At this moment, Cao Weidong thought of a certain TV station in Wanwan.
Before the emergence of certain electronics, the manufacturing model of chip factories was called IDM.
That is, from chip design to finished product.
All done by the same company.
However, this means that chip companies must have the technology, talents, and manufacturing equipment throughout the entire industry chain, resulting in each company being unable to specialize in a certain link in the chip industry chain, resulting in a large waste of resources.
Zhang Zhongmou believes that the future chip industry must achieve division of labor, and the field of wafer manufacturing belongs to the bottom of the entire chip industry.
The wafer is the mother body of the chip.
Wafer manufacturing is a process technology that actually etches the chip design drawings into circuits on the wafer.
So he founded a certain electronics company, specializing in foundry manufacturing of wafers.
The advantage of this is that it frees up a large number of start-up chip design companies, allowing them to focus on their own designs, promoting the rapid development of chips, while leaving behind the "dirty work" of actual manufacturing, which requires a lot of equipment, technology and workers.
The hard work is left to the foundries.
This chip manufacturing model, which is different from the IDM model, is called the foundry model.
What happened next also proved Zhang Zhongmou right.
With the rise of personal computers, mobile phones, and the explosive growth in demand for consumer-grade chips, many chip start-ups have been born. These companies cannot afford the costs of the entire chip industry chain, so they focus on asset-light chip design.
And hand over manufacturing to specialized foundries like TSMC.
As a result, TSMC gradually took off.
Cao Weidong feels that the chip foundry path is very suitable for Xinghuo Electronics Factory.
He can build Xinghuo Electronics Factory into a major IDM factory with full industry chain capabilities, but it can also outsource manufacturing in non-specific fields.
Of course, there is another hidden danger, which is the photolithography machine.
Did you know that SMIC, a mainland-based foundry company that competes with a certain electronics company, has been suffering from the lack of high-end photolithography machine supplies? So far, it can only accept mid-to-low-end foundry orders and cannot enter high-end chips.
Create a stage.
Lithography.
Cao Weidong murmured in a low voice.
After solving the problem of stuck EDA software, in addition to innovating and promoting the development of his own EDA software, the next step is to solve the problem of the lithography machine.
In fact, China has always been a major country in the design, manufacturing and production of photolithography machines.
In 1964, the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed the Model 65 contact lithography machine;
In 1970, the Chinese Academy of Sciences began to develop computer-aided photolithography mask technology.
In 1977, the GK-3 semi-automatic lithography machine was born, which was a contact lithography machine.
In 1980, Tsinghua University developed a fourth-generation segmented projection lithography machine. The lithography accuracy reached 3 microns, which was close to the international mainstream level. Until this time, the lithography machine giant ASML had not yet been born.
In 1981, the Institute of Semiconductor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences successfully developed the JK-1 semi-automatic proximity lithography machine.
In 1982, the KHA-75-1 lithography machine was born. Compared with the most advanced canon at the time, these lithography machines were less than 4 years old at most.
In 1985, the 45th Institute of the Ministry of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering developed a prototype stepper lithography machine, which passed the technical appraisal of the Ministry of Electronics and was deemed to have reached the level of the American 4800DSW.
At this time, the gap between China and foreign countries in stepper lithography machines is no more than 7 years.
But it is a pity that China’s lithography machine research and development journey has come to an end.
Since then, China has begun to introduce foreign investment on a large scale. In the face of ideological trends such as "Building is worse than buying" and "Science Without Borders", lithography technology and industrialization have stagnated, and many lithography machines and other technological plans have been forced to cancel.
During this period, after integrating resources from around the world, ASML of the Netherlands succeeded unexpectedly and became the absolute overlord of lithography machines.
On the road to ASML's success, there are two major opportunities.
One is immersion lithography technology, which corresponds to DUV lithography machine.
The first is deep ultraviolet lithography machine technology, which corresponds to EUV lithography machine.
In the 1990s, dry lithography machine technology became popular, and its chip production process reached 65nm. The next goal is to move towards 45nm.
However, dry lithography machines use dry media, and the light they use has a lot of problems, which are very difficult to solve.
At this time, Lin Benjian of a certain electricity company put forward a point of view, that is, water should be used as a medium.
After testing, he found that this idea was feasible.
The photolithography giants at that time were Nikon and Canon.
These major manufacturers have already invested billions of dollars in research on dry lithography machines. They have invested too much and cannot change their ways.
Because ASML is a small factory, adhering to the concept of being barefoot and not afraid of wearing shoes, it has joined forces with a certain electronics company to develop an immersion lithography machine.
Finally, ASML and TSMC successfully developed an immersion lithography machine.
This is a DUV lithography machine.
After years of development, DUV lithography machines can now meet most needs and cover process requirements for 7nm and above.
By this time, the general view among scholars is that EUV will be the next generation of lithography technology.
The EUV lithography machine uses extreme ultraviolet light with a wavelength of 10-14 nanometers as the light source, which can reduce the exposure wavelength to 13.5nm at once, which can meet the needs of wafer manufacturing below 10nm, and can continue to extend to 5nm and 3nm.
It is also worth mentioning that as early as the 1980s, around 1985, some scholars began to study EUV lithography technology.
Unfortunately, the technology has never met the requirements and consumes a lot of money, so the development of this technology is slow.
It was not until 2015 that EUV lithography machines entered the stage of mass production.
"I remember reading information before that the cost of an EUV lithography machine is as high as 65 million U.S. dollars. If it is initial research, the investment will be even more. So at present, I should promote the development of immersion lithography machines. This is
In line with the trend of the times, we will advance the research on EUV lithography machines after Xinghuo Electronics Factory becomes bigger and stronger through immersion lithography machines."
"Although I can purchase a complete set of technologies from Wanjie Mall, with the current environment, talent, and social situation, I have not yet come up with a complete immersion lithography machine, so I still have to wait."
The world is complex and interconnected.
It doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with technology.
Didn't you see that the chickens in the semiconductor industry were at the height of their power, but they were divided and dismembered by their beautiful father in a very, very bloody way?
If you don’t see it, Huawei is far ahead, but its back foot is shamelessly suppressed by the US emperor.
Cao Weidong was very wary of this.
Soon, he formulated a plan in his mind.
On the one hand, in conjunction with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, they are quietly conducting research on immersion lithography machines.
On the other hand, it reminds the country to respond to the public opinion war launched by the Western world and prevent self-destruction of martial arts.
"Hey, in this case, it seems that I can set up a war bureau, a chip war bureau?"
"What immersion lithography machine? It's just a modification of a dry lithography machine..."
"What 10nm is, it's just a little smaller than conventional chips..."
"Immersion technology, EUV lithography technology, and dry lithography technology are the way to go in the future!"
"American emperor, look at the chickens next to us, Han Bangzi, and Brother Asan. They all have wolfish ambitions..."
Thinking of this, Cao Weidong's expression instantly became strange.