Technology: breaking the hegemony that monopolizes the world

When Li You saw Gu Qing's figure, he still did not stop the work in his hands and the "words" in his mouth.

Moreover, when the technical engineers of the semiconductor department saw the arrival of Gu Qing, the big boss of the company, their eyes did not look hopeful at all as if they were seeing a "savior", but their hands moved a little faster.

The formula logic problem that some people were still worried about was quickly solved under this pressure.

Within Jiuzhou Technology, all engineers who are deeply involved in research and development know a very simple truth, that is, the project management is a "tyrant". While the management is strict, no one will be allowed to be lazy.

But the biggest tyrant of all departments is the company founder.

The scene where Mr. Gu trained a group of doctors, professors, and academicians to be as submissive as elementary school students has always remained in the minds of these old engineers.

Even though Li You, the head of the semiconductor department, seemed to be relatively stable at this time, under Gu Qing's extraordinary visual observation, Gu clearly saw that Li's eyes were slightly panicked.

So after the meet and greet, he got straight to the point and asked: "Is there something wrong with the quantum chip project?"

Li You: (⊙o⊙)……

call……

After taking a deep breath, because he knew that there was no room for concealment or deception in front of Gu Qing, and Li You had never had any thoughts in this regard, Li You nodded slowly and said: "Yes, there are some small problems. "

“Because the qubits in quantum computers are susceptible to noise and interference in the environment during working and non-working conditions, their states are very unstable and they can easily lose their quantum properties and become classical bits. .

Our researchers and engineers have tried many methods, but currently they can only complete the technical deduction to a quantum chip with 10,000 qubits. Once it exceeds the level of 10,000, various instability problems will immediately occur. "

Hearing Li You's explanation, Gu Qing nodded: "It is true that error correction is an important issue in the development of quantum computing. It is precisely because this problem cannot be solved, so how to maintain the stability and correctness of qubits and avoid The occurrence of errors is already one of the important technical hurdles in the development of quantum computers.

We find it difficult, and quantum chip engineers from other companies and institutions will also find it difficult. "

However, at this point, Gu Qing changed his tone and said: "But we are Jiuzhou Technology. We want to be able to do what others cannot. Others may find it difficult, but it is not impossible to solve!"

Then, Gu Qing took the tablet next to Li You and shared the tablet screen to the SR1 glasses screens of all engineers in the research room.

The engineers were not surprised by the screen image that suddenly appeared in front of them. Even some engineers in the toilet could naturally turn on the mute function of the toilet cubicle and put themselves in a special sealed box.

"There is no concept of overtaking in quantum chips. It is just like silicon-based chips and carbon-based chips. If it works, it will work. If it doesn't, it will not work!"

The first words Gu Qing said shocked the heads of these engineers.

Everyone knows that Mr. Gu is usually gentle with others, but when it comes to particularly important matters, he will be extremely serious.

“A few years ago, I said that there are many types of qubits, such as superconducting quantum chips based on superconducting qubits, silicon spin quantum chips based on spin superconducting bits of silicon quantum dots, and photon-based ones. Qubit optical quantum chips, among these types of projects, superconducting quantum chips and spin quantum chips are projects that we have sufficient technical background to develop.

Silicon spin qubits are quantum chips made of silicon materials.

Quantity and scale aside, we can think of each qubit essentially as a tiny electronic transistor inside a chip, and naturally we can use processes similar to those used in standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor logic processing lines. Make it, control it.

Two years ago, Intel's silicon spin qubit device only broke through to 12 qubits, and we have now reached 1,000. This shows that the pursuers behind us on this road are actually touching the threshold.

It's just that Intel's technology research and development difficulties are just small stones on our research and development road, which will soon be overcome, just like this time's 10,000-level qubits.

Previously, we developed the steady-state micro-bunching SS1MB light source and special gate contact processing technology, which resulted in extremely high chip yield and performance stability.

So now, why can't we develop better light sources and chip processes to innovate semiconductor technology, thereby improving the scale and performance of quantum chips?

IBM abroad has great ambitions. It even dares to use Moore's Law to formulate a development roadmap for superconducting quantum chips, saying that the number of qubits integrated in each quantum chip is doubling every year.

A company with a 12-inch wafer R\u0026D and manufacturing line and EUV lithography machine dares to have such big ambitions. Our Jiuzhou Technology has complete technology for 18-inch wafers, and even the SS1MB lithography machine, which is stronger than the EUV lithography machine, cannot achieve the breakthrough of 10,000.

Do you think Intel and IBM can achieve the technical threshold of over 10,000 yuan if they have our technical specifications? "

Li You lowered his head, looking thoughtful.

He heard it, and when faced with technical problems, his manager Gu gave two solutions.

The first is the most effective but also the most difficult solution - technology upgrade, upgrading the SS1MB light source to SS2MB light source or replacing it with other better light sources. At the same time, the wafer purity will be further improved, and the manufacturing process and design logic will be upgraded.

As long as the technology of the entire industry chain is upgraded, this problem will naturally be overcome.

The second option is somewhat "simple".

Learn from Western semiconductor companies such as Intel and IBM, and use existing technologies to maximize the advantages of each process. Do things within the scope to the extreme in order to break through the limitations of this 10,000-level quantum chip.

For Li You to reach his current position, he is naturally not the kind of weakling who is willing to accept simple solutions.

"No matter how optimized the existing technology is, it is impossible to make a qualitative change. When you led us to collectively develop the SS1MB light source, you once said that this opened a door to a new technical field.

Perhaps the thousand-level quantum chip is its limitation, but it has indeed allowed us to successfully enter the field of quantum chips.

However, our optical experts have not yet found a direction for the upgrade of the light source. It will take time to wait for the upgrade of the light source. "