up Hangzhou Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, and its positioning incubation platform for transformation of scientific and technological achievements.
At the early stage of its establishment, Hangzhou Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics planned to select and introduce a batch of high-quality scientific research results from Shanghai Institute of Optics Fine Mechanics to mature and industrialization the results on the incubation platform. A new generation of semiconductor Gallium Oxide materials is one of the reason is that laboratory studies started early, high technical barriers and the more important application field widely, high growth.
"In the first generation, the second generation of semiconductor materials era, the domestic and international technology gap is significant, but into the third generation, the fourth generation of semiconductor new era, the domestic and international starting gap narrowed, China may even achieve a corner overtaking." Qi Hongji believes that if Gallium Oxide can take the lead in realizing industrialization in China, it can seize a new round of commanding heights in the field of semiconductor materials science and technology, which has a very far-reaching significance for China's semiconductor industry.
After gaining the recognition of project review experts, Qi Hongji became one of the first four project leaders to transform scientific and technological achievements in Hangzhou Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, responsible for the industrialization project of Gallium Oxide, and then officially founded Fujia Gallium.
"From the day of the establishment of Fujia Gallium, we have made it clear that the industrialization should be done, that is, we must provide valuable products or services to the society, which is the foundation of our existence." Qi HongJi said, the first step of industrialization, is to aim at the market, choose to be born industry technology. In this regard, Fujia Gallium combined with market demand, choose to do the industrialization of Gallium Oxide crystals and epitaxy, and together with partners, is committed to achieve China's "single crystal - epitaxy - device - application" full link through.
Qi HongJi said, Gallium Oxide single crystal is the "cornerstone" of the industrial chain, and the threshold of the industrialization is 6 inches. "In terms of material growth habits and material hardness, Gallium Oxide and monocrystalline silicon materials are close, and only 5% of equipment needs to be replaced from monocrystalline silicon device line to Gallium Oxide device line." Therefore, considering that at this stage, monocrystalline silicon device lines are mainly 6 inches and 8 inches, Fujia Gallium will take 6 inches Gallium Oxide single crystal and epitaxial wafer as stage goals.
After setting the target, Fujia Gallium will race against the clock to tackle the key work. In this regard, Qi Hongji always reminds the team that we must do research and development around market demand, "Our research and development team comes from the laboratory, there may has inertia thinking of researcher, that is, the scientific research work as all of a company." In the case of limited resources in the early stage of entrepreneurship, if we blindly pursue standards and performance, without considering the time and cost boundaries, then Fujia Gallium is not a real company, but the 'second laboratory' of scientific research."
This kind of continuous introspection and review also allows Fujia Gallium to grasp the direction in a series of subsequent choices.
For example, in early 2023, due to limited resources, there are two research and development directions in front of Fujia Gallium industry: one is to develop a 4-inch standard Gallium Oxide "thick crystal", and the other is to develop a 6-inch Gallium Oxide "thin crystal".
You can't have your cake and eat it. Qi Hongji said: "The advantage of 4-inch thick crystals is that you can have higher slicing efficiency, which is a real industrialization; If you choose to do 6-inch thin crystals, although you can quickly break through, the slicing efficiency is low and not suitable for industrialization." In order to actually do industrialization, we unanimously chose to first conquer the 4-inch thick crystal, and accumulate experience for the product development of 6-inch thick crystals in the future.
The run-in in the early stage of the entrepreneurship not only allowed Fujia Gallium to open up the product route, but also made the core team more market-oriented thinking. Relying on technical advantages and forward-looking layout, Fujia Gallium has been established for five years to achieve a number of industries "first".
The first to achieve 6-inch thick single crystal substrate preparation, reaching the threshold of semiconductor device process line industrialization; Advanced layout in the field of artificial intelligence, the first to launch the EFG method "one click crystal growth" equipment technology has been evaluated by experts, and successfully to the market, the device solves the Gallium Oxide materials rely too much on professional talents in the process of industrialization and equipment constraints, which laid a foundation for industrialization of single crystal; The use of MOCVD and MBE technology more suitable for industrialization to prepare epitaxial film, the first to obtain the industry partner device performance verification; Domestic first article 6 inches Gallium Oxide single crystal and epitaxial growth line has been built, the future will realize the annual output of ten thousand pieces of the production scale, to further accelerate the industrialization process in this field...
Qi HongJi believe that this is the outbreak of the Gallium Oxide material tipping point, "the sustainable development of information technology, as well as the electric demand growing, let Gallium Oxide is facing more and more market demand. This demand will create the traction that will allow Gallium Oxide materials and devices to iterate quickly through the industrialization process, and ultimately drive industrialization faster and better."
Qi Hongji said that he has always kept in mind the teachings of his mentor when he just joined the work: one generation of materials, one generation of devices, one generation of applications.
But then, Qi HongJi hasn't contact with real operation process, from the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in scientific research and engineering practice, after play multiple roles, set up FuJia Gallium is the real meaning of his business.
"The difficulties in the process of entrepreneurship are far more than I had imagined at the beginning, and the founder needs to have many skills." Reviewing the course of industrialization, Qi Hongji is filled with emotion, "Good technology is not equal to good products." Founders can not only have technical advantages, team building, company strategy formulation, operation and other aspects of the ability is equally important, otherwise it will seriously affect the success rate of technological achievements."
Fortunately, Qi Hongji's achievement transformation has been supported by Hangzhou Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, " Hangzhou Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics provides us with various professional and accurate services such as finance, legal affairs, investment and financing, and local government docking, creating favorable conditions for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements."
In addition to obtaining a series of entrepreneurial "soft services" provided by Hangzhou Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Qi Hongji also learned a lot of "soft power" necessary for entrepreneurship as the 14th Lenovo Star entrepreneurial CEO special training class.
▲ Qi Hongji studied hard in the CEO special training class
"It is a required course for scientific researchers to transform into ceos. The 'three elements of management', such as team building, strategy setting and team leading, as well as the 'review' method, have effectively guided my entrepreneurial process." Today, much of the knowledge learned has become the daily norm of Qi Hongji and Fujia Gallium, "such as the method of duplication." In fact, we will 'review' everything before, but after learning, we only know that we are symbolic reflection, lack of more in-depth thinking, such as what is the reason for the deviation in the implementation process and the goal, what is the reason for reaching or exceeding the goal and so on."
There is also "the introduction of senior executives", Qi Hongji said, which is the most impressive course for him, "startup companies will inevitably introduce external executives in the development, how to balance the relationship between them and the founders?" The answer given in the class is simple and practical, it is necessary to give him a relatively difficult thing to prove his ability, and then establish his authority, so that he can quickly integrate into the team and bring greater development for the company."
In addition to the lessons learned, the ecological resources of the entrepreneurial CEO special training class also made Qi Hongji harvest a lot. The entrepreneurial CEO Special training class was initiated in 2008. Since its establishment, Lenovo has always maintained an annual training investment of tens of millions of yuan, admitted a total of 1364 innovative entrepreneurial entrepreneurs, and promoted the employment of more than 400,000 people. It has formed an entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem with important influence in China.
"The common identity of entrepreneurs brings us together. We learn from each other and communicate honestly." Qi Hongji said that behind the growth of each entrepreneurial team is "sweet and bitter", but also more willing to tell fellow people to accumulate their experience and walk through the pit, "such as team construction, management ideas, industry insights, financing matters, are our frequent communication topics."
▲ Qi Hongji invited the students of the CEO special training class to visit Fujia Gallium
▲ Qi Hongji (front row, 4th from the left) interacts closely with the students of the CEO special training class
Adhering to the national feelings of "Gallium", the road of Qi Hongji industrialization is still continuing. And compared with the early days of entrepreneurship, his inner confidence is more sufficient.
"The whole external environment for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements has changed greatly compared with the past. Under the guidance of national policies, the whole society is supporting the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, which is a once-in-a-century opportunity." Qi Hongji said that under the competition of great powers, attaching importance to scientific and technological innovation must attach importance to the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, "Now we have a consensus on this, whether it is government funds or market-oriented funds, provide more patient capital to support the transformation of scientific and technological achievements." In this era's atmosphere, our drive is also greater.
