Perfection of Rebirth

Chapter 824 Chips

"Boss Jiang, the situation may not be as optimistic as you imagined." Hearing Jiang Hui's words, Zhu Zhengfeng couldn't help pouring cold water on him.

Although Jiang Hui did not express his thoughts, "Oh, it turns out that the chip industry is not difficult", but judging from the tone of his words just now, it seems that domestic companies such as SMIC are engaged in chips. If Guanghui Group enters this In terms of field, if you spend money to buy equipment and recruit people, you will get results.

This frightened Zhu Zhengfeng.

If Jiang Hui threw tens of billions into it, and then went to Zhu Zhengfeng to create a chip company close to the international mainstream level, then Zhu Zhengfeng would be very worried.

"I will stay in Shenzhen for about a week this time. Take this opportunity to introduce me to the core components of the mobile phone industry," Jiang Hui said.

"No problem, let's continue talking about the chip situation first. In China, investing in the chip industry faces at least three problems." Zhu Zhengfeng continued his analysis.

"The first is equipment. There are many types of manufacturing equipment involved in chip production, and the prices are very expensive. The most important of them is the lithography machine. There are not many manufacturers of lithography machines. In the era of line widths above 45 nanometers, island countries Canon and Nikon can manufacture it, but when the chip process technology advances to less than ten nanometers, Canon and Nikon currently do not have the lithography machine technology in this area.”

"Is the most advanced lithography machine technology monopolized by some European company?" Jiang Hui interjected.

In the previous life, the problem of the lithography machine was once a hot topic on the Internet. Jiang Hui had heard some related information more or less, but he couldn't remember the specific details.

"Yes, the most advanced lithography machine manufacturer in the world is ASML. It is estimated that in a short time, it may become only ASML. ASML is an independent company spun off from the semiconductor division of Philips in the Netherlands. The main shareholder is Philips. , but Samsung, TSMC and Intel all have stakes.”

"ASML provides lithography machines and related services for semiconductor manufacturers. The TWINSCAN series is currently the world's highest precision, highest production efficiency, and most widely used high-end lithography models. At present, most semiconductor manufacturers in the world purchase from ASML. TWINSCAN models, such as Intel, Samsung, TSMC, SMIC, etc." Zhu Zhengfeng continued to introduce.

"In addition to the TWINSCAN platform that is currently committed to development, ASML is actively cooperating with semiconductor companies such as IMEC and IBM to develop next-generation lithography technologies, such as EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithography), for critical dimensions at 22 nanometers or even lower. integrated circuit manufacturing.

At the same time, emerging technologies such as double exposure based on the traditional TWINSCAN platform are also in the process of further maturity and research and development.At the end of last year, Samsung announced the successful production of 36nm flash memory, which is based on double exposure technology. "

"Samsung's 36nm chips have already started production?" Jiang Hui asked a little surprised.

"Yes, SMIC has just obtained the 45nm technology authorization, and has not even begun to understand the technology, let alone factory construction and mass production, but Samsung, as an international mainstream chip manufacturer, has already begun mass production of 36nm chips. ", Zhu Zhengfeng said with a little emotion.

"The first question you mentioned is equipment. Could it be that ASML refuses to sell lithography machines to China?" Jiang Hui asked.

"Mr. Jiang, you guessed half right. It cannot be completely said that ASML is unwilling to sell lithography machines to China. ASML's annual output of lithography machines is only a few dozen units, and each unit sells for more than 1 million US dollars. It can only be given priority. Supply its major shareholders," Zhu Zhengfeng said.

"Is it Intel?"

"Yes, just the three most advanced chip manufacturers: Samsung, TSMC, and Intel. If Chinese companies have to wait in the back when ordering, the delivery period will be nearly two years. After delivery, the production line will be debugged and the process adjustment will take about a year. Taken together, it will take at least three years from placing an order to mass production. It is said that the US government has requested that ASML not sell the most advanced equipment to China, but through the normal business logic and process just mentioned, China’s Chip processing equipment is at least three years behind the most advanced chip technology."

"For the electronics industry, three years is a very long time. At that time, advanced equipment and generalization, people already have more advanced equipment," Jiang Hui said after understanding Zhu Zhengfeng's words.

"It is true, so I said that the first problem is equipment. Even if we start investing in chips now, it will take two or three years until the products come out. At that time, our products must be far behind Intel and others."

"The most advanced ones can't be produced for the time being, and the common ones can't be considered. After all, don't all of our chips need to use the most high-end international chips, but I'll talk about the specifics later, so you can continue first."

"Then the second problem I want to talk about is talent. Without enough talent and technology, even if all the most advanced production equipment is handed over to China's chip manufacturing companies immediately, they will not be able to mass produce the most advanced chips within three years. Chip manufacturing process.

In fact, SMIC currently has a complete set of equipment for the 130nm process, and their 300nm process is not neat.Therefore, compared with equipment, the bigger bottleneck lies in the lack of technology and talents. "

"The chip production process is extremely complicated. It is the most complicated product produced by human beings. There is no one. With the most advanced production equipment, it is like giving us the most advanced brushes and paints, but we still cannot draw a good-looking picture. to draw, because I can't draw at all.

We don't know how to write, how to crochet, how to paint.The production of chips with chip production equipment requires a lot of process research and development. It is necessary to know what materials to use, what shape to make, how to layout, etc., in order to ensure the yield rate.

However, there are too few domestic talents who understand these technologies, and our own university microelectronics major is too far away from the advanced level of the industry, and there are too few qualified engineers trained. "

"It seems that if we want to enter this industry in the future, we have to recruit a large number of talents from Baodao, South Korea and other countries with high salaries."

"I think this may be the fastest way."

"Brilliant Mobile Phone Research Center can first set up a chip team and do some preparatory work. We are definitely going to enter the chip industry. The more difficult it is, the more necessary it is, or if someone gets stuck one day, then I have a headache," Jiang Hui said.

"Well, Mr. Jiang, you said that you want to enter the chip industry, so I have to talk about the third issue, which is funding. Of course, judging from the current profitability of our Guanghui Mobile, even a chip factory worth billions of dollars, We are also capable of building, but it is not enough to rely on a factory alone. Several billions of dollars have been invested in a row, and the output cannot be seen in a short time. Once there is a problem with our capital chain, we will be very passive.”, Zhu Zhengfeng said.

(End of this chapter)