UGB #515 - Ready for takeoff
#515 - Ready for takeoff
For an ordinary person, it would be virtually impossible to gather all the equipment needed for a chip manufacturing line on their own.
However, with the old professors from the School of Electronics taking charge, and their former students and colleagues in the chip industry spread all over the world, coupled with their expertise, they were all like zealous computer DIYers, busying themselves with these matters outside of teaching hours. As a result, they managed to pull it off in a few months.
Jincheng, Ren Zhong's office.
Chen Shude and Sun Shanhe, their faces flushed with excitement, Professor Chen Shude handed the complete list of production line equipment to Ren Zhong, saying with some excitement, "Mr. Ren, we have basically gathered all the equipment. This is the list of processing equipment for our 90nm process, and the prices and delivery times of these devices have been agreed upon."
After speaking, he and Sun Shanhe stared at Ren Zhong with fervent eyes.
After all, the two of them had been running around for months, and this matter was finally coming to a conclusion. Now, Chen Shude no longer had the skeptical look he once had, and he looked at Ren Zhong as if he were looking at a god of wealth.
This time, he mainly took Ren Zhong around for a few months, going to chip foundries all over Dongda and across the country to buy used equipment. He even went abroad, looking at second-hand goods in Southeast Asia, Japan, and Korea. It wasn't just the lower-tier foundries in mainland Dongda that were affected by the economic shock; the small and medium-sized chip foundries in other regions were having an even harder time.
Thanks to Dongda's independent development process, the domestic mid-to-low-end chip manufacturing was basically being solved independently. It became even more difficult for these small and medium-sized foreign foundries to get orders, and many devices were being sold with marked prices, even cheaper than those in China.
Ren Zhong was also happy to follow Chen Shude and the others to the bottom of this industry because it gave Ren Zhong some understanding of the semiconductor industry and established some of his own connections, so that he wouldn't be completely clueless when looking for something.
After running around for these months, Ren Zhong basically figured out the distribution of chip foundries in China, and which foundries were the most cost-effective for manufacturing what types of chips. In fact, making power semiconductors and making memory chips are very different.
Along the way, Chen Shude finally witnessed Ren Zhong's generosity. After Chen Shude and Sun Shanhe had a good look at the equipment, Ren Zhong basically paid the deposit without hesitation to confirm the purchase.
It wasn't that Ren Zhong couldn't pay the full amount, but if the goods weren't delivered to Jincheng, paying the full amount would be a waste if someone cheated him.
After spending several months running around, the core and critical equipment of this production line were finally confirmed. The remaining items were conventional equipment that could be customized domestically. In this way, after calculating the equipment list for the entire production line, the production line that Chen Shude and the others had reassembled didn't cost much less than the scrapped and auctioned production line.
Ren Zhong took the list and glanced at the final price, which was now a total of 800 million.
"Do we now have the entire production line fully equipped?" Ren Zhong asked.
"Yes, everything is complete. If we combine these things to build a production line and debug it properly, there will be no problem processing and producing 10,000 8-inch wafers per month at full load. Although the production capacity is weaker than the production line you initially planned to buy, after all, there are fewer key devices, but the processing accuracy of our production line is one generation more advanced. Our process technology has been upgraded from 0.13 microns to 90nm, which is a huge improvement. Don't underestimate this little progress, the chips that can be produced will be at least 2-3 generations ahead."
Ren Zhong nodded. Although this production line was not cheaper than the bankrupt and scrapped production line, the good news was that this production line DIYed by Chen Shude, Sun Shanhe, and other professors, although all second-hand goods, was in good condition. The key was that the upgrade potential was much stronger than the original one, and the performance of the auxiliary equipment could support the upgrade to 65nm after the lithography machine was replaced.
This would be another huge improvement. For the laboratory, if they had such a process, they would laugh in their sleep. This is not only the first in domestic universities, but also ranks among the top in global universities.
Of course, these professors are now very cunning and don't mention this upgrade function at all. They only say that such equipment is more suitable for matching the 90nm lithography machine eliminated by Z-Core, which is more cost-effective than buying a set from Z-Core. As a semi-conductor illiterate, Ren Zhong is naturally not clear about these twists and turns.
In his opinion, being able to do 90nm work is quite good.
Even as a prototype for the Bright Sword world to refer to, the current equipment has greatly exceeded the standard. What he requires is that the professors must be very familiar with these devices.
"Can you completely overhaul that lithography machine, crack the industrial control software, and replace it with our own industrial control software to control it?" Ren Zhong pointed to the 90nm lithography machine scrapped by Z-Core, which was a product from 2005 and was already considered a grandfather-level in the chip manufacturing industry.
"It may be more troublesome to completely crack the source code of the industrial control software. After all, these industrial control software are encrypted and cannot be decompiled back. We can copy these industrial control software motherboards and transplant the software to a new main control board for direct replacement.
We can even write a brand new lithography machine industrial control software for this part of the code, but it will cost more. In addition, the mechanical part and the light source part of this device are severely worn, and we can also consider redeveloping and replacing them to restore this high-failure lithography machine to a good condition." Professor Sun Shanhe knew his thoughts after running with Ren Zhong for a while.
"But we cannot completely copy this lithography machine and replace all the parts. I don't think the domestic optical institutes can achieve such a high precision for the lens system now. However, we can basically achieve the replacement of the light source part now."
"According to your estimates, how many parts do we still have that cannot be replaced now?" Ren Zhong was immediately excited when he heard this.
To know that although 90nm is very old in the main world, its performance is to the Bright Sword world what the Two Bombs, One Satellite project was to China. It's like skipping six generations of CPUs from the 386 to the Pentium 3, and directly jumping to the level of processing Pentium 4 or ARM9/ARM11!
If the Bright Sword world can copy the equipment of this production line, it would be a rocket-like leap.
You should know that Pentium 4 and ARM9/ARM11 CPUs have already reached the level of Internet multimedia applications and mobile phone pre-3G chips.
If this is the case, the Bright Sword world can develop this lithography machine and its supporting equipment within ten years, and enter the Internet era and the early stage of mobile interconnection in the 1970s!
For other countries in the Bright Sword world, this is not just far ahead, but a cliff-like technological advancement.
For the aviation industry, if this production line is brought into play, the CPU it processes has surpassed the initial CPU performance level of the F35's airborne computer. You should know that the early F35 airborne computer used PowerPC G4, which used a 0.13-micron process.
The construction cost of an early 90nm process chip foundry was as high as 3 billion US dollars or more, most of which was spent on this equipment!
Now, Ren Zhong has collected a simple 90nm production line by collecting scrap and patching it up for an equipment cost of 800 million. Although the production capacity is relatively weak, if it can really process chips like PowerPC G4 and PowerPC G5, it will directly raise the level of aviation industrial control computers to the early 21st century level of the main world, which is a one-step solution for aviation electronics, shipborne electronics, aerospace satellites, etc.
If Professor Sun and the others can really replicate that second-hand lithography machine, then it will not be far from the Bright Sword world replicating this machine.
You should know that in the Bright Sword world, the development of the extremely difficult optical lens system is assisted by the famous Zeiss. As long as the specifications are clarified, I believe they can find ways to complete this thing, which is more convenient than the Dongda side in the main world.
In addition, if the industrial control system of this lithography machine can be copied onto a new motherboard, it means that there is an infinite possibility of copying. Although this program cannot be modified, there is no issue of piracy in the Bright Sword world. There are no obstacles to unlimited copying of this system. Ren Zhong can also bring the motherboard directly for use, after all, a few hundred dollars is not a big problem.
Hearing Ren Zhong's words, Professor Chen Shude's eyes lit up. His major is in semiconductor equipment research, and Ren Zhong's topic is exactly the direction he is responsible for. Although he had not included this thing in the research topic before, it was because he did not have money. The project team had to develop more urgent things.
But if Ren Zhong is willing to provide research funding, Chen Shude not only wants to replicate this 90nm lithography machine, but also wants to further upgrade this 90nm lithography machine to 65nm. From a technical point of view, the evolution is not a leap, but a gradual one, meaning that most of the components in the lithography machine are universal, and there may be differences in only a few key subsystems such as industrial control and optical lens systems.
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The research breakthrough of these technologies, the 65nm process is still quite a large stock in China, whether it is for replacement or for maintenance and renovation, it is very valuable for research, and more importantly, this is a dry lithography machine. If immersion is realized on this basis, it can break through to the 28nm level in one fell swoop. After multiple irradiations, 14nm or even 10nm chips can be mass-produced, which is a very advanced process technology in China.
"Mr. Ren, if that's the case, we might as well carry out the alternative research of this lithography machine as our next topic. There are many 90nm lithography machine product lines in China, and there are even more machines. Conservatively estimated, there are hundreds of them. If we break through the manufacturing of these components, we can avoid being strangled by others in the future. We can carry out independent maintenance of domestic 90nm lithography machines." Chen Shude said excitedly. He didn't dare to say that he would directly upgrade to 65nm, after all, it would cost more money.
"I have no problem here, this research can still be funded." Ren Zhong nodded and said, "Actually, I hope you will do alternative research on these key equipment. I don't know what the situation is in China in this regard. Anyway, judging from the external situation, outsiders can actually lock our equipment and industrial control machines through some channels."
The independent control emphasized by Ren Zhong is the pain in the hearts of semiconductor people.
As we all know, the top DUV startup must be supervised, so that the things processed by the production line are transparent to some people, so as to monitor the production behavior of these foundry companies.
"Mr. Ren, we have been doing this work. Our progress was relatively slow before because we were restricted by various aspects, including copyright, funding, and talent. If we are now only researching to accumulate technology and are not in a hurry to realize commercial returns, then we can completely carry out alternative research on this set of equipment."
Hearing that Ren Zhong was willing to pay, Chen Shude said excitedly.
Ren Zhong's words hit him right in the lungs.
"Yes, Mr. Ren, if there is sufficient funding for this research, we can thoroughly understand and replace this set of production line equipment in a few years at most." Sun Shanhe also became excited.
These researchers are of course very interested in the most core technologies and equipment research in the chip industry, because it is easy to produce results.
Although these are not worth mentioning compared to ASML equipment, there are still a large number of them in China. Although we have made breakthroughs in lithography machines, after more than ten years of continuous investment, the strongest has reached the 7nm level and above, but we have not crossed this process independently for long.
Although Chen Shude and others also participated in some research, they did not engage in the whole machine. The big achievements were all made by others. Even an academician was produced. Although Chen Shude and Sun Shanhe are also senior experts in this industry, they are still a little far from being academicians.
For these people, if they can freely choose the research direction, they would of course prefer to choose the host of the lithography machine for research.
Evolving along the current set of equipment to 65nm is not particularly difficult for them. Now the domestic supporting facilities can also support it.
The important thing is that after thoroughly understanding the host of this lithography machine, it will be replaced by immersion technology. Then, the technology will evolve from 45nm, 35nm, and 28nm technology nodes. After all, the related immersion principles and basic technology and processes have been spread out more or less since the development of lithography machine technology. If Professor Chen and Professor Sun can realize the key technology of replacing air with water with sufficient investment, they can realize the two key technology nodes of 14nm/10nm and stand at the forefront of domestic process research.
Thinking about these things makes them very excited.