A university in Shanghai has fired the dean of its microelectronics school for faking the development of a series of digital signal processors, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.
“The Hanxin computer chip series are fake, and the state-funded chip research is fraudulent,” the Xinhua report said.
Chen Jin has been removed from his post at Shanghai Jiaotong University and is no longer a professor there. In addition, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission have pulled their funding for the Hanxin project.
The Ministry of Education retracted an honorary title and “remunerations” paid to Chen, Xinhua said.
Officials at the Shanghai Jiaotong University were not immediately available to comment.
In March, the Chinese press published allegations that Chen fabricated the development of the Hanxin chip series, passing off remarked chips from Freescale Semiconductor as products of his own work. Friday’s Xinhua report did not detail how Chen’s fraud was carried out.
The Hanxin 1 chip was announced in 2003 and followed by several subsequent versions. At the time of their introduction, the Hanxin chips were hailed as a milestone in China’s efforts to develop its own intellectual property. They were also cited as evidence that Shanghai was on its way to becoming a global center of chip design and production.
-Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service
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