I Found A Planet

For the next ten hours.

Liang Mengnan and others adjusted the parameters a total of five times, and finally obtained five yield values, all of which were in line with the actual situation.

In other words, the "virtual factory" technology of Xinghai Technology Co., Ltd. is a super technology that is reliable, proven to be useful, and can be called a "magic skill".

"With this virtual factory, we will adjust, improve, and optimize our chip manufacturing process in the future. The cost will be a few tenths of the previous one, the time will be one tenth of the previous one, and the cost of trial and error will be greatly reduced!" Liang Mengnan Excited to the point of incoherence.

"The yield rate of our 14nm chips has not been improved in the past two years. It does not mean that a yield rate of 95% is enough. The foundries of Moss Semiconductors and Sanxin have a yield rate of 98% for their 14nm chips. % or more, the difference of three or four percentage points means that they can take a few percent more profit, or maintain a few percentage points advantage over us in terms of price, so that we do not have a competitive advantage in price.”

"Moreover, the foundries of Moss Semiconductors and Sanxin not only have high chip yields, but also higher production efficiency than ours. Their production lines can roll out 300,000 chips a day, while ours can produce up to 250,000 chips. The production efficiency is not as good as others."

"The most fundamental reason for their leadership is that they have money, and they have the conditions to continuously trial and error, adjust and improve the chip manufacturing process, improve the production efficiency of the chip, and have a lot of money to invest in the research and development of the next generation process, the Matthew effect Now, their lead is getting stronger and stronger."

"But Zhongxin International can't do it. We have no money, we have no people, and we need profits to maintain the company's operations. The 14nm production line is the company's largest source of profit, and we can't stop for a moment! Let alone continue to improve the production process...so the yield rate is low. It's been stuck there."

"Now Xinghai Technology's virtual factory has perfectly solved the dilemma we encountered! We can do process improvement experiments in the virtual factory, adjust parameters, add new processes or reduce cumbersome processes, and explore high-speed production through computer simulation. method!"

"The simulation speed of the supercomputer is very fast. In reality, we have to explore the harvest for a month. It is not as good as this supercomputer running for three days. The efficiency of exploring better processes is greatly improved!"

"Our chip yield and production efficiency will both increase!"

Yang Ming, the technical director, explained the significance of the virtual factory with great excitement, and said loudly: "With the virtual factory, the technology gap between Zhongxin International and the world's first-class chip foundries will be narrowed ten times faster, and we will definitely be able to catch up in two years at most." Get on them!"

"Yes, we will catch up with them."

Zhang Weijing and the others all nodded. Yang Ming’s statement was not exaggerated at all. Assuming that Zhongxin International is 20 years behind Taijidian and Sanxin, and is catching up with ten times the speed, there is every hope of catching up with them within two years.

The cost of catching up is only a few tenths of the previous one.

The virtual factory is so scary!

Speaking of the chip manufacturing process.

Are the procedures really so mysterious?

As long as there is a good lithography machine, what good chips can't be made?

In fact, this statement is absurd.

The lithography machine is just an important process of chip manufacturing, not the whole of chip manufacturing.

More than 2,000 processes are the core technology of chip manufacturing.

This requires the foundry to have extremely strong system integration and precise coordination of production supporting capabilities. The exploration process of thousands of processes is definitely more difficult than the core technology research and development.

Don't underestimate the chip foundry industry because of the word "OEM" in the chip foundry. If there is no chip foundry, those lithography machine manufacturers, etching machine factories, ion implantation machine factories...etc. supply core equipment Suppliers, none of them can manufacture chips.

The chip manufacturing process of the chip foundry is also the most important and core technology.

In addition, in the field of chip manufacturing, core equipment including lithography machines, foreign countries have lifted the embargo on country Z a few years ago. Except that the order of supply is somewhat late, chip companies in country Z, as long as they have money, can Buy the most advanced lithography equipment.

The reason why foreign countries have not imposed an embargo on country Z is that on the one hand, several domestic research institutions in country Z have conquered many key technologies in the field of lithography machines. Once the blockade is implemented, it will not take a few years for companies in country Z to make breakthroughs , Lifting a stone and shooting yourself in the foot; on the other hand, having an advanced lithography machine does not mean mastering first-class chip manufacturing technology.

For example, most of the lithography machines currently used by chip giants in the world are 193nm immersion lithography machines produced by Asmer in the Netherlands. The existing 65nm, 45nm, 32nm, 28nm, 16/14nm chips all use 193nm It is made by an immersion lithography machine (as for a lithography machine with such a large wavelength, why can it make a chip with a smaller process? This is the power of advanced processing technology).

For chips with 10nm, 7nm or even smaller processes, a 13nm extreme ultraviolet lithography machine (EUV) must be used to ensure stable performance and high yield of the chip... This kind of lithography machine is not available abroad. Z country banned sales, Zhongxin International ordered an EUV two years ago, and spent 120 million dollars! The goods that arrived last year were used in the research of more advanced process chips, but no substantial breakthrough has been made so far.

Now with the research and development bonus of Xinghai Technology’s virtual factory, after the yield rate and production efficiency of 14nm chips are improved, they will move to 10nm, 7nm and even smaller 5nm. , made a major breakthrough!

"Mr. Zhang and Brother Liang, why don't we go beyond 10nm and go directly to 7nm? With an artifact like a virtual factory in hand, although there are many difficulties at the beginning, we have infinite opportunities for trial and error, and our cost of trial and error is extremely low. !Let’s go beyond one generation, and go directly to 7nm, and reach the most advanced level comparable to that of Moss Semiconductors and Sanxin. Once we make a breakthrough, we will surely shake the entire industry!"

Yang Ming suddenly had a brain hole and came up with a whimsical idea.

Everyone's eyes lit up.

"I think...you can try it!"

"In fact, we have almost explored 10nm chips, and the yield rate is terrible, but at least a few qualified and usable chips have been produced. Using these as technical reserves and directly entering 7nm, we should not encounter too many detours."

"It is indeed a bold attempt to make a leap forward! If our 7nm chip is successfully developed, not only will the industry be shocked, but shareholders' confidence will be greatly increased, and the stock price will definitely skyrocket!"

Zhang Weijing's face flushed with excitement.

It doesn't matter even if the attempt fails, at most it will delay some time and waste some research and development costs. Compared with the potential huge benefits, it is worth taking the risk!

It is conceivable that the strength of the "artifact of research and development" of the virtual factory has injected great confidence into Zhang Weijing and others.