Technological Hegemony

Luo Jia drove to SMIC. On a cold day, Tang Boyun's secretary was already waiting.

After the guard went through the formalities, Luo Jia and Zhang Dongning came to Mr. Tang's office with ease.

Tang Boyun and Luo Jia are already old friends. After a short exchange of pleasantries, Luo Jia went straight to the topic and asked Zhang Dongning to take out the samples and explain the technical indicators.

Tang Boyun relaxed at first, listening quietly, and nodded slightly at the same time.

However, after he listened to everything, he showed a look of extreme shock, and his wrists couldn't help shaking.

"You mean, you made the photoresist used in semiconductor factories!?" Tang Boyun's eyes lit up, he stood up, and asked in a hoarse voice.

Photoresist is divided into six grades according to quality.

SMIC is second only to TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC, and is the fourth largest semiconductor foundry in the world.

The so-called foundry means that SMIC itself does not have its own semiconductor brand, but Huawei HiSilicon, Spreadtrum, these semiconductor design companies, after completing the chip design, SMIC manufactures them for them.

Super semiconductor giants such as Samsung and Intel, of course, also have huge factories, but they mainly manufacture products for themselves, and rarely do processing for others.

Especially Intel, they have almost no foundry business, Samsung at least manufactures Snapdragon series mobile phone processors for Qualcomm, and Intel's factory, just manufacturing CPUs by itself, has almost occupied its production capacity.

In short, in the field of semiconductor foundry, there is a super enterprise, that is TSMC.

AMD's CPU, Nvidia's display chip, and Huawei's Kirin processor are all operated by TSMC.

Under TSMC, GlobalFoundries used to be the semiconductor manufacturing department of AMD, and its strength is strong. Together with UMC and SMIC, it is called the top three.

It can be seen that SMIC is by no means playing a soy sauce role in the semiconductor field. They are one of the top three in the semiconductor foundry field. They are the largest company in my country's semiconductor manufacturing industry and can manufacture up to 14NM high-precision chips.

Can the photoresist used by such a top semiconductor factory in the world be ordinary?

Absolutely not!

They need top photoresists with the most expensive price and the fifth and sixth grades of quality!

For others, such as display panel factories, third or fourth grade photoresists are sufficient.

Luo Jia even said that the photoresist they manufactured can meet the extremely stringent fifth and sixth level standards!

This shocked Tang Boyun so much that he couldn't believe his ears.

"pardon?"

"Can we use it?"

"We have many lines under our banner, which one can be used?" Tang Boyun asked excitedly.

Luo Jia smiled and said in an extremely positive tone, "From your 120NM line with the lowest technical level to the 14NM line that has just been put into production, everything can be used!"

All can be used! ?

Tang Boyun's heartbeat accelerated crazily. Although the slogan of industrial replacement has been chanted for many years, semiconductors are the king of the technology industry after all. It is too difficult to march in this direction.

So far, almost all of the machines, consumables, and wafers used by SMIC are imported. It’s not that they don’t want to replace them, but they really can’t.

Zhongwei is the national team and a company fully supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. They have worked hard to win the etching machine, and in terms of technical level, they have only caught up with the world's first-class, not leading. It has not even reached the top of the world.

As the most used consumable in the semiconductor industry, Xingchen Technology has produced the fifth and sixth grades of photoresist. Can Tang Boyun not be excited? He is almost bursting with excitement.

"Do you know what this means!?" Tang Boyun said excitedly.

Luo Jia said lightly, "From silicon wafer to chip, it needs to go through thirteen processes, namely wet cleaning, photolithography, ion implantation, photoetching, wet etching, plasma treatment, heat treatment, rapid thermal annealing oxidation, chemical vapor phase Deposition, Physical Vapor Deposition, Molecular Beam Epitaxy, Electroplating, Surface Treatment, Package Testing, Polishing."

"Among them, in the three most important process links of photolithography, etching, and implantation, photoresists need to be used repeatedly."

"And we, for you, solved the small problems about consumables in the three major links."

Tang Boyun nodded again and again, the way he looked at Luo Jia was obviously different.

This young man is an expert!

Obviously, Luo Jia has done a lot of study and research in semiconductors, the world's top technology field.

"Small problem, you actually said that photoresist is just a small problem." Tang Boyun shook his head, "Believe me, photoresist is by no means a small problem, but a serious problem that has plagued us for many years! The photoresist we are currently using , all of which are imported from abroad at high prices, once they are stuck by others, and the production line built with an investment of hundreds of billions must be shut down!"

Luo Jia smiled, "Mr. Tang, wait a minute. I know that imported products are expensive, but I didn't say that our photoresists must be cheaper than imported ones."

Tang Boyun was taken aback for a moment, and then laughed loudly, "It doesn't need to be cheap! As long as the performance is the same and the price is the same, you will definitely use the photoresist from Star Technology!"

"Come on, let's go to the lab!"

 …

Tang Boyun decided to personally preside over the photoresist performance test. The engineers of SMIC went crazy when they learned that there was a domestic manufacturer that produced grade 5 and grade 6 photoresists.

They only heard that there are a few companies that can manufacture three-level photoresist, five-level and six-level photoresist for display production lines, which are completely monopolized by Neon and the United States, TOK, JSR, Sumitomo, Shin-Etsu, DuPont, SMIC The international market has always imported goods from these companies.

"Which factory's product?"

"I heard that it is a subsidiary of Xingchen Technology. The factory is not far away, just in Qidong."

"Star Technology? The Star Technology that engages in energy wave wireless charging?"

"That's them."

"Reliable! Although I haven't seen the samples yet, who doesn't know about Xingchen Technology, they have always been very reliable!"

"Stop talking so much, hurry up, I heard that Mr. Tang is very excited, and he is going to host the test in person."

An uproar quickly erupted within SMIC, and engineers began to gather at the experimental center. They put on dustproof clothing, entered the laboratory, and conducted the most stringent quality test on the photoresist of Xingchen Technology.

Luo Jia and Zhang Dongning couldn't get in, so they had to watch outside through the glass.

From time to time, someone brought them tea and snacks, and many people Luo Jia didn't know at all came over to chat with him, and patted him on the shoulder before leaving to show their approval.

Testing starts in the morning and continues into the evening.

Luo Jia saw that the engineers in the experimental center, who were wearing full dustproof suits, seemed very excited. They kept raising their arms and lowering them. Many people surrounded the laboratory to watch, nervously waiting for the results.

It was completely dark, and Tang Boyun came out of the laboratory with his technicians, with an excited expression on his face, "Unbelievable, completely unbelievable, the data we measured is even better than the performance of Shin-Etsu Chemical's top products! "

Boom~

The surroundings were boiling, and those staff members who had been waiting for a long time embraced and congratulated each other, seeming happier than Luo Jia and Zhang Dongning.

What SMIC is most afraid of is the news about the trade embargo. The international situation is not good, and others may get stuck at any time. It is not uncommon for them to encounter such things as foreign manufacturers sitting on the ground and raising prices.

"Let's go eat something together." Tang Boyun cordially invited, "It's been prepared by someone. After we eat, we'll go live overnight!"

Luo Jia was taken aback. Going online for actual combat was not a trivial matter. It meant that the samples brought by Luo Jia were directly applied to those incredibly expensive semiconductor production lines.