Chapter 162 Unimaginable Difficulties

"Dr. Chen, is this really feasible?"

There are many theoretically feasible solutions in the industry, but in the process of actual implementation, it will be found that there are difficulties that are difficult to overcome. The distance from theoretical feasibility to implementation may be a long way off.

What's more, they are doing a job completely from scratch, crossing the river by feeling the stones. How can you know how deep the river is and what kind of preparations you need to make? Without a reference, the difficulties of exploring a new river are hard to estimate.

When Chen Yuanguang saw that the person who had just posted the message was Liang Mengsong, he looked directly at him with a firm gaze and said, "Of course I can do it."

Chen Yuanguang did not explain anything further. He liked to speak with results, and he had already explained the theoretical feasibility.

Liang Mengsong is considered by the outside world to be the person who knows the most about chip manufacturing in China. It is believed that he has a keen sense of smell for chips that far exceeds imagination. After he was defeated in the internal struggle of SMIC, for a long time, he was a idler in SMIC with a position but no real power.

It was not until Huawei planned to use a new process and the 28nm double exposure technology to make 7nm process chips that Liang Mengsong was able to escape from the turbulent struggles within SMIC and began to become the actual person in charge of this project.

For him, doing things is much easier than fighting.

Contrary to what the outside world has speculated, Huawei's 7nm chip technology was achieved by sacrificing yield. In fact, they did not lose much yield, which is far from as exaggerated as the 50% to 70% yield rate believed by the outside world.

For Huawei, using 7nm in their flagship model mate60 can not only make money, but also make a lot of money.

Under his leadership, Huawei and SMIC will next use 28nm process lithography machines to advance chips to 5nm. They have already seen the dawn of victory.

Because of his outstanding resume, Liang Mengsong was assigned to Project 712 to be responsible for chip manufacturing.

He himself was also very interested after receiving the task. He has always been a technology enthusiast, not to mention that materials like topological semimetals, which only existed in legends in the past, have now become a reality. He accepted the task without any hesitation.

The fact that the progress was not smooth made him gradually feel uneasy. Could they really spend two years to master this brand new process? You know, this is a brand new process. The photosensitivity of the so-called topological semimetal is very different from that of photoresist.

More importantly, Chen Yuanguang was unable to focus all his energy on this project. Even if Liang Mengsong wanted to see him, most of the time it was in meetings, and it was very difficult to make an appointment with him privately.

Past experience is becoming ineffective, researchers at all levels of the project are gradually becoming impetuous, and everyone's unconditional trust in Chen Yuanguang's halo is dissipating. Liang Mengsong feels that the situation is getting out of control, and his inner anxiety is accumulating.

The firmness in Chen Yuanguang's tone eased his inner uneasiness a little. The most frightening thing at this time was that even Chen Yuanguang himself did not believe in himself.

"Okay, then we will do the process simulation according to this plan." Liang Mengsong said.

After the meeting, Liang Mengsong flew back to Shenhai to promote the subsequent specific work.

The entire 712 project team is scattered across the country. After all, the chip design is in Pengcheng, the process manufacturing is in Pengcheng, Shenhai and Jiangcheng, and some large and small suppliers are scattered all over the country.

"Do you think two years is really enough?"

There are too many project members, but the engineers responsible for chip manufacturing are the core personnel anyway.

SMIC selected a group of the most experienced engineers to join the project team.

This is not only because of the Chinese officials. The Chinese officials only told them to cooperate fully.

The Chinese government does not know which of your internal engineers are experienced and which are reliable, and it will not make any determination.

The reason why they work so hard and provide the greatest support is more due to SMIC's own actual needs.

Because no matter in the short or long term, ASML is unlikely to provide them with advanced process lithography machines.

The cooperation with Huawei can advance the process to 5nm at most, but because the technology is jointly developed by Huawei and them, this technology can only be sold to Huawei and cannot be provided to other customers.

Also, since the process is jointly developed, the benefits enjoyed by SMIC are very limited, and they cannot achieve excess profits through breakthroughs in the 7nm process.

It is obvious from the capital market that the release of Huawei's Mate7 equipped with a 60nm chip did not increase the share price of SMIC.

Project 712 can help SMIC advance the equivalent process to 1nm or even higher. In SMIC's view, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, just like when TSMC and ASML jointly developed immersion lithography machines and defeated a number of competitors.

Even if it was just a theoretical possibility, they didn't want to give up this opportunity.

After signing the confidentiality agreement, the selected engineers were excited when they saw the technical parameters of topological semimetals.

For individuals, being able to participate in such a project is a successful experience worth writing about, whether you change jobs or continue working here later.

In addition, room-temperature superconductors had just been invented at that time, and Chen Yuanguang was shrouded in an aura of omnipotence. Everyone had no doubt that this could be accomplished in two years, and they were all imagining that they would beat TSMC and kick Intel in two years.

Until we kept going in circles for half a year and there was little progress, everyone lost their enthusiasm.

"I don't think it's enough, but the problem is that the God of Light thinks it's enough. Before the two-year period is up, I believe in the God of Light."

"You're too optimistic."

"It's not that I'm optimistic, it's that what else can I do now except believe? Believe first and then question.

At least they have been providing solutions.”

“This is just the light source, and there are a lot of processes waiting to be improved later.

There is no current chemical grinding process for topological semimetals."

Chemical mechanical polishing is a key process in chip manufacturing. It uses machinery and polishing fluid to achieve the flatness of the silicon wafer surface, avoiding circuit short circuits caused by different resistance values ​​due to the undulations on the silicon wafer surface.

The uneven surface of the silicon wafer will not only cause circuit short-circuit problems, but also cause inaccurate focusing during the photolithography process, resulting in failure of line width control.

So it is almost an integral part.

“Maybe topological semimetals don’t need chemical grinding?”

“No need for chemical grinding? How is that possible? It is a semi-metal, not a room-temperature superconductor. Its internal resistance is not zero.

It still has resistance. "The existing chemical polishing process requires consumables such as polishing liquid, polishing head and polishing pad. They are all consumables for specific materials. The current process is mainly for silicon polishing and silicon oxide polishing.

Therefore, there are absolutely no suitable consumables and processes for topological semimetals.

“Even if chemical grinding is required, we can find a solution, and the process is not difficult.”

"It's not difficult to return, the problem is time. What I want to say is that two years is not enough no matter how you look at it."

"Why is it delayed for two years? Because TSMC's process will most likely reach 1nm in two years, which is the limit of the existing system. Guangshen wants to overtake them, so we will wait for them before they achieve 1nm.

The question is, what if it can't be done in two years? As long as the entire process can be completed in the end, SMIC will make a lot of money even if it takes five years, not to mention two years.

Shenhai Microelectronics has been calling for delivery of its 28nm domestically produced lithography machine since 20, but now it’s 2024 and they haven’t delivered it yet. Isn’t that okay?”

"That's right, why should we rush? It's useless for us to rush."

Engineers within SMIC involved in the 712 project are becoming increasingly pessimistic about whether the new process can be completed in two years.

The same is true from the perspective of the capital market. After Project 712 was discovered by American, the share prices of listed companies such as Intel, TSMC, and Nvidia fell slightly that day and then quickly stopped falling.

America didn't believe they could do it at all, even with Chen Yuanguang.

"No way, absolutely impossible.

It is absolutely impossible for China to bypass the limitations of lithography machines by using new materials and advance chips to 1nm process technology.”

Although Wall Street does not believe it, Washington still regards this possibility as a formidable threat. Quantum computers are already enough to deal a blow to their computing power blockade. If a breakthrough in chip manufacturing technology is achieved, and it reaches 1nm before America, the global consumer electronics market will face a reshuffle.

Therefore, they urgently convened an internal secret hearing on Capitol Hill and invited Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger and Texas Instruments CEO Rich Templeton to testify.

Pat said firmly: "Optimizing the existing chip manufacturing process is a huge project. Even if America wants to do this, it needs the cooperation of dozens of supply chain companies in more than ten countries around the world, including Japan, the Netherlands, Korea, England, etc.."

"Mr. Gelsinger, I'm sorry to interrupt you. You just mentioned that optimizing the existing chip manufacturing process requires cooperation from dozens of supply chain companies. But historically, TSMC has only cooperated with ASML in the process of optimizing the process from dry lithography machines to immersion lithography machines." A congressman asked in return.

Pat thought they were just putting on a show to reassure Washington, but he didn't expect that these masters had actually made preparations:

"You are right. It is relatively easy to go from dry type to immersion type. Adding water between the light source and the silicon wafer is a very weak optimization. The Chinese want to replace the silicon wafer with topological semimetals.

It is not enough to describe this as optimization. This requires completely bypassing the existing chip manufacturing process system. This is much more difficult than going from dry to immersion. The difficulty between them is not on the same order of magnitude.

The former is like going from a PDA to a smartphone, while the latter is like going from a smartphone to the Metaverse.”

Pat did not correct the other party's mistakes. From dry lithography machine to immersion lithography machine, not only ASML needs to cooperate, but Zeiss also needs to cooperate and redesign their objective lenses.

"Does that mean they will never succeed? Even with Wright Chen's participation?" asked another congressman.

Pat smiled after listening, and then adjusted his tie: "Sorry, I heard that Wright Chen has the nickname of the God of Light in China, but unfortunately this is the real world, and there is no God.

I believe that topological semimetals can replace silicon wafers, which is a feasible technical solution. However, I don’t believe that China can do it all on its own without relying on foreign suppliers.

He is a man, not a god."

Pat and Richie looked at each other and saw the helplessness in each other's eyes. In their opinion, the masters in Washington had been frightened by Wright Chen and had lost their rational judgment. They actually believed that China could subvert the semiconductor industry that had been built up by the world for decades.

Rich said: “I agree with Pat.

I know Dr. Wright very well. We met once before at an academic conference at MIT. He has extraordinary academic insight and very careful logical thinking ability.

He would definitely be an outstanding scientist, or he already is.

But industry and academia are two different things. Industry requires more links and more coordination, and a single process breakthrough requires the coordination of other processes.

From silicon wafers to topological semimetals, this involves the replacement of the cornerstone of the entire chip production process, which is a very difficult task. Although the academic community has been trying to break through the quantum tunneling effect of silicon after reaching its limit through new materials, it is still too difficult.

I also don't think Wright could have done it all by himself.

China lacks the most cutting-edge technology accumulation in chip technology.”

"So do you think topological semimetals are real?"

“It should be. Topological semimetals have a long history of technological evolution. They were proposed a long time ago, so it is normal to achieve breakthroughs. Dr. Wright himself has many achievements in materials science that are worth mentioning.

Although topological semimetals are exaggerated, they are far less difficult to produce than room-temperature superconductors. Since room-temperature superconductors have been unanimously identified by the global academic community, I think topological semimetals have not been announced to the outside world. They were created by Dr. Wright, and I believe they are real. "

At this point, Pat was moved. If Chen Yuanguang was an American, they would be the first to achieve a technological breakthrough. With the cooperation of Silicon Valley, they would be able to replace silicon wafers with topological semi-metal chips and push the process below 1nm.

This is an achievement that will allow Silicon Valley to once again become the world's chip manufacturing center, instead of the current situation where Intel's most advanced chip production has to rely on TSMC.

"If topological semimetals are real, how long will it take for China to achieve process replacement?"

"Ten years," Richie said.

"Fifteen years," Pat said.

“So can we assume that by that time, we have broken through the 1nm limit?”

"That's right." The two said in unison.

Not long after the secret hearing ended, Huawei held their Hongmeng Ecosystem Spring Communication Meeting. It was called a communication meeting, but in fact it was a product launch conference.

When the outside world thought that the focus of publicity at this new product launch conference would be on Zhijie S7 and the comparison with Xiaomi Automobile, using a lot of far-leading figures to highlight Huawei's influence in car manufacturing, these contents were not included.

(End of this chapter)