Hanxin

Hanxin (simplified Chinese: 汉芯; traditional Chinese: 漢芯; pinyin: Hànxīn) is the name of a digital signal processing (DSP) microchip. A Chinese professor, Chen Jin, claimed to have developed the chip in 2003. Chen Jin was a professor at the prestigious Jiaotong University in Shanghai. The Hanxin 1 was reportedly the first DSP chip to have been wholly developed in China; however, the chip was later revealed to be a duplicate of a chip developed in the West, with the original identifications sanded away.

Exposure

At the beginning of 2006, an anonymous user in a popular Chinese internet forum Tianya Club wrote an article about the forgery of this DSP chip with very detailed references. Later various Chinese media including Ming Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper, claims that various ministries of the Chinese government have been investigating the Hanxin, and Chen may have duplicated a Freescale DSP from the West. Ming Pao claimed on March 14, 2006 that the investigation had determined that the claims by Chen were exaggerated, and that the investigation was continuing.

On May 12, 2006, the China News Service reported that Chen's research was faked and the Hanxin project had been cancelled.

The government decided to retrieve all funds allocated to the Hanxin research, and permanently banned Chen from doing any government-funded research and ordered him to return investment money. He could also face a criminal investigation.

References

• A Chinese chip scandal?
• In a Scientist's Fall, China Feels Robbed of Glory
• Computer chip fraud scandalises China
• Two chip scandals set back China's IT industry