At this time, Boss Jia did not seem to care about the VCD because he was entangled with Ni Guangnan.
"Boss, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We must win ASML!" Ni Guangnan kept repeating in Boss Jia's ears. Boss Jia's ears were about to grow calluses.
Just yesterday, ASML announced a piece of news that could be said to have attracted worldwide attention in the semiconductor industry. ASML launched the FPA2500, a 193nm wavelength scanning exposure machine. The optical lithography resolution reached 70nm. This was an unparalleled achievement that attracted worldwide attention.
ASML was the world's top lithography machine manufacturer. It produced the world's best lithography machine.
The lithography machine was the most important equipment in the production of an electronic chip.
As everyone knew, a computer chip was a huge integrated circuit. On this integrated circuit, there were hundreds of thousands, millions, or even tens of millions of microtransistors.
The size of a computer chip was only about one-fourth of the palm of a hand. To integrate tens of millions of microtransistors on such a small computer chip to have a powerful computing power, each of the microtransistors was unimaginably small.
How to integrate these microcrystals on such a small chip became the highest technology in the production of computer chips!
Now, all chips were made of high-crystalline silicon. Therefore, the first step in the production of a chip was to purify quartz into pure silicon, then make it into a silicon crystal rod. Finally, slice it into pieces to make the specific wafer needed for the production of the chip.
The second step was to coat a layer of film on the wafer. The wafer coating film was resistant to oxidation and temperature. This layer of film was the template for tens of millions of microtransistors in the future.
The third step was the time for the lithography machine to show its skills. Through the lithography machine, the wafer would be developed and etched.
The film that was previously coated on the wafer was particularly sensitive to ultraviolet light. As long as it was exposed to ultraviolet light, it would immediately soften. Then, it could be washed off with a simple cleaning.
The function of the lithography machine was equivalent to setting up a pattern of the arrangement of various microtransistors in advance. Every line in the pattern was directly covered. Then, when such ultraviolet light was irradiated on the wafer, the wafer would be exposed.
The film that was irradiated by the ultraviolet light would immediately soften and dissolve. It could be washed away with a special solvent.
The part that was not irradiated by the ultraviolet light could still maintain the existence of the thin film, allowing it to continue adhering to the surface of the wafer.
This was similar to the principle of seals. If you stamped a seal on the surface of an object, a detailed pattern would appear on the paper.
The fourth step was to add impurities and implant ions into the wafer to generate corresponding P-type and N-type semiconductors. The positions that were not covered by the thin film were subjected to various special treatments, and microtransistors with different functions were produced one after another.
Finally, after testing and encapsulation, a chip with powerful computing power was born.
Simply put, the principle of the lithography machine was to create the circuits and functional areas needed for the production of chips. Using the light emitted by the photolithography machine to expose a sheet coated with photoresist through a light mask with a pattern, the nature of the photoresist will change when exposed to light, so that the pattern on the light mask will be copied to the sheet, so that the sheet will have the function of an electronic circuit diagram. This is the function of photolithography.
— — —
If you don't understand the content above, it doesn't matter. There is a simpler explanation below.
Simply put, the computing power of a chip depended on the number of microtransistors on the wafer of the chip. The more microtransistors there were, the stronger the computing power of the chip.
For example, the chips of the supercomputers in various countries contained an astonishing number of microtransistors. For example, one of the most powerful supercomputers in the United States in 2018 had a total of 73.728 trillion microtransistors on its chip. Of course, this was composed of 9,216 CPUs side by side, not so many microtransistors on the same chip.
Generally speaking, by 2020, the CPUs of home computers contained more than 1 billion microtransistors. In 1993, this number was also more than 10 million. In 30 years, the number of microtransistors had increased by more than 100 times.
However, the size of a CPU was only so big, only about the size of a palm, so the volume and size of each microtransistor were bound to be incomparably small. In 2020, the standard size was 5 nanometers. In 1993, the standard size was 140 nanometers.
The role of the photolithography machine was to engrave nano-level microtransistors on a small wafer. Of course, the specific process was not as simple as engraving. If you wanted to understand it in detail, you could read the explanation above. If you were not interested, you could just skip it. Anyway, you could understand it that way.
Therefore, for a photolithography machine, how small the optical resolution limit it could engrave was how powerful the photolithography machine was.
As mentioned before, in 1994, the highest size of the photolithography machine was a photolithography machine with an optical resolution of 140 nanometers.
But now, AMSL had launched the latest model, a super photolithography machine with an optical resolution of 70 nanometers.
Now, the opportunity to buy this super photolithography machine had come. At this time, AMSL was publicly selling two such super photolithography machines, and they were the only two in the first half of 1994. If you could buy these two super photolithography machines, it was equivalent to having the world's leading chip manufacturing ability. Even ADM and Inter did not have such chip manufacturing ability.
Therefore, Ni Guangnan pestered Boss Jia and insisted that Boss Jia buy these two machines … If he could not buy two, then he had to buy at least one.
"My teacher, are you crazy? Why are you buying that thing now? Even if we buy this machine and have the world's top chip manufacturing ability, we don't have the corresponding CPU design ability. This machine will only be collecting dust if we buy it. What's the use of it? "
"Didn't I already buy a 200-nanometer photolithography machine for the laboratory? That cost me 40 million US dollars. Can't you use that machine first? "Boss Jia said with a depressed face.
"Boss, I didn't buy it to use it. I bought it to disassemble it. It's for the technology!" Ni Guangnan said with a serious face.
"I …" Hearing the word disassemble, Boss Jia was a little speechless. He had bought a photolithography machine for the laboratory before, and now this photolithography machine had been divided into parts and distributed to different laboratories.
This photolithography machine worth 40 million US dollars did not even help Boss Jia earn a penny, and it was disassembled just like that.
"Boss, that machine is only at the world's ordinary level, and the technology used is also very backward. Our research team has already used up all the technology inside, so we still need the most advanced 70-nanometer photolithography machine to give us the technology!" Ni Guangnan said.
"What! You have already mastered the 200-nanometer technology? " Boss Jia looked at Ni Guangnan in shock. That machine was only bought for eight months, and they had already mastered it now?
"Almost. Our team has already written a few million words of data, do you want to take a look? Your physics is not bad now, you should be able to understand these things! "Ni Guangnan laughed.
"No, I don't have time to look …" Boss Jia quickly shook his head, and then asked, "Then can you produce a 200-nanometer photolithography machine?"
"Give me one more year!" Ni Guangnan said, "Although I have mastered the photolithography machine technology, there are still many difficulties in the production process. Give me one more year, and I can overcome these difficulties and produce a 200-nanometer photolithography machine that belongs to Hua Xia!"
"Similarly, boss, if you can get a 70-nanometer photolithography machine this time, give me 2 … 3 … 4, at most 4 years, and I promise you that you can conquer the 70-nanometer photolithography machine!" Ni Guangnan said solemnly.
"Four years!" Boss Jia muttered. According to Boss Jia's memory, the development history of the photolithography machine was particularly famous.
Since the production process of the photolithography machine entered the 70-nanometer stage, it became extremely difficult to break through the limit of this number. From 1993 to 2002, a full 10 years, the production process of the photolithography machine was fixed at the 70-nanometer stage, and could not be improved.
It was not until 2002, when a new production process was proposed, that the photolithography machine began to develop by leaps and bounds, and finally evolved to a precision of 5 nanometers.
In other words, if Ni Guangnan could really master the technology of the photolithography machine in 4 years, then in 1998, Hua Xia's photolithography machine production process could catch up with the world's standards and reach the 70-nanometer production process. Then, for the next 4 years, it would maintain the same standards and be at the top of the world.
This was extremely important for the Daqian. It meant that the Daqian company had the opportunity to catch up with the gap between AMD and Inter, the veteran CPU manufacturers.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
