1991 Starting from the core

After putting on a full set of dust-proof equipment and walking through the air shower room, a group of engineers, all wrapped up tightly, were already standing in two rows waiting in front of them.

Su Yuanshan looked at the badge and recognized Pang Keming who was wearing a mask - he was Zheng Zhenchuan's "apprentice" during the Chengguang Institute. Although Zheng Zhenchuan is still active in the front line of technology, he is the boss after all, and his energy is hard to do. Continue. Therefore, the task of overcoming the difficulties was handed over to Pang Keming.

And according to Macron's plan, after completing the victory of immersion lithography, Pang Keming will establish a branch factory in Shanghai.

After all, as an important industrial and export town, Shanghai does have much greater advantages than provincial capitals. More importantly, Shanghai has the Deyuan headquarters here. If nothing unexpected happens in the future, the headquarters in the provincial capital will retain more scientific research units to carry out technical research, while the assembly work will gradually be transferred to the Shanghai side.

"Pang Gong."

"Mr. Shan, I didn't come out because I was too lazy to wear dustproof clothes. Are you surprised?"

"Haha, no, thank you for your hard work, everyone." Su Yuanshan greeted everyone while looking at the "big cabinet" not far ahead.

Very good, it seems that everything is indeed ready, all I owe is the east wind.

"In front of all the leaders..." Pang Keming led Su Yuanshan towards the lithography machine. He glanced at the big bosses following Su Yuanshan and introduced Su Yuanshan with a smile.

"Gong Pang, pick up the key points." Su Yuanshan stared at the lithography machine intently. When he heard that Pang Keming wanted to engage in this kind of formalism, he immediately waved his hand: "How long will it take to enter the factory?"

Pang Keming saw smiles on everyone's faces. He coughed lightly and said firmly: "You can enter the factory now."

"Oh? You mean, we can go into production now?" Su Yuanshan turned around and looked at Pang Keming, a little hesitant - he had been paying attention to the progress of the team here, so he knew the parameters of the lithography machine very well, and he didn't need it at all. Introduction by Pang Keming.

What matters most to him is when it can be mass-produced.

There is really a difference between a prototype and a mass-produced machine.

"At the beginning of the design, we considered the issue of mass production." Pang Keming replied with a smile: "Of course, it would be a bit bragging to say that we can take orders for mass production now, but let this prototype machine enter the factory and run. , and then provide maintenance solutions, we definitely have them.”

Su Yuanshan turned to look at Lin Benjian and others again, and saw that although the elders were wearing masks, they were all smiling at the corners of their eyes. He knew in his heart that what Pang Keming said was true, and he immediately laughed and beamed with joy.

"Not bad, not bad! Come on, let me take a look at the test."

"Okay, and for testing, we also invented a mask and process specifically for photolithography machine testing. It includes overlay test patterns and parameter calculation formulas."

Pang Keming signaled his subordinates to start the demonstration.

"Mr. Shan, the traditional way to test resolution and focal length is to make a photolithography line width test plate, that is, place a set of line width test patterns evenly on each area of ​​the photolithography plate, and test it with a scanning electron microscope after exposure on the wafer. The line width data of this graph is then used to evaluate the resolution and optimal focal length of each area of ​​the lithography machine lens. Our method is a one-step process, simple and convenient, and you can directly get the parameters of the lithography machine with a flash. "

"Well, not bad!" Su Yuanshan nodded again.

…

…

Two hours later, Su Yuanshan walked out of the clean room almost floating all the way.

As the representative of Hongxin, Pang Keming could no longer be lazy this time. He also entered the conference room with Lin Benjian, Zhao Kaidong, Liang Mengsong and others.

"I won't say any polite words, and I won't repeat the meaning. Rewards based on merit and so on..." Su Yuanshan saw everyone laughing, and he also laughed: "We have to keep a low profile and not steal the limelight from above. .”

"You mean, we still have to wait for acceptance from above?" Pang Keming looked at Su Yuanshan and asked tentatively.

Su Yuanshan smiled slightly and nodded: "Although we have already passed the stage of acceptance inspection and good news, and we do not take any money from the state, we do not need to be inspected by the superiors, nor do we need to be responsible to the superiors... But we should give the face. I still have to give it."

Several people present nodded.

Even though we are all engineers who focus on technology, after living such a long life, we all support this kind of thing that does not violate principles and can make the country happy.

"But don't be anxious about this. Pang Gong, you also need to tell Uncle Zheng that our news should be kept secret for now - because the Semiconductor Summit will be held next month. The initial idea is to wait until the Semiconductor Summit is over. It will be officially released later.”

"Then during this period, see if you can seize the time to enter the factory and improve the yield rate..." Su Yuanshan said, he was stunned for a moment, and then he laughed sheepishly: "Oh, the time is too tight, I guess it will be too late."

Liang Mengsong and Pang Keming looked at each other and smiled - if they entered the factory, they should be the ones doing the work.

From now to the Semiconductor Summit on May 15th, there is only one month to complete the disassembly and assembly in such a short period of time. Well, if you work overtime, it is not impossible. But if it is to be officially put into use and the technology and manufacturing process are improved, it will take less than three to five months.

After all, this immersion DUV lithography machine can theoretically provide too many possibilities.

"In this way, let's all walk at night for a while. During this time, everyone can take a good vacation and relax. We will talk about it after the Semiconductor Summit."

"What about letting the superiors approve it?"

"I will discuss this matter with the leaders first - others can hide it, but in the territory of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the leaders cannot hide it."

The leader's round smiling face appeared in Su Yuanshan's mind, and he smiled involuntarily.

When he came to Shanghai, he had to go to the leader's place to visit, and the leader obviously needed to know about this.

…

Since it was still in the confidentiality stage, everyone did not celebrate with much fanfare. In the evening, Su Yuanshan was the host and several hard-working leaders such as Lin Benjian were invited to have a mediocre dinner at the hotel.

The next day, he went to the leader's office. In the office, the leader originally only gave him thirty minutes to talk about old times, but the time was postponed to two hours...

In the end, Su Yuanshan persuaded the leader to stop and let him pretend...

What the leader said to Su Yuanshan at that time was, "Then I should secretly go and have a look at the head office?"

Make Su Yuanshan happy...

But in the end, the leader listened to Su Yuanshan’s advice. Pretending that he had not heard the news, he also gave Su Yuanshan an idea to keep quiet - since he wanted to make his superiors happy, he should report it during or near the semiconductor summit, otherwise people would talk too much. , it would be meaningless to leak it in advance.

The leader knew Su Yuanshan's plan - Su Yuanshan wanted to use the semiconductor summit to identify true allies.

After all, this is a challenge to the authority of Western science and technology. If you don’t have the courage from the beginning, how can you possibly be able to do anything in the future?

*

*

"I thought you would pass through the house three times this time without ever entering."

Li Mingliu and Gao Xiao welcomed Su Yuanshan into the office. After sitting down, Li Mingliu happily said to Su Yuanshan.

Su Yuanshan sniffed and took a look around. He found that there was no smell of cigarette smoke and there was not even an ashtray. He couldn't help but asked curiously: "Old Li, have you quit smoking?"

"No, it's just a rule. You have to smoke in the smoking room... The rules we set, naturally you have to start abiding by it." Li Mingliu took out the cigarette case and flicked it with a smile: "But because I am too lazy to leave, I smoke now There is indeed a lot less. I used to have two packs a day, but now I have one pack every two days.”

"Didn't you quit smoking when you were trying to get pregnant last time?"

"I broke the habit when I got pregnant..." Li Mingliu answered matter-of-factly.

Su Yuanshan: "..."

After chatting, Su Yuanshan looked at Gao Xiaodi and said with a smile: "Old Gao, I heard that you are planning to build an inter-core communication architecture?"

"Yes, before... you know, we used a ring bus. Now I feel that as the number of cores increases in the future, the ring bus will definitely not work, so I have the idea to change it to a mesh bus and use broadcasting. Implement task scheduling and communication.”

Su Yuanshan nodded slightly: "Yes, it is feasible. To be honest, there is no doubt that multi-core has become a trend now, but we must also consider that some software developers do not carry out multi-core optimization in order to save money and save trouble. …And with the improvement of current technology and the maturity of copper wire manufacturing process, both the number of transistors and the core frequency are rising rapidly. In a sense, single-core performance depends on the existing design level and technology. It can meet most application scenarios, especially the needs of ordinary users.”

"Our single-core capabilities have always been insufficient. Although we have spent a lot of money to cooperate with many software developers to promote multi-core this time, we must formalize this issue - we are for the public, not for users with special needs. of."

Gao Xiaodi nodded: "I understand, but Mr. Shan, one thing to say is that our single-core capabilities are still largely restricted by the previous manufacturing process..."

"Bullshit, what do you say about AMD? AMD's technology is lagging behind that of Deyuan."

"..."

Su Yuanshan glanced sideways at Gao Xiaodi and said leisurely: "Don't make excuses - you also know that our immersion lithography machine has been successful. With Liang Mengsong, a maniac who pushes the process, the process will definitely surpass Intel within three years! If you can't come up with products that are comparable to Intel's single-core products at that time, wouldn't there be no way out at all?"

Gao Xiaodi: "Ahem..."

"If you lack skills, poach people. Visit R\u0026D centers in other places, such as those in the UK, China, and Silicon Valley. How many times have you been to these R\u0026D centers?"

"How can I have so much time..."

"You are not the CEO now, how can you not have time? You are engaged in structure and rely on your brain to make a living...you should look more and think more."

"..."

"Okay, next month I will walk around each R\u0026D center." Gao Xiaodi said bitterly.

"That's pretty much it. You can't let me help you run all over the world, right?" Su Yuanshan complained about Gao Xiaodi and then looked at Li Mingliu.

Compared to Gao Xiaodi, Li Mingliu really made him worry less.

Of course, this is also different from the history of both departments. Gao Xiaodi's processor department came out of the bloody road from the beginning, and it was the kind of younger brother within a younger brother.

But Li Mingliu is different. Flash memory was originally born late, and there are almost no market recognition or technical barriers. After Li Mingliu took over the task, he fully developed his desperate style and used all his firepower to get the MLC particles before Intel. He directly reduced the cost of flash memory and quickly opened it with flash memory devices such as USB flash drives and MP3s. situation.

In the end, even Fujio, the inventor of flash memory, was poached by Yuanxin, which officially established Yuanxin's position in the field of flash memory.

Now under the leadership of Fujio, Yuanxin's flash memory is about to break through the three-layer unit. And 3D NAND, which Lee Myung-ryu is personally responsible for, has also reached the final stage of verification.

Not to mention the breakthrough of these two major technologies at the same time, even if only one breaks through, it will bring great shock to the flash memory market. And two breakthroughs at the same time...that means that the price per unit capacity will collapse in a straight line, and Yuanxin can sell flash memory particles at cabbage prices.

By then, the flash memory market will no longer have any rivals.

"Lao Li, I remember we said a long time ago that smartphones will be our main handheld device for a long time - 20 days later, we released Yidoo4. If we follow ordinary people's understanding, then it is indeed It will be a perfect, representative product.”

"If you think about it, capacitive multi-touch touch screen, front and rear cameras, and a processor frequency of up to 833GHz - the YX architecture will launch multi-core next year..."

"Equipped with a 3G chip, it can reach ADSL network speeds, coupled with the YOS system, and applications that can instantly kill all PDAs..."

"It can be said that it is a perfect product. Right?"

Li Mingliu blinked: "The only problem is that the storage is a bit small, right?"

"Haha... yes." Su Yuanshan nodded with a smile.

"The capacity of 512MB, to be honest, is really... too small. It also forced me to add a TF card - I really don't want to add that."

Su Yuanshan seemed confused as he spoke, and chanted repeatedly: "It's too young!"

Li Mingliu: "..."

Gao Xiaodi: "..."

"Well, I can't say too much." After being speechless, Li Mingliu glanced eastward - that is Fujio's laboratory. After pondering for a while, he said: "Next year, I can only say next year, we The price can be reduced by half while the capacity is doubled!”

Su Yuanshan immediately sat up straight and stared at Li Mingliu: "I really remember what you said."

"Yes, that's what I said." Li Mingliu took a deep breath: "Is this the only missing piece of the mobile phone puzzle?"

"Of the three major items, this is really the only one missing."

"Yeah. Just wait for my news." Li Mingliu nodded and said no more.

Instead, Gao Xiaodi became curious: "Aside from the three big things, what else is there?"

"And..." Su Yuanshan squinted his eyes and smiled slightly.

"Fingerprint unlocking, under-screen unlocking, face recognition and so on... there are so many. Of course, those are follow-up technologies, so don't worry. Well... the most anxious thing is fingerprints. But the project has been approved, we will just wait. .”