The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 133 Lithography machine technical route

Hu Zhengming in 1999 couldn't understand why Zhou Xin wanted to make a lithography machine. In his opinion, this thing has a very high technical content, but the income is not so high.

Lithography machines will be crucial to Huaguo in the future. It is related to whether their advanced process chips can be successfully manufactured and whether they can obtain sufficient computing power in the AI ​​era.

1999 was regarded as the golden age of economic globalization, probably at the beginning of the golden age, and no country would want to do all the upstream and downstream of the semiconductor supply chain by itself.

Now the president of ASML may not expect that they will be able to monopolize the field of lithography machines in the future, and what he can't understand is that ASML will leave China's billions of dollars in the future and not do it.

It's money on the floor, and American won't let you bend down to pick it up.

Not to mention semiconductors, but for more complex industrial products, the upstream and downstream supply chains are all over the world. Whether it is Boeing or Airbus aircraft, their supply chains come from hundreds of countries around the world.

There are too many semiconductor supply chains. How many products of first-line manufacturers come from imports, and what is the process of domestic substitution? These are things that cannot be summarized by any securities firm research report.

American wants to kick Huaguo out of the global supply chain. This is a crazy thing. Huaguo wants to fully localize the semiconductor industry chain, which is also crazy.

"If you don't do something because it's difficult, then what's the point in life?

When Angry Birds sold 10 copies, I knew my life was in easy mode.

When Riot Games sold 5% to Bill Gates at a valuation of $40 million, my life entered a completely self-editing mode.

When I sold Quora to Time Warner for $700 billion, I lost the meaning of my life.

Professor, I need to find some difficult things to do now, to find the meaning of my life.

In my opinion, the lithography machine is a very interesting direction. Doing it now, buying early technology from Nikon, there is still a lot to do.

The later it is done, the harder it is to do it. "

Hu Zhengming roughly knew what Zhou Xin wanted to do, and many Huaguo engineers had similar ideas.

Zhang Rujing of SMIC is the most famous in this aspect in later generations. According to his self-report, even if Shida Semiconductor is not sold to TSMC by investors, he will return to China to start a business sooner or later.

In later generations, a large number of Chinese engineers went to work in Huaguo. Money was a secondary factor, and helping Huaguo to build the semiconductor industry was a more important factor.

Before the hot money poured into the semiconductor field, Huaguo's engineers were no more paid than Wanwankai.

Hu Zhengming thought for a while and then said: "I suggest that you can talk to Ben Jian from the real purpose. Ben Jian's teacher during his doctoral period was Yang Zhenning's younger brother, Yang Zhenping.

He should have the idea of ​​coming to Huaguo to work, but when he was young, Huaguo had no scientific research environment.

When he retired from IBM and started his own business, Huaguo was still in a state of waste.

To put it simply, integrated circuits are a relatively high-end manufacturing industry. Huaguo did not have an environment that allowed integrated circuit companies to survive before.

Now that there is an environment, Ben Jian is older and older. "

Lin Benjian was 57 years old at this time, and had already passed the golden age of scientific research. No one thought that Lin Benjian, who was nearly [-] years old, would be able to achieve crucial scientific research breakthroughs in the field of lithography machines in the next few years.

Zhou Xin: "Professor, don't worry, in terms of remuneration, the conditions I offer must be enough to satisfy Senior Lin.

I am already very satisfied that you can help me match up, as for whether you can persuade the other party, it can only be left to fate. "

According to Zhou Xin's understanding, Lin Benjian is a devout Christian who would pray before making important decisions.

Whether this can convince the other party really depends on luck.

Speaking of the company founded by Lin Benjian, most Chinese websites think that the company he founded is called Lingchuang Technology. In fact, this company is called Linnovation.

"Professor, this is a paper I wrote during this time, a paper in the field of analog ICs.

Before you let me read a lot of papers in related fields, this time I designed an analog-to-digital converter for direct sequence spread spectrum communication.

You can take a look first, I will be here today, if we have any questions, we can communicate at any time. "

"Ling Bo, hello, I've been hearing about you from Professor Hu, this time you come to California, I want to treat you to a meal.

At the same time, I also have questions to ask you. "

Zhou Xin invited Lin Benjian to eat at a famous Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco. Lin Benjian was a Chinese born in Ho Chi Minh City.

Lin Benjian was puzzled when Zhou Xin asked him to have dinner with him, because he had nothing to do with him.

Lin Benjian was no stranger to Zhou Xin. When Zhou Xin first came to American, Lin Benjian heard Hu Zhengming mention that he recruited a student from Yenching University when he came to San Francisco for a meeting.

I heard this name later, from the media, in the news that Bill Gates took a stake in the fist game, the name Newman Zhou appeared again.

There should be very few people who have the same name as American, but Lin Benjian didn't ask Hu Zhengming at that time.

Later, the emergence of Quora made Lin Benjian confirm that Newman was Zhou Xin. At the same time, he also envied his friend for recruiting such a good student.

He has only been in American for a year, and in terms of achievements, Zhou Xin has almost become synonymous with Chinese in American.

Because it is September now, all Yan University students who are new to American to study abroad will be asked by their classmates if they recognize Zhou Xin.

It is Hu Zhengming's blessing to recruit a student like Zhou Xin. Lin Benjian never thought that he could have any intersection with Zhou Xin.

It's just that he didn't expect that Hu Zhengming would help Zhou Xin ask him to have a meal with him this time when he came to San Francisco to participate in the Optics Conference.

No matter what he thinks, Lin Benjian can only think that the other party does have academic problems and wants to ask him face to face.

Lin Benjian said politely: "Newman, it is clear that his research is mainly in the field of semiconductor components, and of course it also includes EDA circuit design and analog ICs.

I think you are his student, and I have read the papers you published before, which are actually related to the direction of semiconductor components. What I mainly do is the overlapping direction of optics and semiconductors.

I may not be able to answer your question. "

In terms of academic status and age, Lin Benjian is higher than Zhou Xin, and in terms of social status, Zhou Xin is undoubtedly too tall.When you don't know how to address each other, it's always right to call each other by their English name.

Zhou Xin: "I know your research direction. You have been working in IBM before, doing ultraviolet lithography research. After leaving IBM to start your own business, you are also engaged in research in the field of lithography machines.

I am very interested in lithography machines recently, so I want to chat with my seniors. "

Lin Benjian doesn't speak Chinese very well, so the two communicate in English.

"Now the mainstream light source of lithography machines is KrF, but you always think that ArF is the future development direction.

In fact, no one in the industry has adopted ArF, whether it is Nikon or Canon, they have been investing R&D funds in KrF.

I want to know why you are so optimistic about ArF, senior. "

ArF and KrF are deep ultraviolet light sources used in lithography technology. At present, all mainstream manufacturers use KrF.

ASML cooperated with TSMC, and under the leadership of Benjian Lin, it was the first to invest in ArF on a large scale. This is also one of the key factors for ASML to achieve technological monopoly in the future.

Speaking of which, I would like to say a few more words. Everyone knows that the lithography machine is a key device in the semiconductor manufacturing process, which is used to transfer the design pattern to the wafer.

However, many people are not so clear about how the lithography machine works.To put it simply, a layer of photosensitive photoresist is coated on the surface of the wafer. This photoresist will undergo a chemical reaction under ultraviolet light and then change its solubility.

The domestic lithography machine is stuck, and the photoresist is also stuck.

A photomask is then used, a transparent carrier with tiny patterns on it that represent the different components and interconnections in the integrated circuit.A photomask is placed between the photolithography machine's light source and the silicon wafer.

The light source (KrF or ArF) in the lithography machine shines on the photomask.

The light passes through the open areas of the pattern, and the blocked parts correspond to the pattern.

The light then passes through projection optics, which scales and focuses the pattern onto the photoresist-coated surface of the silicon wafer.

After exposure, the light-sensitive material in the photoresist undergoes a chemical change.

In positive resists, the exposed areas become more soluble; in negative resists, the exposed areas become less soluble.

Dip the silicon wafer into a developer solution, which dissolves away the chemically changed areas of the photoresist.In this way, the pattern on the photomask is accurately transferred to the photoresist on the surface of the silicon wafer.

After the photoresist pattern is formed, a complete chip will be built layer by layer through etching, doping or metal deposition steps.

There is no online encyclopedia, no, there is already a Quora encyclopedia. In short, being able to accurately name ArF and KrF proves that Zhou Xin still has relatively in-depth research in the field of lithography machines.

After all, many practitioners in the field of lithography machines do not know that there is a technical route of ArF.

"The wavelength of ArF is 193nm, while the wavelength of the KrF light source is 248nm, and the shorter wavelength helps achieve higher resolution and finer patterns," Lin said.

Zhou Xin asked: "But when ArF specifically deals with smaller process nodes, there will be more linear fluctuations and irregularities.

Although ArF has a shorter wavelength, it is more uncontrollable.

This is a taboo for industrial production.This is the most important reason why Nikon and ASML, after trying ArF, are unwilling to continue to invest in research and development costs in this direction. "

As soon as Zhou Xin finished speaking, Lin Benjian's face changed drastically. Zhou Xin knew about ArF and KrF, and he could understand this.

Because these are all published in open journals, anyone who is interested in lithography machines has the opportunity to read them.

But Zhou Xin was able to tell exactly why he didn't invest in the direction of ArF, even the practitioners had no way of knowing the content.

　This chapter has a lot of popular science content, but there is no way, if you don’t explain how the lithography machine works, everyone will be confused.

　　The content of popular science is 400 words in total, which is only 2 starting coins, which is not bad after calculation.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)