Technological Hegemony

Wen Chengling followed Luo Jia out of the office and came to the third basement floor of the Optical Department.

There, Wen Chengling saw a machine, a verification prototype, the model is the first generation of super lithography.

"Is this a lithography machine?"

Wen Chengling stopped, asked doubtfully, and showed a shocked expression at the same time.

The commercial model lithography machine is packaged, and this is the first generation machine, so the internal components are exposed, and can be seen through the floor-to-ceiling glass.

Wen Chengling was shocked by the design of this machine. It is very large and has as many as six machines, three of which are measuring machines and the other three are standard exposure tables.

More machines can improve the work efficiency of lithography machines and produce more silicon wafers per hour.

However, while increasing the number of machines, it also puts forward higher requirements on the mechanical structure and the shock absorption capacity of the machines. The difficulty factor increases geometrically, so most lithography machines only have two machines.

The lithography machine is the crown of the semiconductor field and requires a dust-free environment. At this moment, Luo Jia and the others are standing outside the laboratory, separated by a layer of glass.

"Do you want to go in and take a look?" Luo Jia asked.

"Is it really possible?" Wen Chengling was slightly taken aback, looking very excited.

"Of course, let's change into dustproof clothes." Luo Jia said with a smile.

When Wen Chengling went to school and worked in North America, Sino-US relations were not as tense as they are today, so he knows the goods. In the laboratory of Stanford University, he has seen many cutting-edge technologies in the field of optics.

Today, North America does not allow Chinese students to study in key scientific and technological fields to prevent technology leakage. Semiconductors, life sciences, and aerospace are all prohibited fields.

However, although Wen Chengling is well-informed, he has never seen such an exaggerated lithography machine design. One machine can carry out fully automatic operations on six machines at the same time, and the efficiency should be very high.

Wen Chengling changed into a white dust-proof suit, thinking to himself that in the history of science and technology in the world, there has never been a lack of brilliant ideas, but it is very difficult to turn ideas into reality. For verification, the degree of completion should not be too high.

How difficult is the lithography machine?

There is only one company in the world that can do EUV, namely ASML in the Netherlands.

In the era of ultraviolet light, hundreds of companies around the world appeared in the field of lithography machines. At that time, a hundred flowers were blooming and brilliant.

However, the good times didn’t last long. With the introduction of deep ultraviolet light technology, the original more than 100 companies manufacturing lithography machines have dropped to three. Except for Canon, Nikon, and ASML, all other companies have been eliminated.

It is not difficult to see from this that a technological advancement will bring about a serious reshuffle for the entire industry.

Everyone died, and the three families who were still alive naturally made a lot of money. They ate hot pot and sang songs, and a lot of money came naturally. Life is not too comfortable.

It is a pity that a few years have passed, and with the continuous innovation of semiconductor technology, deep ultraviolet lithography has gradually become unable to do what it wants.

So the second round of technical competition began in the field of lithography machines. As a result of this technical competition, Canon and Nikon were eliminated, and ASML in the Netherlands became the final winner.

The world's only super monster capable of manufacturing extreme ultraviolet EUV lithography machines was born!

Such fierce competition is simply terrifying!

You know, Nikon and Canon are by no means vegetarians, they are the most powerful optical companies in the world.

When talking about the two of them, ordinary people will immediately think of civilian products such as digital cameras and various lenses, but the most powerful and profitable business of Nikon and Canon is not in the civilian field, but in medical equipment.

When you go to the hospital and spend a thousand dollars for a CT scan, the equipment used is probably made by Canon or Nikon, or Ricoh, Siemens, or Hitachi.

And the price of a CT device is as high as tens of millions of yuan. In China alone, there are tens of thousands of sets of CT devices, all of which are imported. Guess how much money the neon medical equipment giant has made from China over the years?

Besides, buying a CT machine is not the end of the story. You also need to spend money to buy the supporting software, equipment maintenance, and various consumables from Neon people.

All in all, Canon and Nikon are extremely powerful companies. They are the leaders in the field of optics, but they still lost to ASML in the Netherlands. It is enough to see that the threshold of this industry is not high, but high to the sky.

ASML in the Netherlands is not unknown. Their predecessor is the famous Philips Optics. The objective lenses they use come from Carl Zeiss of Germany, the world's largest lens field.

It can be said that the monster of ASML was created by gathering the whole of Europe and a part of the power of North America.

In the past, ASML had no rivals until the emergence of Star Technology.

Luo Jia was whimsical and decided to overtake on a curve, bypassing the first three generations of core technologies consisting of ultraviolet light, deep ultraviolet light, and extreme ultraviolet light, and directly enter the fourth generation of lithography machines, ultra-ultraviolet hybrid lasers. The difficulty of this is for laymen Man can never understand.

Shua~

Wen Chengling was thinking, when the sealed door of the laboratory suddenly opened in front of him.

He smiled, and said seriously to Luo Jia before entering the laboratory: "Mr. Luo, my major is laser, and I am confident that I can solve the light source problem of the lithography machine, but you should also know that a lithography machine is only It’s not enough to have a light source, and there are thousands of other core components that I can’t do anything about.”

This can be regarded as an inoculation for Luo Jia. He said this to mean that I can help you create an ultra-ultraviolet hybrid laser, but I can't do anything other than the laser, and it depends on Xingchen Technology's own strength.

Luo Jia just nodded and smiled, but didn't say anything.

The two soon came to this machine, and Luo Jia said lightly, "This is our first-generation machine. It is divided into thirteen major structures, including laser generator, beam corrector, energy controller, and beam shape. Adjuster, shutter, energy detector, mask plate, mask stage, objective lens, measurement stage, exposure stage, closed frame, magnetic levitation shock absorption.”

Luo Jia pointed to the machine and introduced the complex composition.

Although it seems simple to hear the name, even if you think about it with your heels, you can understand how it can be simple as the crown of the semiconductor industry.

Take the objective lens of this lithography machine as an example. If you think it is something like a SLR lens, you are completely wrong.

The objective lens used in ASML's EUV lithography machine is 1.84 meters high and nearly 70 centimeters wide. It is jointly manufactured by the German optical giant Carl Zeiss Group and the laser giant Aachen Group.

How much is the objective lens?

Sorry, no matter how much Luo Jia paid, he couldn't buy this set of objective lenses.

From a cost perspective, the cost of this set of objective lenses should be around 10 million U.S. dollars, and its complexity and precision are enough to be written in the history of optical development.

What Luo Jia showed Wen Chengling was just such a thing, it was huge and sophisticated, full of futuristic feeling like a sci-fi movie.

Moreover, ASML's EUV is the third generation, and Luo Jia's is the fourth generation, with ultra-ultraviolet light, and the technical complexity is even higher.

"You guys have already achieved this level!?" Wen Chengling's eyes widened excitedly, and he made an inconceivable voice.

It was far away and separated by glass, so I didn't see it clearly, so I thought it was a fake.

Now entering the dust-free laboratory, Wen Chengling suddenly realized that the degree of completion of this fourth-generation lithography machine is already so high!