The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 287 Technical Route

The media always likes to summarize boring technological breakthroughs through various key nodes with symbolic significance. The immersion method is a key node that is often mentioned in the development of chip technology in later generations.

ASML, which was previously a pursuer in the industry, successfully achieved a technological overtake with the help of immersion lithography machines, and has never been surpassed by other manufacturers since then.

Back in 2003, despite Lin Benjian’s insistence, ASML did not consider the immersion route, but continued to develop the previous dry lithography machine.

The same thing as later generations is that under the leadership of Americen Capital, three manufacturers, ASML, TSMC and Intel, have joined together to promote the research and development of lithography machines. Without the soul figure Lin Benjian, their technical route is still dry lithography. Engraving machine.

Zhou Xin thought deeply about this issue on his flight back to China.

Technically speaking, the immersion lithography machine is just a simple sentence, but there is actually a lot of technical research and development work to be done in the middle of the implementation. It is not as simple as adding a layer of liquid in the middle.

From dry lithography machine to immersion lithography machine is a U-turn in the technical route, and Xinxin can definitely become the pioneer of this technical route.

Be a pioneer, and after you achieve results, your advanced experience will indeed be learned by your peers. After the technical route of the immersion lithography machine is confirmed, everyone will move in this direction.

The technical advantages of Xinxin lithography machines cannot be maintained for too long, but the benefits of being a first mover are also obvious, that is, they can own some key patents in the middle of immersion lithography machines.

By mastering key patents, firstly, you can rely on key patents to charge money; secondly, in the future, this will be a powerful tool to restrain overseas attempts to kick Chinese companies out of the chip industry chain.

The more irreplaceable key patents Chinese companies have in the upstream and downstream of advanced chip manufacturing processes, the greater their initiative will be in the future.

Sooner or later this layer of membrane will be revealed. Instead of waiting for others to reveal it, it is better to use it yourself to the advantage of holding it in your hands.

After Zhou Xin thought about it, he found Lin Benjian in the entire office area belonging to Xinxin in Zhangjiang High-tech Park.

The core of Xinxin or Zhouxin's global chip industry lies in Shenhai, so Shenhai's preference for Zhangjiang in various resources can be said to be very obvious.

In that era, there were quotas for household registration. Even if a large central enterprise wanted to settle in Shenhai, there were quota restrictions. How many years did it take for a new employee to be in the position? However, Xinxin's annual quota can be said to have no limit, even if It is the grassroots employees who can wait up to two years for their turn.

Shenhai will not gradually open up the settlement system until 2021. Those with 985 master's degrees or Shenhai's local 985 undergraduates can directly settle in Shenhai, which lowers the threshold to a level lower than that of Yanjing.

For Chinese people, household registration is related to many factors such as pension, medical care, and education. Shen Hai can provide Xinxin with such strong support in this regard, not to mention support in areas such as land, water, electricity, and finance.

To be honest, local banks and financial companies in Shenhai really want to lend money to Xinxin Technology. The problem is that Xinxin Technology has little demand in this area.

As for land, it is precisely because Xinxin is located in Zhangjiang that the housing prices in Zhangjiang area are almost the same every year and go up to a higher level every year.At present, local governments have begun to rely on land revenue.

Not to mention the jobs created by the upstream and downstream industrial chain driven by Xinxin in Zhangjiang. Therefore, Zhangjiang directly approved a whole piece of land for Xinxin. Xinxin is equivalent to building its own industrial park within the scope of Zhangjiang High-Tech Park. .

This industrial park is currently not only used by Xinxin itself, but also leases some idle areas to other chip companies.

"Uncle Lin, I think the immersion method will be a feasible technical route. Compared with the current dry lithography machine, water is filled between the exposure area and the lithography machine lens, and refraction can be used to make the wavelength of the light source shorter. "

After three years of working together, Zhou Xin and Lin Benjian have established a sufficient foundation of trust, so he can tell each other directly such technical secrets.

The basis of trust is on the one hand, and the interests of both parties are highly bound by Xinxin Semiconductor. On the other hand, Zhou Xin not only gave Lin Benjian shares in Xinxin lithography machines, but also considered that it would be difficult to create Xinxin lithography machines in the short term. Benefits, even because Americen's suppression cannot create benefits in the long term, so in addition to the shares of Xinxin lithography machine, it also gave the other party Xinxin Technology chip foundry options.

This is a treatment that TSMC will never offer.

After listening, Lin Benjian said: "I originally planned to tell you my thoughts. I was planning to write a few papers with my colleagues at Xinxin Lithography Machine and send them to you to convince you to choose the immersion method. Well, you call it immersion. In fact, we plan to call it a wet lithography machine."

Yes, Lin Benjian also plans to adopt an immersion technology route on the Xinxin lithography machine's 130nm process technology.

Zhou Xin was not particularly surprised after hearing this. As a top expert in the field of optics, it was not surprising that Lin Benjian could think of the wet method. Zhou Xin asked another question: "Why do you want my consent?

When we were communicating about building a lithography machine before, didn't we just agree that I would not interfere in the operation of the Xinxin lithography machine and leave the management to you? "

Lin Benjian nodded: "We did communicate like this before, but now the situation is different. If we want to take the route of wet lithography machines, we are making an enemy of the whole world.

We need to convince suppliers of various components of lithography machines, especially Zeiss, to cooperate with us. We have done pre-research work on wet lithography machines.

Compared with dry lithography machines, we need to change the lens set, and the previous lens combination may not meet our needs.

There is also a lot of technical work involved. For example, the air may produce bubbles after the water is put in. The water must be very uniform, but in fact, light will shine on the water, and the light shining on the water will produce a temperature difference, which will cause the water to be uneven.Water non-uniformity can further affect imaging.

There is a lot of technical work to be done in the middle. The size of the new core lithography machine is too small. In the past time, the industry has invested more than one billion US dollars in research and development expenses in the field of dry lithography machines. We are now equivalent to starting from scratch.

I'm not sure whether the wet lithography machine can really achieve the results we expect.

This is a bet on the fate of new core lithography machines. "Lin Benjian's eyes showed unprecedented seriousness.

In this way, this technology route has won the bet, and it holds a large number of technology patents. Even if it is blocked by the Wassenaar Agreement, it can sell the patents to other lithography machine companies, and then continue to research and develop on this technology route. Accumulate technological advantages and build your own patent wall.

Secondly, when other companies make changes, ASML, Canon, and Nikon will be on the same starting line. ASML will not form a monopoly so quickly. New core lithography machines can buy some technologies.

After listening to this, Zhou Xin remembered that when Lin Benjian was working at TSMC in the original time and space, he insisted on taking the immersion lithography machine route. He had never heard that Lin Benjian experienced such a fierce inner struggle at that time.

Zhou Xin thought about it again and felt that it was because he worked for TSMC before. No matter what he did, he would get almost the same amount. Naturally, he would have academic persistence, become more willing to gamble, and his losses would be limited if he lost.

Now Xinxin lithography machine also has his share. Once the technical route is chosen wrongly, the lost time can never be recovered. The loss is your own.

Zhou Xin was thinking, but Lin Benjian saw that the other party was silent and continued: "Actually, I have been hesitant because everyone is taking this path with dry lithography machines, and the same companies in the industry are all developing dry lithography machines. No one has considered wet lithography. Firstly, it is because wet lithography is a very unpopular technology route. Two researchers, Sweetx and Rothschild of MIT Lincoln Laboratory, have done it. Similar studies, they tried various liquids, none of them worked well."

Zhou Xin interrupted: "We need water. The refractive index of water is the most suitable. Only water can do it."

Lin Benjian applauded: "As expected of Newman, he is so keen on everything. Yes, we also found that water is the most suitable.

Because water is a liquid used in large quantities in semiconductor production, there is no acceptance issue.

Moreover, we measured the refractive index of water during preliminary research, and it was 1.46. This refractive index is very suitable. Now the wavelength of 193 nanometers can become 132 nanometers after being refracted by water, directly skipping 157 nanometers, avoiding this difficulty. , this is really a wonderful arrangement from God. "

Why is 157 nanometers difficult? Because when the wavelength is 193 nanometers, the aperture of the lithography machine lens has reached 0.93. The limit of this technology is the 90 nanometer process. To go further, the light source must have a shorter wavelength.

The light with a wavelength of 157 nanometers found in the industry has many problems, the transmittance is low, and there are only few available media, such as single crystal calcium difluoride. The problem with this material for making lenses is that it is difficult to manufacture 20 -30 cm size perfect crystal.

In addition, oxygen in the air will absorb 157-nanometer light. The entire path of light must be filled with nitrogen, which causes a lot of inconvenience and increases manufacturing costs. In addition, if too much nitrogen accidentally leaks out, it will be fatal.

There are many, many problems that need to be overcome with 157-nanometer light. Lin Benjian discovered that there is no need to change the light source through the wet method. As a Christian, he increasingly feels that this is God's arrangement.

It was precisely because he thought this was God's arrangement that he wanted to take a gamble.

Of course, when he heard Zhou Xin almost subconsciously say that he was drunk, Lin Benjian felt deeply that the genius was indeed a genius, with the intuition of a beast.

Zhou Xin said: "I think there is no problem. I will support you. Have you disclosed this technical route to the outside world?"

Lin Benjian shook his head: "Not yet. I'm not sure that this technical route will work. In addition, we need to register some key technical patents. After registration, we may need to publish some articles to win support from Zeiss when we try."

Zhou Xin asked: “Can we keep a low profile as much as possible, whether it is Zeiss or other manufacturers, can we solve it through money?

To put it bluntly, we set a price and they provide services. For example, if they cooperate with us to manufacture components that meet our requirements, we offer a higher price. New chips are lacking in everything but money. "

The reason why TSMC joined forces with ASML is because Philips is one of the shareholders of TSMC, and ASML was originally a department of Philips.

Lin Benjian said: "We can convince Zeiss. Zeiss only cares about money. As long as the price we offer is high enough, they can produce whatever effects we want."

Zhou Xin thought to himself that it was better to be a manufacturer that only valued money, because I was so poor that all I had left was money.

“Well, because we lag behind other Nikon and Canon in terms of process technology, if we want to achieve a breakthrough, we must be as low-key as possible.

We certainly can’t keep them from knowing because so many partners are involved, but we won’t make any publicity until there are phased results. "

Zhou Xin set the tone, and Lin Benjian nodded: “It’s just sporadic news, it’s impossible for them to change the technical route.

You must know that Nikon has invested US$7 million in R&D expenses on dry lithography machines. If they change their technical route, US$7 million will be wasted. Shareholders will not let Nikon's R&D department and executives go.

Even if Nikon knows that wet lithography machines are the future, they will bite the bullet and go down the route of dry lithography machines until they fail. "

This is the characteristic of Neon Enterprises, including later TEPCO, which would only admit a nuclear leak when a nuclear leak actually occurred.

Zhou Xin said: "There is also ASML."

Lin Benjian said: “They are currently cooperating deeply with TSMC and are larger than us in terms of size, but their size is limited.

They have technical advantages, and I believe we can surpass them after we make breakthroughs in wet lithography machines.

ASML also chose a dry lithography machine. In other words, the technical route adopted by all lithography machine companies is a dry lithography machine, and no one chooses a wet lithography machine.

Although the light source with a wavelength of 157 nanometers has various problems, after all, this is a continuation of the technical route in the past, and it is still different from changing the architecture of wet lithography machines.

Although based on preliminary research and my personal intuition, I think the technical difficulties of wet lithography machines can be overcome.

But what the reality is, I don’t know.

On the contrary, you agree with my point of view and point out that water is the medium, which makes me much more confident. "

In a sense, it is equivalent to becoming the enemy of the world. In the original time and space, after Lin Benjian made up his mind to develop a wet lithography machine, friendly businessman Nikon even found the president of TSMC to try to stop them.

Of course, Zhou Xin will insist on taking this technical route. This is the advantage of opening your eyes. You will never make wrong strategic plans.

But there is also a problem, that is, after taking this technical route, it will not be possible to buy technology from Nikon in the short term.

Zhou Xin said: "My intuition tells me that wet lithography machines are definitely feasible. Uncle Lin, you can probably predict that we will now start investing all our resources in the research and development of wet lithography technology.

If I am short of funds and raise additional funds in my own name, how long will it take to complete the research and development of the sample? "

　To be honest, the in-depth cooperation between ASML and TSMC, as the major shareholder behind the two companies, Philips plays a crucial role.

　　Now that Lin Benjian is gone, lithography machine technology will still develop, but the path of technological development will be different.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)