Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), formerly known as Shanghai Institute of Metallurgy, was founded in 1928. Before 1949, SIMIT, then named as the National Research Institute of Engineering, Academia Sinica, focused on the research of metallurgy and ceramics. In the 1950s, SIMIT invented the technology of refining of high fluoride containing iron ore. In the 1960s and 1980s, SIMIT developed China’s first PN junction isolating IC，8-digit and 16-digit micrprocessors. The institute also took the lead in China in such areas as ultra pure metals and III-V compound semiconductor materials. In the 1990s, SIMIT readjusted its research orientations to information communication technology by pioneering R&D of micro-satellites, wireless sensor networks (internet of things) and new generation mobile communications. Over the last 10 years, SIMIT has made a series of major scientific breakthroughs in broadband wireless mobile communications, wireless sensor networks, SOI material, PCRAM, micro/nano sensors, RF and micro-wave integrated systems, biochips, micro-satellites, thus making important contributions to hi-tech industrialization as well as national economic developments. Currently SIMIT has 8 research laboratories or engineering centers, including 2 state key laboratories, 3 CAS key laboratories, and a recently-established “New Energy Technology Center”.
