China's first 8-inch IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor) chip production line, built by CSR (China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corporation Limited) Zhuzhou base, will be put in operation in June 2014.

This means that China has broken foreign monopoly on the core technology of high-speed trains, and China's high-speed trains will use the "Chinese chips."

The high-speed trains manufactured by CSR, with the domestic 8-inch IGBT chips installed, achieved a speed of over 600 kilometers per hour in the test run. CSR will become the only company in China which has comprehensively mastered IGBT chip technology R&D, module packaging & testing and system application.

The article is edited and translated from《中国高铁将用上“中国芯”》, source: People's Daily