Black Technology Editor

Chapter 62 Large Silicon Wafers

If Aviation Development is the crown of human industry, then the chip is the jewel in the crown.

This is the industry's evaluation of the chip.

It takes a total of three steps for a small chip to turn from sand into an integrated circuit integrating billions or even tens of billions of transistors.

Design, manufacture, packaging and testing.

Among these three steps, chip manufacturing is the most difficult, followed by design, and packaging and testing is the easiest.

At present, in the domestic high-end chip industry, the only thing that can be sold is chip design. As for manufacturing and packaging and testing, they are all strictly blocked by Western countries, especially manufacturing.

To make a chip, the first thing you need is the material for making the chip.

Although sand is the material used to make chips, it needs to undergo complex processing to transform it from silicon dioxide into pure silicon wafers.

The pure silicon wafer here is not simply pure, but requires the purity of silicon to reach 99.999999999 (11 nines), in order to meet the most basic requirements for manufacturing electronic chips.

People generally divide silicon wafers into three grades in terms of purity: ordinary grade, solar grade, and electronic grade.

Among them, the single crystal silicon used to make semiconductors must have at least an electronic grade of purity, which is called 11N in the industry.

Currently, Huaguo does not have the technology to produce electronic-grade large silicon wafers.

Every year, Huaguo needs to import tens of millions of large electronic-grade silicon wafers. The total import volume of the entire semiconductor industry, from basic materials to chips, is about 3000 billion U.S. dollars, and this amount is still increasing year by year.

This is only the most basic electronic-grade single crystal silicon. In addition, in the high-end chip industry, Huaguo is completely behind in photoresists, photolithography machines, packaging and testing materials, etc.

Someone once said on the Internet that even if the manufacturing drawings of the AMSL lithography machine were placed in front of the Huaguo people, the Huaguo people would not be able to manufacture the lithography machine.

Although this sentence is cerebral palsy, it is not without reason.

Because none of the core components in the high-end lithography machine is produced by Huaguo.

Both lens and light source technology are monopolized by Western developed countries.

In fact, if you break down the entire semiconductor industry bit by bit, you will find that the biggest gap between Huaguo and Western countries is not in design, but in materials.

Electronic-grade large silicon wafers belong to materials, photoresists belong to materials, packaging and testing materials also belong to materials, and core parts for manufacturing lithography machines are still materials in the final analysis.

If the material is not good, everything is false.

But those who work on materials also feel aggrieved.

It's not that their materials are not good, but that the domestic machinery workers are not strong enough to make good equipment to make materials.

And those who do machinery are weird materials, and the materials they manufacture are not good enough, so the mechanical equipment they manufacture will lag behind others.

It sounds a little funny, but this is indeed the status quo of the materials industry and the machinery industry.

But what caused this situation is not that domestic scientific researchers do not work hard, but that we have a gap of nearly a hundred years with established industrial countries.

This gap, in addition to the hard work of countless people, also takes time to catch up.

Chensheng Technology Industrial Park.

The office fell into an eerie silence, and the quiet Lu Chen seemed to be able to hear Qin Ruolan's breathing.

half an hour.

He raised his head: "Didn't Huawei plan to cooperate with several universities to develop lithography machines before? How is it doing now?"

Qin Ruolan didn't expect Lu Chen to ask this question suddenly, and she couldn't react for a while.

Speaking of which, this company is strong enough, so I just want to get this thing out.

Independence is unbelievable for comprador companies, but for Huawei, this is exactly what they are doing.

However, Lu Chen was one of the victims.

He was thinking, maybe Mr. Ren doesn't want to be so rigid, but there is no way, you have no way to survive if you are not rigid.

Only by biting the bullet and going down, will it be possible to find a way out.

Seeing Qin Ruolan frowning, he knew that Qin Ruolan probably didn't know the specific information.

Lu Chen was not surprised, after all, this was Huawei's commercial secret.

However, judging from the fact that Huawei has not released information to the outside world, the development of high-end lithography machines may not be so smooth.

"Mr. Lu, you want to."

"That's right," Lu Chen nodded, "I want to get involved in the semiconductor industry."

He spoke lightly, as if this industry with a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars was so trivial in his eyes.

If the new energy vehicle industry is an industry whose future market share is expected to reach hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars, then the semiconductor industry is an industry that has already reached this market level.

The semiconductor industry is a taboo among North American taboos.

Looking at all companies in the semiconductor industry in the world, no matter which country the company is in, the largest shareholder behind it must be the capital of Wall Street.

Intel, Apple, Samsung, TSMC
These well-known technology giants or chip foundries are all companies controlled by North America.

If you want to force your way into this industry, it is tantamount to taking food from a tiger's mouth.

If it is said that North America’s sanction against Chensheng Technology is just incidental, once Chensheng Technology really takes root in the semiconductor industry, it will really become a thorn in North America’s side and a thorn in its flesh.

At that time, it is estimated that Chensheng Technology will really have the same treatment as Huawei and ZTE.

Hearing Qin Ruolan's concerns, Lu Chen shook his head: "Could it be that if we don't resist now, the enemy will let us go? Although Chensheng Technology's market value is not high and its reputation is not obvious, the battery management technology we have mastered is a new energy source. One of the core technologies of the car.

The potential of the new energy vehicle industry is so great that everyone can see it, otherwise, they would not have put us on the sanctions list. "

That's right, the current Chensheng Technology is not worth mentioning compared with technology giants such as Huawei and Samsung, but who can tell what its future will be like if it has mastered the core technology of new energy vehicles?

Moreover, the layout of Chensheng Technology in the wireless charging pile industry is even more fearful in North America.

The current major charging pile operators in North America are all using the wireless charging technology of Chensheng Technology.

The most damning thing is that the wireless charging technology of Chensheng Technology is free.

You want to punish it, but you can't find a way.

You can't take your own business, can you?
Besides, even if you ban these leading operators and forbid them to use the technology of Chensheng Technology, other companies will not use it?

They can't all be banned!

The North American Department of Commerce does not have such courage and energy.

Because behind these charging pile operator giants, there are all terrifying capital forces.

"But...we only have half a year."

Lu Chen knew what Qin Ruolan meant by half a year.

"Half a year is definitely not enough to occupy the core position of the semiconductor industry, but if you want to have enough voice, half a year is enough!"

As he said, Lu Chen looked at the ants-like crowd in the industrial park through the floor-to-ceiling windows, "We must fight this battle, and we must not lose!"

Qin Ruolan took a deep breath: "Where are you going to start?"

"Big wafer!"

The most upstream basic material in the semiconductor industry.

At present, the company with the highest market share in the large silicon wafer industry is Shin-Etsu Daily Chemical of Sakura Country.

It is said that the purity of the monocrystalline silicon they produced has reached 13N, which is 99.99999999999 (13 nines), which can be said to be unique and unmatched.

Of course, their 13N large silicon wafers cannot be commercialized yet, they are just laboratory products, used to show muscles.

Just like TSMC claims that they can make chips with a 3nm process, they can actually do it, but being able to do it and energy production are two different things.

There is still a long distance between energy production and commercialization.

TSMC's ability to produce chips with a 3nm process only means that their most advanced level can reach this level, not that they can commercialize it now.

These are two concepts.

However, here we can also see how big the gap between the most advanced chip foundries and the country is.

The most advanced process chip that Huaxin International can currently produce is only 14nm, and this 14nm, like TSMC's 3nm, cannot be commercialized.

In other words, currently Huaxin International cannot even manufacture 14nm chips.

Closer to home.

Regardless of occupying the right to speak in the semiconductor industry, there is currently a shortage of high-purity large silicon wafers in China, especially large-size, high-purity large silicon wafers.

The large size here refers to large silicon wafers up to 12 inches in size.

You should know that the larger the size of the silicon wafer, the more chips can be produced from a single wafer, and the lower the manufacturing cost of the chip.

Therefore, under the same purity, large-size silicon wafers are far more popular than small-size silicon wafers.

The current silicon wafer market can be divided into 6 inches, 8 inches and 12 inches in terms of size.

Among them, 12-inch electronic-grade silicon wafers are all monopolized by foreign manufacturers.

The goal of Chensheng Technology is to produce 12-inch or larger silicon wafers with higher purity.

To be honest, the difficulty of producing large silicon wafers may be simpler than producing lithography machines. After all, thousands of parts are needed to produce lithography machines.

But to push a material that is already made to the extreme, even if the difficulty is lower than that of a lithography machine, it is almost hell-level difficulty.

Relying on domestic machinery and equipment, even if Chensheng Technology has complete production technology, it will not be able to produce due to lack of production equipment.

As for purchasing advanced equipment from abroad?Under the embargo regulations of the Wassenaar Agreement, don't even think about it.

Therefore, Lu Chen had to find another way.

It is best to have a technology that does not require the use of advanced equipment and can produce high-purity silicon wafers.

Only in this way can Chensheng Technology break the blockade of the West in the high-end semiconductor industry in one fell swoop, so that Lu Chen can have the capital to negotiate when facing North American sanctions.

(End of this chapter)