Silicon is one of the most abundant elements on Earth, making up 26.4% of the total mass of the Earth's crust, second only to oxygen (49.4%), which is in first place. However, there is almost no silicon element on the earth, because silicon is more active at high temperatures, and the earth was in a high temperature environment for a long time in the early days, so the silicon on the earth is converted into silica, silicate and other compounds through chemical reactions.

With the advancement of human technology, it has gradually become possible to reduce silicon to elemental matter. Modern technology usually uses quartz stone (silicon dioxide) to carry out redox reaction to obtain silicon element. Silicon elements can be divided into crystalline silicon and amorphous silicon according to whether they are crystallized or not, and crystalline silicon can be divided into monocrystalline silicon and polycrystalline silicon according to different crystallization conditions.

Wafers, which are the basic materials used to produce ultra-large-scale integrated circuits such as processors and memories, are actually high-purity monocrystalline silicon wafers. In addition to the semiconductor industry, another major user of silicon is the photovoltaic industry.

The commercialization of the photovoltaic industry originated from the energy depletion caused by the oil crisis in the seventies, so renewable solar energy quickly entered the attention of scientists. However, the explosive growth of the photovoltaic industry is due to the German government's large-scale subsidies for new energy since 2004.

Then the rest of Europe began to follow, which led to the rapid rise of the global photovoltaic industry. But with the subprime mortgage crisis that swept the world in 2007, the world economy fell into a downturn. European countries then began to gradually reduce relevant subsidies, and the photovoltaic industry, which was once the darling of high-tech investment, quickly became yesterday's yellow flower.

In the 80s, the photovoltaic industry was only a small lotus, and solar cells had just begun to be used in some small electronic products such as calculators. But the amorphous silicon technology developed for solar cells is maturing. In fact, if the photoelectric conversion efficiency of silicon is alone, from high to low, it is monocrystalline silicon, polycrystalline silicon and amorphous silicon.

Monocrystalline silicon is used to make solar cells. Although the light conversion efficiency is the highest, it is also the most expensive to manufacture. It's nowhere near as cheap as amorphous silicon. So from the 70s onwards, it was amorphous silicon technology that first attracted a boom in R&D.

Silicon is used as a substrate in the semiconductor industry, where high-purity monocrystalline silicon is first drawn into silicon rods and then sliced into wafers. Then, through a series of complex processes such as CVD (chemical vapor deposition), lithography, etching, a large number of tiny circuits are fabricated on the wafer to form VLSI circuits.

However, in TFT liquid crystal, it is necessary to attach a layer of silicon film to the substrate glass of the substrate, and then manufacture an integrated circuit to control the liquid crystal display on this layer of silicon film. The process of preparing wafers obviously cannot be used for the manufacture of silicon films on LCD panels. In contrast, CVD equipment used in semiconductor processes to form stable solid thin films. It can solve the problem of covering silicon film on glass substrates.

However, in addition to being indispensable in the semiconductor industry, CVD equipment is also used in the photovoltaic field to make amorphous silicon thin films. In fact, this amorphous silicon thin film technology was first used by the University of Dundee in the United Kingdom to trial produce amorphous silicon TFT as early as 1979.

With the help of the British, Japanese and European companies and scientific research institutions began to quickly follow suit, and the development of amorphous silicon TFT to drive LCD displays. However, there is still a big gap between laboratory trial production and industrial-scale production, and Sharp, which took the lead in large-scale investment, stepped on the thunder.

Solar cells are not sensitive to the cleanliness requirements of CVD equipment at all, but the cleanliness requirements of TFT liquid crystal are even more stringent than those of the semiconductor industry. Therefore, the CVD equipment used in the photovoltaic industry is simply used to produce TFT LCD panels with a slight improvement, and the product yield rate obtained is simply miserable. The real way to do this is on the basis of semiconductor CVD equipment. In combination with amorphous silicon coating technology, we have redeveloped a dedicated CVD equipment.

Lam's primary purpose in wanting to acquire Applied Materials is to gain the company's back-up experience in the CVD equipment field. Due to the precision of the semiconductor industry, the process is complex, from the early wafer preparation to the later chip packaging and testing. The equipment used in the whole production line is dozens or even hundreds.

Among them, lithography machines, etching equipment and CVD equipment account for nearly half of the sales of the entire semiconductor equipment market. Lam Research has previously focused most of its efforts on the etching equipment it started with, as well as the Pearl lithography machine technology throughout the semiconductor equipment process.

After the acquisition of GCA, Lam Research became a company in the field of etching equipment and lithography machines. All of them are already at the top level in the world. If Applied Materials can be won this time, Lam's layout in the field of semiconductor equipment will be even deeper.

Keep in mind that Applied Materials has a much older history than Lam. It was founded back in 1967, a year before Intel Corporation, which was founded in 1968. In addition to technical excellence in the field of CVD equipment. Applied Materials also has strong capabilities in gas phase epitaxy furnaces and plasma implantation equipment. You must know that the future generations of Applied Materials can be the world's largest semiconductor equipment supplier for 15 consecutive years, and it is by no means in vain!

When Lin Jieping flew to Hong Kong, it was already the morning of the next day. Instead of flying directly from San Francisco to Hong Kong, he switched to Japan, where he spent the night in Tokyo. Sharp is naturally not stupid, when they find that there is a huge yield gap between their LCD production line and Jiachuang Technology, a subsidiary of the Oriental Research Institute, they will naturally do everything possible to find the reason.

And the differences in production equipment are certainly the first focus of Sharp's research. After Sharp's investigation and analysis, the VCD equipment provided by Lam Research for Jiachuang Technology is likely to be the key. Therefore, Sharp was naturally in a hurry and wanted to find Lam Research to understand the relevant technical situation.

From the perspective of Jiachuang Technology Company, it naturally hopes that its own factory can always maintain a technological lead. But Lam Research lives by selling equipment, and it can't sacrifice its own interests for the sake of Jiachuang Company. So since a Japanese manufacturer came to the door, Lam Research naturally couldn't ask for it.

In order to show that he attaches great importance to it, Lin Jieping made a special detour to Japan this time and personally went to meet with the representatives of Sharp Company. Of course, Lin Jieping is just expressing a gesture of willingness to cooperate, after all, it is the other party who has asked for it now.

At this time, Lam Research doesn't need to be in a hurry at all, just wait for how to slaughter the other party.

So Lin Jieping did not stay in Japan for a long time, he flew to Hong Kong early the next morning after having dinner with the president of Sharp in Tokyo. His first task now is to convince Li Xuan to support his move to acquire Applied Materials! )