Wednesday, October 30, 2024

World’s first nuclear radiation-detecting chip can fit on phones and drones



Interesting Engineering
Mon, October 28, 2024


A state-owned nuclear company in China has announced that it is beginning to mass produce a world-first chip that can detect radiation.

The announcement adds to the long list of semiconductor related breakthroughs that have come from the Asian country in the past few years.

The claim of beginning mass production of chips that can detect X-ray and gamma radiation have come from the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). According to a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the claim was made by the company in a statement released on its official WeChat channel.
Detecting radiation with chip

According to the SCMP report, CNNC has claimed that its homegrown chip can “measure dose rates of X- and gamma-ray radiation ranging from 100 nanoSievert per hour to 10 milliSievert per hour.”

The Chinese firm also claims that it can be used for a broad number of applications, ranging from monitoring radiation doses in all types of settings – such as nuclear-related workplaces like reactors, weapon plants, and more.

Further, it can also be used in the nature and other places with proximity to radiation zones to keep a tab on the rise or fall of levels.

To put things into perspective, a normal flight on a commercial plane can lead to a typical dose rate of roughly 3,000 nanoSievert per hour. On the other hand, in nature it is around 60 to 200 nanoSievert per hour.

One of the important features of the chip is that it is quite small in size - measuring just 15 mm by 15 mm by 3 mm - as per the Chinese firm. At the same time, the small size does not hinder its performance or its abilities – and CNNC says that it can be compared to a Geiger-Muller counter for efficiency.

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More uses of nuclear energy-detecting chip

The small size will enable the chip to be placed inside smartphones or even attached to unmanned aerial vehicles or ground drones. The phones, or drones, can then be used as smart devices for measuring radiation at the desired places, the company stated.

The chip can function on extremely low power - one milliwatt – and it can detect energies from 50 kiloelectron volt to 2 mega electron-volt.

CNNC also states that the whole development of the chip - right from designing to testing, and now the mass production – has been carried out in its factories, by its own team of engineers.

This is also a significant development as the US had been sanctioning companies from supplying semiconductors and artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China and Chinese firms.

Earlier this year, analysts had predicted that China might be able to overtake the United States in important sectors such as semiconductors, electric vehicles, quantum computing, nuclear power, and material science.

Analysts at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a think tank based in Washington, had come to this conclusion after closely following the progress and innovation capability made by 44 Chinese firms.

For a long time, China had been considered a copycat in innovation and there is a good reason for this. However, in recent years, a lot has changed. China became the second-largest economy, and the Chinese government and companies heavily invested in research and development of high-value technologies.

All of this has resulted in China’s rising dominance in several key areas. For instance, the number of nuclear reactors China developed in the last 10 years is more than what the US deployed in the last 30 years.

Chinese state-owned nuclear company claims breakthrough with radiation detection chip


South China Morning Post
Mon, October 28, 2024 


A Chinese state-owned nuclear company said it has started mass production of the world's first chip that can detect X-ray and gamma radiation, in the latest sign of China's unrelenting efforts to seek semiconductor technology breakthroughs.

The state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) said in a statement on its official WeChat channel that the self-developed chip can measure dose rates of X- and gamma-ray radiation ranging from 100 nanoSievert per hour to 10 milliSievert per hour. The typical dose rate of radiation exposure when flying on a commercial aeroplane, for instance, is around 3,000 nanoSievert per hour, while that of exposure to natural background is around 60 to 200 nanoSievert per hour.

CNNC said the proposed applications were "broad", as customers can use the chip to monitor radiation doses in various scenarios including nuclear-related workplaces, personnel and environmental settings, after adapting the circuit based on instructions in the manual.

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It can also be integrated into smartphones and drones as a radiation sensor, which could then be used as smart devices with a radiation detection function, according to CNNC.


The core module of a small modular reactor (SMR) developed by CNNC. Photo: CCTV alt=The core module of a small modular reactor (SMR) developed by CNNC. Photo: CCTV>

The chip's sensitivity is comparable to a Geiger-Muller counter widely used in environmental measurement, despite its small size of 15mm by 15mm by 3mm, according to CNNC.

It can detect energies from 50 kiloelectron volt to 2 mega electron-volt, and has extremely low power consumption of one milliwatt.

The US sanctioned CNNC said its team was involved in the whole development process, from chip design and tape-out to packaging and testing, and has now outsourced mass production to "authorised factories".

The development comes as China continues to push for self-reliance in technology, especially in semiconductors, amid an intensifying tech war with the US, which has sought to curb China's high-tech access over national security concerns.

Earlier this month, Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated the importance of science and technology in China's modernisation, and the need for self-reliance.

"High-tech development cannot be begged for; we must accelerate the realisation of high-level technological self-reliance and self-improvement," state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying during his visit to the southeastern high-tech hub of Hefei.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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