The podcasts I default to while driving lately are “Left and Right” and “Journey of Civilization.” I listen to almost every episode of the former, while the latter is like an old tree blooming anew.
Why I enjoy listening to them is not the topic of today’s discussion. I just always felt something was missing, but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. A random thought broadened my perspective.
Topics in the humanities are indeed fascinating: history, culture, society, thought, religion, literature, art, etc., and they resonate more easily with us. However, “technology” has always been difficult to integrate into these programs. When we talk about history, we are always engrossed in those legendary figures, thinking they are the ones who create or even turn the tide of history. Various programs also believe we can learn from history and gain much knowledge and inspiration.
These are, of course, not wrong. However, if viewed from the perspective of the entire Earth or aliens, those historical figures might not be important. The development of technology, on the other hand, is a hidden line that influences everything. The rise and fall of dynasties, the strategies of ministers, the sieges and massacres—these events, even with different protagonists, would not change the main evolutionary process of the world: from agriculturalization to industrialization, from industrialization to informatization, from informatization to intelligence. No matter how remarkable those figures were at the time, the dynasties would still crumble after a few hundred years. It’s a bit like the coldness in “The Three-Body Problem”: whether you are nobles or peasants, without technology, you are all insects.
Technological Determinism Link to heading
We all know that the emergence of farming technology and the development of navigation technology led to the great changes in the human map later on. In fact, even at a specific time, particular technology remains one of the core determining factors.
For example, the organic combination of the Mongolian cavalry’s composite bow and horse-riding technology allowed them to sweep across Eurasia; however, their poor naval technology led to unsuccessful invasions of Vietnam and Japan. Facing the mountainous terrain of Europe and castle-like fortifications, the Mongolian cavalry found it difficult to advance further into Central Europe.
Another example is the Qing army. People gossip about what would have happened if Li Zicheng hadn’t captured Chen Yuanyuan, but they overlook the real decisive factor: the Qing army’s resolute adoption of cannon and musket technology. The Qing army had a generational advantage in the application of firearms against the peasant army, the Southern Ming army, and the northern nomadic tribes, which was the key to the Qing dynasty’s unification of the north and south of the Great Wall.
Returning to the alien perspective, all the skyscrapers, highways, bridges, airplanes, and cars that affect the landscape are results of technology. The historical figures we once revered, from Qin Shi Huang and Han Wu to Zhu Yuanzhang and Zeng Guofan, besides their records of ruling people and exterminating them like ants, seem to have not fundamentally changed the world.
The Foundation of the Information Age Link to heading
It’s intriguing to consider what the core technology influencing our modern era is, analogous to the stone tools, iron tools, firearms, and steam engines of history.
I guess it might be a small switch called MOS, although 99.99% of people don’t know what this thing means in Chinese.
We spend far more time with MOS every day than with our family and friends.
Most ordinary people know that silicon is synonymous with semiconductors, but in MOS, it is just the substrate.
What is FET? What is CMOS? Even if these terms are translated into Mandarin, they would only confuse ordinary people more.
This seemingly simple structure is the brick and stone with which we build the grand edifice of the information age.
History of Science and Technology Link to heading
I once considered enrolling in a Ph.D. program to study the history of modern science and technology. The discipline of the history of science and technology (071200) is a first-level discipline in China, which seems to be highly valued, right? But upon closer inspection, it doesn’t seem quite right. Only the University of Science and Technology of China and Beijing University of Technology have dual first-class qualifications in the history of science and technology, and their research focuses on ancient studies. Other universities with doctoral programs in the history of science and technology are few nationwide, mostly newly approved in recent years, and similarly focus on ancient medicine, agriculture, ceramics, etc.
Our academic community particularly emphasizes ancient times, especially in the social sciences.
Not to mention the unclear location of the Xia Dynasty, even for something as recent as “Dream of the Red Chamber” from a few hundred years ago, we are still confused. Although the study of “Dream of the Red Chamber” has generated significant GDP, there is no consensus on who Cao Xueqin was or what the core ideas expressed in “Dream of the Red Chamber” are.
That said, the academic community’s enthusiasm for history does meet a societal spiritual need. Our idle comments here are just powerless; we still need to be down-to-earth in our own lives.
Berkeley, California Link to heading
Last month, during a visit with Dr. Cao Kanyu from Changxin, he mentioned an interesting issue: how academia and industry can effectively connect. This raises an unavoidable reality: the academic community in mainland China struggles to effectively support the industry, which is eagerly waiting for it, and the industry is even a step ahead in engineering research.
Learning from the strengths of others to overcome them. Can we gain some insights from the integration of industry, academia, and research in the United States?
Dr. Cao studied under Professor Hu Zhengming at Berkeley: the person who saved Moore’s Law in the new century. Another student of Professor Hu, Liang Mengsong, is a key figure in advancing the advanced processes of the three major foundries. So I am particularly interested in seeing Berkeley’s story.
It is well known that Professor Hu is called the father of FinFET in the industry. However, strictly speaking, the concept of FinFET was not originally his. If we look at the schematic, the DELTA FET proposed by Digh Hisamoto of the Hitachi Central Research Institute ten years earlier already looks very similar to FinFET, and Hisamoto is also the first author of the FinFET series of papers. Why didn’t Hisamoto receive the highest honor?
Dr. Liang Mengsong graduated as early as 1983, and for the next two or three decades, he didn’t publish papers related to FinFET. Why was Dr. Liang so outstanding in the practical field of FinFET?
Similarly, Liu Deyin and Qiu Ciyun, both from Berkeley’s Department of Electronics, are outstanding leaders who respectively lead the semiconductor foundry giants on both sides of the Taiwan Strait (TSMC and SMIC) to prominence. As I searched for related alumni, one outstanding Chinese name after another kept popping up. Why has Berkeley’s education had such a profound impact on the Chinese semiconductor community?
The Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at Berkeley isn’t divided like in universities back home; it’s just one department. Wouldn’t it sound more prestigious to call such large fields a “college” by our standards?
CANCER, SPICE, BSIM… “Cancer,” “Spice,” “Type B SIM card”? Why are these bizarrely named Berkeley software tools the origin of the technology and talent for the two giants of integrated circuit EDA, Cadence and Synopsys? There was even a Berkeley professor who served on the boards of both companies simultaneously. What’s going on here?
Moreover, how did the RISC architecture originate from Berkeley, start with workstations, go through a decline, and then explode into ARM processors that are now in everyone’s phones? How did Berkeley’s Unix system (BSD) spread TCP/IP across the internet and later become the robust foundation for Apple’s computer and phone operating systems?
Let’s turn to the field of chip manufacturing. Nowadays, students avoid the “four major pitfalls” of biochemistry, environmental science, materials science, and basic research. What insights can Berkeley’s story offer us?
When everyone is saying Moore’s Law has reached its end, what is the academic community’s response? What lessons from the time when Moore’s Law hit a wall over twenty years ago can help us now?
What will the future of semiconductor and computer technology look like?
These questions are probably too extensive to cover in just one or two discussions.
Summary Link to heading
To summarize, the point of this article is to express that electronic technology has played an extremely important role in shaping technology, economy, and geopolitics over the past century: from the defeat of the Axis powers, the rise of the Four Asian Tigers, the outcomes of the Cold War, to the birth of the new Silicon Curtain today.
While significant figures may influence the course of world events at certain historical stages, perhaps without Hitler there would have been a Gantler, without Roosevelt there would have been a Rowe Five. Ultimately, the evolution of science and technology is the ultimate key to determining the Earth’s ecosystem.
(To be continued)