§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]
10.25 pm§ Mr. Paddy Ashdown (Yeovil)It is highly appropriate that we are conducting this debate on what many hon. Members might regard as an extraordinarily esoteric subject—the strategy for gallium arsenide—immediately after a debate on unemployment and a future industrial strategy for Britain. However, as I hope to show, the two are closely connected. It is a pleasure to introduce an Adjournment debate on this important subject, and I am grateful to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry for representing the Government, and who will no doubt respond.
I have said that a strategy for gallium arsenide is of vital importance. I suspect that many of my colleagues have not even heard of it. Those who are aware of what is happening in our new technologies believe that it is on this issue, and issues like it, that the Government's seriousness about developing a strategy for new technology for the future may be judged. It is now becoming evident that the potential offered by the gallium arsenide chip, compared with the silicon chip, is one of the keys to electronics in the future.
It is very likely that, at any rate in large measure, gallium arsenide chips will become replacements for the silicon chip, particularly in the new generation of computers that are now being developed as a key element of the new technology both here and, perhaps more successfully and appropriately, in America and Japan.
Gallium arsenide has some significant advantages over the silicon chip, which most people believe it will replace. The qualities of gallium arsenide allow the electrons to travel perhaps five times faster than in silicon. It is believed that gallium arsenide devices may well provide computing speeds perhaps 10 times as fast as the current silicon chip. Secondly, gallium arsenide chips can be made to emit light. In other words, they can use the new fibre optic techniques or new capacities for the new science of opto-electronics, so as to provide certain facilities within computers for the new technologies.
Thirdly, and perhaps just as important, it has been proved that gallium arsenide is in some measure more resistant to radiation—to the electro magnetic pulse—which comes from atomic explosion. This is of particular importance to the use of gallium arsenide in the new range of military computers, and in that sense gallium arsenide is more robust and appropriate for the battlefield.
These qualities, and another to which I shall refer, make many people believe that the gallium arsenide developments that are now taking place are essential and vital for the new super computers of the future. Another development is also significant and deserves mention. It allows the development of multi-layer devices, the so-called quantum well structure, which allows the chip—doubtless we shall have to find a new word for it—to have one unique advantage. Its electrical properties can be changed to tailor it to the device in which it sits without having to make some other physical change. Only gallium arsenide and gallium aluminium arsenide provide that quality of the quantum well structure, which many people believe will he significant in future.
122 At present about 95 per cent. of all chips in devices are silicon chips. Many people believe that there is a huge potential to make massive inroads into that market for the development of a new kind of chip at the heart of our new technology. A recently published report commissioned by the advanced materials and devices committee states that it is likely that there will be a world market for gallium arsenide chips and devices in 1992 worth perhaps as much as £5,000 million.
A significant factor in this series of new inventions, as in previous ones—one does not have to think back far to remember many of them—is that Britain has been and to some extent remains in front in gallium arsenide research and technology. We remain up with the front ranks of nations—indeed, most people would judge that we have been ahead of the world—in this crucial new development. However, as has often been the case, we are being overtaken by development in the United States and Japan, for reasons which I shall mention shortly.
Many people fear that, as with the silicon chip production, we shall be left behind and that despite our pre-eminent position to develop the new technology, we shall become dependent for this vital ingredient, its activities and facilities on other people, unless something is done.
Paradoxically, the Government's Alvey programme, which all hon. Members with knowledge of these matters greatly welcome and recognise to be extremely important in plans to produce new technology, is undermining our capacity to develop this vital technology effectively for the future. Why is that? The Alvey programme is dedicated to developing silicon chip-based technology and it is taking up all the available funding with which gallium arsenide could be developed. The Alvey programme may be doing something for silicon chip technology, but is reducing funding and support for the development of gallium arsenide.
I am told that the Science and Engineering Research Council has been so significantly underfunded to fulfil its role in Alvey that on many occasions it has had to withdraw money from gallium arsenide research at universities to put it into Alvey. I am informed by a good authority that in many cases single American universities —there are not many of them, but enough—are now putting more resources into the development of research into gallium arsenide than all the United Kingdom universities together. The same is happening in industry. Rumour has it that Lord Weinstock of General Electric Company withdrew immediately up to £100 million from his research budget the moment that the Alvey programme came on stream, and told his researchers to get into the Alvey programme and get £100 million from that. I do not claim that the entire £100 million would have been spent on gallium arsenide, but some of it would have been. It is now being funnelled into a programme dedicated to silicon technology. The same has happened in other industries.
Some research is being carried out. Plessey, to its credit, has a programme valued at about £15 million examining the capacities of this material. But that is short-term research, and even Plessey's engineers say that, if we are to maintain our position and to develop it in the future, there must be much more long-term research into developing this new material.
In short, we risk losing our position in this vital technology at immense cost in terms of what we could be 123 doing in world markets, immense commercial costs, and immense cost to our industry, because we may not have an indigenous gallium arsenide production capacity.
That is not all that we risk losing. We might lose the investment that the Government have already made in this technology. The advanced devices and materials committee estimates that the Government have already committed £100 million to research on the material. Most of that has been invested by the Ministry of Defence in research into its specific capacities in the military environment. But many believe—I am one of them—that we now need a strategy to develop our lead in this crucial technology and to produce domestically gallium arsenide devices. That will be essential in any meaningful new technology strategy for Britain. We need an Alvey programme to develop gallium arsenide.
Many believe, and I am inclined to agree with them, that it might have been more logical for the Government not to have tried to catch up on silicon chip technology through the Alvey programme. Many in the industry believe that that attempt, though brave and admirable, may be doomed to failure. It might have been better in the first place to have leap-frogged and developed gallium arsenide production through a programme similar to Alvey. But Alvey is now running, and it would be wrong to undermine it in any way. We need a similar programme to support gallium arsenide research and to bring it to commercial and industrial fruition. It can be done, and to some extent, it is being done. I understand that several firms already produce some gallium arsenide items for use within the military environment. I also understand that Philips in Britain — I realise that it is not a British company—has a prototype laser using the quantum well structure, which is considered by many to have immense market potential.
We need a co-ordinated strategy similar to the Alvey programme that is dedicated to this semiconducter, not to a silicon-based semiconducter. The advanced devices and materials committee called for such a co-ordinated strategy. Its report, entitled, "A UK Strategy for Gallium Arsenide", states that the committee's aim was to build on the expertise and current Government commitment to create a comprehensive fabrication facility for gallium arsenide. It calls for a national programme costing £300 million over 10 years—that is not an enormous sum if one thinks of it in terms of the development of industrial strategy — not all of which would be provided by the Government. Indeed, it recommends a 50–50 split between Government and industry, which is the sort of partnership that the Government have favoured in the past and which the alliance supports.
The report also called, significantly, for the better use of all resources in this area. The report identified a considerable barrier to the development of this vital new technology — the lack of skilled manpower. As we know, the National Economic Development Council has highlighted that problem in relation to the entire new technology area.
Thirdly, the report called for a collaborative programme with universities, industries and research organisations working together towards a common end. The funding that the report proposed is sensible and a starting point. It suggested that we might spend some £30 million, to be 100 per cent. Government funded, on 124 research in universities. University research has fallen off dramatically and drastically, so much-needed research should be done in them. A second element of the programme was a 50–50 split funding for industry in industrial research. Lastly, there should be a 33 per cent. support programme for equipment in this sector.
The committee went further. It identified a technical programme with five key points which it saw as the foundation elements for such a programme. The first was material and devices, the second process technologies and facilities, the third circuit design, the fourth testing and packaging and the fifth demonstrator projects. Like Alvey, it proposed a directorate consisting of the Department of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Defence, the Science and Engineering Research Council, with the full involvement of industry. This co-ordinated programme would not be wildly expensive and is modest in its scope, but even so would be substantially smaller than the equivalent programme dedicated to gallium arsenide in the United States and Japan, and probably in France as well.
That is the outline of the problem. I shall now quote from this useful document. Paragraph 12 says:
Unless there is timely action to implement this GaAs programme and the associated supporting activities, the prospects of the UK competing successfully for a share of the predicted £5000 million world market (1992) for GaAs circuits will be slim. More seriously the added value system and capital equipment industry will be severely restricted in its ability to compete for business at the forefront of technology. The UK is starting from a moderately strong position, albeit one which has started to decline, if we can halt this decline and capitalise on the extensive experience available in the UK it will be possible to capture a significant fraction of the available market. We therefore urge that this strategy be adopted and supported.There is a move between the Department of Trade and Industry to discuss the implications of the report and decide whether to accept its ultimate conclusions. The view in the industry is that the prospects of the Government instituting such a vital programme are, to quote the words used by a scientist recently, "very remote". We must hope that that is not so.At the start of the debate, I said that for many the Government's plans for developing and building on Britain's present position in this vital sector to take advantage of our expertise, our position and our future needs for this material will be a touchstone for many by which we can judge the Government's seriousness in developing a genuine strategy for the new technologies in Britain in the future. The choice for the Government is to invest in the future and to build on that expertise, or simply once again to throw away their own investment and a good deal of our future. I hope that the Minister will make clear which of those he wants to achieve.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. John Butcher)I am grateful to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) for raising this topic. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) who is holding a watching brief for a number of high-tech and information technology companies in his constituency.
There are key enabling technologies, on which we can come to a clear view at this stage of assessment. For others, we cannot be entirely sure that they will be the only key enabling technology or, in this case, enabling material. I am sure that the hon. Member for Yeovil will agree that the United Kingdom cannot afford to use a 125 scattergun approach to seeding or pump-priming development work in enabling technology and the information technology sector.
Tonight, we shall inevitably end up discussing how far the United Kingdom wants to use the laser beam, the guided and pointed method, which is often described as the method being pursued by the Japanese. However, we have a number of positive comments to make about gallium arsenide on a number of issues on which we take a line similar to that taken by the hon. Gentleman. However, he will not expect me tonight to adopt lock, stock and barrel all assertions he made in his comments.
Given that we have to focus on what we believe to be the main chances for the United Kingdom, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that, within Alvey, taking four key enabling disciplines was the right method of approach and, regarding the material about which we are talking, to look, for example, at man-machine interfaces; to look at artificial intelligence, where the United Kingdom is doing a great deal and which is worrying our major international competitors; to look at software tools; and to look at large-scale integration, even though the competition is immensely fierce. I hope that he will agree that that was about the right construction for us to put on our research effort.
Similarly, in the DTI and other Departments, when it comes to such excruciating choices on resource allocation, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that we are right to focus on skill shortages as one of the major constraints on development of the new technologies within the United Kingdom. Already, therefore, we can see that there are a number of great pressures building up on budgets. It is these budgets that enable us to go forward in those areas that in 1985 we believe will provide a main chance for the United Kingdom.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing the attention of the House tonight to this important topic. Gallium arsenide may once have been an esoteric subject for debate on the Floor of the House but, as he pointed out, no longer. It is now a practicable, though not yet fully developed, technology.
Gallium arsenide devices have advantages over those made from silicon in that they operate at a higher speed and can be made to generate light electronically. However, gallium arsenide is not an easy material to process and, as a consequence, is currently a comparatively immature technology if contrasted with well-developed silicon technology.
Despite the developments which will inevitably take place in both technologies, it is considered likely that it will always be cheaper to make very complex devices in silicon rather than in gallium arsenide, and therefore silicon is expected to remain the mainstream semiconductor technology. Nevertheless, gallium arsenide technology will be significant, and some estimates put the world gallium arsenide market, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, at almost $5 billion in 1992.
Because of its advantages, gallium arsenide electronic and opto-electronic devices will undoubtedly play a key role in many electronic systems, providing high-speed information gathering, processing and communication facilities which will allow use of the full capabilities of the fifth generation computing systems. It is, therefore, of considerable importance that such devices are available to our information technology and electronics industry.
126 The development of gallium arsenide technology so far is one in which the United Kingdom can take justifiable pride, though we must be absolutely sure, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, that this is not another of those enabling technologies which, once it gets to the enabling stage, somehow seems to drift away from our sight when it is being developed for specific markets. Over the last 20 years the efforts of our first-rate scientists and engineers in Government and industrial laboratories have brought the technology into its current position of forming the basis for a burgeoning commercial industry.
However, our international competitors, often in the United States, with the help of scientists of British origin, have also recognised the importance of this technology and are investing considerable resources to exploit the potential of both gallium arsenide integrated circuits and opto-electronic devices. If the United Kingdom is to remain competitive, we, too, must make significant investments.
It is the Government's belief that the bulk of the investments required must, albeit with some support from Government, be made by those who have both the necessary technical and commercial expertise to succeed, that is the electronics companies themselves. Commercial success in this area demands a detailed knowledge by those involved of future developments of electronics and communications systems and therefore our major electronics companies, particularly those with prior experience of gallium arsenide R and D, are ideally placed to take the lead in the United Kingdom's commercial thrust in this area. Indeed in opto-electronics we have already seen the willingness of our companies to make the necessary investments, with these efforts being accelerated by catalytic support under the DTI's £58 million fibre optics and opto-electronics scheme.
The Government's strategy is to recognise that, as in other microelectronic and opto-electronic topics in which there is intense international competition, there is a catalytic role for Government in stimulating and assisting industry's innovative efforts. In this context, I must mention the Ministry of Defence's considerable efforts in establishing the current United Kingdom position. Estimates indicate that over the past 20 years the MoD has invested considerable sums in support of in-house and extra-mural gallium arsenide R and D, and this is continuing with a 1984–85 allocation of £7 million.
§ Mr. AshdownWill the Minister be prepared to consider how much of the research and development funding which industry has provided for gallium arsenide may have been thrown away to make use of the Alvey programme and silicon chip technology? I am told that this has happened on a number of occasions and I have mentioned a couple of specific instances. I ask the Minister to consider the extent to which the Alvey programme has withdrawn funding from industry for gallium arsenide.
§ Mr. ButcherI understand the hon. Gentleman's argument. It is one of the matters that we shall consider. There have been a number of submissions on this issue. I trust that he will allow me to press on in the four minutes that are available to me. I wish to turn to other areas of expenditure where additional resources are coming in. In the Department of Trade and Industry, as opposed to the Ministry of Defence, to catalyse the commercialisation of 127 the MoD's and industry's efforts we have already provided support for projects associated with gallium arsenide and other compound semiconductors under the first microelectronics industry support programme, under the fibre optics and opto-electronics scheme and under the joint opto-electronics research scheme. These commitments total some £8.65 million. For example we have supported a private British company to build an extensive clean room facility for gallium arsenide integrated research. Another company has received support for the production of semiconductor lasers and detectors, and a consortium of companies and universities is being assisted to research the properties of super lattice type structures.
Also negotiations are currently under way on three applications for support under the second microelectronics industry support programme, which has as one of its aims the promotion of gallium arsenide technology, and more applications may be considered under this programme once the review of DTI support for innovation has been completed. An announcement on the outcome of the review will be made shortly. I know that there are Members on both sides of the House who are interested in the outcome of that discussion. Support is not available under the Alvey programme since this is based on silicon technologies, and diversion of funds into other technologies could prejudice the chance of success in silicon VLSI.
The Science and Engineering Research Council, which is the third arm through which gallium arsenide support is deployed, has also been active in promoting basic research in gallium arsenide and associated materials. The council, as well as funding relevant research through the conventional channels, is a joint sponsor of the joint optoelectronics scheme which I have just mentioned, and, through its low dimensional initiative is providing support for R and D in superlattices. These are very advanced 128 devices made from very thin layers of gallium arsenide and similar compounds, the electrical and optical properties of which can be tailored as required. We are talking here of true semiconductor engineering which could have far-reaching consequences. The current SERC grant commitment on gallium arsenide is estimated to be £3.2 million.
Co-ordination of the efforts of MoD, DTI and SERC is achieved through interdepartmental representation on the management committees for the various programmes, and the DTI's advisory advanced devices and materials committee to which, if there is time, I shall return.
Much of the Government support that I have described is aimed at stimulating the innovative efforts of individual companies and at encouraging collaboration between Government research establishments, universities and industry to maximise the effectiveness of our national resources. There have been notable successes in collaboration, particularly in the fields of ion implantation in gallium arsenide and the development of advanced growth techniques such as molecular beam epitaxy and metal organic chemical vapour deposition. We will continue to encourage similar joint ventures in other topics such as plasma etching. No doubt they talk of nothing else in Yeovil and Coventry. We are not convinced, however, that the nature of the United Kingdom resources in gallium arsenide, based as they are in the main in a limited number of major companies, requires the formation of a formal directorate of the Alvey type to encourage the necessary collaboration.
I must conclude on that not very helpful note in the knowledge that there is a commonality of objective between us. No doubt, as this debate develops, the appropriate levers will be forged and will come to hand.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at five minutes to Eleven o' clock.