Wen Chengling followed Luo Jia out of the office and came to the third basement floor of the Optical Department.
There, Wen Chengling saw a machine, a verification prototype, the model is the first generation of super lithography.
“Is this a lithography machine?”
Wen Chengling stopped in his tracks, asked doubtfully, and showed a shocked expression at the same time.
The commercial model lithography machine is packaged, and this is the first generation machine, so the internal components are exposed, and can be seen through the floor-to-ceiling glass.
Wen Chengling was amazed by the design of this machine. It is very large and has as many as six machines, three of which are measuring machines and the other three are standard exposure tables.
More machines can improve the work efficiency of the lithography machine and produce more silicon wafers per hour.
However, while increasing the number of machines, it also puts forward higher requirements on the mechanical structure and the shock absorption capacity of the machines. The difficulty factor increases geometrically, so most lithography machines only have two machines.
The lithography machine is the crown of the semiconductor field and requires a dust-free environment. At this moment, Luo Jia and the others are standing outside the laboratory, separated by a layer of glass.
“Do you want to go in and take a look?” Luo Jia asked.
“Is it really possible?” Wen Chengling was slightly taken aback, looking very excited.
“Of course, let’s change into dustproof clothes.” Luo Jia said with a smile.
When Wen Chengling was studying and working in North America, Sino-US relations were not as tense as they are today, so he knew the goods. In the laboratory of Stanford University, he had seen many cutting-edge technologies in the field of optics.
To this day, North America does not allow Chinese students to study in key scientific and technological fields to prevent technology leakage. Semiconductors, life sciences, and aerospace are all prohibited fields.
Although Wen Chengling is well-informed, he has never seen such an exaggerated lithography machine design. One machine can carry out fully automatic operations on six machines at the same time, and the efficiency should be very high.
Wen Chengling changed into a white dustproof suit, thinking to himself that in the history of science and technology in the world, there has never been a lack of brilliant ideas, but it is very difficult to turn ideas into reality. It should still be used for verification, and the degree of completion should not be too high.
How difficult is the lithography machine?
There is only one company in the world that can do EUV, namely ASML in the Netherlands.
In the era of ultraviolet light, hundreds of companies around the world appeared in the field of lithography machines.
However, the good times did not last long. With the introduction of deep ultraviolet light technology, the original more than 100 companies manufacturing lithography machines have dropped to three. Except for Canon, Nikon, and ASML, all other companies have been eliminated.
It is not difficult to see from this that a technological advancement will bring about a serious reshuffle for the entire industry.
Everyone is dead, and the three families who are still alive naturally earn a lot of money. They eat hot pot and sing songs, and a lot of money comes naturally. Life is not too comfortable.
Unfortunately, a few years later, with the continuous innovation of semiconductor technology, deep ultraviolet lithography has gradually become inadequate.
Therefore, the second round of technical competition began in the field of lithography machines. As a result of this technical competition, Canon and Nikon were eliminated, and ASML in the Netherlands became the final winner.
The world’s only super monster capable of manufacturing extreme ultraviolet EUV lithography machines was born!
Such fierce competition is simply terrifying!
Know that Nikon and Canon are by no means vegetarians, they are the most powerful optical companies in the world.
When talking about the two of them, ordinary people will immediately think of civilian products such as digital cameras and various lenses, but the most powerful and profitable business of Nikon and Canon is not in the civilian field, but in medical equipment.
When you go to the hospital and spend a thousand dollars for a CT scan, the equipment used is probably made by Canon or Nikon, or Ricoh, Siemens, or Hitachi.
And the price of a CT device is as high as tens of millions of yuan. In China alone, there are tens of thousands of CT devices, all of which are imported. Guess that over the years, the neon medical equipment giant has made money from China. How much?
Furthermore, buying a CT machine is not the end of the story. The supporting software, equipment maintenance, and various consumables also cost money to buy from Neon people.
All in all, Canon and Nikon are extremely powerful companies. They are the leaders in the optical field, but they still lost to ASML in the Netherlands. It is enough to see that the threshold of this industry is not high, but high to the sky.
ASML in the Netherlands is not unknown. Their predecessor is the famous Philips Optics. The objective lenses they use come from Carl Zeiss of Germany, the world’s largest lens field.
It can be said that the monster ASML was created by gathering the whole of Europe and some North American forces.
In the past, ASML had no rivals until Star Technology appeared.
Luo Jia was whimsical and decided to overtake on a curve, bypassing the first three generations of core technologies consisting of ultraviolet light, deep ultraviolet light, and extreme ultraviolet light, and directly enter the fourth generation of lithography machines, ultra-ultraviolet hybrid lasers. Difficulty, a layman can never understand.
唰~
Wen Chengling was thinking, when the sealed door of the laboratory suddenly opened in front of him.
He smiled and said seriously to Luo Jia before entering the laboratory: “Mr. It is not enough for the engraving machine to only have a light source, and there are thousands of other core components, I can do nothing.”
This is an inoculation for Luo Jia. What he means by this is that I can help you get out the ultra-ultraviolet hybrid laser, but I can’t do anything other than the laser. It depends on Xingchen Technology itself. the power of.
Luo Jia just nodded and smiled, but didn’t say anything.
Two people came to this machine soon, and Luo Jia said lightly, “This is our first-generation machine. It is divided into thirteen major structures, namely laser generator, beam corrector, and energy controller. , beam shape adjuster, shutter, energy detector, mask plate, mask stage, objective lens, measurement stage, exposure stage, closed frame, magnetic levitation shock absorption.”
Luo Jia pointed to the machine and introduced the complex composition.
Although listening to the name seems very simple, even if you think about it with your heels, you can understand that as the crown of the semiconductor industry, how can it be simple.
Take the objective lens of this lithography machine as an example. If you think it is something like a SLR lens, you are completely wrong.
The objective lens used by ASML’s EUV lithography machine is 1.84 meters high and nearly 70 centimeters wide. It is jointly manufactured by the German optical giant Carl Zeiss Group ~Soverse.com~ and the laser giant Aachen Group.
How much is the objective lens?
Sorry, no matter how much Luo Jia pays, he can’t buy this set of objective lenses.
From the perspective of cost, the cost of this set of objective lenses should be around 10 million US dollars, and its complexity and precision are enough to be written in the history of optical development.
What Luo Jia showed Wen Chengling was just such a thing, it was huge and sophisticated, full of the sense of the future like a sci-fi movie.
And ASML’s EUV is the third generation, Luo Jia’s is the fourth generation, ultra-ultraviolet light, and the technical complexity is even higher.
“You guys have already achieved this level!?” Wen Chengling widened his eyes excitedly and made an inconceivable voice.
It was far away and separated by glass, so I didn’t see it clearly, so I thought it was a fake.
Now in the dust-free laboratory, Wen Chengling suddenly realized that the degree of completion of this fourth-generation lithography machine is already so high!