Chapter 479

At this time, boss Jia didn't seem to care about VCD, because he had been entangled by Ni Guangnan.

"Boss, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We must win ASML!" Ni Guangnan repeated in boss Jia's ear. He heard that boss Jia was going to have a cocoon in his ear.

Just yesterday, ASML announced a remarkable news in the semiconductor industry, that is, ASML launched fpa2500, a 193nm wavelength scanning exposure machine with optical lithography resolution of 70nm, which is an invincible achievement.

ASML is the world's top manufacturer of lithography machines, producing the world's best lithography machines.

Lithography machine is one of the most important equipment for making an electronic chip.

As we all know, a computer chip is a huge integrated circuit, on which tens of millions or even tens of millions of microcrystalline tubes are placed.

The size of a computer chip is about 14 of the palm of your hand. If you want to integrate tens of millions of microcrystalline tubes on such a small computer chip, so as to have strong computing power, each transistor is too small to be imagined.

How to integrate these microcrystals into such a small chip has become the highest technology of computer chip manufacturing!

Now all chips are made of high-crystal silicon, so the fourth step of making a chip is to add impurities, implant ions in the wafer to generate corresponding P and N semiconductors, carry out various special treatments on the positions that are not covered by the film, and then produce microcrystalline tubes with different functions.

Finally, it is tested and encapsulated, and then a chip with strong computing power is born.

The principle of lithography machine, in short, is to make the circuits and functional areas required for chip fabrication. The light emitted by the lithography machine is used to expose the sheet coated with photoresist through the mask with graphics. The properties of the photoresist will change after seeing the light, so that the graphics on the mask can be copied to the sheet, so that the sheet has the function of electronic circuit diagram, which is the function of lithography.

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If you don't understand the above paragraph, it doesn't matter. Here is a simpler explanation for understanding.

In short, the computing power of a chip depends on the number of microcrystalline tubes on the wafer of the chip. The more the number of microcrystalline tubes, the stronger the computing power of the chip.

For example, the chips of supercomputers in various countries contain an amazing number of microcrystalline tubes. For example, in 2018, one of the strongest supercomputers in the United States had 73.728 trillion transistors on its chip. Of course, this is composed of 9216 CPUs in parallel, not so many transistors engraved on the same chip.

Generally speaking, by 2020, the CPU of household computers will contain more than 1 billion microcrystalline tubes. In 1993, this number was also more than 10 million. In 30 years, the number of microcrystalline tubes has increased more than 100 times.

But the size of a CPU is so large, only the area of palm 14, so the volume and size of each microcrystalline tube is bound to be extremely small. In 2020, the standard of this size is 5 nm. In 1993, the standard size was 140 nm.

The function of the lithography machine is to engrave nano microcrystalline tubes on a small wafer. Of course, the specific process is not as simple as engraving. If you want to understand it in detail, you can see the above explanation. If you are not interested, you can skip it directly. Anyway, you can understand it in this way.

Therefore, for a lithography machine, how small the limit optical resolution that it can print is, how powerful the ability of this lithography machine is.

As mentioned before, the highest size of the lithography machine is a lithography machine with an optical resolution of 140 nm.

But now, amsl has launched the latest model, which is a super lithography machine with an optical resolution of 70 nm.

Now, the opportunity to buy this super lithography machine comes. At this time, amsl publicly sells two such super lithography machines, which are the only two in the first half of 1994. If you can buy these two super lithography machines, you will have the world's leading chip manufacturing capacity. Even ADM and inter do not have such chip manufacturing capacity.

So Ni Guangnan pestered boss Jia to buy these two machines... If you can't buy two, you have to buy at least one.

"My teacher, are you crazy? What are you doing with that now? Even if we buy this machine back, we have the world's top chip manufacturing capacity, but we don't have the corresponding CPU design capacity. This machine can only eat ash. What's the use?"

"Haven't I bought a 200 nanometer lithography machine for the laboratory? It cost me $40 million. Can't you use that one first?" boss Jia said with a depressed face.

"Boss, I bought it not for use, but for demolition, but for eating technology!" Ni Guangnan said seriously.

"I..." boss Jia was speechless when he heard the word opening. He had bought a lithography machine for the laboratory before, and now the lithography machine has become parts and distributed in different laboratories.

This $40 million lithography machine didn't even help boss Jia earn a penny, so it was dismembered.

"Boss, that machine is only the world's ordinary level, and the technology used is also very backward. Our scientific research team has finished all the technology inside, so we still need the most advanced 70nm lithography machine to give us technology!" Ni Guangnan said.

"What! You've had a thorough understanding of the 200 nm technology?" boss Jia looked at Ni Guangnan in shock. It's only eight months since the machine was bought, but you've had a thorough understanding now?

"Almost. Our team has compiled a data of millions of words. Would you like to have a look? Your current physics is also good, and these things should be understandable!" Ni Guangnan smiled.

"No, I don't have time to see..." boss Jia quickly shook his head and asked, "can you produce the 200 nm lithography machine?"

"Give me another year!" Ni Guangnan said. "Although the technology of the lithography machine has been thoroughly understood, there are still many difficulties in the production process. Give me another year, I can overcome these difficulties and produce our own 200 nm lithography machine!"

"Similarly, if you can get the 70nm lithography machine this time and give me 2... 3... 4 for up to 4 years, I promise you can conquer the 70nm lithography machine!" Ni Guangnan vowed.

"Four years!" boss Jia muttered. According to boss Jia's memory, this development history of lithography machine is particularly famous.

Since the production process of the lithography machine entered 70nm, it has become extremely difficult to break through the limit of this number. For a full 10 years from 1993 to 2002, the production process of the lithography machine was fixed at 70nm and could not be further improved.

Until 2002, a new manufacturing process was proposed, the lithography machine began to develop by leaps and bounds, and finally evolved to a precision of 5 nm.

In other words, if Ni Guangnan really can complete the technology of lithography machine in four years, as he said, then in 1998, China's lithography machine production process can catch up with the world level, reach the production process of 70nm, and then keep level in the next four years at least, with the world's top level.

This is extremely important for Daqian, which means that Daqian has the opportunity to catch up with the gap between old CPU manufacturers such as AMD and Inter.