As a frontier technology of modern science and technology, force measurement sensor is considered as one of the three pillars of modern information technology, and is also recognized as the most promising high technology industry at home and abroad. However, at a time when force measurement sensors are ushering in spring, the Chinese public still seems to see a feast of foreign semiconductor giants. Industry insiders believe that although China's force sensor market is developing rapidly, there is still a gap between local sensor technology and the world level. This gap, on the one hand, is manifested in the backwardness of force sensors in sensing information, on the other hand, is manifested in the technological backwardness of the sensors themselves in terms of intelligence and networking.

Those gaps in China's force sensor industry

Dong Yonggui, professor of the Department of Precision Instruments at Tsinghua University, introduced that China has been paying attention to the research of force sensor technology since roughly 1980. After years of efforts, the level of development in force sensor research is still relatively good. However, the technological progress in productisation is not yet ideal, and many sensor technologies, in fact, the level of laboratory research in China is not very bad, but unfortunately failed to make full use of them and did not transform into mature products entering the market. He said that sensor technology research requires a relatively long period of investment, a sensor research and development, it takes 6 years - 8 years to mature, generally Chinese companies can not afford such a long period of time. It is more difficult for Chinese companies to afford failure, and the risk of failure in sensor research is high. According to what Dong Yonggui learned during his visit to Japan, many of the research and development supported by Japanese companies do not take the form of products, but companies can afford it, as long as 2-3 out of 10 items can become products on the line. "In contrast, many of our companies are prepared to take what others already have." Dong Yonggui says there is a problem with this kind of thinking, including the fact that we always want to bring in foreign talent that is readily available and has its own projects. "None are prepared to raise a fish, but to fish for one."

Compared to larger instruments and equipment, force sensors generally do not require a large investment in the productisation process, so they are more suitable for investment by smaller companies. In this respect, China should have an advantage. However, this is also a shortcoming if we consider it from another aspect.

A characteristic of the force sensor industry is that the sensors themselves are highly technical, but the price of a single sensor is generally not high. A consequence of this characteristic is that, despite the high technical added value of the sensors, it is difficult to rely solely on them to create a significant output value. According to Professor Dong Yonggui's analogy, the sensor is a bit like the "medicine" in Chinese medicine, the function itself is very important, but the real formation of the scale also need to rely on the whole dose to do. Many foreign sensor

Once a company has a breakthrough in a sensor, there will soon be related measuring instruments developed.

Moreover, in China's patent protection mechanism, sensors in the painstaking development of key technologies, often present a "know-how" nature, was copied, it is difficult to say, companies can not afford to litigation. Although there are also domestic MEMS sensor enterprises, but are commissioned processing, the processing enterprises themselves to do, the current enterprise innovation system has a big problem.

In 2012, a domestic sensor field seniors said at a conference, why the development of China's sensor business is not good, is the lack of leaders who can lecture to the State Council, the field of research and development for a long time, not significant enough, itself is a very small thing, based on the physical phenomena found decades and centuries ago.

The scholar pointed out that this kind of research is actually very hard work, for example, there is an acceleration sensor, used in the oil industry for seismic wave measurement, based on principles that were proposed decades ago in the Soviet Union, but it was not until this expert arrived in the United States after the collapse of the Soviet Union that the product was formed and applied.

"The more we need to be thick and wide in the field, the bigger the gap is." Dong Yonggui believes that the gap now has a tendency to widen further.

The next five years is the life and death line of domestic sensors?

In recent years, the overall scale of development of China's sensor industry has gradually expanded, significantly applied to the automotive industry, including automotive tyres in the application of sensors, airbags in the application of sensors, chassis systems in the application of sensors, engine operation management system in the application of sensors, exhaust gas and air quality control system in the application of sensors and demand, ABS in the application of sensors and demand, vehicle driving safety sensors in vehicle driving safety systems, sensors in vehicle anti-theft systems, sensors in engine combustion control systems, sensors in vehicle positioning systems, and sensors in other vehicle systems. In addition to these, there are new applications of sensors in China in other fields such as in industrial control, in environmental protection, in facility agriculture, in multimedia imaging, and other applications related to sensors.

The 2014-2018 China Sensor Industry Forecast and Investment Strategy Research Report shows that China's sensor industry, although developing rapidly, but there are also some unfavourable factors. Such as weak industrial base in product technology, science and technology and production disconnect, low product technology level, the lack of product variety, enterprise product development capabilities are weak. But on the other hand, the country continues to develop strategies and policies conducive to the development of the sensor industry, the rapid development of the whole system market throughout the year, the continuous promotion of new technologies have also become favorable factors in the development of sensor networks.

The world now has about 40 countries engaged in the development and production of sensors, research and development, production units have more than 5,000, more than 20,000 kinds of products. There are 1688 domestic enterprises and institutions engaged in the development, production and application of sensors, including more than 50 engaged in the development and production of MEMS, but the scale and application areas are relatively small.

In the international market, Germany, Japan, the United States, Russia and other old industrial countries dominate the sensor market, many manufacturers have achieved large-scale production, the annual production capacity of some enterprises reached tens of millions or even hundreds of millions. In contrast, the scope of application of Chinese sensors is narrower, more applications still remain in the field of industrial measurement and control and other basic applications. Thanks to this, competition in the Chinese sensor market is fierce.