Hand rubbing nuclear fusion live in the wilderness

Chapter 423 The carbon-based chip that changed the world

Changing clothes, washing, changing dust-free clothes, a series of tasks that were not considered tedious before entering the photolithography room became very long at this moment.

Although he really wanted to see the finished chip as soon as possible, Han Yuan patiently followed the process step by step.

If you are not careful, it will be a big pit if you bring pollutants, dust and the like into the photolithography room.

It took more than ten minutes, and Han Yuan patiently cleaned himself up according to the procedure, put on protective clothing and a mask, put on gloves and foot covers, and entered the photolithography room.

The lithography machine that was running has now stopped working, and other equipment in the lithography room have also stopped operating under Xiao Qi's control.

On the silver-white metal experiment table, there was a soft polyester foam box more than one meter long quietly placed.

On the white foam box, there is also a mechanical arm hovering.

Won walked over and found some black chips where the foam box was dented.

The black chip was small, larger than the thumb nail of an adult man, with a side length of less than three centimeters, and the thickness seemed to be about the same as that of a nail.

Inside the square foam box, there are a total of 16 yuan of chips laid flat. This is the carbon-based chip that took 45 days to process, and all of them are here.

Seeing these black chips, the audience in the live broadcast room was a little excited.

Carbon-based chip, something in the legend, I never thought that one day I could really see it with my own eyes.

In contrast, Han Yuan was breathing heavily. The things in the foam box were made by himself.

Swallowing, he put on gloves and carefully took out a carbon-based chip from the foam box.

However, the fingernail-sized black chip is sandwiched between the thumb and index finger, the whole body is pitch black, and the shape is boxy, showing a standard square.

This is a chip that has undergone preliminary packaging, so holding it directly in the hand has no effect on the chip.

Holding the chip, Won put it in front of his eyes and observed it carefully. He could see a layer of film with spiral lines. This film is the outermost layer of material for packaging the chip. It is a layer of cushioning material that can be used to protect the chip. inside the structure.

Holding the chip, Han Yuan carefully observed it. At the same time, the audience in the live broadcast room were also staring at the pitch-black chip intently.

[This is a carbon-based chip?It looks so small. 】

[Not as big as my thumb, like a piece of paper, it looks so fragile. 】

【Looking at the host holding it like this, I'm afraid he might accidentally pinch it. 】

【Reliable?This thing?It looks just like paper. 】

[I thought it was something tall, but it turned out to be so dark. 】

[Upstairs, just such a small piece of pitch black, you can't buy it with all your wealth. 】

[If there is no live broadcast of the anchor, such a carbon-based chip will probably be bought by a price of one billion meters. 】

【One billion?What makes you so cautious in your dreams, it's okay to add a zero. 】

[I'm curious, how many transistors are there in such a small chip? 1000 million?Or [-] million?Or a billion? 】

[The number should not be small. 】

[You can figure it out if you do some calculations. This anchor uses ten-nanometer lithography technology. The chip is three centimeters long on a side, which is nine square centimeters. Well, the next thing is the turn of the math boss. 】

【. . . . . 】

[Upstairs paper, this is obviously already packaged, the number of transistors can't be calculated like this at all, it depends on how big the core area is. 】

[Ma Dan, after talking for a long time, it's all about loneliness. 】

[Anchor anchor, how many transistors are there on this chip? 】

The audience in the live broadcast room stared at the thumb-sized carbon-based chip in Won's hand and discussed non-stop, curious about the number of transistors in such a chip.

Even the countries squatting in the live broadcast room are equally curious, and they are not only curious, but also nervously watching.

Not only ordinary audiences are curious and counting the number of transistors in this carbon-based chip, but experts from various countries are also counting.

It can be clearly seen from the live broadcast that the carbon-based chip sandwiched by the anchor between the thumb and index finger is not large. According to the accurate judgment of various countries, its side length is about 2.5 cm, and the actual area is 6.25 square meters. cm.

But this is a packaged chip with an unknown core area.

Since this anchor uses ten-nanometer lithography technology, there is an existing example for comparison, and that is Apple's A11 processor.

This is a chip independently developed by Apple in 2017, five years ago.

According to the packaging technology of the Apple series and the core use of wafers for calculation, the core area of ​​the A11 processor is 87.66 square millimeters, and the number of transistors is 43 billion.

According to this data, the number of integrated transistors per square millimeter is 900 million.

It sounds exaggerated, and 5000 million transistors are integrated in an area of ​​one square millimeter, but this is not cutting-edge technology.

The top-level chips of companies such as Intel, Qualcomm, and Apple itself can integrate hundreds of millions of chips per square millimeter.

For example, the A15 processor has 1.7 million transistors per square millimeter.

But this is a silicon-based chip. If it is replaced with a carbon-based chip, the performance of a carbon-based chip is ten times higher than that of a silicon-based chip in theory. The performance of this carbon-based chip can exceed the best silicon chip currently on the market. base chip.

Of course, these are the calculations of various countries, but it is still unknown how many transistors there are in this carbon-based chip.

Because the processing of this carbon-based chip was not broadcast live.

Although this anchor uses a lithography machine for processing, and the process is the same as that of silicon-based chips, there must be differences in fact.

The biggest difference is its packaging, which is related to the size of the core area, and the size of the core area is related to the number of transistors.

At present, except for this anchor, no one knows how big the core area of ​​this chip is.

The more this is the case, the more nervous and disturbed the countries are.

The number of transistors in this carbon-based chip can be said to determine the future situation of the entire world.

Holding the chip in his hand, after observing it over and over for a while, Han Yuan saw the controversy on the barrage.

Smiling, Han Yuan said, "The core area of ​​this carbon-based chip is 130 square millimeters, and the total number of transistors integrated on it is 68 billion."

[One hundred and thirty-seven square millimeters?The core area is only so big? 】

[In this way, the number of transistors integrated per square millimeter is 5000 million, which is less than half of Intel's Core I7 which integrates [-] million transistors per square millimeter. 】

[5000 million, isn't that a little too little? 】

[Ten nanometer technology, what else?And this is a carbon-based chip. 】

[Carbon-based transistors and silicon-based transistors are two completely different things and cannot be generalized. 】

[According to the calculation that the performance of carbon-based chips is ten times that of silicon-based chips, silicon-based chips must integrate 680 billion transistors to be comparable. 】

[I remember that the number of transistors in the Snapdragon 888 can only break through the tens of billions. 】

[I just started with Apple 13, and after checking it, the number of transistors in the a15 processing is 150 billion, no wonder it is so smooth. 】

[I'm sorry, so this carbon-based chip is like a father's level. 】

【It's not just dad, this is his ancestor. 】

[Awesome, I hope I can buy this kind of chip soon. 】

【The end of your apple daddy is coming! 】

[This is more than just the end of Apple, Qualcomm, Intel, Samsung, and AMD will all die! 】

[680 billion transistors, made, I really can't figure out what other silicon-based chips can't be hanged. 】

Hearing what Han Yuan said, the live broadcast room became lively instantly.

A carbon-based chip with 68 billion transistors is simply a blow to dimensionality reduction for silicon-based chips.

As for the western countries who were squatting in the live broadcast room, their hearts suddenly became cold.

Although the performance of carbon-based chips and how many times that of silicon-based chips can not be determined, it is certain that carbon-based chips have better performance than silicon-based chips.

This is not only the consensus of the actual countries, but also confirmed by this anchor.

A carbon-based chip with 68 billion transistors, even if the performance of a carbon-based chip is only three or four times better than a silicon-based chip, it exceeds most chips.

Even if a company like Apple has technology reserves in its own hands, I am afraid that the chip technology reserves are not as good as this small black chip.

For manufacturers of silicon-based chips, the birth of this carbon-based chip can be described as a devastating blow.

The only thing that makes them fortunate is that the carbon-based chip has not bypassed the lithography machine from beginning to end.

This is their advantage. Although the anchor of the [-]-nanometer lithography machine also broadcasted it live, there are no more advanced ones. They still have [-]-nanometer, [-]-nanometer, and [-]-nanometer lithography technology.

As for how long this lead will last, no one can be sure.

Especially the country in the east, after the technical threshold of the ten-nanometer lithography machine is broken, I am afraid that it will soon catch up.

Huaguo's investment and research and development in carbon-based chips, as well as the road it has traveled and led, are things they do not have.

Thinking of this, Western countries have some headaches again.

On the road of carbon-based chips, there are two countries that have traveled the farthest, one is Huaguo and the other is the United States.

But no matter which one rises, it is not a good thing for other countries.

No one wants to see the rise of Huaguo.

And the United States, which is in a recession cycle, returns to its peak, and no one wants to see it.

Like the buried Big Brother is the really good Big Brother.

No one wants to see Big Brother get up again.

In the lithography room, Han Yuan held the carbon-based chip in his hand, with joy, relief, and various emotions that lived up to expectations in his eyes.

Although he can't see the changes in the real world now, he can see the excitement of most of his compatriots from the barrage.

And all of this stems from the chip in his hand that is not much bigger than the thumb cover.

With the chip, he must be able to catch up with or even surpass those countries soon. At least he will not be restricted by others. Han Yuan squeezed the dark sheet in his hand, and his thoughts drifted away.

It is also impossible for him to directly throw out two-nanometer or one-nanometer chip manufacturing technology, although he has it in hand.

But that is not a good thing for the development of Huaguo or even the entire human race.

Abandoning those so-called politics is not a good thing just from the development of science.

The so-called two-nanometer and three-nanometer chip processing technologies currently mastered by humans are actually a lot of tricks.

Not really two nanometers, but a calculation method.

There are several thresholds in the chip manufacturing process.

Ten-nanometer lithography technology is also a threshold, but one advantage is that the light source used by the ten-nanometer industrial chip is the same as the light source used by the three-nanometer chip technology, both of which are extreme ultraviolet light.

The light source and photoresist can be manufactured by themselves. For a country with a complete industrial system, the only limitation is time to increase the chip from ten nanometers to three nanometers.

The reason why South Korea does not want to directly throw out the two-nanometer technology is mainly due to Huaguo.

It is certain that Huaguo's technology in the chip area is quite weak. Even with Haisi, its technology is far inferior to that of Western countries.

The ten-nanometer chip processing technology has already surpassed Huaguo's own technology, and if it is thrown up, there will be a technological gap.

It's like learning advanced mathematics without even learning basic mathematics, which is counterproductive.

Therefore, the ten-nanometer chip technology is the most suitable. On the one hand, it is enough for him to use, and on the other hand, it allows Hua Guo to slowly study and develop his own technology.

In addition, there is another point that those Western countries have not fully mastered the two-nanometer chip processing technology.

2021年5月，IBM发布了全球首个2纳米制造工艺，并在米国纽约州奥尔巴尼的工厂展示了2纳米工艺生产的完整300mm晶圆。

It is estimated that IBM's 2nm process can integrate 3.33 million transistors per square millimeter on a chip, much higher than TSMC's 5nm process of about 1.71 million transistors per square millimeter.

But for this technology, IBM does not have the ability to mass-produce chips.

And this is just a wafer, not a formed chip.

In fact, no country or any company can mass-produce commercial two-nanometer chips at present, even if it is a technical reserve, it has not reached this point.

Because 2nm is a very critical node for chip processing technology, many original technologies are difficult to meet the development requirements, and the chip industry needs to comprehensively solve it from the aspects of device architecture, process variation, thermal effect, equipment and materials.

In the follow-up technology, whether it is structural innovation or the introduction of new materials, it will be difficult to break through, and there will be considerable turning points.

This is also the reason why the Korean won does not want to throw out the two-nanometer technology.

(End of this chapter)