In addition to Xu Zhihai, a professor who looks extremely strong and more like a soldier, two other big bulls who are not famous below him were also invited.

They are Cao Lei, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering who has participated in the design and manufacture of domestic independent aero engines, and a lecturer in industrial engineering at Beijing University, who is in his fifties this year.

and Shen Changming, one of the designers and manufacturers of Beidou navigation satellite remote sensing chips and a professor of microelectronics at Wuhan University.

These three team leaders are all super bulls in the industrial field and rank among the top in the domestic industrial talent pool.

As the name suggests, the Extreme Precision Department is the process and result of a series of activities such as manufacturing, improvement, and assembly of equipment and instruments that are extremely accurate.

Therefore, Zhong Zixing's requirements for talents in this department are not only related to the industrial flower lithography machine and industrial pearl chip in the semiconductor field, but also the same precision industrial crown - engine talent is also a hard demand.

Anyway, now the speed of the return of funds from Neutron Star Technology is getting faster and faster, even if it loses the licensing fees of many giants such as Samsung, Apple, Inteer, etc., it can still support a small amount of investment in research and development.

When there are orders for various chips, you can be responsible for your own profits and losses and get rid of the capital supply of several other parts.

The founding purpose of Extreme Precision is somewhat similar to that of the Micro Integration Department.

The latter is to design circuits on microscopic particles, while the former is to assemble infinite microscopic materials into various instruments that are extremely precise, such as nanorobots.

These sectors are interrelated and mutually reinforcing.

"To be honest, the company's chip design jumps out of the four mainstream architectures X86, ARM, RISC-V, MIPS, and is unique, and I was shocked when I first saw it." Professor Shen Changming connected the etching machine and wiped the sweat on his head.

"The professor has won the award, and if he wants to get rid of the constraints of foreign countries, he has to develop a new architecture by himself......"

How easy is it to develop a new architecture?

So many engineers in China, who can be ranked at the top in the world, have also appeared in these years, but they can't get out of the shadow of the four mainstream architectures.

If it weren't for Zhong Zixing's vision having already jumped out and having countless knowledge as a foundation, he might be using the open-source RISC-V architecture now.

The Micro Integration Department was established for nearly five months, the first two months were to study the twin star architecture provided by Zhong Zixing, and the last three months were to discuss and design circuits on the architecture.

In the laboratory, several heads of the microintegration department and the head of the precision department almost silently prayed in their hearts that the design would be successful.

If it fails, it is a serious blow to everyone's confidence.

Of course, the probability that the chip that flows out cannot operate is very low, and Zhong Zixing has personally modified a few imperfect places.

Once successful, Neutron Star Technology will no longer need to purchase chips from outside, and all Andromeda supercomputing devices will be provided by itself.

In terms of performance, they are confident that they are comparable to the first-class Intere processors, of course, they are certainly not comparable to the 'Xeon' that has been cut off, after all, Intere, a giant that has been working in the semiconductor field for decades, and it is not a matter of time and a half to completely catch up, and it is necessary to break through the blockade on the top lithography machine.

Professor Xu Zhihai put on a mask and a white coat, and commanded dozens of technicians in the laboratory to feed the silicon wafers into the equipment at the same time.

"Let's go!"

At the sound of an order, the huge laboratory was filled with equipment and began to operate.

......

The difficulty of the chip manufacturing process is the most difficult in the industry!

This is one of the fundamental reasons why the world's major powers today want to compete in this field, but they have never been able to catch up with those who are already the strongest players in the world.

The instrumentation needed to make a chip is not just a lithography machine.

The lithography machine is only one of the core equipment of chip manufacturing, which is divided into several types, including those used for chip production, those used for packaging, and projection lithography machines used in the field of LED manufacturing.

Among them, what China can't keep up with is the kind used for production, because the instrument is too precise, and the high-end lithography machines required by domestic wafer factories are completely dependent on imports.

Canon, Nikon, and ASML!

Nikon has gradually declined, and ASML (ASML) has the light source provided by the United States, German lenses and world-class mechanical technology, and there is no doubt that it has monopolized the ranks of high-end lithography machines.

The lithography machine of Neutron Star Technology is neither ASML, nor Poor Energy or Nikon, but from Hucheng Microelectronics.

Therefore, there will only be 90 nanometers in the manufacturing process, and the performance can only be highlighted by architecture and design.

Don't think that with a lithography machine, the chip can be successfully manufactured.

In addition to the lithography machine, many steps are required to make a chip, such as plasma etching machine, reactive ion etching system, and ion implanter.

Think that's the end of it? The next process will make people's scalp tingle.

A single crystal furnace that injects inert gas, a wafer dicing machine that cuts wafers into small pieces, and a wafer thinning machine that removes excess substrate material from the back side minus the thickness before packaging.

There are also meteorological epitaxy furnaces for chemical vapor precipitation, low-pressure chemical vapor deposition systems, oxidation furnaces that provide an oxidation environment, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition systems, magnetron sputtering tables for high-speed sputtering in low-pressure environments, chemical mechanical grinders, wire bonding machines that solder leads with base plates, and probe test benches for packaging and testing!

There are dozens of difficult steps to go back and forth, and that's not counting the manufacturing of the chip design...... That's why it's known as the industry with the highest threshold in the world.

Design alone requires a lot of manpower, money, and time, and now manufacturing requires a lot of manpower and money.

Without tens of billions or hundreds of billions of basic R&D funds, ordinary companies really dare not casually enter the bottomless abyss of the semiconductor field, purely in their crimes.

In the past six months, Neutron Star Technology has invested more than 10 billion yuan in architecture and design, and billions of dollars have been spent on the purchase of these equipment.

If it weren't for the foundation of a deep foundation and a huge supply of cash flow, which companies would be able to survive? I have long been deterred by this project, which does not produce results but requires a lot of investment.

Neutron Star Technology has not only entered the field of design, but also intends to develop its own major semiconductor manufacturing equipment...... The slightest mistake could bring down the whole company.

The design requires a large amount of money, and the small-scale flow of experimental error correction requires hundreds of thousands, and there is still a risk of failure, and it is necessary to invest, develop, and manufacture related equipment from the foundation......

It's so difficult!

Even if Zhong Zixing has enough confidence, he can't help but feel frightened.

vertex