01

ETRI researchers test out the system.

Two R&D projects conducted by the Intelligent Semiconductor Research Division — “40TFLOPS artificial intelligence processor semiconductor that enables AI services” and “High-performance capsule endoscope that can examine the esophagus and stomach by swallowing like a pill without turning the stomach” — were selected.

First, the “40TFLOPS artificial intelligence processor semiconductor that enables AI services” is a world-class ultra-low-power AI semiconductor that can be used for servers and autonomous mobiles that require high-performance computation to provide accelerated artificial intelligence services. This technology is expected to be applied to various fields, including personalized intelligent devices (mobile devices, intelligent smartphones), unmanned autonomous vehicles (self-driving cars, autonomous mobile drones, unmanned cargo transport), high-performance servers, artificial intelligence healthcare (remote healthcare, image analytics for AI medical services, wearable healthcare devices), national security technology (unmanned aerial vehicles, detection robot), and social services (financial service, face/behavior recognition for crime surveillance.

The “high-performance capsule endoscope that can examine the esophagus and stomach by swallowing like a pill without turning the stomach” can examine the esophagus by transmitting 24 images per second at high speed. According to the research team, the performance of this technology is 4 times faster than the existing technology using 6Mbps-class inbody communication technology, and it can effectively diagnose the esophagus and stomach, which accounts for about 54% of human digestive diseases. In addition, as the dual camera and magnet are integrated, the location and posture of the endoscope can be controlled from the outside using a magnetic controller. Therefore, this technology is expected to increase the share in the related market.

The “ultra-high-speed optical transceiver technology” and “5G indoor distributed antenna system technology” of the Optical Network Laboratory were also selected as excellent achievements. First, the “ultra-high-speed optical transceiver technology” can solve the problem of optical communication speed, energy, and integration, and it is designed to realize large-capacity, ultra-realistic services in the 5G era such as immersive media and cloud/AI services. 200 gigabytes of data can be sent every second on a mobile/metro network (80km) using this technology. Performance is dramatically improved by doubling the transmission capacity while reducing power consumption by 1.5 times and the area by 4 times. Thanks to these improvements, ultra-wideband, ultra-realistic service infrastructure will be provided, such as high-quality video and ultra-realistic media services. As a result, the public is expected to be able to enjoy a rich lifestyle. In particular, this technology seems to increase the sharing and use of educational, medical, and cultural life regardless of geographic, spatial, and temporal characteristics.

“5G indoor distributed antenna system technology” was developed and commercialized in cooperation with domestic small and medium-sized companies FRTek Co., Ltd. and HFR, Inc. by developing the indoor distributed antenna system for 5G mobile communication for the first time in the world. ETRI and its joint research institutes — FRTek Co., Ltd., and HFR, Inc. — secured the commercial solutions for 5G distributed antenna system technology for the first time in the world and posted a total of KRW 17.9 billion in sales in 2019. This technology is estimated to induce total cumulative production of about KRW 2.5 trillion and total added value of about KRW 660 billion, with the effect of creating 5,000 jobs from 2021 to 2024.

02

ETRI researchers develop semiconductor chips.

03

ETRI researchers' work: "World's First 5G Indoor
Distributed Antenna System (DAS)."

Also selected as an excellent achievement was the Language Intelligence Laboratory’s language intelligence core technology, which infers the correct answer to a problem by understanding languages and learning knowledge. This in-depth question-and-answer technology infers and provides the answer to the user's question by understanding the meaning of text described in natural language and learning knowledge. Currently, “KorBERT” developed by ETRI is better than Google’s language model by 4.5%. With ETRI releasing 14 types of open APIs related to this technology, the number of uses has reached 20 million. This technology was also transferred 16 times and successfully commercialized many times.

The “ground station for geostationary meteorological satellite” developed by the Meteorological Satellite Ground Station Development Division is the world's best ground station system that can receive, process, produce, and analyze 1,000 times more high-capacity, high-resolution data than the existing Cheollian Satellite No. 1 ground station. The research team independently developed 67 types of algorithms that calculate unique, regional-specific, high-resolution meteorological data and 5 types of algorithms calculating space weather data that directly measures, processes, and calculates data for the first time among domestic satellites. This technology is expected to contribute greatly to improving the quality of life by ensuring the safety of the public through the improvement of weather forecasting accuracy.

Also selected was the “Technology for solving and controlling the dizziness caused by VR use based on user characteristics” developed by the Next-generation Content Research Division. This technology controls human factor parameters to reduce VR motion sickness. It is a source and standard technology for extracting and controlling human factor parameters that consider human cognitive/physiological characteristics to relieve motion sickness and fatigue of VR HMD content users. The “VR production guideline” was developed and released to the industry and academic circles, and the VR content production guideline is adopted as a standard for the first time in Korea.

The “Development of technology for producing two-dimensional semiconductors uniformly on a large area and new functional device/new material for two-dimensional semiconductors” by the New Element Laboratory was selected as an excellent achievement as well. With AI leading the future technology these days, the importance of device technology that can implement AI mechanically is increasing. The R&D of this technology was conducted to develop new semiconductor materials and device source technologies for the smart device platform in the future. The research team developed a non-volatile memory device based on a new concept using photosensitive TiO₂ (titanium dioxide), a highly stable oxide material, as a semiconductor. If competitive AI devices are developed using manufacturing technology with high mass production and large area productivity in the future based on this technology, such is expected to have a great ripple effect on related industries.

A certificate and a signboard from the Minister of Science and ICT will be given to the 100 achievements selected on this occasion. The awardee organization will also receive additional points for project and institutional evaluation in accordance with related regulations, and researchers are recommended as candidates for the merit award of the National R&D Performance Evaluation. “We will increase the budget for national R&D continuously so that science and technology take the lead in solving social problems in Korea, and we will endeavor more for communication such as announcing the achievements so that the public can experience those achievements,” said Kim Seoungsu, director of the Science, Technology, and Innovation Office. The outstanding technologies developed by domestic researchers’ efforts are expected to play a big role in realizing progress for humanity beyond Korea.