2016 Shanghai Scientific and Technological Award Conference was grandly held in Shanghai Friendship Hall on March 22. A number of outstanding innovative achievements and scientific and technical personnel were rewarded. It was reported that Shanghai Scientific and Technological Award rewarded a total of 265 items (people), including 10 Young Scientific and Technological Awards for Outstanding Contributions, 22 Natural Science Awards, 30 Technological Invention Awards, 107 Scientific and Technological Progress Awards, and 2 International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Awards. The scientific research achievement, “Electronic grade silica nano-polishing new materials and key technologies for industrial preparation”, made by researcher Zhitang Song’s team from the State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, won the First Prize of Technological Invention Award.

Electronic grade silica abrasive and polishing slurry are the key materials to achieve planarization process at atomic level in IC, LED and the smart phone industry. Currently the core technology is monopolized by large foreign companies. Researcher Zhitang Song’s team discovered new methods on high purity ion exchange, uniform growth and SiO₂ production of ten thousand tons’ level, breaking through the foreign technology blockade. And they established industrial production line of 10,000 tons of ultra-pure SiO₂ with independent intellectual property rights and invented a series of sapphire slurry with high polishing efficiency, substituting imported products in large scale and accounting for more than 80% of the domestic LED industry market. They also invented series of metal slurry for aluminum alloy and stainless steel with high polished surface quality, which was applied in large scale in the mobile phone industry. So far, the electronic grade SiO₂ nano-abrasive and polishing slurry have achieved wide applications in more than 60 companies, bringing direct economic benefits of 100 million and indirect economic benefits of more than 1.37 billion. The project has played an important role in enhancing the industrial competitiveness of our country and the preparation level of new SiO₂ nano-materials.