The next ten hours.

Liang Mengnan et al. adjusted the parameters a total of five times, and finally obtained five yield values, all of which were in line with the actual situation.

In other words, Xinghai Technology's "virtual factory" technology is a reliable, proven, and useful super technology that can be called a "miracle skill".

"With this virtual factory, we will adjust, improve, and optimize our chip manufacturing process in the future, and the cost will be one-tenth of the previous one-tenth, and the time will be one-tenth of the previous one-tenth, and the cost of trial and error will be greatly reduced!" Liang Mengnan was so excited that he was incoherent.

"The yield of our 14nm chips has not been improved in the past two years, not that the yield of 95% is satisfied, enough, the foundry of TSMC and Sanxin, the yield of their 14nm chips are above 98%, and the gap of three or four percentage points means that they can get a few percent more profits, or maintain a few percentage points advantage over us in price, so that we do not have a competitive advantage in price."

"Moreover, the foundries of TSMC and Sanxin not only have high chip yields, but also have higher production efficiency than us, their production line can bring 300,000 chips off the assembly line a day, and we have a maximum of 250,000, and the production efficiency is not as good as others."

"The most fundamental reason for their leadership is that they have money, they have the conditions to continue to trial and error, adjust and improve the manufacturing process of chips, improve the production efficiency of chips, and have a lot of money to invest in the research and development of the next generation of manufacturing processes.

"But Zhongxin International can't, we don't have money, we don't have people, and we need profits to maintain the company's operation, the 14nm production line is the company's biggest source of profits, and we can't stop for a moment! Not to mention the continuous improvement of the production process...... So the yield has been stuck there. ”

"Now Xinghai Technology's virtual factory perfectly solves the dilemma we encountered! We can do process improvement experiments in the virtual factory, adjust parameters, add new processes or reduce cumbersome processes, and explore high-speed production methods through computer simulation! ”

"The simulation speed of the supercomputer is very fast, and in reality, we have explored the harvest of a month, which is not as good as this supercomputer running for three days, and the efficiency of exploring better processes is greatly improved!"

"Our chip yield and production efficiency will definitely improve!"

Yang Ming, the technical director, excitedly elaborated on the significance of the virtual factory, and said loudly: "With the virtual factory, the technical gap between Zhongxin International and the world's first-class chip foundry will be narrowed tenfold, and we will definitely be able to catch up with them in two years at most!" ”

"yes, we'll catch up with them."

Zhang Weijing and the others all nodded, and Yang Ming's statement was not exaggerated at all, assuming that Zhongxin International was 20 years behind TSMC and Sanxin, and it was ten times faster to catch up, and there was every hope of catching up with them within two years.

Catch up on the cost at a fraction of what it used to be.

Virtual factory, it's so scary!

When it comes to the chip manufacturing process.

Is the process really that mysterious?

As long as there is a good lithography machine, what good chip can't be made?

In fact, this statement is very false.

The lithography machine is only an important process of chip manufacturing, not the whole of chip manufacturing.

There are more than 2,000 processes, which are the core technology of chip manufacturing.

This requires the foundry to have a strong system integration and precise coordination of production capabilities, and the exploration process of thousands of processes is definitely more difficult than the research and development of core technologies.

Don't underestimate the chip foundry industry because of the word "foundry" in the chip foundry, if there is no chip foundry, those lithography machine production plants, etching machine factories, ion implanter factories...... and other core equipment suppliers, none of them can manufacture chips.

The chip manufacturing process of the chip foundry is also the most important and core technology.

In addition, in the field of chip manufacturing, core equipment, including lithography machines, foreign countries lifted the embargo on country Z a few years ago, except for the supply order is somewhat backward, chip companies in country Z, as long as they have money, can buy the most advanced lithography equipment.

The reason why there is no embargo on country Z is that on the one hand, several domestic research institutions in country Z have overcome a number of key technologies in the field of lithography machines. On the other hand, with advanced lithography machines, it does not mean that first-class chip manufacturing technology has been mastered.

For example, most of the lithography machines used by the current international chip giants are still 193nm immersion lithography machines produced by Asmail in the Netherlands, and the existing 65nm, 45nm, 32nm, 28nm, and 16/14nm chips are all made with 193nm immersion lithography machines (as for the lithography machine with such a large wavelength, why can it make chips with smaller processes?). That's the power of advanced machining).

For chips with 10nm, 7nm and even smaller processes, a 13nm extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machine is required to ensure stable performance and high yield...... This kind of lithography machine is not banned from country Z abroad, and Zhongxin International ordered an EUV two years ago and spent 120 million dollars! The goods that arrived last year were used for the research of more advanced process chips, but no substantial breakthrough has been made so far.

Now with the R&D addition of Xinghai Technology's virtual factory, after the yield and production efficiency of 14nm chips are improved, they will move towards 10nm, 7nm and even smaller 5nm, Zhang Weijing and others expect that they will be able to make a major breakthrough in a short period of time!

"Mr. Zhang, Brother Liang, why don't we cross 10nm and go directly to 7nm? With an artifact like a virtual factory in hand, although it was difficult at first, we had an infinite number of opportunities for trial and error, and our trial and error cost was extremely low! Over the generation, directly do 7nm, to reach the most advanced level with TSMC, Sanxin, once the breakthrough is completed, we will inevitably shake the entire industry! ”

Yang Ming suddenly opened his mind and came up with a whimsical idea.

Everyone's eyes lit up.

"I think...... You can try! ”

"We have actually explored the 10nm chip almost, and the yield rate is miserable, but at least we have made a few qualified and usable chips, and we should not encounter too many detours if we use these as technical reserves and directly enter 7nm."

"It's really a bold try to make a leap forward! If our 7nm chip is successfully developed, not only the industry will be shocked, but the confidence of shareholders will soar, and the stock price will skyrocket! ”

Zhang Weijing's face turned red with excitement.

It doesn't matter if you try to fail, at most you will delay a little time and waste some R&D costs, and it is worth the risk compared to the potential huge benefits!

The strength of the "R&D artifact" of the virtual factory has injected great confidence into Zhang Weijing and others, which can be imagined.