Chapter 1150
7nm in 1 Year! Betting the Nation's Fate
He leaned back heavily in the high-backed chair, his hand trembling as he clutched his heart, breathing heavily and laboredly. His assistant hurriedly tried to hand him medication, but the old man weakly waved his hand to stop him.
It wasn't a heart attack; it was a pure, extreme physiological shock from disbelief!
The expressions on the faces of the other younger technical staff were even more varied.
Some people's faces drained of all color, turning deathly pale; others stared wide-eyed at the young figure, their eyes screaming, "Has the boss gone mad?"
Others subconsciously made eye contact with the person next to them, and saw the same blank stare and turbulent waves in the other person's eyes.
The air seemed to freeze for a full half minute. Finally, a voice, tinged with obvious doubt and even implying "wake up," weakly rang out from the seat of a young materials researcher.
The sound wasn't loud, but it was jarringly clear in the deathly silence.
"...Chief Engineer Su...is 7nm...too...too far off? What about the Eagle region..."
He was too embarrassed to say the whole second half of the sentence, "still working on 90nm".
It was as if this sentence had opened a floodgate, instantly igniting the oppressive atmosphere.
"Yes! Chief Engineer Su, the commander's requirement is to catch up with the 130nm level in the Eastern Wilderness within three years!"
A middle-aged engineer spoke urgently, his voice filled with intense anxiety.
"Our leader understands our difficulties! Our most urgent task is to find a way to break through the blockade and truly develop the first generation of industrial-grade chips that can be controlled and produced by our Longxin Laboratory! Addressing the most pressing needs right now is the right thing to do!"
He slammed his hand on the table.
250nm!
This is the first realistic goal we can fully strive for based on our existing 8-inch used silicon wafers and the Dragon Ridge lithography project!
"That's right! Chief Engineer Su! A skyscraper rises from the ground!"
Another technical team leader, with graying hair and a face etched with the weariness of long hours in the lab, spoke in a somber tone.
"It's not that we don't dare to dream of 7nm celestial palaces, but that the road ahead is too difficult! Without EUV photoresist, and even KrF and ArF photoresists are completely blocked, you can't cook without rice! What do we use for photolithography? A kitchen knife to etch silicon wafers?"
The discussion quickly became heated, even carrying a hint of self-defense born of despair.
Everyone's criticism is directed at the same point.
Survive first! Be the substitute you can!
"250nm! We must ensure the stability of the 250nm process! Upgrading military equipment and expanding communication base stations are core tasks that cannot wait for 120nm or 90nm!"
"Yield rate! Chief Engineer Su! Our primary goal is to improve the yield rate under mass production conditions! Without a good yield rate, even if we give you 7nm blueprints, it's useless!"
"Yes, we must first develop the core chip for the control system of the Zhulong Power Station in China. This is crucial to the lifeline of energy and cannot be delayed!"
Su Dingping's bold claim about 7nm technology, like a pebble thrown into a muddy pond, has shrunk to nothing beyond the brief ripples it created upon entering the water, now submerged in the overwhelming waves of anxiety and hardship. Nobody took it seriously.
One year? Seven nanometers? Everyone here is an expert in this field. That's not a dream; even science fiction wouldn't dare set such a tight timeline! It's too outlandish and too impractical.
Su Dingping remained silent.
He listened quietly to all the heated, anxious, or questioning remarks.
The fervor that followed his frenzied declaration subsided, replaced by a terrifying calm.
His deep gaze swept over the faces that were somewhat agitated or even confused by anxiety and the vast gap between reality and reality. There was no mockery or anger in his eyes, only a frozen, persistent calmness.
As the discussion gradually subsided, the meeting room fell back into a weary and oppressive atmosphere.
"Are you done talking?"
Su Dingping's voice was a little hoarse.
Everyone looked at him.
"it is good."
He nodded, and the single word he uttered carried immense weight.
"Goals can be set in stages."
But one's aspirations must never be low!
His fingers slowly traced across the large alloy tabletop.
"What you're saying is all correct. The reality is harsh: 250nm-level domestically produced and controllable chips are now our hard currency, the ballast stone that allows us to stabilize our position and support the Candle Dragon Project and military needs! I, Su Dingping, am the first to agree to concentrate all resources to break down the door to 250nm industrial mass production!"
He paused, his eyes sharp as knives.
"but--"
This "but" made everyone's hearts jump again!
"But! You must remember this!"
Su Dingping's tone suddenly rose, carrying an undeniable and forceful declaration.
"250nm is just a springboard for us to take off! It's a stepping stone for me to buy myself some breathing room during that one-year period! It's a piece of coal that I, Su Dingping, am accumulating to fuel the future of Longxia's core technology!"
He suddenly stood up.
"The Loongson project is now under my command! Priority task changed! Concentrate all intellectual resources on this primary objective."
Within two months, we will streamline the R&D, finalization, and pilot production processes for the Candlelight-1 type 250nm domestically developed and controllable chip, based on the existing 8-inch silicon wafer mass production line! Three months later, I want to see the first batch of qualified chips roll off the production line and delivered to the Tenglong-1 power plant for commissioning!
"Yes, Chief Engineer Su!"
Yuan Tao was the first to react. Although his face still showed confusion and shock at the 7nm process, he stood up abruptly and accepted the order in a hoarse voice!
This is the best decision we can make right now! At least everyone has a workable approach to take!
"Yes, Chief Engineer Su!"
"Roger that!"
……
The order, like a military command, instantly silenced all other noises, and the entire "Loongson" project team sprang into action! Su Dingping's seemingly unrealistic 7nm goal was temporarily shelved, at least on the surface.
A major battle to achieve mass production of 250nm chips has been launched in the core area of the Loongson Laboratory.
Inside the laboratory, the lights burned all night! Machines roared! Countless parameters were refined, and designs were repeatedly scrapped and rewritten!
However, the iron wall of reality once again slammed mercilessly and heavily into their faces!
The cleanroom lithography area of the Longxin Laboratory. The silver-gray lithography machine emits a deep hum. A wafer carrying countless intricate circuit patterns, after undergoing a series of high-precision processes including resist coating, pre-baking, and development, finally enters the etching stage. Operators in cleanroom suits dare not blink, their eyes fixed intently on the data and images on the monitoring screen.
Time passed second by second.
As the operator in the cleanroom suit carefully opened the etching chamber, preparing to remove the wafer for the next step, the engineer beside him, responsible for online defect scanning, stared intently at the electron microscope screen in front of him, his face growing increasingly grim.
"hiss……"
A gasp of cold air rang out from inside the operator's protective suit.
"what happened?"
Su Dingping had already stood outside the monitoring room at some point, and through the huge observation window, he keenly sensed that something was amiss.
Yuan Tao strode out, his face ashen, radiating exhaustion and...anger!
He held a freshly printed quality inspection report in his hand, still warm from the machine, his fingers squeezing the paper so tightly it was deformed.
"Chief Engineer Su..."
Yuan Tao's voice trembled uncontrollably, a mixture of anger at being blatantly deceived.
"The yield rate... for the latest batch... is only... only 19.8%!"
He practically gritted his teeth as he said the number.
19.8! Less than 20%!
It's worth noting that even with relatively mature technology in the industry, the yield rate for 250nm process chips produced on an 8-inch line can typically reach 60%-70%!
Relying on their existing "dragon spine" technology and the breakthrough process integration and optimization by the Dragon Heart Laboratory, they initially achieved a yield rate of 43% in the first few small-scale chip fabrication runs! Everyone worked overtime to improve it, hoping to reach 60%, but what happened?!
The number plummeted like a kite with a broken string, falling below the 20% threshold!
This is a devastating blow to mass production plans! It means a surge in production costs and indefinite delays in delivery!
"reason!"
Su Dingping's voice was as cold as a Siberian glacier.
"Preliminary assessment indicates...it's a problem with the silicon wafer substrate!"
Yuan Tao slammed the report onto the control panel next to him.
"Su Dingping! We've been tricked! The batch of rare 12-inch silicon wafers that Eagle gave us were all recycled and refurbished industrial waste! They were even substandard products melted down and re-pulped from scrapped laboratory materials!"
His voice carried the extreme anger of a technologist who felt his expertise and wisdom had been desecrated!
He pointed to an open, specially made silicon wafer box next to him, containing what he called "high-end goods".
"Look at the edge color! Normal ultra-high purity silicon wafers, after being cut and thoroughly polished and cleaned, should have a deep, almost crystal-like luster at the edges! But the edges of this batch are polished so roughly, it looks like a novice's work! And the overall color is yellowish!"
Yuan Tao's voice rose with anger, filled with gnashing hatred.
"This is clear evidence of excessively high oxidation concentration inside the silicon wafer!"
They mixed in inferior recycled silicon sources! Or the thermal oxidation process wasn't done properly at all!
Such silicon wafers are filled with amorphous regions, oxygen defect clusters, and excessive concentrations of metallic impurities! Using them as wafer substrates results in a distorted atomic-level microcrystalline structure! They are unstable!
Under the impact of subsequent high-energy-consuming processes such as high-temperature deposition, photolithography, and etching, these defects will be magnified tenfold or even a hundredfold! They will directly tear apart atomic-level patterns! The plummeting yield rate is irrefutable proof!
This is a fucking poison coated in sugar! The eagle planted a dirty bomb in our doorstep!
The operator silently and carefully handed an etched wafer to the observation window. Under the high-magnification electron microscope, the 250nm line array that should have been precisely etched was now shockingly riddled with fractures, twists, stacking, and short circuits!
The entire pattern is blurry and indistinct, like a drunkard's graffiti on the snow! The culprit is the lattice defects and microscopic impurities that extend like a spider web inside the wafer!
"This is fucking..."
One of the young researchers' eyes welled up with tears.
"These sons of bitches... they're bullying us too much..."
Someone was muttering curses under their breath.
shame!
cheat!
A blatant humiliation!
Su Dingping stared calmly at the "battlefield ruins" in the electron microscope's field of view, representing the contaminated core raw materials. His face was reflected in a blank profile under the cleanroom's overhead light, but his eyes were so deep they were unsettling.
Anger, like molten lava surging deep within the earth's crust, silently and fiercely accumulated beneath his seemingly calm eyes!
The raw materials, the very foundation, were undermined by the enemy! The very first brick in the wall of technological breakthrough was laced with hostility and deadly poison! And this was only the beginning.
...
One wave subsides, another surges forth!
The "Loongson" R&D base was dealt a heavy blow by inferior silicon wafers. Just as it was holding back its courage and gritting its teeth to withstand the situation, another battlefield concerning the energy strategic lifeline of the entire Longxia tribe suddenly and mercilessly stabbed it in the back!
Northwest border, the vast Gobi Desert.
Amidst the swirling yellow sand, several heavy geological engineering vehicles bearing red flags with golden hammers were parked forlornly beside the sand dunes.
A few months ago, this place was a bustling preliminary site for an energy pipeline project. The Longxia tribe and the Maoxiong tribe in the north reached a preliminary cooperation agreement on a new and significant transnational natural gas pipeline and oil transportation project.
Longxia's technical team even invested a lot of geological exploration work in the early stage, laying the initial roadbed for this pipeline known as the "energy artery of the northern desert".
A geological exploration team leader from Longxia, wearing a thick windproof suit and with skin tanned dark by the high-altitude ultraviolet rays, held a newly printed draft of a geological exploration briefing in his hand. He braved the biting cold wind and stopped several Russian engineers who were packing up their equipment to leave.
His face showed confusion and bewilderment, but he tried his best to remain professional and polite in his tone.
"Engineer Vasily, please wait a moment!"
He pointed to several coordinate areas marked on the briefing.
"Your engineering team has not yet provided final confirmation of the deep crustal stress data for areas 17, 25 and 46. These are key points for pipeline site selection to avoid highly active fault zones."
Additionally, regarding the special support scheme for the section spanning the X River canyon, we need your design team's specific process parameters to assess the cost... project schedule..."
The Russian engineer, who had been stopped, had a thick red beard and was impatiently stuffing the last few rolls of blueprints into a waterproof tube. Hearing this, he waved his hand gruffly and interrupted in heavily accented Longxia language.
"Wait? Wait for what? Captain Wang, I really don't understand the work rhythm of Longxia! The project has changed! It's on hold! Understand? On hold means everything stops!"
He roughly pulled up the tarpaulin of the construction vehicle, turned to face Captain Wang, and his face, long soaked in vodka, carried an undisguised aloofness and condescension.
"Notification from above! All joint operations are suspended and awaiting further orders! We must return to St. Dublin to report!"
Our friends in the Eastern Wilderness over there need technical support for another project!
He pursed his lips.
"As for your proposal and data... just wait! We'll reassess them domestically! Maybe..." (End of Chapter)