The Rebirth of the Male God Starts From Playing Games

Chapter 691 692. See hope

Two weeks later, Cao Yang took Pei Siqing and his daughter to visit Fang Qiong.

This time, Teacher Fang's cheeks were even more sunken, and his whole body became thinner.

When Pei Siqing saw her like this, he couldn't help but secretly wipe his tears.

According to the doctor, Professor Fang Qiong's cancer has now spread throughout her body, and she basically doesn't have much time left to live. The key is that she still has no appetite. Due to the invasion of cancer, Fang Qiong feels like her whole body is being swarmed by ants every day. A heartbreaking pain, a feeling that the bone marrow is being eaten away.

The pain, combined with not eating much, made the person look very thin, skinny, and pitiful in the later stages.

Who would have thought that this little old lady was so energetic and high-spirited just a few years ago?

So cancer patients are really in pain, but those who are really happy are those who suffer from Alzheimer's disease or cerebral infarction. Death is like a dream, without too much pain.

People like Professor Fang have a very sober mind, but the more sober they become, the more painful it becomes, because you realize all the time that cancer is eroding your life, and the only thing you can do is to have the courage to face it.

Professor Fang is a very strong person, and he never shows a trace of pain even in front of Cao Yang and the others, but it is often in this situation that Cao Yang feels that she is really in pain.

But every time he saw Cao Yang, especially Cao Sining, Teacher Fang seemed particularly happy.

After all, Cao Sining is also a child she watched grow up.

As soon as Cao Sining entered the ward, he enthusiastically climbed onto Professor Fang's bed, then lay in her arms and ate an apple.

The relationship between the two is very good and they look like biological grandchildren.

Pei Siqing couldn't help scolding Cao Sining and said, "Come down quickly, don't mess around here."

Fang Qiong quickly stopped, "Where is this nonsense? It's good like this. Later, grandma will tell you a story."

"Okay, okay." Cao Sining smiled happily.

She likes to listen to Fang Qiong telling stories the most. The old woman’s stories are lively and interesting, and there are also many philosophies in them.

"Do you remember? You were also born in this hospital back then. You were only a little bit older when you were born. I wanted to hug you at that time, but your parents didn't agree.

snort. "

Having said this, Professor Fang gently shook Cao Sining in his arms, then snorted coldly, and glared at Cao Yang and Pei Siqing with resentful eyes.

Pei Siqing laughed twice, embarrassed to say anything.

Often at this time, Cao Yang would tease, "Teacher Fang, she was just born at that time, where does her memory come from?"

…

March was really a month of ups and downs for Cao Yang. During this month, he first received a notification about Teacher Fang’s condition, and then a few days later, Cao Yang received a notification from the American amsl company. A phone call.

During the phone call, the other party's president told Cao Yang that ASML was now able to produce extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, also known as EUV lithography machines.

Although it is said that the research and development is successful, there is still a long way to go before production. ASML still needs to do a series of testing work, later improvements, and reduce manufacturing costs to find better solutions...

These all take a lot of time.

So the other party's reply to Cao Yang was that it expected to deliver two EUV lithography machines within 5 years.

Bomi owns 10% of the shares in ASML and is considered one of the company's major shareholders, so it has the right of first refusal. Moreover, Cao Yang had signed an agreement with them many years ago. As long as the EUV research and development is successful, it will have priority at that time. Give one to Bomi.

Although ASML didn't know what Boss Cao used this for at the time, after all, Bomi didn't produce chips at the time.

But as they began to make smartphones, laptops, and tablets, and then acquired SMIC, ASML's executives finally understood Mr. Cao's good intentions. It turned out that the situation had been laid out early, but At that time, these puzzle pieces were not complete enough, so everyone could not see clearly.

Now everyone with a discerning eye knows that Bomi Group is going to enter the semiconductor industry.

For China, this area can be said to be a blind spot and the weakest point.

Therefore, ASML's photolithography machine can be said to come in handy.

Although the technology is blocked, at least the equipment can still be purchased.

So after receiving the call, Cao Yang was happy for a long time. This was indeed exciting news, so he quickly placed an order with ASML and asked them to give priority to Bomi. Two units will be delivered within about five years. A $200 million lithography machine.

After hanging up the phone, Cao Yang still felt a little uneasy in his heart.

He always felt that things were going too smoothly, not at all like the beautiful style he encountered in his previous life.

Or maybe they haven't noticed it yet, so they haven't directly intervened?

Cao Yang thought for a few seconds, then shook his head and gave up the idea.

It would have been better if Steve Jobs was still alive. Now that Steve Jobs is dead, it is obvious that Bomi is the dominant company in the field of smartphones. Countless pairs of eyes are staring at them. I don’t know how many people want Bomi’s smartphones. collapse.

So how could Big Beauty give up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? If nothing else, Cao Yang expected that they would soon face Bomika's neck on chip manufacturing issues.

…

A few days later, Cao Yang received a call from Zhang Rujing of Core International.

"By the way, I told Professor Fang about you before." Cao Yang said with a smile after receiving the call, "She is very concerned about the chip case. Although Teacher Fang doesn't know much about chips, she knows that this matter is related to the country. It is a very important technology for the future.”

Zhang Rujing was silent for a while, and then said, "Yes, Mr. Cao, this is what I want to say. The team of Professor Tang Chuanli of Tsinghua University has developed a stable extreme ultraviolet light source. Do you want to Come and take a look together?”

"ha?!"

Cao Yang was stunned for two seconds. He was so happy that he couldn't open his mouth from ear to ear and seemed extremely surprised.

"real or fake?"

Oh my god!

What you didn't do in your previous life, didn't you expect that you could do it in this life? !

But don’t pretend to be someone trying to get money!

…

Extreme ultraviolet light source is one of the three major problems in EUV development.

Someone described the lithography machine this way: "This is a product that combines top technologies in the fields of mathematics, optics, fluid mechanics, polymer physics and chemistry, surface physics and chemistry, precision instruments, machinery, automation, software, and image recognition."

We can think of the photolithography machine as a high-precision film exposure and printing machine. It is responsible for exposing the "film", that is, the designed chip circuit diagram, to the "photo paper". This "negative" has a professional name, called "mask". The "photo paper" here is the silicon wafer, the base material for making the chip; the final "photo" obtained after the exposure is completed is the chip.

There are only three most critical components in the basic structure of a lithography machine: the light source emitter, the optical lens used to adjust the light path and focus, and the exposure stage on which the silicon wafer is placed.

Precisely because the working principle and basic structure of the lithography machine are not complicated, in the early days of the development of the chip industry, there were no specialized lithography machine manufacturers.

The chip company only needs to go to a photographic equipment store to buy ordinary photo developing and printing equipment, and then process and modify it by itself. Later, as demand continued to increase, and now the emergence of smartphones, higher and higher requirements have been placed on chips.

After so many years of development, although Bomi has the world's highest level of chip design capabilities, it still lacks chip manufacturing technology.

In other words, the source of all this is stuck in the lithography machine.

This is about the famous "Moore's Law" in the chip industry. Moore's Law states that the number of transistors on a chip of the same size will double every two years.

In other words, the performance of the chip is also doubled. But Moore's Law is not an objective natural law, but an empirical law formed by the fierce competition in the chip industry: Once a chip company's research and development speed lags behind this rhythm, it will be ruthlessly eliminated. Moore's Law has dominated the chip industry for half a century since it was proposed in 1965.

The number of transistors on a chip has been growing exponentially for half a century. If the chip is also compared to a "photo", then the pixels of this photo will increase exponentially. Correspondingly, the accuracy of the photolithography machines used to expose, develop and print "photos" must also become higher and higher. Otherwise, no matter how beautiful the "photo" you design is, it will be useless if it cannot be printed.

For example, in the future, Bomi's smartphones will need to use chips below the 10nm level. To produce such chips, the most advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography machines will be used.

What level of accuracy does it need to achieve? First of all, if you imagine light as a carving knife, the shorter the light wave, the sharper the carving knife.

1 nanometer is equal to one millionth of a millimeter. A 7-nanometer chip means that only a few nanometers of separation is allowed between each component, which is equivalent to one ten thousandth of the thickness of a human hair.

To expose such a chip, a special light source must be used, that is, extreme ultraviolet light. Its wavelength is only 13.5 nanometers, which is a few tenths of the wavelength of visible light.

However, extreme ultraviolet light sources are difficult to create.

It was not until the beginning of this year that ASML developed its first extreme ultraviolet lithography machine.

However, this process is already much earlier than that of Cao Yang's previous life.

The second technical difficulty of the lithography machine is the optical lens used to adjust the optical path and focus. Highly precise optical lenses are one of the core components of lithography machines. Therefore, the other two lithography machine manufacturers after ASML, Nikon and Canon, are both leaders in the production of optical lenses.

ASML does not produce its own lenses. Its lenses come from German optical master Carl Zeiss. How precise is this lens? If you magnify the lens to the size of the earth, there will only be a bulge like a hair on it. So some people say that this may be the smoothest man-made object in the universe.

The domestic industry suffers because it does not have a complete industrial chain, especially the industrial chain required for optical components. Cameras and cameras are basically produced by foreign companies, and optical components can rarely be polished to such a fine level.

So there is still a long way to go in this area.

The last difficulty lies in [accuracy]

The chip cannot be completed with one exposure. Instead, different masks must be replaced and multiple exposures must be performed.

Only a few nanometers of separation is allowed between each component of the chip. This means that each alignment error between the mask and the silicon wafer must be controlled at the nanometer level.

After one area is exposed, the exposure stage on which the silicon wafer is placed must be moved quickly to expose the next area.

Achieving nanometer-level alignment while moving quickly is as difficult as if you had to rush from BJ Tiananmen to the Bund in Shanghai with a plate of food in the blink of an eye, and just happen to step on the predetermined footprints, while the food still remains intact. Don't spill it if it's flat.

Of course, there are also a series of peripheral technical problems, such as ultra-clean factories with 10,000 times cleaner outdoor air, magnetic levitation devices to prevent machine jitter, and supporting computational lithography software.

This is why photolithography machines are called "the crown jewel of the semiconductor industry."

Manufacturing an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine is challenging the limits of human industrial civilization.

…

When he heard that Qing Dynasty Professor Datang's team could actually develop a stable extreme ultraviolet light source, Cao Yang was visibly excited.

Because this matter is really great, it means that Boss Cao has not lived his life in vain, nor has he invested in the development of the chip field in vain. It is already very remarkable to be able to solve one of the three problems now.

So Cao Yang quickly replied to Zhang Rujing that he must visit.

…

Professor Tang's laboratory is not very big. There are many computers placed outside, and one side of the partition inside is made of transparent glass. There are many equipments placed in the laboratory. Cao Yang can't even name them. Through some Weird lines are connected in series.

Cao Yang watched all this from the outside and thought it was really magical.

In his previous life, he mostly dealt with computers and rarely had contact with physics laboratories. Only in Liu Qiang's hardware manufacturing department could he see similar high-tech R&D scenes.

Professor Tang led everyone to visit, and then gave them an introduction and popular science, allowing Cao Yang and others to briefly understand how the extreme ultraviolet light sources in some laboratories are made.

Bomi Company is also the team's largest financial backer. In order to promote the domestic chip industry, Bomi has spent a lot of money.

However, this kind of thing requires a lot of money and time, so it’s better to start early.

Late piles come with higher costs.

In the past, domestic lithography machines were always stuck. In fact, it was due to talent, time, and more importantly, insufficient capital investment.

A lot of capital hopes to get returns in the short term. The key is that the research and development of photolithography machines is destined to be a very money-burning process, and it is difficult to see returns in the short term. In addition, some scams have occurred, and domestic companies are keen on this. There are even fewer companies and units.

However, in this generation, Cao Yang attached great importance to the chip field and was extremely strict. After taking a stake in SMIC, he spent a lot of money to promote the development of related lithography machines.

It is always better to develop early, because this thing is definitely unreliable if it relies on foreign countries. In the end, you have to find your own path.

After observing for a while, Cao Yang asked excitedly, "How can we observe extreme ultraviolet light?"

"Only through instruments."

Professor Tang explained with a smile, “The frequency of electromagnetic waves that the average person’s eyes can perceive is between 380 and 750THz, and the wavelength is between 780 and 400nm, but there are still some people who can perceive the frequency between about 340 and 790THz and the wavelength between 880 and 880nm. Electromagnetic waves between 380nm.

The wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light is between 121 nanometers and 10 nanometers, so it is definitely invisible to our naked eyes. "

"Also, it's best not to look directly at it, as this can cause irreversible damage to your eyes."

…

"Mr. Cao, come and see."

Professor Tang invited Cao Yang to his computer and asked his students to operate the equipment.

Soon a set of newly drawn maps appeared on the computer screen.

"A horizontally polarized laser pulse with a wavelength of 1,064nm. The full width of this auroral pulse at half maximum is about 10ns and the energy is about 50mJ. It is launched into a planar undulator with a period of 0.125m and a total length of 4m. Here it is stored with the metering light source MLS The electron beams stored in the ring propagate together.

During the propagation process, since the undulator gap satisfies the resonance condition, the laser-electron energy exchange can be maximized, causing the electron beam to produce a sinusoidal energy modulation pattern.

After one rotation in a quasi-synchronous storage ring with a circumference of 48m, the electrons gather towards the synchronization phase and finally form a micro-beam. The undulator radiation from the electron beam is then separated into the fundamental wave and the second harmonic by a dichroic mirror, and the signal is mainly concentrated on the second harmonic.

By inserting a narrow bandpass filter in front of the photodetector, the narrowband coherent radiation produced by the microbeam can be picked up. "

very good.

By the end, Cao Yang could no longer understand what he was talking about.

This is truly a professional job.

Cao Yang actually only cares about one issue, and that is—

"Can we make this extreme ultraviolet light source stable? Can it be used for photolithography to manufacture chips?"

"Theoretically, it is feasible." Professor Tang nodded, "However, we are still in the basic initial stage. We are only manufacturing the light source through experiments, but the corresponding cost is still relatively high. If we want to reduce the cost, It may take some time.”

"How long do you expect it to take?" Cao Yang asked.

"Hmm... In the short term, it will take 3 to 5 years, and in the long term, it will take 8 or 9 years. But we can definitely keep the cost down, and we will improve the corresponding equipment and create a more stable and more efficient extreme ultraviolet light source."

Theoretically speaking, the microstate light focusing now used by Professor Tang can produce light with a shorter wavelength than the light source of the lithography machine produced by AMSL in the Netherlands. A shorter light source has both advantages and disadvantages.

The advantage is that it can produce chips with higher precision. For example, future 3nm chips and even 2nm chips can be made using this.

The disadvantage is that it is not enough to have a light source, a series of supporting equipment is required.

For example, optical components, high-precision processing machine tools, and various equipment used in the production process, etc. These are all shortcomings and need to be overcome one by one.

However, as long as he can take the first step, Cao Yang can basically see the future beckoning to him.

… (End of this chapter)