Tsinghua University and ROHM Form an Inclusive Partnership

Tsinghua University (Beijing, China) and semiconductor manufacturer ROHM Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Kyoto, Japan) have recently teamed up to form an inclusive, collaborative academia-industry partnership whose initial joint research will focus on development of bio-sensing devices using photonics technology.

Tsinghua University is renowned for both its research capabilities as well as its talented team of scientists, which have earned it a reputation as one of the top universities in China, especially in the fields of Electrical Engineering and Science. In fact, this reputation extends worldwide for a number of their research departments.

Meanwhile, ROHM, established in Kyoto in 1958, is among the world's top providers of high quality system solutions such as for the cellular phone,AV industries and so on, as well as custom LSIs, laser diodes, blue/white LEDs and other semiconductor products for the electronic market. In China, ROHM has massive scale factories in Tianjin (ROHM SEMICONDUCTOR CHINA CO., LTD.) and Dalian (ROHM ELECTRONICS DALIAN CO., LTD.) as well as 3 sales companies and 19 offices in total (including Beijing).

To further accelerate technological innovation ROHM has formed alliances with universities in Japan in order to develop LEDs using zinc oxide as well as silicon carbide power devices. Collaborative efforts have also been made with US universities in the solid state lighting fields. ROHM is taking an active part in the research and development of new technologies and next generation semiconductor devices.

In China there is an increasing demand for energy-efficient lighting in the form of solid state devices such as LEDs, and the big national project is currently underway for cooperative research to be conducted nationwide and centered at Tsinghua University. In this partnership, we develop smaller and more inexpensive bio-sensing devices using photonics technology. This will hopefully lead to the creation of products that will have a significant impact in a country as vast as China, such as medical equipment that can perform a range of tests at home and conduct remote diagnosis, eliminating the need to visit the hospital for all but the most urgent cases.

This partnership represents the latest in a series of academia-business collaborations arranged by Kyoto University as part of its ongoing efforts to foster relations between Japan and China (Kyoto, Japan).