Chapter 983: A true dimensionality reduction attack!
The scene of the product launch was completely silent.
Everyone looked at the small carbon-based chip on the stage with dullness and shock.
Of course, after the shock, noisy discussions followed.
The 28-nanometer process technology integrates 10 million carbon-based transistors per square millimeter, and its performance is comparable to the Intel Xeon series E5-1600 processor, and can benchmark the seventh-generation Intel Core I series.
In the eyes of most people present, even if the performance of carbon-based transistors in the semiconductor field is better than that of silicon-based transistors, it is impossible to achieve this level.
You know, the seventh generation of Intel Core I series uses the 14nm process.
Even though the gap between the 28nm and 14nm processes is only double, when it comes to chip production technology, the improvement is more than a tiny bit.
Because 28nm chips are a watershed for mid-to-high-end manufacturing, chips made in the 28nm process and below are mature and are mid- to low-level chips.
Mainly used in industrial layers such as Internet of Things, power management, display drivers, and sensors.
The 14-nanometer process chip is a high-end chip, an advanced process, and is mainly used in mobile phones, memory chips, computers and other consumer levels.
Chips produced through mature manufacturing technology can be compared to chips produced through advanced manufacturing processes. This makes people doubt whether it is true or not.
After all, if this was put into the field of silicon-based chips, it would be absolutely impossible.
There is a huge difference between the 28nm process and the 14nm process.
.......
On the reporting table, looking at the noisy crowd below and listening to the faint sounds that came from time to time, the nervous expression on Fu Zhijie's face unconsciously relaxed, and a look of confidence appeared on his face.
Can’t believe it’s right!
If he had not personally participated in the research and development of the Xiongxin series of carbon-based chips, even he would have difficulty believing that carbon-based chips could achieve such a level.
Just like when he saw the finished product for the first time, he still remembers that feeling.
After scanning the crowd in the audience, Fu Zhijie put a smile on his lips and continued to host the product launch conference.
"I believe everyone has seen our Xiongxin series products, whose performance far exceeds that of silicon-based chips of the same level."
"Of course, the advantages of carbon-based chips are not just in computing performance!"
"It not only provides us with computing power that far exceeds that of silicon-based chips, but also brings us even better physical performance!"
"Whether it is made of carbon nanotubes, it is thinner and lighter than traditional silicon-based chips, and can provide effective solutions for various small electronic devices."
"It still has characteristics such as stronger heat resistance, radiation resistance and higher electron migration rate, so it can better resist external environmental disturbances and provide more stable and reliable operating performance."
"And the most critical thermal conductivity!"
Having said this, Fu Zhijie paused slightly and glanced at the faces of the executives of major semiconductor manufacturers sitting in the front row of the audience.
"Everyone knows!"
"Compared to silicon materials, carbon materials have better thermal conductivity."
"The thermal conductivity of the single-crystal silicon material used in silicon-based chips is approximately 148 W/(m·K) at room temperature."
"The carbon nanotube material used in carbon-based chips has a thermal conductivity as high as over 3000W/mK!"
"Excellent thermal conductivity means that various electronic products such as mobile phones, computers, and servers that use carbon-based chips will no longer need heavy auxiliary radiators!"
"This also means that whether it is a mobile phone, a computer, a tablet or other products, there is more room for design."
"Take the mobile phones we use now as an example. If a carbon-based chip is used, its thickness can continue to be reduced, and the extent of the reduction is at least in millimeters!"
The moment they heard this sentence, almost everyone present had a look of surprise on their faces.
Modern chips generate a lot of heat when running, such as mobile phones.
Playing games, watching videos or transferring large amounts of data for a long time will put the phone under high load for a long time and generate a lot of heat.
If this heat accumulates inside the chip and is not conducted away, excessive temperature will cause chip performance to decline, or even crash, blue screen and other failures.
In addition, high temperatures will accelerate the aging of electronic components and shorten the service life of the equipment.
Even in some extreme cases, overheating may cause mobile phone fires, explosions and other safety accidents.
In addition to this, there are computers, especially portable laptops.
If you pursue high performance, you will inevitably increase the performance of the chip, and as the performance of the chip increases, the heat dissipated during operation will be higher.
Generally speaking, in order to solve the problem of chip heat dissipation, various manufacturers provide many methods.
For example, install a heat conductive sheet under the processor, or add thermal conductive gel, or directly install a heat conductive pipe to remove the heat through water cooling or air cooling, etc.
Correspondingly, no matter which heat dissipation method is used, it will directly affect the size of the device itself.
Especially in electronic products such as mobile phones, which are not large in themselves, even adding a graphene thermal sheet will increase a lot of thickness.
Have you ever seen that since the development of mobile phones, major manufacturers have thought of many ways to reduce the thickness of mobile phones.
Optimizing the internal layout and design and reducing unnecessary space occupation are routine operations.
Some mobile phone manufacturers have even tried to reduce the thickness of the battery to reduce the thickness by 0.01 mm, reducing battery life, killing 800 enemies and losing 1000 yuan.
This kind of thing sounds ridiculous, but there are actually many.
Especially in the early days, when the stacking capabilities of mobile phones and battery cell technology had not made much progress, if you wanted a thin and light mobile phone, you often directly reduced the battery capacity to gain extra body space.
This can make the compressor body volume more convenient, the most famous of which is the former "use it properly for a day".
But what if the material of the chip itself has high heat dissipation?
You know, the thermal conductivity of carbon nanomaterials is hundreds of times better than that of silicon-based materials.
Isn’t the reason why graphene material is used as a heat sink for high-end mobile phones because of its very high thermal conductivity?
And the thermal conductivity of carbon nanotubes, which has similar physical properties to graphene, is not much worse.
What this means for the chip is self-evident.
Even if the low power consumption of the carbon-based chip itself is not considered, its extremely excellent thermal conductivity is enough for it to spontaneously dissipate heat.
This is a surefire success for chip applications!
When the product launch conference progressed to this point, the audience could not stop commotion.
Both semiconductor manufacturers and related mobile phone and computer manufacturers are talking about it.
Looking at the already almost boiling venue, Fu Zhijie, who was standing on the stage, smiled slightly and then added fuel to this hot product launch conference.
"Here, we must thank our cooperative units. Whether it is Huawei HiSilicon, SMIC, or the scientific research teams from Shuimu, Peking University and other universities, they have provided unparalleled help in the research and development process of carbon-based chips at this moment.
.”
"As everyone expected, the impact of carbon-based chips on the entire electronics industry will be disruptive!"
"Compared with silicon-based chips of the same level, carbon-based chips have significantly improved in terms of computing processing performance, power consumption performance, reliability, security, stability and other aspects."
"This means that in the future, when our smartphones, PCs, large servers and other devices handle complex tasks, their response speed and multi-tasking capabilities will be greatly improved, providing users with an unprecedented smooth experience."
"Compared with the inherent shortcomings of single crystal silicon materials, chips made of carbon nanotube materials have a wider space."
"If a silicon-based chip is like a paper painting, with computing circuits laid flat on the paper, then a carbon-based chip is more like a high-rise building made of stacked building blocks."
"This is a three-dimensional transformation from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. It also means that it has more possibilities to construct and design circuit diagrams. It also means that it has the possibility to achieve several times the functions of silicon-based chips!"
Along with his introduction, the internal detailed structural diagrams of carbon-based chips and silicon-based chips were simultaneously displayed on the screen behind him.
Although this is only a microscopic pattern drawn by a computer, it most realistically restores the difference between the two.
When the comparison picture was shown on the big screen at the press conference, almost everyone present, whether it was Pat Gelsinger, the president of Intel, or Tim Miller, the president and vice president of Apple, had expressions on their faces.
Without exception, there was no expression of surprise.
There were even commotions at the scene.
It can be said that except for government officials, those who can attend today's product launch are all engineers, executives or scholars in the semiconductor field.
However, this group of people standing in the pyramid of the semiconductor field are like primary school students in class, staring blankly at the podium.
Using a large number of carbon nanotubes to assemble macroscopic chips like building blocks is indeed a theoretical advantage of carbon-based chips.
However, judging from the current research on carbon-based chips by various countries and related research institutions, it is simply impossible to achieve this.
At present, the best and most mature method to realize carbon-based chips is to use ultra-high semiconductor purity, parallel arrangement, high density and large-area uniform single-walled carbon nanotube arrays, and then arrange them in sequence, and stack them like silicon-based chips.
Photolithography.
This is the most ideal and mature method that has been studied for more than ten years on carbon-based chips.
It is also the simplest method in theory.
But even the simplest method is still a difficult problem to solve for high-density and large-area sorting of carbon nanotubes in carbon-based chips.
As early as 2019, Peking University Peng prepared the high-purity, high-density carbon nanotube array materials required to achieve large-scale carbon-based integrated circuits, and used this material to realize the first carbon nanotube integrated circuit with performance beyond silicon-based integrated circuits.
Professor Lian Spear's team is still troubled by this problem.
In order to solve this problem, they are even setting up a dedicated industrial-grade R&D line.
Because under the school's existing experimental conditions, the most complex carbon nanotube chips that can be produced have only a few thousand, or at most hundreds of thousands, of transistors, and the size is still on the micron level.
Originally, executives and engineers from Intel, Apple, Qualcomm, AMD and other companies who participated in this product launch subconsciously believed that the carbon-based chips prepared by Xinghai Research Institute were the most basic laminates used.
Completed by technology.
Now, three-dimensional carbon nanotube array technology has suddenly appeared, which has made everyone confused.
Even Intel President Pat Gelsinger couldn't help but swallowed and muttered to himself.
"How is this possible!?"
"This is impossible! I don't believe it."
Involuntarily, he vented the shock in his heart. Gelsinger, whose face was full of shock, looked blankly at the comparison picture on the big screen. He suddenly shuddered and came back to his senses. The expression on his face quickly changed from shock to shock.
Transformed into ugly.
If this is true, it will be a 'real' disaster for Intel and even the entire silicon-based semiconductor industry.
Although the structure and manufacturing process make the interior of silicon-based chips have three-dimensional characteristics, usually the devices that play a key role in the chip are located on the front of the chip, which is one surface of the cube.
Technologies such as FinFet and GAA are all based on this surface and perform three-dimensional processing on the device, successfully improving the performance of the device in the low size range.
The so-called 3D stacking usually involves stacking multiple chips in parallel, which can be understood as placing the surfaces containing the devices in parallel.
After all, if all six sides of the cube are manufactured, that is, if some of the surfaces containing devices are placed vertically or at a certain angle, there will be a series of problems such as uneven performance, difficult processes, poor reliability, and high costs.
But in terms of performance, different surfaces of the crystal cube will have different surface states due to the crystal structure and crystal manufacturing process, which will lead to different performances of the same device on different surfaces.
This means that three-dimensional carbon-based chips will far exceed two-dimensional silicon-based chips in terms of circuit design, performance, and functionality.
For silicon-based chips, this is undoubtedly a real dimensionality reduction blow!
No matter from every aspect, it is.
The breathing in his mouth gradually became heavier, and the unfocused pupils spread unconsciously like a drop of ink dropped into clear water.
His eyes fell on the big screen at the press conference. Although he could no longer see the detailed pictures clearly because he was distracted, Pat Gelsinger could still feel the oppression it brought.
No wonder China is so confident that it dared to release its goal of subverting the entire "silicon-based semiconductor market" at this press conference.