The rejuvenation of a great nation: from educated youth to national treasure scientist

Chapter 112 Proximity Lithography Machine
Wu Ji said with emotion: "Comrade Haoran, if we hadn't met you, I don't know how long it would take us to grope in the dark before we could master the technology to use that equipment."

"I thought my English was not bad, so why did I spend so much time and effort but still couldn't figure it out?"

Wang Haoran smiled and said, "It's mainly because their equipment is not designed scientifically enough."

"Also, you are not familiar with the use of this computer software."

Nowadays, the marketing of personal computers is accelerating.

In addition to Apple, there are at least six or seven other companies promoting their own microcomputers.

The microcomputers that China developed in the past were actually specially used for computing, which is very different from the microcomputers of the Lizard Kingdom.

Computer technology is really starting to take off.

Zhang Yongcun raised his glass with a smile and said, "Thank you, Comrade Haoran!"

"You solved our big problem as soon as you came here!"

"I toast to you."

Wang Haoran quickly picked up his glass and clinked it with Zhang Yongcun.

When clinking glasses, he raised Zhang Yongcun's hand a little higher, making his glass a little lower than Zhang Yongcun's.

This is the rule at the dinner table.

Zhang Yongcun is an older senior, so Wang Haoran naturally has to show respect.

"Director Zhang, you're too polite, haha!"

Wang Haoran drank it all in one gulp.

Although Wang Haoran was not good at drinking, he had to drink up the wine that others offered him.

Zhang Yongcun also drank the wine in the glass in one gulp and poured wine for Wang Haoran himself.

As he poured the dough, he said, "Our factory has a heavy production task right now!"

"The yield rate is too low, and the country's demand is huge. Even if we work overtime day and night, we can't meet the demand."

“It’s something that’s always been bothering me.”

Wang Haoran nodded and said, "I can understand you."

Zhang Yongcun added: “I heard that the production efficiency of advanced exposure systems abroad is very high.”

"We want to import it, and the country strongly supports it, but they are currently blocking us and refusing to sell it to us."

"We can only spend money to buy their advanced chips, which are very expensive..."

The exposure machine system is actually a photolithography machine.

A photolithography machine is also called a mask alignment exposure machine.

Nowadays, Longguo cannot buy advanced complete chip manufacturing production lines.

Wang Haoran smiled and said, "Director Zhang, the reason I came to your factory to study is because I just applied for a project to improve the chip production line."

"I plan to develop a domestic lithography production line."

"Improve all the process equipment for chip production."

"We do this to improve our chip production efficiency."

Zhang Yongcun and others were overjoyed when they heard this.

"Really? After all this time, Comrade Haoran, you are going to develop a domestic chip production line! Hahaha!" Zhang Yongcun said with a big laugh.

Wu Ji was also surprised and delighted: "This is what our factory needs most right now! We need a production line with higher production efficiency!"

Liu Zhongyou just smiled. He didn’t quite believe that Wang Haoran could really handle such a huge project.

He studied mechanics.

He knew too well the difficulty of designing mechanical production equipment.

He also wanted to improve the exposure machine to increase chip production efficiency.

However, he has been working hard for several years and there has been no progress.

Wang Haoran said: "In general, we now have the problem of low production efficiency in all industrial fields."

"This is mainly because our production equipment is out of date."

"The more standardized and automated the machinery and equipment are, the greater the production efficiency will be."

"If we want to improve the standardization and automation of production equipment, we need to give the machinery its own brain."

As Wang Haoran spoke, he gently poked his head with his finger.

Liu Zhongyou asked: "Let mechanical equipment have its own brain? What does this mean?"

Wang Haoran said: "It is to install the control program on the equipment, use the processor as its brain, write the control program, so that it can carry out production in an automated and standardized manner."

"Have you all been abroad for inspections?"

Zhang Yongcun and the other two nodded.

Zhang Yongcun said: "After we normalized relations with Jiaoben in 1972, we organized a visit to Jiaoben for investigation."

"It's just as Comrade Haoran said. We found that the foot basin factory is completely different from ours. Many of their workshops are assembly line operations with a high degree of automation and high efficiency."

Wang Haoran said: "In fact, as long as we improve our production equipment, we will be able to catch up with them soon."

"But the key point is still the chip!"

"So, we must solve the chip problem first."

Zhang Yongcun nodded and said, "After listening to Comrade Haoran's speech tonight, I was really enlightened!"

"No problem, just tell us what kind of support you need from us!"

"We must fully cooperate!"

Wang Haoran expressed his gratitude with a smile.

That night, Wang Haoran stayed in the guesthouse of Factory 742.

The next morning, Zhang Yongcun came personally to have breakfast with Wang Haoran.

After breakfast, Wang Haoran finally had the opportunity to visit the workshop of Factory 742.

In fact, it was not a special visit, but Wang Haoran wanted to use the 8086 mask to produce samples of processor chips.

When Wang Haoran walked into the workshop and took a look, he sighed inwardly: what appeared before his eyes was not a modern production workshop at all, but more like a machinery workshop.

The equipment is also very backward, and production basically relies on the experience and feel of skilled workers.

This production model is extremely backward.

Moreover, today's silicon wafers are only 3 inches, which is considered a very small size.

But now in China, mainstream chip manufacturers have generally used 8-inch silicon wafers.

The larger the silicon wafer size, the more cost-effective it is. After all, large silicon wafers mean more chips can be produced and less scrap during the production process.

"Comrade Haoran, this is the exposure machine we developed ourselves." Zhang Yongcun specially introduced the domestically produced lithography equipment to Wang Haoran.

It was just a very simple workbench, and one could tell at a glance that the staff had to rely on their own experience to perform a lot of operations.

Moreover, this lithography machine is of hard contact type.

The so-called hard-contact lithography machine means that the mask is in direct contact with the photoresist on the wafer, close to the wafer, with no gap in between.

This will cause the photoresist to contaminate the mask, and once the mask is contaminated, it is basically scrapped. If it is barely used, all that is produced will be waste.

Wang Haoran said: "Director Zhang, I now finally understand why our yield rate is so low."

"Hard-contact lithography machines have low production efficiency and are prone to producing waste products."

Zhang Yongcun sighed and said, "You are right."

"We have always wanted to improve it, but there has been no progress so far." Wang Haoran thought for a while and said, "If Director Zhang believes in me, I may be able to improve this lithography machine."

“Maybe just a small improvement can significantly improve the yield rate.”

What Wang Haoran said here is just a small improvement, but in fact, if you really want to make changes, it will require a big effort.

Wang Haoran wanted to change the contact lithography machine into a proximity lithography machine.

In the so-called proximity lithography machine, the mask and the wafer are not actually in contact, but there is a very small distance between them.

This distance is only a few microns, which prevents the mask and silicon wafer from making direct contact, reducing the risk of damage.

After Wang Haoran expressed his thoughts, before Zhang Yongcun could say anything, Liu Zhongyou and Wu Ji both shook their heads.

Liu Zhongyou said: "Comrade Haoran, such a small distance cannot be operated manually."

"Unless you design an ingenious mechanical device."

"But it's difficult to design such a mechanical device."

Wu Ji also said: "We also had this idea, but because it could not be realized, we finally gave up."

Zhang Yongcun smiled and said, "Engineer Wu, Engineer Liu, please don't rush to deny it, okay?"

"Since Comrade Haoran has said so, maybe he has a way to solve it."

Wu Ji scratched his hair and said a little embarrassedly: "I forgot that Comrade Haoran is much smarter than us."

"Comrade Haoran, how do you plan to improve it? Let us help you."

Wang Haoran said, "Let me draw a design first. How about we build a brand new lithography machine in the test workshop?"

Zhang Yongcun nodded and said, "No problem, we will fully support you!"

"You are helping us!"

So, next, Wang Haoran drew the design of the proximity lithography machine.

Design drawings are easy to draw, but some techniques are not easy to achieve.

Wang Haoran wants this lithography machine to have a certain level of automated and standardized production capabilities.

Then you need to get a central control computer for it.

In this case, Wang Haoran has to design a processor chip first, and then make a sensor chip.

He also needs to write a simple control program to automatically drive the machine to complete the exposure task.

As for the processing of the equipment, he also needs to participate in it personally and do it himself.

In this way, Wang Haoran stayed in Factory 742 for more than twenty days before he finally developed a proximity lithography machine.

This lithography machine is actually just a makeshift one for now.

It is simple in design and simple in manufacture.

Of course, it can only expose wafers of the same size as the mask.

Such lithography machines are currently a bit outdated internationally.

It was already the end of April 1978 when the proximity lithography machine was built.

Almost all the key technical personnel and senior executives of Factory 742 were present in the test workshop.

They were all quite interested as they looked at the machine in front of them, which looked very different from the main exposure machine currently used in the factory.

Of course, they were still a little nervous.

They don't know what the machine is like or whether it will be more useful.

"Comrade Haoran, now, can we try to produce the processor chip you designed before?" Zhang Yongcun said with a smile.

Wang Haoran nodded and said, "Sure!"

"We have finally come up with a new machine after all the hard work. Now, we have to take it out for a walk."

Wang Haoran was full of confidence at this moment.

Because this machine is built perfectly.

After making it, he tested it and found it to be quite useful.

He even made improvements to the light source of this lithography machine. Originally, domestic lithography machines all used mercury lamps as light sources.

He used a new LED array light source on this proximity lithography machine.

This light source is much better than the mercury lamp used before.

Of course, without the support of the country, there are many materials that are currently not easy to find.

So, the next step is to start testing the new lithography machine.

During the testing process, Wang Haoran and Liu Zhongyou operated it personally.

Liu Zhongyou was just helping out.

Liu Zhongyou was shocked by the performance of the new lithography machine.

Because this lithography machine greatly reduces the steps that require manual operation.

Fast response speed and good exposure effect.

Moreover, the mask is also truly protected from contamination.

During the test, other technical backbones and senior executives of Factory 742 watched from the sidelines.

All of them were shocked.

Because this newly invented lithography machine is obviously much more powerful than the old one!
Production efficiency is directly increased exponentially.

Zhang Yongcun said to Wu Ji with emotion: "I think our previous lithography machines are just a pile of industrial garbage!"

"No wonder our yield rate was so low in the past."

Since the 8086 processor chip needs to be manufactured, other subsequent processes must be carried out after photolithography.

All these processes took several days in total.

By mid-April, the first batch of 4 processor chips were finally completed.

After completion, it is time to test.

The test results show that the various parameters of this processor are amazing!
The entire Factory 742 was in an uproar.

Zhang Yongcun was overjoyed.

Because, these are two major inventions made at once!

Zhang Yongcun discussed with Wang Haoran: "Comrade Haoran, we really need a new lithography machine. This achievement was made by you. Can you also include the name of our technicians from Factory 742 when reporting it? Can it be regarded as a joint achievement between Factory 742 and Beijing Institute of Technology?"

Wang Haoran smiled and said, "Of course no problem!"

"The birth of this lithography machine is also inseparable from the help of Director Zhang and all the comrades from Factory 742!"

Wang Haoran agreed very readily.

Because they really helped a lot!

Zhang Yongcun was overjoyed. He rubbed his hands and said, "Thank you, Comrade Haoran!"

"Then let's report this achievement. You are the main inventor of the achievement, and the others are auxiliary partners."

Wang Haoran said: "Then let's do as you think."

Zhang Yongcun said: "This lithography machine is very good. We want to entrust the machinery factory to produce a few more for us. I would like to tell you this as well."

Wang Haoran naturally agreed.

In his opinion, the 8086 processor is much more powerful than that lithography machine!

This achievement must be unique to you and then announced to the world!
(End of this chapter)