At this time, Boss Jia didn't seem to care about the VCD, because he had been entangled by Ni Guangnan at this time.

"Boss, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we have to take ASML!" Ni Guangnan kept repeating in Boss Jia's ear, and it made Boss Jia's ears calloused.

Just yesterday, ASML announced a world-renowned news in the semiconductor industry, that is, ASML launched the FPA2500, a 193nm wavelength scanning and exposure machine, optical lithography resolution, reached the level of 70nm, this world-renowned invincible achievement.

ASML is the world's top lithography machine manufacturer and produces the world's best lithography machines.

The lithography machine is one of the most important equipment for making an electronic chip.

As we all know, a computer chip, to put it bluntly, is a giant integrated circuit, on which hundreds of thousands, millions, or even tens of millions of microtransistors are placed.

The size of a computer chip, but about 1/4 of the palm of the hand, if you want to integrate tens of millions of microtransistors on such a small computer chip, so as to have powerful computing power, each transistor is unimaginably small.

How to integrate these microcrystals on such a small chip has become the highest technology for computer chip manufacturing!

Nowadays, all chips are made of high-crystalline silicon, so the first step in making a chip is to purify the quartz into pure silicon, then make silicon crystal rods, and finally slice it into wafers that are specifically needed for chip production.

The second step is to coat the wafer with a thin film. Wafer coating film can resist oxidation and temperature resistance, and this layer of film is the template for tens of millions of microtransistors in the future.

The third step is the time for the lithography machine to show its skills, through the lithography machine, the wafer lithography is developed and etched.

The film that was previously coated on the wafer is particularly sensitive to ultraviolet light in nature, and as soon as it encounters ultraviolet light, it will immediately soften, and then it can be cleaned off by simple cleaning.

The role of the lithography machine is equivalent to presetting a pattern of various microtransistor arrangements, in which each line is directly obscured, and then when such ultraviolet light shines on the wafer.

The film that has been exposed to ultraviolet light is directly softened and dissolved, and can be rinsed off directly using a special solvent.

The part that has not been irradiated by ultraviolet light can still maintain the presence of that part of the film, so that it continues to adhere to the surface of the wafer.

This is somewhat similar to the principle of a seal, where you put a stamp on the surface of an object and a detailed pattern appears on the paper.

The fourth step is to add impurities, implant ions in the wafer, generate the corresponding P and N semiconductors, and carry out various special treatments on those positions that are not covered by the film, and then produce microtransistors with different functions.

Finally, it is inspected and packaged, and then a chip with powerful computing power is born.

The principle of the lithography machine, simply put, is to make the lines and functional areas required for chip production. The light emitted by the lithography machine is used to expose the thin slice coated with photoresist through the mask with the pattern, and the photoresist will change its properties after seeing the light, so that the pattern on the photoresist is copied to the thin sheet, so that the thin film has the function of electronic circuit diagram, which is the role of lithography.

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If you don't understand the above paragraph, don't worry, here's a simpler explanation for easy understanding.

To put it simply, the computing power of a chip depends on the number of microtransistors on the wafer of the chip, and the more microtransistors, the more computing power the chip has.

For example, the supercomputers in various countries contain an incredible number of microtransistors in their chips. For example, in 2018, one of the most powerful supercomputers in the United States had 73.728 trillion transistors on its chip. Of course, this is made up of 9,216 CPUs in parallel, and it is not so many transistors engraved on the same chip.

Generally speaking, by 2020, the CPU of home machines contains more than 1 billion microtransistors, and in 1993, this number was also more than 10 million, and in 30 years, the number of microtransistors has increased more than 100 times.

But the size of a CPU is so big, only 1/4 of the area of the palm, then the volume and size of each microtransistor is bound to be extremely small, in 2020, the standard for this size is 5 nanometers. And in 1993, the standard for this size was 140 nanometers.

The function of the lithography machine is to engrave nano-level microtransistors on a small wafer. Of course, the specific process is not so simple as engraving, if you want to understand it in detail, you can look at the above explanation, if you are not interested, just skip it, anyway, you can understand it this way.

Therefore, for a lithography machine, how small the ultimate optical resolution he can engrave is, then how strong the ability of this lithography machine is.

As mentioned earlier, in 1994, the highest size of the lithography machine was a lithography machine with an optical resolution of 140 nanometers.

But now, AMSL has launched its latest model, a super lithography machine capable of reaching an optical resolution of 70 nanometers.

And now, the opportunity to buy this super lithography machine has come, at this time AMSL publicly sold two such super lithography machines, and it is the only two in the first half of 1994, if you can buy these two super lithography machines, it is equivalent to having the world's leading chip manufacturing capacity, even ADM and inter, there is no such chip manufacturing capacity.

So Ni Guangnan pestered Boss Jia, and he must Boss Jia buy these two machines...... If you can't buy two, you have to buy at least one.

"My teacher, are you crazy? What are you buying that thing for? Even if we buy this machine back, we have the world's top chip manufacturing capacity, but we don't have the corresponding CPU design capabilities, this machine can only eat ashes when we buy it, what's the use of this? ”

"Didn't I already buy a 200-nanometer lithography machine for the lab? That cost me $40 million, can't you use that one first? Boss Jia said with a depressed face.

"Boss, I didn't buy it for it, I used it to dismantle, and I used it to eat technology!" Ni Guangnan said with a serious face.

"I ......" Hearing the words, Boss Jia was a little speechless, he had bought a lithography machine for the laboratory before, and now this lithography machine has become a part and distributed in various laboratories.

This lithography machine, which is worth 40 million US dollars, didn't even help Boss Jia earn a penny, so he was dismembered.

"Boss, that machine is just the world's ordinary level, and the technology used is also very backward, our scientific research team has eaten all the technology in it, so we still need the most advanced 70nm lithography machine to give us the technology!" Ni Guangnan said.

"What! 200nm technology, have you eaten it thoroughly? Boss Jia looked at Ni Guangnan in shock, it was only 8 months since the machine was bought, and it had already been eaten now?

"Almost, our team has compiled a multi-million word data sheet, would you like to read it? You're good at physics now, you should be able to understand these things! Ni Guangnan said with a smile.

"Don't, I don't have time to look at ......" Boss Jia quickly shook his head, and then asked, "Can you produce the 200nm lithography machine?" ”

"Give me another year!" Ni Guangnan said, "Although the technology of the lithography machine has been thoroughly understood, there are still many difficulties in the production process, give me another year, I can overcome these difficulties and produce our own 200 nanometer lithography machine!" ”

"Again, if the boss can you get a 70nm lithography machine this time, give me another 2...... 3…… 4. In 4 years at most, I guarantee that I can conquer the 70nm lithography machine for you! Ni Guangnan said with an oath.

"Four years!" Boss Jia muttered, according to Boss Jia's memory, this period of development history of lithography machine is particularly famous.

From 1993 to 2002, for 10 years, the production process of the lithography machine was fixed at 70nm, and it was impossible to go further.

It wasn't until 2002 that a new manufacturing process was proposed, and lithography machines began to develop by leaps and bounds, and finally evolved to an accuracy of 5 nanometers.

In other words, if Ni Guangnan is really like he said, he can get the technology of the lithography machine in 4 years, then in 1998, Huaxia's lithography machine production process will be able to catch up with the world level, reach the 70 nanometer production process, and then keep it flat in the next 4 years at least and have the world's top level.

And this is extremely important for Daqian, which means that Daqian has a chance to catch up with the gap between old CPU manufacturers like AMD and inter.