Super Dimension Technology Era

While lasers are being installed at the Institute of Physics, various ancillary facilities are also under construction. However, developing inertial confinement nuclear fusion is not that simple.

Wei Feng at the Dayi Research Base has conducted three plasma experiments, namely 1-minute plasma control, 5-minute plasma control, and 10-minute plasma control.

Judging from the reaction, the experiment was very successful. The plasma turbulence model built by the two people firmly placed the plasma, a child with ADHD, in the reaction chamber.

However, controlling plasma is only the first step in a long journey of thousands of miles. The subsequent neutron irradiation, continuous operation, power generation issues, etc. require two people to deal with it.

The two discussed various problems encountered by inertial restraint through online videos.

at the same time.

SMIC's Jiangcheng plant.

Gao Zhiyuan personally came over from Shanmei just for this trial run of the chip production line.

Due to the rapid technological advancement of major domestic semiconductor equipment manufacturers in recent times, they have already caught up with the world's first-class or even top-notch levels.

With the support of upstream semiconductor equipment suppliers, SMIC has been like a god in developing the 12nm process.

A purely domestic chip production line, with the efforts of a group of engineers and technicians, has entered the trial operation stage.

"Mr. Gao, shall we start?" Zhao Jun turned around and asked.

Gao Zhiyuan nodded.

"Weiguang, let's start the trial operation."

"good."

Zhao Jun gave the order and everyone took action.

Following the chip manufacturing process, they took out a batch of eight-inch silicon wafers from the warehouse and sent them to the production line.

The process is cleaning, drying, coating, polishing, cleaning, drying, photolithography...

There are some processes that need to be repeated, such as cleaning and drying. After each silicon wafer polishing, photolithography, and etching, it needs to be cleaned and dried to ensure that there are no residues on the silicon wafer.

Watching the silicon wafers being repeatedly operated on the production line, everyone was extremely nervous.

Looking at the hard work of more than half a year, Zhao Jun felt a little restless at this time. He subconsciously touched his pocket and prepared to take out the cigarettes he carried with him, but he found nothing.

Only then did he realize that smoking was not allowed in the dust-free workshop.

Li Weiguang, Jiang Shangzhou and others were not much better. They were either staring at the production line or restless.

"Everyone, don't be nervous." Gao Zhiyuan comforted everyone with a heart.

"You can't be nervous!" Zhao Jun said with a bitter smile.

Since the photolithography process is faster than ordinary photolithography machines, the entire process takes about five hours.

The first piece of silicon wafer is finally freshly baked, and it is densely covered with grids of chips. Now the chip enters the final step, which is segmentation.

The segmentation method used by SMIC is wire cutting.

Thin metal wires, under the control of CNC machine tools, accurately segment chips into pieces.

Of course, the chip at this time is still a semi-finished product and needs to be packaged and tested before it can be put on the market or delivered to customers.

However, SMIC is in trial operation. This chip is just an ordinary 32G storage chip. Even if it is not packaged, it can still be tested. This is a small-scale self-test within the chip manufacturing company.

More than 10,000 32G storage chips were quickly cut out and carefully taken to the testing room by engineers and technicians.

Zhao Jun, Gao Zhiyuan and others quickly followed.

The testing room went into intense testing and was divided into ten groups to test these storage chips together.

In fact, using the 12nm process to produce 32G storage chips is overkill, but SMIC itself has no confidence in it. It is afraid of taking too big a step and causing trouble, so it can only build a 32G storage chip for trial operation.

On the computer nearby, there are chips that successfully tested and data that failed.

Although SMIC has been striving for excellence, it is a pity that it is the first time to use the 12nm process. The chip pass rate is naturally terrible. 500 chips have been tested, and the current pass rate is only about 62%.

And the pass rate does not mean that all qualified chips are the same. Among these qualified chips, they will also be divided into excellent products, good products, and qualified products. Currently, only about 43% of the good products are good products, and the remaining 19% are qualified products, or Talk about defective products.

"Not bad! Not bad!" Li Weiguang did not feel depressed when he saw this data, but felt relieved.

They have experimented with chip manufacturing before, and sometimes the pass rate was even lower than this time. This is a situation that every chip manufacturing company has to face.

In the research and development of new processes, if the initial pass rate exceeds 60%, it is already a very excellent process.

Zhao Jun, Jiang Shangzhou and others also breathed a sigh of relief. They had been busy for more than half a year and spent tens of billions of funds. If the pass rate was disastrous, they would probably be depressed to death.

"Mr. Zhao, when do you estimate productivity will be established?" Gao Zhiyuan is most concerned about this issue. After all, after the privatization of SMIC, Shenguang Instruments now accounts for the majority of these R\u0026D funds.

"Well..." Zhao Jun thought for a few minutes: "We will try to complete the debugging work before the Spring Festival and increase the pass rate to above 95%."

Gao Zhiyuan nodded: "Okay, I'll leave everything to Mr. Zhao and everyone."

The subsequent debugging work went very smoothly, thanks to the application of simulation space technology. In addition, the equipment in the production line are all domestic equipment and can be tested together through the Internet. Small problems and defects are very easy to find and can be adjusted in time.

The reason why Zhao Jun said before the Spring Festival is actually to extend the time. According to their current adjustment speed, it is estimated that the debugging work will be completed around mid-January and put into formal production.

…

Taiyuan Province.

TSMC headquarters in Taoyuan City.

After Zhang Zhongmou read the report, his expression became solemn, and several vice presidents on the side also looked confused.

"SMIC's research and development speed is so fast?" Vice President Cai Gongnan looked like he had seen a ghost.

"Yes! Didn't you say that Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron banned the equipment?"

Xiong Guang, the vice president in charge of mainland work, smiled bitterly and shook his head: "Mainland semiconductor equipment manufacturers can already provide world-class semiconductor equipment."

"...Old Bear, are you kidding me?"

Xiong Guang spread his hands and replied, "Why did I lie to you?"

A group of vice presidents were talking about it. Obviously, the threat from SMIC's completion of the 12nm process is not as great as the threat from mainland semiconductor equipment.

The collective improvement of mainland semiconductor equipment is a terrible problem, which means that the restrictions imposed by Batumi and the Wax Association in this regard have become a piece of waste paper and have even had a counterproductive effect.

Zhang Zhongmou could even see countless Chinese-made chips rushing into the world in the future, destroying the entire world's chip market. He shuddered at the thought of this.

He already feels that a fatal crisis is approaching TSMC.

And he feels powerless. If SMIC realizes the 12nm process, this is not worth TSMC's fear. The problem is that the localization of semiconductor equipment will continue to produce countless SMICs.

As a result, TSMC will face fierce competition.

A storm is coming, and perhaps the world's chip manufacturing industry will be completely changed by the end of 2013. Chip manufacturing companies in Taiyuan Province are the first to feel the pressure of the coming storm.