Chapter 1157
Lithography Machine Bottleneck! Lacking Core Cutting Tool
He desperately needs a major economic victory to make up for the losses and save face.
Soon, a deal that was enough to shake up the energy landscape of East Asia was quickly finalized.
"Longxia people? Hmph!"
They don't deserve the bear's treasures!
After the signing ceremony, the bearded energy minister triumphantly swirled his champagne glass at the representatives of the Eastern Wilderness tribe, his face beaming with the satisfaction of a triumphant revenge.
"From this day forward, the black blood of Siberia will flow only to our loyal friends—the industrial hub of the Eastern Wilderness Tribe!"
This agreement is a model of mutual trust and strategic reciprocity! Let us celebrate the birth of this new pipeline, which will greatly strengthen the energy supply chain in the Asia-Pacific region! As for those ungrateful, self-important little fellows…”
He paused deliberately, then downed the strong liquor in his glass in one gulp.
"Then let them envy and be jealous of others' warm and cozy fireplaces in the dead of winter!"
Chief Noda Taro of the Eastern Wilderness smiled broadly in front of the camera, bowing repeatedly to thank the Emperor for his "generosity" and "foresight".
This enormous energy pie is enough to greatly alleviate the resource bottleneck for the Eastern Wilderness tribe.
He may not have been without doubts about Longxia's reaction, but faced with the enormous practical benefits and a secret expectation that Longxia's future development might be hindered by the loss of cheap energy, he readily accepted it.
When the news reached Longtian Tianshu Pavilion, several core decision-making members were having a closed-door meeting.
The screen displayed news footage of the signing of a pipeline agreement between Russia and the East, along with a video recording of the bearded minister making pointed remarks. The room was quiet; no one slammed their fist on the table in indignation, and the atmosphere was even somewhat eerie.
"Hmph, Siberian bloodline?"
A thin, elderly man in charge of energy allocation pushed up his glasses, the lenses reflecting the light from the screen, but a mocking smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
"They really think they're something special. Do they think they can strangle our development by cutting off the pipes?"
Another officer in charge of industrial planning, with a square face and a calm demeanor, chimed in.
"Their oil and natural gas, to put it bluntly, was indeed one of the main arteries of our industrial operation in the past."
But now… the Earthly Sun ignited by the Candle Dragon is right before our eyes! The stellarator's super magnetic cage has been able to stably confine plasma at temperatures exceeding billions of degrees for over 300 seconds! The fusion power ramp-up curve far exceeds our most optimistic expectations!
He pointed to a top-secret internal chart on the projector, his voice filled with strong confidence.
"One year! At the most conservative estimate, we only need to get through this year! The Stellar Bird Project will complete all system linkages and engineering scale-up, and achieve net energy gain ignition operation!"
By then, that pitiful amount of chemical energy won't even qualify as enough to ignite and preheat the core of our Zhulong reactor! What we need is deuterium-tritium fuel, not their coarse oil that will eventually be swept into the dustbin of history!
Zhou Mingzhi nodded, tapping his knuckles lightly on the table.
"That's right, one year!"
This year, we'll have to tighten our belts and live frugally.
With a significant gap in the substitution of crude oil and natural gas, international spot market prices will inevitably surge.
But...we can afford to fight this war!
His gaze swept over each member present, his voice firm and resolute.
"Order.
Emergency energy security plan activated! All non-essential high-energy-consuming projects cut! Strict control over peak residential energy consumption! Tiered electricity pricing implemented in the industrial sector, encouraging off-peak electricity conversion! Vigorously reduce reliance on fuel oil, and convert all public vehicles to electricity as much as possible!
Forty percent of our strategic reserves have been used! At the same time, we're intensifying negotiations on long-term agreements with friendly partners in the Middle East and South America—every extra ship is a bonus! Even if we get ripped off by middlemen, we'll accept it! As long as we get through this year!
He took a deep breath, his tone resolute.
"Throughout the country, from top-level decision-making to factory workshops, from research institutes to fields and villages!"
This year! Even if it means breaking a few belts, I'll grit my teeth and get through it! Let the Russian bear and the Eastern Wilderness cling to their dirty fossil fuels and dream their pipe dreams! The future belongs only to a controllable sun!
The Dragon Heart Dilemma! The Tragedy of Photolithography!
In the heart of the Longxia tribe, the "Loongson" National Integrated Circuit Research Center, heavily guarded like an iron barrel, had an unexpectedly heavy and oppressive atmosphere, a stark contrast to the clamor outside celebrating the victory in the maritime standoff.
In the bright, cleanroom, the air seemed to freeze. There were no cheers, only the soft hum of the machines and the heavy breathing of the researchers.
Standing before the massive isolation window, Su Dingping crossed his arms, his brow furrowed, a thick cloud of worry hanging over his young yet slightly weary face.
Standing beside him were several core expert team leaders with full heads of white hair or graying temples—Professor Wang, Elder Li, and Chief Engineer Zhao, each with a solemn expression.
What lay before them was not a badge of victory, but two suffocating technological barriers!
On the huge workbench on the left, rows of round wafers, as dark as black mirrors and with sharp, gleaming edges, were neatly stacked.
That was the 12-inch ultra-high purity monocrystalline silicon wafer, codenamed "Kunlun Taiyu," a breakthrough achieved with the full support of the nation!
They are uniform in texture, with almost no impurities, like the purest black crystal, representing Longxia's first step in breaking through the Western barriers in the field of chip basic materials! On the yield statistics dashboard next to them, a dazzling red number that is enough to shock the world is displayed—92%!
On the workbench to the right, several exquisite crystal bottles stood quietly. The liquids inside the bottles were of various colors; some were a pale amber, some were almost transparent, and some resembled flowing chalcedony.
This is another pillar supporting Longxia's groundbreaking achievement in the field of photolithography—the "Etching" photoresist! Beside it are densely packed experimental data graphs and rows of control units shimmering with faint light. In the center of the laboratory, a massive immersion step-by-step repetitive projection lithography prototype is quietly demonstrating its capabilities.
A laser beam is projected onto the surface of a coated wafer through an advanced numerical aperture lens, under a precisely controlled water immersion environment. On the adjacent real-time display, fine structural lines are clearly visible, with the resolution measurement results steadily fluctuating around a 7nm scale!
This means that Longxia's combination of "etching" adhesive and immersion process has fully tapped the potential of the ArF light source, achieving a precision comparable to the expensive and strictly export-prohibited EUV optical system! From theory to small-scale fabrication verification, this path has been successfully paved!
Any one of these achievements, if released individually, would be enough to shake the entire global semiconductor industry and trigger a major reshuffle of the technology landscape!
These were supposed to be the capital for wild celebrations in the laboratory.
However... everyone's attention was focused on the empty area in the center of the laboratory.
There stood a massive and sophisticated mechanical frame, but the key components—the core light source module and the most important objective lens assembly—were carefully encased in a huge vacuum dust cover.
Through the window of the enclosure, you can see that where the core "tool heart" should be placed in the frame, there are only some interfaces and the foundation of the precision robotic arm, as well as a few bare fiber optic probes for testing signals extending out.
It's like an empty shell of a mecha giant that has lost its engine and wings.
"We have the foundation! We have the cutting-edge material Kunlun jade! We have also developed world-class photoresist and breakthrough etching technology!"
Professor Wang pointed to the two achievements on the left and right, his tone not one of pride, but rather one of bitterness and resentment. He slapped the cold base of the equipment next to him.
"But what about a heart lithographically engineered?!"
Where is this sculptor that can etch our designs on blueprints and transform the photoresist on silicon into actual circuits?! Without a lithography machine, these top-tier silicon wafers and these miraculously effective photoresists are the finest raw materials and the best ink! There's no pen! No pen at all!!
Old Li gripped the end of his cane tightly with his age-spotted hands, his voice low and deep, as if squeezed out from between his teeth.
"Those bastards in the West are determined to kill us off at the 28nm level! EUV? Forget about the whole machine and core components! They'll put even a critical screw or a bottle of lens cleaning fluid on the restricted list! As for DUV? Hmph, that's ancient history!"
Their latest embargo list even includes high-end models from ten years ago! It covers everything – rentals, maintenance services, all in one fell swoop!
It's clearly designed to prevent you from having any chance to replicate, explore, or accumulate those damned core technologies and engineering experience that we can't easily master in a short time, such as light source control, ultra-precision lens manufacturing, and high-speed collaborative control of dual workpiece stages!
Chief Engineer Zhao slammed his fist heavily on the control panel next to him, making a dull thud.
"Even a skilled cook can't cook without rice! Without a lithography machine, how are we supposed to etch 7nm, 5nm, or even 3nm chips? By imagination?!"
Without top-tier, large-scale integrated, ultra-high-performance chips, the core control chip specifications of the Zhulong Power Plant, especially the ultra-high precision and ultra-high speed real-time prediction and field-coordinated control system for fusion reactor plasma turbulence, would be nothing but castles in the air!
A core pieced together using 250nm-level lifesaver chips provided by Qin Mingzhu? That can only guarantee basic functions and maintain the power plant's minimum power output in its initial stages! Want to achieve 100% output power? Want to perform more sophisticated data analysis and control optimization after fusion ignition? Forget about it!
This would significantly diminish the potential of the entire Candle Dragon Project!
He was breathing heavily, his voice carrying the kind of anxious helplessness that comes with the helplessness of a technician when faced with truth and limitations.
"Not to mention, electromagnetic railguns need to achieve longer ranges and higher precision, requiring more powerful radar and fire control processing cores; the future intelligent management system of Tenglong-1; and even our next-generation military communication encryption system... which one doesn't require chips with higher manufacturing processes and stronger computing power?!"
Without our own domestically built lithography machines, no matter how good our designs and materials are, we can only watch helplessly as these projects are slowed down and scrapped!
The entire laboratory was deathly silent.
The faint cheers of victory coming from outside the window sounded incredibly ironic at this moment, only amplifying the heaviness of the situation.
Su Dingping's gaze moved from the silicon wafers and photoresist bottles to the core of the huge, empty lithography machine, which was like an ice pick, sharp as a cone and as heavy as an abyss.
He slowly straightened up, his knuckles turning slightly white from the effort.
The exhilaration and validation brought by the victory at sea seemed to be crushed by the cold, hard reality before them.
The lithography machine, a "carving knife" tightly held by the West and choking all cutting-edge technologies, is an "ultimate manufacturing masterpiece" composed of hundreds of thousands of precision parts, integrating the pinnacle of modern optics, materials, mechanics, control, and chemical engineering.
This has become the most crucial, final, and most formidable barrier for Longxia to achieve chip self-sufficiency and completely break free from the Western technological blockade!
It stands silently in the center of the Loongson Lab, mocking the dazzling "Kunlun Jade" silicon wafers and the shimmering "Etching Shadow" glue on the table.
Without it, even the tallest building is ultimately just a castle in the air on paper! Su Dingping took a deep breath. The air was filled with the unique smell of the cleanroom, as well as the heavy responsibility and invisible pressure that could crush a person.
The cold reality was like a bucket of ice water, drenching the briefly boiling passion and hope of the Loongson Laboratory.
The gleaming "Kunlun Jade" silicon wafers and "Etching Shadow" photoresist on the table, representing the pinnacle of technological breakthroughs, are ironically contrasted with the domestically produced lithography machine opposite, which is missing its core components and resembles a skeleton.
Despair? No! But this invisible cliff truly looms over everyone's hearts; a single misstep will lead to utter destruction!
In this oppressive, almost suffocatingly dark moment, the conference room door was pushed open. Senior Colonel Qin Baichuan from the Joint Logistics Support Department and his daughter Qin Mingzhu walked in.
Qin Mingzhu was still wearing a smart beige trench coat, her eyes shining as if they were filled with stars.
"Chief Engineer Su."
Qin Mingzhu's gaze swept across the faces in the laboratory, all weighed down by heavy responsibilities, before finally settling on Su Dingping, who stood as firm as a rock. Her voice was clear and resolute.
"Don't worry, Longxia is so big, and so is the world. All roads lead to Rome, but there are always some roads they can't overcome."
While the Qin family's connections weren't exactly all-encompassing, they certainly went deeper and farther than the average person.
Colonel Qin Baichuan's voice was as steady as iron.
"The problem with lithography machines is stuck domestically, so we'll look for solutions from abroad."
It's either a complete machine or a component! It's either new technology or an antique, obsolete item! I'm going to risk my reputation and go through every possible connection I have to sell it to! Mingzhu.
He looked at his daughter.
"This time, I'll have to trouble you to make the trip yourself. You're resourceful and your target is small."
Su Dingping looked up abruptly at the father and daughter who had taken such a huge risk and had such a great responsibility. His heart felt like it had been squeezed tightly, and an indescribable surge of emotion rushed to his nose and eyes.
"Colonel Qin! Miss Qin!"
This...this is too risky! You all know how closely foreign countries are watching us right now!
Once detected…
"Su Dingping!"
Qin Mingzhu interrupted him, a stubborn yet confident smile curving her lips.
"Who do you think you are? Would we bring up something we're not sure about? Focus on your design! We'll handle the storms outside!" (End of Chapter)