Chapter 315: Lithography and etching, the soul and soul of chip manufacturing (dry goods
In the R&D center, a large laboratory had a closed anti-theft tempered glass door. When Ye Hua and others approached about three to five meters away, the glass door suddenly opened on its own with a "chi" sound.
At this time, Ye Hua and the person in charge of the R&D center and an important person in charge of China Micro Semiconductor came to the laboratory. Various instruments and equipment were immediately exposed to everyone's view, especially in the laboratory.
In the center, a device with a matrix structure more than four meters high is particularly eye-catching.
There were several young engineers in the laboratory, and Ye Hua, who was wearing dust-free clothes at this time, did not ask the head of the R&D department for any instructions. He went directly to the battle in person and said to the engineers: "Don't be stunned, let's get started.
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They hesitated for a moment, and with the head of the R&D department nodding silently, they immediately started working.
Well, this is the laboratory of a microelectronics company. It stands to reason that the core technology cannot be "touched" by others, except for Ye Hua. Without him, there would be no domestically produced EUV extreme ultraviolet lithography machine in front of us.
I saw Ye Hua skillfully opening this photolithography machine, which was completely independently developed with domestic parts. A cone-shaped funnel-shaped instrument suddenly appeared inside. This instrument was hooked on the top, with cables about two fingers wide and densely covered.
, the outer layer of copper wire surrounds the inside of the exposed body, and thousands of parts are densely aligned and linked together, forming a precise miniaturized closed structure, which is very spectacular when viewed from a small angle at close range.
Ye Hua directed five engineers who assisted him in the final debugging operations. A staff member took out the sealed box he brought and took out the stanene two-dimensional wafer, which is the prepared tin disc.
The manufacturing process of the chip is very complicated. First, Frontier Nano Company provides high-purity stanene two-dimensional crystal film. After absorbing Shin-Etsu Chemical's core technology in raw material processing, Frontier Nano has developed the stanene material.
The purity has also been improved to the best level in the world.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to photolithography machines, chip production also requires etching machines. If photolithography machines are the soul of chip manufacturing, then etching machines are the soul of chip manufacturing. If you want to create truly high-end process chips
, both of which must be top-notch.
Prior to this, the development of domestic lithography machines and etching machines was very embarrassing and was seriously biased. China Micro Semiconductor has been able to mass-produce 5-nanometer etching machines, directly entering the ranks of the world's first-class quantum machines without any suspense.
The etching machine is also in the experimental stage, but this is the result without Ye Hua's help.
However, whether the lithography machine company is Shangdu Microelectronics' 90-nanometer lithography machine or Yingsu's 200-nanometer lithography machine, it is difficult to compare with the most advanced 5-nanometer process of ASML in the world.
To put it simply, these two machines and equipment are that the photolithography machine projects the circuit diagram onto the silicon wafer covered with photoresist, which is now a tin wafer of course, and the etching machine then corrodes away the excess circuit diagram on the chip with the circuit diagram drawn, so that
It seems that there is no difficulty, but there is a vivid metaphor. When magnified countless times, the circuit structure on each chip is several times more complicated than the entire business. This is the difficulty of photolithography machines and etching machines.
The process of photolithography is to apply a layer of photoresist on the surface of the tin circle that is now made. The so-called photoresist is a colloidal substance that can be corroded by light. Next, it is passed through extreme ultraviolet light (ie: process-difficulty ultraviolet light
Because of the photoresist covering, the exposed parts will be corroded, while the unexposed parts will remain. This part is the required circuit structure.
The photolithography function of a photolithography machine is similar to that of a camera. The working principle is to expose the circuit diagram of the chip route and function through a photomask with patterns on the chip wafer coated with the photolithography machine. The properties of the photoresist will change after exposure to light.
, thereby allowing the circuit obtained on the photomask to be copied onto the chip wafer.
To put it figuratively, it is like the flat printing process. Once the architectural plan is determined, as long as the raw materials are sufficient, mass production can be completed.
There are two etching methods, one is dry etching and the other is wet etching. This time, Zhongwei Semiconductor provides the second etching solution.
As the name suggests, wet etching involves adding water during the process, reacting the photolithographed wafer with a specific chemical solution, removing unnecessary parts, and what remains is the circuit structure.
Dry engraving has not yet achieved commercial mass production. Its principle is to replace the chemical solution with plasma to remove the unnecessary tin circle part.
China Microelectronics is also one of the core members of the CSAC club alliance system and is very excited because it has received strong theoretical and technical support from Ye Hua, and the commercialization of plasma etching is already a promising future.
After the modulation was completed, Ye Hua drew a holographic panel in front of him and output a series of instructions for the lithography machine to start automatic operation. The so-called automatic control means uploading and downloading from the substrate, and the exposure time and cycle are controlled by the program.
In the next time, 34 different types of chips will be produced, and a PHC machine will integrate exactly 34 different types of chips. Basically, they are provided by upstream suppliers. Intel is just one of them.
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It can be seen that the difficulty of the semiconductor industry is no less than that of the sky.
It is not difficult to see that in order for PHC to get rid of its dependence on foreign integrated circuit manufacturers, Ye Hua must take the lead in developing CSAC. Even if he relies on Coastline Company alone, he cannot do it within half a year.
It is absolutely impossible to be completely self-sufficient in PHC hardware within five years. Even if it is achieved, it will inevitably lead to monopoly lawsuits, Xianfeng Nano will inevitably face a spin-off situation, and even the Coastline Group will be spin-off.
But with the csac system, things are different. Ye Hua has solved the specific technical barriers. In the next one to two months, a total of 34 different types of chip samples with different functions will be produced.
Integrated circuit manufacturers in the large CSAC system get their own share for IC design, which is the chip components required for PHC, and they are 100% domestically supplied.
Some people say that typical domestic electronic equipment such as mobile phones are assembled, and this time the focus of firepower is PHC. The reason is that chips, memory, etc. are all from upstream suppliers, and they are overseas suppliers. They are truly our own.
There are very few, so Shoreline is nothing more than an assembly plant.
In fact, this statement is quite funny. If you follow this statement, not only the coastline is an assembly plant, but Apple is also an assembly plant. Apple mobile phones require supplies from companies such as Samsung and Qualcomm, and also use Huawei's technology. The operations of these two companies
The revenue is almost the same, even if the profit is between them, how can the assembly plant be so valuable?
In the following time, Ye Hua was ready to stay in this microelectronics R&D and production center for a while. Everything was difficult at the beginning. The first PHC machine composed entirely of domestic chips was crucial, and time was really running out.
Under his leadership, the entire CSAC is performing its own duties and promoting the subversive transformation of the localization of high-end chips at a speed that they themselves cannot imagine. Every member of the CSAC system now seems to be dreaming, as if
It's too easy, so easy that it's unrealistic, but I know it's not a dream.
