As both a vice president and a "gardener", let's see how Dr. Qian of TI generates electricity for love?

Latest update time：2020-09-17

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Dr. Qian Jinrong, who went to the United States for further studies in 1993 and settled in Dallas for many years, did not expect that he would encounter a special task in the later stage of his career, which made him deeply understand the meaning of the popular phrase in China, " generating electricity for love ."

Unexpected mission

Although it has been a long time, Qian Bo always thinks of the Friday of March 22, 2019, which should have been an ordinary day. But a series of things happened because he agreed to a favor and set aside a whole day when he was on a business trip in Shanghai. "Jin Rong, TI is doing this project. You are very good at power supply and are familiar with the Chinese environment. Can you help?" This project is the power supply training and certification project sponsored by Texas Instruments (TI) and initiated by the Chinese Institute of Electronics .

With such good reasons, Qian Bo simply couldn't refuse. As far as power design is concerned, he is a professional: he studied at Zhejiang University from 1981 to 1988, and stayed at the university to teach after obtaining a master's degree in power electronics; in 1993, he went to the United States to study for a doctorate, and after graduation, he worked in power-related jobs in major chip companies. In 2005, he joined TI and is now the vice president of TI and general manager of the battery management product department. In addition to his Chinese background, there is no better candidate than him for this project of helping Chinese power engineers.

Qian Bo thought this was a very simple science popularization project, but soon he realized that he was wrong. According to the blueprint, this would be a project that would gather top resources and effectively solve the practical difficulties of power engineers. If successful, it would benefit the vast majority of Chinese engineers and greatly contribute to the development of China's electronics industry. However, since it is groundbreaking and there is no precedent to follow, everything needs to be explored, and the difficulty can be imagined.

In addition to TI's internal technical committee members with rich practical experience, the conference also included professors from universities and power supply design fields: Professor Chen Wei from Fuzhou University, Professor Tang Tianhao from Shanghai Maritime University, and Professor Zhang Xing from Hefei University of Technology. This lineup of great people was only to solve one problem: What kind of online training courses can really help Chinese power supply design engineers?

The answer lies in the growth background of engineers engaged in power supply design in China. As we all know, domestic engineering colleges generally offer basic electronic design courses at the undergraduate level, but the study of power supply design generally starts from graduate school, and there are only a handful of universities that offer related majors. Comparing the two groups of people, we can find that there are very few people who are trained in power supply, but the rapid development of the industry has caused a blowout demand for power supply talents, so that many engineers who have not received professional and systematic training often have to rush to do it.

Problems naturally arise with the temporary deployment and the weak foundation: when encountering a problem, they often only know the result but not the reason. Sometimes even a small waveform abnormality is beyond their comprehension. Most of the time, they solve the problem by brute force by replacing chips or modules. They are often responsible for multiple projects: sometimes DCDC, sometimes ACDC, sometimes battery management, and they have no idea where to start.

This group of people finally took out some spare time to make up for their knowledge of power supplies, but they didn't know where to start. Although there are offline seminars and workshops of major chip manufacturers, online technical live broadcasts, and endless power supply design videos and techniques on the Internet, there are all kinds of resources and information. However, for engineers, these are scattered information, and they are mixed. Usually, they have listened to a lot of classes and downloaded a lot of materials, but when problems arise in specific projects, they still have no clue and can't find a solution. Because of this, the China Electronics Society intends to change the status quo, and TI is also happy to join in. At the end of 2018, the power supply training and certification project was launched.

I see

The project team held several preparatory meetings, and this time, due to Qian Bo's arrival, the venue was chosen to be TI's Shanghai office. As the meeting was going on, Qian Bo, who joined in the middle, was constantly shocked by the information he heard, and his brain was working quickly. The power supply training and certification program is designed to help engineers who have changed their careers and have not received specialized systematic education and training to lay a solid foundation in power supply design. This is completely different from the previous sales-oriented approach, where technology was introduced while introducing products. Moreover, compared with the 2-3 years of full-time study time for professional power supply education, the training time left for the power supply certification program is a bit stretched: all engineers participating in the training can only study in their spare time. If the course time is too long, there will be very few people who can stick to it in the end. Obviously, a set of courses needs to be designed specifically for these engineers so that they can choose what they need after work, so as to conduct systematic learning and apply what they have learned directly to their work.

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Qian Bo has enough say on the matter of learning. He spent two years in the fields swinging a hoe after graduating from junior high school. That experience made him seize every opportunity to learn as much as possible. He wanted to do his best every time and be the first every time. He also made a vow that if he did, he would choose the best tutor and the best major, so that he could make the best things. His tutor for graduate school was Academician Wang Xisheng. After staying in school for 5 and a half years, he came to the United States and studied under Professor Li Zeyuan, an academician of the American Institute of Power Electronics Engineering and a very famous professor internationally. He set the fastest record for obtaining a doctorate degree at Virginia Tech at that time.

Qian Bo feels the same way about Chinese power engineers needing to recharge after work. He knows very well that one must persevere in technology and not give up, and constantly set goals for himself, rather than stopping to rest and enjoy life when he reaches a certain stage. When you stop thinking, your life will be like this. Only by working hard every year, every month, and every day can you live more steadily. The process of human development is actually constantly challenging yourself, so that you can continuously update yourself and enhance your competitiveness. And he himself does this. In the process of leading the team to be responsible for the product development of battery management systems, he always pursues the most cutting-edge technology and applies it to TI's products.

Listening to everyone's discussion, Qian Bo seemed to have found the feeling of teaching and educating people at Zhejiang University. The plight of Chinese power engineers is real, and he has an impulse in his heart to help them reach the level that his generation has reached in their 50s through hard work in their 30s and 40s, so that their lives will be very different. Starting as a farmer, he has come to where he is today step by step by relying on unremitting learning. Sooner or later, he will retire. He wants to pass on his most practical experience and knowledge to the next generation of engineers, hoping that they can surpass themselves and become better than the previous generation.

All beautiful ideas must eventually come to fruition. So how can engineers quickly and effectively supplement the knowledge they have not learned in school or have not learned so deeply, and have a set of methodologies to solve problems in actual work? This requires that the teaching content must not only take into account theory and practice, but also the most essential part of power supply design. Professors have some ready-made materials, but lack practical and application-oriented parts. TI has multiple product lines engaged in power supply-related product development, so basically, corresponding materials can be found on every topic and project involved in the training. If the most core and valuable parts of TI's decades of accumulation in power supply development can be extracted and shared, it must be the fastest way to help engineers grow.

Power for love

Before the meeting was over, Qian Bo had already understood that he could no longer skim through this project, whether out of responsibility to the company or out of his own inner calling. The next thing he had to do was to gather all possible resources within TI to complete this project that had never been done before in the industry and would be worth remembering in the future. So some senior members and product technology managers with Chinese backgrounds in TI's internal technical committee were mobilized to summarize, conclude and write teaching materials step by step. For them, this was also a completely different experience from their daily work: this time, instead of talking about products, they had to prepare lessons like a professor in a university, not only planning how to write each part, but also considering how the content would be practical and attractive to engineers, so they revised the lecture notes again and again, and improved the details again and again.

Obviously, this is something that requires a lot of time and energy outside of everyone's job duties. Although he was mentally prepared in advance, to Qian Bo's surprise, not only did no one refuse to do it, but everyone tried their best to strive for excellence. Qian Bo was somewhat moved, and this is a kind of touch that is difficult to encounter in normal work. He knows very well the intensity of everyone's work. Without the support of love, it is difficult to explain why these people would sincerely work hard to do this "troublesome thing" outside of KPI.

From the perspective of TI, if it is just for selling products, there is no need to invest a lot of resources to do this. Just like other chip companies, they can just wait for engineers to find and try different learning methods. The same is true for these "teachers" from TI. They are willing to do this because they really want to help these Chinese engineers. In the busy and busy life, there are some moments to give for feelings and gain happiness and satisfaction. Of course, the efforts will be rewarded. For TI, helping Chinese power design engineers lay a solid foundation and improve their technical level can have a more positive influence on Chinese engineers and make them more recognized of TI's power products. For the engineers participating in the training, this is a close learning and competition with international leading semiconductor companies and leading technical experts. The gains can be imagined. Maybe this is called a win-win situation.

Live up to your youth

In mid-2020, the power supply training and certification program was officially launched to the public and gained a good reputation. However, this is only an entry-level course, which serves as a "door-in" and focuses on the most basic theoretical explanations, supplemented by simple hands-on operations. There will be intermediate and advanced courses in the future. The ultimate goal of the training is to hope that engineers who have completed the intermediate courses can independently undertake the design, simulation, and testing of power-related products and do the projects they are responsible for better. Engineers who have completed the advanced courses can lead a design team with a deeper understanding of power supply design and provide technical guidance to team members.

Qian Bo was not able to breathe a sigh of relief. Learning has never been a simple matter. To make up for the gap between himself and professionally trained power engineers, and to make up for the gap between Chinese and American power engineers, it is not something that can be accomplished overnight. Moreover, learning is a two-way process, and it cannot be achieved by one party alone. It requires the joint efforts and long-term persistence of both parties. All he and his team can do is to create the training content, establish a closed-loop feedback process after the content is released, continuously obtain real feedback from Chinese engineers during the teaching process, and then improve or enhance the direction and settings of the course in real time based on everyone's learning feedback and the content they have accumulated.

Good content is available, but it also requires continuous learning and reflection by the trainees. The effect of passive indoctrination in learning is always limited. Knowledge itself can be learned anywhere. What Chinese engineers should learn most is the methods and ideas for solving problems. The design of the project itself is also based on this consideration. Qian Bo hopes to see them be able to explore on their own and truly learn innovative ways of thinking.

For the future, Qian Bo certainly hopes that the power supply training and certification program can go further and help more and more Chinese engineers. His personal growth experience is a good interpretation of what it means to keep learning and keep challenging. Many people will relax a little when they reach a certain age or position, or give up easily after working hard but failing to achieve their goals. Therefore, in the project, he has been emphasizing never give up. Engineers cannot give up, and experts in the training program cannot give up. They need to cooperate with each other. Learners have a positive and progressive learning heart, and teachers have a selfless and dedicated heart of love.

When China resumed the college entrance examination system that had been suspended for 10 years, the young man in the countryside of Zhejiang threw down his hoe. He firmly believed that his future and the future of China depended on a smart brain and intellectual labor, although he didn't know what a chip was at that time. Now, he is almost at the top of the power supply industry and knows that " knowledge changes destiny " is not an empty statement. At the end of his career, he wanted to do something to help others avoid detours. He wanted to say, " If you know where you have defects, please make up for them and take supplementary lessons. The future and the future are in your own hands. If you don't work hard, no one can help you."