The Rise Of Space Technology

Chapter 89

“The chip is very small, only the size of a fingernail, but the technology involved is extremely complex, no less than the construction of aircraft carriers and aircraft.”

“There are billions of transistors in a square inch. Using a high-powered microscope to observe the internal structure of the chip is more complex than any city in the world.”

“The so-called Nashumi enters the mustard seed, one sand, one world, one leaf, one bodhi, that’s how it is!”

“Of course, as President Liu said, this chip is made by man, not by God. As long as we work hard, anything is possible.”

Li Chun’s voice is very loud.

As an expert on chips, he was deeply inspired by Liu Yuan’s firm belief.

He studied chip manufacturing. Originally, he wanted to expand his plans after returning to China and make up for the shortcomings of this aspect for his own country. However, chips are really not something that one person has the final say.

It is too huge, too complicated, involves too many things, and the funds needed for research and development are very huge. Without a firm belief and strong support, it is impossible to get this thing out.

What’s more, it is necessary to study this thing and related software, equipment, etc. from beginning to end.

“The raw material for making chips is very simple, that is sand, which can be found almost everywhere, but we first need to deoxidize and purify the sand. The silicon wafer used to make chips must be more than 99.99999% pure, which is almost 100%. purity.”

“In this regard, it is not difficult. As long as you are willing to spend money on the wall, you can purchase relevant equipment and instruments internationally, and related technologies are not difficult.”

“The next step is to slice the silicon ingot and cut it into circular silicon wafers, commonly known as wafers. The wafers must have mirror-level smoothness.”

“The difficulty in this step is how to cut the wafer thin and flat!”

“The fourth part is to glue the wafer, which requires the use of special glue, and we also need to re-study it ourselves.”

“The fifth step of lithography is to use a lithography machine to engrave all the designed chip circuits on the wafer to form the core circuit network of the chip.”

“This step is also the most difficult step, because there is a key piece of equipment, a lithography machine!”

“The lithography machine is something that we can’t buy even if we have money. We have to research it from scratch, and this is a systematic and huge project.”

Speaking of this, Li Chun also paused slightly.

Making a chip is so simple that everyone can understand how difficult it is.

Compared with building an aircraft carrier, it is even more difficult to manufacture chips. Sometimes, the smaller things are more difficult to manufacture, and the bigger things are better.

The most difficult part of making chips is a lithography machine.

The principle of photolithography is very simple. The light emitted by the photolithography machine is used to expose a thin film coated with a specific photoresist through a mask with a pattern.

When the photoresist is exposed to light, its properties change, so that the pattern on the photomask is copied onto the sheet.

The principle is so simple, and there is nothing too complicated. Generally speaking, it is to use light to pass through a mask model and irradiate the sheet. form a graph.

The principle is very simple.

But it is very difficult to actually do it, because it is designed to be a problem of precision.

It is necessary to make extremely complex circuits on a silicon chip the size of a fingernail, and to make billions of transistors on it, with nanometer-level precision.

That’s the difficulty!

There are only a handful of companies in the world that can produce lithography machines, but there is only one company that can produce lithography machines for chip manufacturing, and that is Helan’s Asmer.

The price of a lithography machine is also extremely expensive. It costs hundreds of millions of green coins, or even hundreds of millions of green coins. The key is this thing, if you don’t give money, they will sell it to you.

“…The entire manufacturing process, we seem to have only 11 steps now, but in fact, there are thousands of processes in it, and the photolithography step alone requires thousands of repeated operations. It is complicated and requires extremely high craftsmanship.”

“The yield rate of each process must be guaranteed to be 100%, otherwise the final yield and pass rate will be very low, even if each process has a 99% yield rate, but because of its too many processes, too complicated , at the end, the yield will be very low, so the cost of manufacturing will be very high.”

Li Chun talked for more than two hours, and then he simply explained the general steps of chip manufacturing.

“Sigh~”

When everyone present heard this, they couldn’t help but take a breath.

“It’s no wonder that making a chip is as difficult as putting a man on the moon.”

“With such a complex process, so many steps, and such strict requirements, can we really do it?”

After Lu Yong heard this, he couldn’t help shaking his head. To be honest, he is not optimistic about Liu Yuan’s chip plan, and invested huge funds, manpower and material resources to research this thing, and the research may not be able to bring much benefit to the company.

It is better to focus all energy on biotechnology research, and it is more practical to study a few more drugs.

But Liu Yuan is the boss, he is a wage earner, the boss’s words are the imperial decree, even if he is not optimistic, he still wants to do this thing, who let himself meet a willful boss.

He also went to understand the relevant information and content in advance, and also had a general understanding of the difficulty of chip manufacturing, which was really difficult.

After listening to Li Chun’s speech now, it suddenly felt even more difficult, and there was no trace of confidence.

“Yeah, listening to Professor Li say that, it’s as hard as the sky.”

Yi Han followed suit.

“It’s hard, of course it’s hard. If it wasn’t difficult, the world would have been rotten long ago, and our country wouldn’t need to import hundreds of billions of green coins from abroad every year.”

Li Chun smiled and nodded.

“Hundreds of billions of green coins?”

When the people present heard it, they couldn’t help exclaiming.

“Our country spends hundreds of billions of green coins a year to import this chip?”

Wang Wei said in disbelief, this small chip, our country spends hundreds of billions of dollars to import it every year.

“Yes, in 2018, our country’s chip import value has exceeded 300 billion green coins, accounting for 60% of the global integrated circuit market, and the import value has even surpassed oil, becoming the number one imported commodity. .”

Li Chun replied solemnly.

When I said this, I couldn’t help but feel sad.

“300 billion green coins!”

“I really feel sad!”

“300 billion green coins a year, the chips that are exchanged may be installed in a plane.”

“But how much goods do we need to export abroad to get back 300 billion green coins?”

“Clothes and shoes are all about how many ships to ship out. The cheap labor provided by our countrymen’s hard work is calculated at 5,000 yuan per person per month, 300 billion green coins, that is more than 2,000 billion yuan, That’s the labor value of 400 million people a month.”

“400 million people can only exchange the chip for this plane after a month of hard work.”

“I don’t know what everyone thinks, but I feel unconvinced anyway.”

“It’s also two shoulders with one head, why can’t we earn this money?”

“Not to mention, as long as we can manufacture chips, we can save the 2 trillion yuan. We are the world’s largest customer, but we have not received the respect we deserve.”

“If they say they cut off the supply, they will cut off the supply, and if they say they will raise the price, they will raise the price!”

“Our necks are being strangled!”

Liu Yuan stood up, looked around, and said in an extremely angry voice.

It takes 300 billion green coins to buy this chip a year, and it takes 400 million people’s labor for a month to get it back. Thinking about it makes people feel aggrieved. What’s even more exciting is that they say that if they cut off the supply, they will cut off the supply. , said the price increase will increase the price, a love to buy or not to buy the attitude.

“Making chips is indeed a huge difficulty, but we come one by one, and we will overcome one difficulty when we have a difficulty, just like climbing a mountain, we go one step at a time, one step at a time, and one day we will be able to climb it. go up.”

“Not for anything else, just to be able to fight for a breath!”

“If those of us who are engaged in technology and technology don’t study these things, then who will study this thing? Are we always going to be strangled by people’s necks and only able to do low-end industries?”

Liu Yuan’s words were deafening, and it also caused everyone who had no confidence to clench their fists secretly.

“If a country or a nation wants to become stronger, there must always be someone who will walk forward bravely and open up a clear road for the descendants.”

“What we do at Xinghai Technology is high technology, we will do whatever is difficult.”

“I’m here to express my position to everyone. Regarding the chip research project, I will invest unlimited funds into it.”

“We just want to fight to get this chip out and break their monopoly!”

PS: I don’t know if I don’t know, but I’m shocked. Hundreds of billions of green coins, hundreds of millions of people work for a month~