By Tony Smith
15th May 2006 08:46 GMT
A senior Chinese university official has been sacked from his
position as head of the institution's microelectronics school for
allegedly faking an entire series of chips in order to get state
funding, local newswires reported late last week.
According to the Xinhau news service, Shanghai Jiaotong University
said it had dismissed Chen Jin, until that moment the college's
chair of the school of microelectronics. It also stripped him of
his professorship. The move followed a government-initiated
investigation into the development of four generations of the
Hanxin DSP chip family.
The probe was launched in January by China's Ministry of Science
and Technology, its Ministry of Education, and local government of
Shanghai in response to a letter received the previous month
claiming Chen had engaged in fraudulent research.
The investigation's central conclusion: that the Hanxin designs,
claimed to be high-end, leading-edge parts, did not work as
promised or, for that matter, work very well at all. A design said
to sport two cores, for example, contained only one, investigators
alleged.
In addition to losing his job and professorship, Chen was ordered
to pay back the government funds invested in the Hanxin operation.
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