A string of startups established by Tsinghua graduates and funded by Silicon Valley venture capitalists is emerging in fields including network switching fabrics, software platforms for interactive TV, wireless mobile communications, advanced optical medical equipment and digital TV modulation chips.

Often a venture arises not from one entrepreneur but from a team of Tsinghua classmates. Alumni know they can readily tap into a huge pool of talent and connections back home, from students and teachers at their alma mater to senior government officials who were also classmates. Their products and business strategies are inherently global from the inception, mainly because the Tsinghua grads are frequently angling for opportunities in China's booming market.

Most important, however, is the relentless drive that separates Tsinghua graduates from their contemporaries. Most are first-generation Chinese immigrants still in their 20s and early 30s, some straight from mainland China and others armed with freshly minted master's degrees and PhDs from top U.S. engineering schools.

Typical of the Tsinghua drive to succeed is Feng Li, founder and chief executive officer of Photonify Technologies Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.), which is exploring diffused optical imaging systems for medical applications. "I want to do something real, I want to do something big, and I want to do something real big," he said.

Indeed, there is no shortage of ambition and self-confidence among a group that has taken to calling itself the "Tsinghua University Brotherhood."

"Many of those who passed the very competitive national entrance exam to get accepted by Tsinghua University were No. 1 high school students, and they hail from each and every province in China," said Bo Wu, founder and chief executive of EnReach (Alviso, Calif.). "I'm not surprised that Tsinghua grads remain very competitive and aggressive after they get out of school."

'A lot of us here'

Louie Liu, partner of Asia Tech Management LLC (Santa Clara, Calif.), said two or three companies funded by his venture capital firm were founded by Tsinghua graduates. "We didn't plan it that way," he added. "There happened to be a lot of us from Tsinghua University working here." The attraction is simply the perceived opportunity in Silicon Valley's fabled, and closely knit, high-tech community.

Though not linked by any official organization, the graduates remain loosely affiliated, both socially and professionally. Alumni organize at least two large get-togethers in Silicon Valley every year: a spring picnic, to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of Tsinghua University in Beijing, and a summer athletic competition, held at a local community college. Hundreds of Tsinghua graduates attend with their families.

Alumni also organize ad-hoc seminars and receptions every time professors from their mother school or Chinese government VIPs visit Silicon Valley.

Jun Li, a former president of the Tsinghua University Alumni Association in Silicon Valley and a man the California contingent fondly refer to as "big brother," said that what the alumni group offers isn't much different from what U.S. universities provide their graduates. "But because many of us are first-generation immigrants, we might be more active and more closely work together in terms of helping one another," said Li, who with fellow alum Charles Shao co-founded ServGate, a developer of security gateway products.

As a result, said Li, it's not unusual for alumni to "compete head-to-head in our business," but at the same time turn to "the Tsinghua University alumni network — composed of friends, classmates and partners — as the first place we go to get help in sorting out mostly operational issues, such as how to find an office."

Although still in the early stage of discussions, such ideas as founding a Tsinghua Entrepreneurs' Club, or of funding Tsinghua grads, are currently being floated among alumni, said Hong Dong, founder and chief executive of Legend Silicon (Fremont, Calif.).

Several companies founded by Tsinghua alumni, including Dong's, already enjoy direct investment and partnership programs with the school. With few private Chinese R&D programs in existence, the university established the Tsinghua Enterprise Group to help bridge the gap between university research and commercialization of new technologies, Dong said. The university-owned enterprise group makes investments and controls a majority share in several Chinese companies, including publicly traded companies such as Tong Fang and UniSplendour.

UniSplendour invested almost $1 million in ServGate, while Tong Fang holds a majority stake in Legend Silicon, a member of the National Key Lab's Digital TV Transmission Technology Development Center in China. Legend has joined with Tsinghua University to develop an ASIC for a new digital TV transmission standard currently proposed for China. The initiative combines spread-spectrum and orthogonal frequency-division multiplex technologies.

Besides the financial investment, both UniSplendour and Tong Fang could serve as future marketing partners for technologies under development by ServGate and Legend Silicon. Li said those two companies are the first in Silicon Valley to be funded by the Tsinghua Enterprise Group.

Tsinghua University, located in the northwest corner of Beijing, is known for its tradition of sending graduates to the United States. The school was founded in 1911, originally as a prep school for students being sent by the government to study at U.S. universities.

Link to Taiwan

Tsinghua University, together with its affiliate in Hsinchu, Taiwan — formed in 1956 after the Communist takeover of mainland China — have produced world-class scientists and engineers.

Among them are Yuan T. Lee, the 1986 Nobel Laureate in chemistry, and Chen Ning Yang, the Nobel Prize winner in physics in 1956. They have been succeeded by a new generation of entrepreneurs and engineers scattered throughout Silicon Valley, including Li Gong, the leader of a team at Sun Microsystems Inc. that designed security features for Java.

During the tumultuous '60s and '70s, when China's Cultural Revolution prevented the university's Beijing branch from sending students overseas, Taiwanese Tsinghua graduates continued to emigrate. Some have become successful venture capitalists and are able to host new Tsinghua grads from mainland China, said ServGate's Li. By bringing together engineering talent from China and Taiwan, the two Tsinghua universities offer "the only regular academic exchange program" for students in the two countries in the last few decades, said Li.

Many alumni regard those who entered Tsinghua in Beijing after 1977 as "the new generation" of graduates. That was the year former Chinese Premier Deng Xiao Ping reinstituted the traditional, highly competitive entrance examination for Tsinghua, allowing the best students throughout China to compete.

Legend Silicon's Dong said he was one of the fortunate 10,000 students to pass the nationwide Tsinghua exam in 1978, of about 360,000 students who took the test that year.

During the five-year academic program, students literally do everything together. "You do get to know your classmates inside out," said EnReach's Wu.

'Seen the worst'

It's no surprise, then, that Tsinghua graduates tend to turn to their classmates for help and often end up choosing them as business partners. "Through the years of living and studying together, you've already seen the worst side of classmates, and you can anticipate the most damage the guy could make to your company," said Wu, who chose a classmate to run his company's Beijing operation. Similarly, Dong teamed with a classmate, Lin Yang, to found his company. Yang now serves as Legend Silicon's chairman and president.

Although the Tsinghua alumni organization here has only 600 registered members, Li estimated there are at least 2,000 graduates and probably more from both Beijing and Hsinchu Tsinghua universities living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area.

If anything distinguishes a Tsinghua education, said Daniel Fu, founder of HotRail Inc. and now vice president of technology at Conexant Systems Inc., it's that "the school emphasizes that students learn the skills and abilities to analyze and solve problems."

Graduates "are all technically oriented," agreed a Chinese official in Washington.

Thus, the Tsinghua startups in Silicon Valley tend toward hard technology. "There are no dot-coms," said ServGate's Li. "We are trained to be practical. Many of us founded companies based on technologies, when a lot of others started businesses purely based on a business model."

Tsinghua teaches its students "all the basic elements that form good, traditional engineering training," Li stressed. "The emphasis on teamwork, and being practical is ingrained in all of us."

How the growing cadre of Tsinghua graduates in Silicon Valley will ultimately affect China's technology future remains unclear, observers said. "Some people think this is a 'brain drain,' but others think it is a 'brain gain.' It depends on individual circumstances," the Chinese official said.