After Lin Qi left the laboratory of the New Venture Publishing Group, he saw the secretary Xiao Lei hurriedly walking up to him and asked, "What's wrong?"

"It's not a big deal, the main thing is that the national 908 project is currently experiencing difficulties, and I hope to get our help to get the project on the right track as soon as possible. Xiao Lei said.

"Project 908?" Lin Qi not only felt a little regretful.

Historically, at the end of the 70s, China had actually successfully imitated the 8080CPU chip, and in the world, China's semiconductor industry level is not leading, but it is by no means backward.

Theoretically, as long as Intel technology is licensed, the domestic technology at that time can produce CPUs. It's just that even in the late 70s ~ late 90s, during the diplomatic honeymoon period between China and the United States, such high-tech industries are strictly subject to technological blockade, and it is impossible to authorize the X86 architecture patent to China.

It can be said that in the 70s, the semiconductor technology level of Chinese mainland was no worse than that of South Korea and Taiwan. Because, the rapid development of semiconductor technology in South Korea and Taiwan mainly started in the 80s.

The semiconductor industry in Taiwan and South Korea has been booming since the 80s, mainly because the United States has consciously suppressed the Japanese semiconductor industry.

In the 80s, Japan's semiconductor industry was booming, basically, any chip could be made, and it had a complete industrial chain. It is precisely because of the great threat to Japan's semiconductor industry chain. Therefore, under the deliberate suppression of the United States, it led the reshuffle of the international semiconductor industry and transferred a considerable part of the original orders of the Japanese semiconductor industry to South Korea and Taiwan. South Korea and Taiwan, even if the semiconductor industry is getting bigger and bigger, is still deformed, and a large number of equipment and raw materials need to be imported from Europe, America and Japan. Therefore, relatively speaking, the potential of these two regions in the semiconductor industry is actually weaker than that of Japan.

Japan is too strong, so it is deliberately weakened by the United States. Otherwise, it will not be the turn of the semiconductor industry in South Korea and Taiwan.

If only from the perspective of reducing foundry costs, the transfer of production capacity and orders to Chinese mainland in the 80s is more immediate. However, the technology involved in this is not comparable to products such as clothing, shoes and hats, and toys, so the U.S. semiconductor industry has basically not considered supporting China's semiconductor industry.

In fact, the purpose of establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and China is not to help China develop its economy and improve its people's living standards, but mainly to dig into the corners of socialism and make China an ally of NATO, so as to isolate and contain the Soviet Union.

The USSR was getting weaker and weaker, and even, later, the USSR really collapsed. To a large extent, China has lost its initial usefulness. Therefore, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, China's humiliation began to increase.

For example, in the early 90s, the Milky Way incident. In the mid-90s, the Taiwan Strait crisis. At the end of the 90s, there was an incident in which the embassy of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was "accidentally bombed" by a US missile.

However, China knows that it is weak at the moment, so it bears the burden of humiliation. On the one hand, they pretend to be harmless and constantly emphasize the gap with developed countries, and on the other hand, they continue to open up the market, so that Western capitalists can taste the sweetness of the Chinese market and the demographic dividend, so as to constantly transfer production capacity and employment opportunities to China.

On the one hand, the remnants of the Cold War political forces in the West want to find the next enemy to suppress. On the other hand, the capitalists in Western countries, because they make a lot of profits in the Chinese market, are constantly obstructing some actions of the hawkish political forces in the West for the sake of their own interests.

As long as there is a huge profit, the capitalist will sell the rope that hangs him.

In essence, the peaceful development of the first 30 years of reform and opening up was mainly due to the fact that China's economic development in the early stage was very much in the international arena and threatened the interests of big capital and large companies in developed countries. Many large Western companies and big capital, on the contrary, are vested interests in China's economic rise and demographic dividend, and if they lose China's market and demographic dividend, the profit margins of many companies will drop sharply, and the market value of stocks will also fall.

However, advanced semiconductor technology makes it difficult to introduce production capacity into China by attracting investment. In addition, at the beginning of the reform and opening up, domestic private capital was basically engaged in industries that made quick money, and it was actually rare in China to choose the most difficult enterprises with R&D as their core competitiveness, like Huawei.

Because, private capital is unreliable, and overseas advanced technology cannot be brought in. In order to avoid the widening gap between domestic and international semiconductor technology, China has been relying on economic planning to forcibly improve the level of domestic semiconductor technology. As far as semiconductor process technology is concerned, basically, every five-year plan must formulate some new technologies and new processes to ensure that domestic technology has been in progress.

In other technical fields, the five-year round of economic planning should have quickly kept up with the international advanced level. However, the semiconductor industry is relatively special, this industry cannot take 5 years as a time span at all, and in 2 years, the technology has been upgraded by a generation.

If it is purely led by an expert and there is sufficient funding, then a 2-year plan should be made. Set a higher goal every two years to promote the progress of semiconductor process step by step. In this way, we can keep up with the development of the international semiconductor industry.

Of course, it is better to have economic planning to promote it than to have no planning and investment at all. At the very least, even if the plan loses money and fails, in the process of investment, it will cultivate some talents and teams, and bring some new technological breakthroughs and experiences.

No matter how bad the economic plan is, it is better than not investing at all.

The 908 Project is the eighth five-year plan for China's integrated circuit industry. Since 1990, the state has invested more than 2 billion yuan, with the goal of building a chip production line with a monthly output of 12,000 pieces, 6 inches, and 0.8-1.2 microns in Wuxi Huajing. However, due to the long approval time, the project took 7 years from the beginning of the project to the actual production, and the chip industry changed the generation of products in less than two years. By the time it was completed and put into operation in 1997, Huajing's technical level had lagged far behind the international mainstream technology for four to five generations, with a monthly output of only about 800 pieces, and a loss of 240 million yuan in the year of production.

In fact, the 908 project itself is no problem, but the implementation involves a large number of bureaucrats and leadership departments, resulting in the outrageous low efficiency of the project.

In other traditional industries such as steel, cement, and automobiles, it takes 7 years to put into production, which is not much of a problem. The problem is that the semiconductor industry is all about efficiency. It took 7 years to put into production, basically, it was to take money and smash it, but it basically could not create benefits.

The delay in the 908 project led to the failure, but it was not the worst.

What's even worse is the 909 Project, the leaders of the domestic semiconductor industry, who changed their routes, felt that it was difficult to keep up with the progress of the international semiconductor industry by relying on domestic independent research and development. Therefore, it began to introduce Japan's NEC, and invested 10 billion yuan in the joint venture, which is five times that of the 908 project. However, in terms of technology and management, it is completely entrusted to Japan's NEC company, trying to rely on Japan's "advanced experience" to help the development of China's semiconductor industry.

However, the later 909 project was a complete failure, and the Japanese side basically did not let China master the principles of the process and the design of IC products. It's just that the production line eliminated by Japan was moved to China, and China's funds for the development of the semiconductor industry were hollowed out, but it was only exchanged for a backward and loss-making production line, and the production line was separated from R&D and design, which played a much lower role in exercising and promoting China's semiconductor industry than the 908 project.

The 908 project has at least concentrated a large number of Chinese scientific research units and tackled a series of projects. Although the project itself lost 2 billion yuan, it was an independent research and development of some technologies, and the value of these technologies and the value of the team trained were actually far underestimated.

The negative impact of the 909 Project is that the huge losses have hollowed out China's capital for the development of integrated circuits, and it has been pitted very badly by the Japanese, basically hollowing out the capital of China's integrated circuit industry. After that, the state's investment in the integrated circuit industry began to decline sharply. Entering the 21st century, the domestic chip industry has entered a cold winter in the real sense. Even though we see that the process gap between the domestic and international markets is widening, private capital rarely invests because it does not see profits. The national capital is to reduce the scale of industrial investment, only to scientific research units and universities, symbolically allocate some money, and passively follow up the international semiconductor process and design.

Of course, now the 908 project has not been delayed to 97 years of production, because, the current domestic semiconductor industry is more developed than in history, whether it is a talent team, or equipment technology, most of them can be purchased in China, so, 94 years have been put into production. The initial process level is 1.2 microns, but with the mastery and thoroughness of the technology of the production line, it is no problem to achieve 0.8 microns, and even, the semiconductor process is not absolute, if the team can tap the potential, let the process level break through the limit of the equipment, to achieve 0.5 microns, it is not impossible.

For example, later generations of Intel have been stuck in the 10nm process for a long time, and have been using the 14nm process for a long time. Relatively speaking, TSMC and Samsung have begun to enter the 7nm stage. Not to mention, TSMC and Samsung's devices are more advanced than Intel's. In fact, the equipment of the three companies is the same generation of products.

It's just that Samsung and TSMC have eaten more thoroughly about the device and took the lead in tapping the potential of the device. Intel, on the other hand, has been stuck at 14 nanometers because of problems in key places, and has failed to make the device play to its greater potential.

In the 90s, if the equipment of the 1 micron process could not achieve relative accuracy in the initial production, the standard could be lowered and treated as a 1.2 micron process, and the accuracy could be reduced to increase the yield. Over time, not only will the yield rate become higher and higher, but if the technicians of the production line make some improvements and tap the potential, the process can be upgraded to 0.8 microns with minimal changes without the need to replace the lithography machine. If the whole team is relatively good, it is not impossible to use a more backward lithography machine to tap the potential and improve the process to 0.5 microns.

To put it simply, lithography machines and other equipment are just equipment, and the potential of production equipment can be tapped depends on the level of management and technical team of the chip factory.

This is the same as embroidery, with the same embroidery needle, some people can embroider gorgeous and delicate pictures on the cloth. A layman who doesn't know how to use it can only prick people with embroidery needles.

"What's going on with Project 908 now?" Lin Qi asked.

"It's put into production, but I can't find an order!" Xiao Lei said, "Huajing's leaders came to Hong Kong to ask for orders!"

"Okay, I'll go see you!" Lin Qi did not give extra favor just because the Huajing factory was a 908 project. First of all, the current 908 project, not to mention the international comparison, is also more than two generations behind.

Xinchuangxin and Lishan Semiconductor, the current mainstream process level, is already 0.5 microns. After a few years of tapping the potential, there is no need to replace the lithography machine, and some production lines should be able to reach the level of 0.35 microns or even 0.25 microns.

Compared with the two leading enterprises, Huajing's position is very embarrassing and chicken.

Of course, no matter how bad Huajing is, it is a Chinese semiconductor company, if it can help, Lin Qi is still willing to help.