Great Country Academician

In the office, Xu Chuan was thinking about something in his mind.

The development of the chip field is not only an area that China has always dreamed of, but also the core focus of Western countries led by the United States.

In this field, relying on their advantages over the past few decades, Qualcomm, Apple, MediaTek and other companies have built a huge protective wall around chips through technology and patents, blocking other countries and companies from the door.

Not only that, in conjunction with lithography machines, wafers, EDA and other fields, these countries and companies have established a complete set of standards around chips.

This is the most terrifying place.

Technology will become obsolete and patents will expire, but standards are something that can last forever.

Technology patentization, patent standardization, and standard globalization are the main forms of competition in the global market today.

With the help of standards as a carrier and the use of patents as a weapon, companies and countries can stand at the top of the market and continuously reap the benefits of other countries or companies.

The most typical one here is Qualcomm.

In today's era of weak sales of electronic products and rising inventories in the industry chain, semiconductors have begun an era of "downcycle". Both Nvidia and AMD have seen their profits plummet.

But Qualcomm is different. Its performance still achieved positive growth.

The main reason for this lies in the large number of patented walls and standards that Qualcomm has built around its chips in the past.

As early as the 2G era, Qualcomm launched the CDMA communication standard.

At that time, due to Qualcomm's more advanced technology and wider application range, the CMDA communication standard stood out in the global competition and led the 2G communication standard.

In the 3G era, Qualcomm launched CDMA2000.

Although other countries have subsequently created their own communication standards, such as China's TD-SCDMA, and the European Union has also launched its own WCDMA.

But even if there is competition from other countries, due to the existence of technological inertia, Qualcomm's CDMA2000 is still the leader of the 3G standard. This is an indisputable fact.

Based on this, even in the face of the semiconductor down cycle, Qualcomm can still draw a lot of profits from other companies and enterprises.

Taking 2021 as an example, Qualcomm's profit is 9 billion yuan, and the patent fee business has reached 6.3 billion yuan, accounting for 70% of Qualcomm's profits.

This is the benefit of technology patenting, patent standardization, and standard globalization.

Within the scope of standards, the person who masters the standards is the chess player, and everyone else is the chess piece.

Even if one or two technologies break the monopoly of standards, it won't hurt.

When playing chess on a chessboard, the player is always in control.

In this case, it is extremely difficult to break the situation.

Especially in the field of chips, which involves all aspects, it is even more difficult.

After all, whether it is military or various people's livelihood products, they are inseparable from chips.

As for silicon-based chips, everything from the designed EDA software, to the basic material single-crystal silicon wafer, to the final processing equipment lithography machine, and the final standard definition are all in the hands of Western countries.

It is too difficult to catch up.

More importantly, today's silicon-based chips are almost reaching their theoretical end.

Theoretically, the limit of silicon-based chips is one nanometer.

However, due to the limitations of the size of silicon atoms and the tunneling effect, this is only a theoretical limit.

In fact, current chip manufacturing technology cannot reach this limit.

Even the most advanced TSMC plans to produce two-nanometer chips, but in fact it still uses superposition technology, and the size of a single transistor does not reach two nanometers.

So in reality, the current size of a single transistor on a traditional silicon-based chip is at most two nanometers.

Now, the relevant technologies are approaching this limit.

If China continues to invest in silicon-based chips and develop related technologies, not to mention whether it can catch up, but what to do after catching up is a big problem.

Silicon-based chips have no way forward.

At least theoretically, there is no way forward.

Putting a lot of investment into a road that has an end in sight and is still ahead of the opponent, no matter how important the chip is, this is not the way to play.

Therefore, in the chip field, there has been some hesitation in decision-making in the past few years.

I not only hope to have my own domestic chips, but also don’t want to invest a lot of money in a road with no follow-up.

This phenomenon lasted until the past two years due to changes in the field of controllable nuclear fusion.

The change occurred because of some commercial chain reactions with controllable nuclear fusion technology, which led to the cessation of sales of high-end chips.

This situation made the senior management see their urgency for high-end chips, so they changed some directions and poured funds into the chip field.

However, in terms of the overall situation, chasing after silicon-based chips can only be said to be a method that is forced to take action.

After all, on the one hand, it is difficult to catch up, and on the other hand, the possibility of overtaking in the field of silicon-based chips is almost zero.

However, there is no doubt about the importance of the chip field. No matter what, China must achieve its own independent production and manufacturing capabilities, at least it cannot be stretched too far.

In the office, Xu Chuan was thinking about some key things.

For him, conducting research and development on silicon-based chips is not his goal. No matter how fiercely he pursues in the field of silicon-based chips, he is still playing games on a chessboard and rules customized by others.

If you want to seek transcendence, you must open up another new track.

Quantum computers are undoubtedly a good direction.

Especially on the basis that he has completed the construction of topological quantum material theory, it is not impossible to achieve cornering overtaking on quantum computers.

However, theory is just theory after all, and there is still a long way to go before practical application.

In addition, unresolved issues such as what materials, algorithms, hardware coordination, etc. are used in quantum computers and quantum chips are very troublesome.

This is also the reason why Xu Chuan did not publish the research paper on the generation mechanism and characteristics of topological states of matter immediately after completing it, nor did he submit the paper.

The current development of quantum computers is still in a laboratory or even theoretical state.

Not to mention now, even if it follows the original historical trend, the development of quantum computers in another ten years will still be a blur.

Just like the previous controllable nuclear fusion technology, the theory is perfect, but in fact it will always be fifty years before he is reborn.

It is too difficult to overtake on this road.

After tapping his fingers lightly on the table for a while, Xu Chuan came back from his thoughts.

Cooperating with Warwick is not the best choice. If you really want to make up your mind to develop quantum computer technology, you will have to wait until the miniaturized controllable nuclear fusion technology and manned space and lunar exploration projects are completed, and he will personally take the time to lead the project. The team conducts research and development on quantum materials, or simply submits the paper directly to it.

He was certain about the former. After all, he was the one who did the theoretical work and had enough experience in the materials.

More importantly, he also opened up a future perspective to know which materials are more suitable for the core of quantum computers.

However, the problem is that it will take a long time. Although miniaturized controllable nuclear fusion technology and aerospace engine technology are now on the right track and even making great progress, it will still take some time to fully implement them. .

Moreover, miniaturized controllable nuclear fusion technology and aerospace engine technology are only basic work, and subsequent manned space work and lunar exploration projects are the bulk.

As for the latter, there is no doubt that the capabilities of a country are far greater than that of a company.

But the problem also exists. The core author of the paper is not here. It will take a long time to fully understand his paper and turn it into strength in the field of materials.

After all, this is based on the theoretical foundation of the grand unified framework of strongly correlated electrons. To understand the quantum foundation, you must first understand the former.

However, the theoretical paper on the grand unified framework of strongly correlated electrons has been published for almost half a year. There are probably not many people in the world who dare to say that they have a complete understanding of it.

After all, this is not a purely mathematical paper, it is the basis of condensed matter physics.

Condensed matter physics is one of the largest and most important branches of physics today and is also the core of materials physics.

Although Xu Chuan has made a framework for this field, it does not mean that the problems of condensed matter physics have been solved. Whether it is the Kondo impurity problem, the fractional quantum Hall effect, or the quantum spin liquid problem, we all need to face it. .

In this regard, although there are many professors in condensed matter physics in China, there are really only a few experts in the quantum field. The top twenty experts in the quantum field are almost all from abroad.

At present, I am afraid there is no top player who can replace Xu Chuan to complete the job in a short time.

But overall, the option of uploading the paper is better than the option of working with Warwick.

After all, Warwick is also faced with the embarrassing situation of no one being able to analyze applied papers, and the former is at least the size of a big country, and the Academy of Sciences can still find a group of people to do this job no matter what.

“I’m so busy with my time~”

After thinking about the situation clearly, Xu Chuan shook his head and sighed.

He had the means to do the research, but he didn't have enough time.

Even though he is only in his twenties, which is when a person is most energetic, the project in his hand has almost locked up his time.

Not to mention that there is a large strong particle collider project waiting for him in the future.

Although quantum computers are important, they are still unknown to him. Rather than gambling in this field, Xu Chuan prefers to choose a safer and familiar field.

However, there is nothing wrong with uploading the paper and letting the Academy of Sciences study it.

Shaking his head, Xu Chuan made a decision.

He is not very clear about how Huawei and Huaxin produce 7-nanometer chips. After all, a series of problems such as photolithography machines and single-crystal silicon wafers are troublesome.

But now that this problem has been solved, one of the directions of quantum chips, 'carbon-based chips', has a foundation.

Traditional unified chips are semiconductors made of silicon as raw material, but quantum chips are different.

Quantum chips are rich in raw materials, which can be superconductors, semiconductors, insulators or even metals.

Its only core lies in the qubit effect and the manipulation of qubits.

Carbon-based materials naturally have a certain foundation.

While developing carbon-based chips, we can kill two birds with one stone by attaching quantum chip technology to a research paper on the generation mechanism and characteristics of topological states.

This is Xu Chuan's plan after clearing all his thoughts.

Even if the research on quantum chips fails, the funds invested in it can be returned to carbon-based chips.

Carbon-based chips themselves are part of China's layout, and its technical reserves and talents in this field are still sufficient.

If there is no breakthrough in the quantum field, it would be great if there is a breakthrough in carbon-based chips.

At least compared to silicon-based chips, carbon-based chips have great advantages.

Whether the chip material is made of graphene or carbon nanotubes, its conductivity is stronger than that of silicon-based chips, and it will process big data faster.

According to current data, carbon-based chips prepared using the 90nm process are equivalent to silicon-based chips at the 28nm technology node, while carbon-based chips using 28nm are equivalent to 7nm silicon-based chips.

In other words, carbon-based chips produced using 28nm photolithography can reach the level of the current global high-level seven-nanometer chips.

This is undoubtedly a very important link for China, which lacks the field of photolithography machines.

After clearing all his thoughts, Xu Chuan no longer wasted time.

After finding a piece of letter paper from the drawer, he picked up the ballpoint pen on the table. After pondering for a while, he wrote down a line of handwriting.

【Dear】

【.】

A letter gradually took shape in Xu Chuan's hands. He wrote in the letter some insights about carbon-based chips and quantum computers, as well as some future development trends.

After a brief check to make sure there was nothing wrong, he sent a message to Zheng Hai and asked him to come over.

"Professor, are you looking for me?"

Zheng Hai, who had been wandering around the teaching building just in case, rushed over as soon as he received the news.

Xu Chuan nodded and handed him the written letter and the USB flash drive containing research papers on the generation mechanism and characteristics of topological states of matter.

"Please, please send this letter and this paper."

"same as usual?"

Zheng Hai asked after taking the letter and USB flash drive. He knew that this man had been in contact with the elder through letters.

It has to be said that in this era of extremely developed Internet, this kind of original letter communication is still quite rare, but if these two people are happy, he can only be an errand boy in the middle.

Xu Chuan nodded and said, "Well, don't lose it, especially the USB flash drive. The contents inside are quite important."

Research papers on the generation mechanism and characteristics of topological states are related to the development of quantum chips. If this is lost, it will have an absolutely significant impact on the layout and layout of the chip.

"Don't worry, it won't happen. Is there anything else?" Zheng Hai nodded seriously and put away the letter and USB flash drive.

"Gone."