The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide

The media always likes to summarize boring technological breakthroughs through various key nodes with symbolic significance. The immersion method is the key node that is often mentioned in the development of chip technology in later generations.

ASML, which was still a catcher in the industry before this, successfully achieved a technical overtake with the help of an immersion lithography machine, and was never surpassed by other manufacturers after the overtake.

Going back to the time node in 2003, without being strongly insisted by Lin Benjian, ASML did not consider the immersion route, but continued to insist on the research and development of the previous dry lithography machine.

The same point as the later generations is that with American Capital as the leader, ASML, TSMC and Intel have joined together to promote the research and development of lithography machines. Without the soul of Lin Benjian, their technical route is still dry photolithography. engraving machine.

During the flight back to China, Zhou Xin thought deeply about this issue.

Technically speaking, the immersion lithography machine is just a simple sentence, but there is still a lot of technical research and development work to be done in the middle of landing, not that it is as simple as adding a layer of liquid in the middle.

From a dry lithography machine to an immersion lithography machine is a U-turn in the technical route, and Xinxin can completely become the forerunner of this technical route.

As a pioneer, after making achievements, your advanced experience will indeed be learned by your peers. After the technical route of immersion lithography machine is confirmed, everyone will go in this direction.

The technical advantages of the new core lithography machine cannot be maintained for too long, but the benefits of the first mover are also obvious, that is, they can own some key patents in the middle of the immersion lithography machine.

To master the key patents, first, you can rely on key patent fees, and second, in the future, this will be a sharp weapon to restrain overseas attempts to kick Huaguo enterprises out of the chip industry chain.

The more irreplaceable key patents Huaguo enterprises have in the upstream and downstream of the advanced chip manufacturing process, the greater the initiative in the future.

This layer of film will be uncovered sooner or later, instead of waiting for others to reveal it, it is better to use it for the advantage of holding it in your hand.

After Zhou Xin made up his mind, he found Lin Benjian in the entire office area of ​​Xinxin in Zhangjiang High-tech Park.

The core of Xinxin or Zhouxin's global chip industry lies in Shenhai, so Shenhai's inclination to Zhang Jiang in various resources can be said to be very obvious.

In that era, there were quotas for household registration. Even if large state-owned enterprises want to settle in Shenhai, there are quota restrictions. New employees need to work for how many years before they can be assigned. However, Xinxin’s annual quota can be said to be unlimited. It is grass-roots employees who can wait up to two years for their turn.

Shenhai will not let it go until 2021. 985 masters or Shenhai's local 985 undergraduates can directly settle in Shenhai, which is to lower the threshold to a level lower than Yanjing.

For Chinese people, household registration is related to many factors such as pension, medical care, education, etc. Shenhai can give Xinxin such strong support in this regard, not to mention the support in land, water and electricity, finance and other fields.

To be honest, the local banks and financial companies in Shenhai really want to lend money to Xinxin Technology. The problem is that Xinxin Technology has little demand for this.

As for the land, it is precisely because Xinxin is in Zhangjiang that the housing prices in the Zhangjiang area are almost the same every year and go up to a higher level every year. At present, local governments have begun to rely on land revenue.

Not to mention the upstream and downstream industrial chain driven by Xinxin in Zhangjiang, and the jobs created, so Zhangjiang directly approved a whole piece of land for Xinxin. Xinxin is equivalent to building its own industrial park within the scope of Zhangjiang High-tech Park .

At present, this industrial park is not only used by Xinxin itself, but also leased some idle areas to other chip companies.

"Uncle Lin, I think the immersion method will be a feasible technical route. Compared with the current dry lithography machine, water is filled between the exposure area and the lithography machine lens, and refraction can be used to make the wavelength of the light source shorter. "

After working together for three years, Zhou Xin and Lin Benjian have established a sufficient foundation of trust, so he can directly tell each other such technical secrets.

The basis of trust is one aspect. In addition, the interests of both parties are highly bound through Xinxin Semiconductor. Zhou Xin not only gave Lin Benjian the shares of Xinxin lithography machine, but also considered that Xinxin lithography machine is difficult to create in the short term. Benefits, even because of American's suppression can not create benefits for a long time, so in addition to Xinxin lithography machine shares, it also gave the other party Xinxin Technology's chip foundry options.

This is a treatment that TSMC will never offer.

After listening, Lin Benjian said: "I also planned to tell you my thoughts. I was planning to write a few papers with colleagues from Xinxin Lithography Machine and send them to you to persuade you to choose immersion. Well, you call it immersion. In fact, we are going to call it a wet lithography machine."

Yes, Lin Benjian also intends to adopt the immersion technology route on the 130nm process technology lithography machine of the new core lithography machine.

Zhou Xin was not particularly surprised after hearing it. As a top expert in the field of optics, it is not surprising that Lin Benjian thought of wet method. Zhou Xin asked another question: "Why do you want to ask for my consent?

When we were communicating about making a lithography machine before, didn’t we just agree that I will not interfere with the operation of Xinxin’s lithography machine, and will the operation be left to you? "

Lin Benjian nodded: "We did communicate in this way before, but the situation is different now. If we want to take the route of wet lithography machine, we are making enemies of the whole world.

We need to convince suppliers of various components of lithography machines, especially Zeiss, to cooperate with us. We have done pre-research work on wet lithography machines.

Compared with the dry lithography machine, we need to change the lens group, and the previous lens combination may not meet our needs.

A lot of technical work is also involved. For example, after the water is put in, the air may generate air bubbles. The water must be very uniform, but in fact there will be light shining on the water, which will cause a temperature difference, and the temperature difference will cause the water to be uneven. Inhomogeneity of the water will further affect the imaging.

There is a lot of technical work to be done in the middle. The size of the new core lithography machine is too small. In the past, the industry has invested more than one billion US dollars in R\u0026D expenses in the field of dry lithography machines. Now we are equivalent to completely starting from scratch.

Whether the wet lithography machine can really achieve the effect we expect, I am not sure.

This is the fate of betting on the new core lithography machine. "Lin Benjian's eyes showed unprecedented seriousness.

In other words, this technical route has won the bet, and holds a large number of technical patents. Even if it gets stuck through the Wassenaar Agreement, it can sell the patents to other lithography machine companies, and then continue to continue research and development on this technical route. Accumulate technological advantages and build your own patent wall.

Second, when other companies turn around, ASML, Canon, and Nikon are at the same starting line. ASML will not form a monopoly so quickly, and Xinxin lithography can buy some technologies.

After listening to Zhou Xin, he remembered that Lin Benjian insisted on taking the immersion lithography machine route when he was working at TSMC. He had never heard that Lin Benjian had experienced such a fierce inner struggle at that time.

Zhou Xin thought about it again, and felt that it was because he was a part-time worker for TSMC before, so no matter what he did, he would get the same amount of money. Naturally, he would have academic persistence, and he would be more willing to gamble, and his losses would be limited if he lost.

Now Xinxin lithography machine also has his share. Once the technical route is chosen wrongly, the lost time can never be recovered, and the loss is his own.

Zhou Xin was thinking, Lin Benjian saw that the other party did not speak, and continued: "Actually, I have been hesitant, because everyone in the dry lithography machine is going this way, and the same industry companies in the industry are all developing dry lithography machines.

No one has considered the wet lithography machine, one is because the wet lithography machine is a very unpopular technical route, and two researchers, Sweetkes and Rothschild of the Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have done In similar studies, they tried various liquids, none of which were suitable. "

Zhou Xin interrupted: "Water is needed. The refractive index of water is the most suitable. Only water can."

Lin Benjian applauded: "As expected of Newman, he is so keen on everything, yes we also found that water is the most suitable.

Because water is the bulk liquid used in semiconductor production, there is no issue of acceptance.

And we measured the refractive index of water during the pre-research, 1.46, this refractive index is very suitable, now the wavelength of 193 nanometers can be changed to 132 nanometers after being refracted by water, directly skipping 157 nanometers, avoiding this difficulty , This is really a wonderful arrangement of God. "

Why is it difficult to say 157 nanometers? Because when the wavelength is 193 nanometers, the aperture of the lithography machine lens has reached 0.93. The limit of this technology is the 90 nanometer process. To go further, the light source must have a shorter wavelength.

However, the light with a wavelength of 157 nanometers found in the industry has many problems, such as low transmittance, and only a few usable media, such as single crystal calcium difluoride. The problem with this material for making lenses is that it is difficult to manufacture 20 - Perfect crystals of 30 cm in size.

Oxygen in the air will absorb light at 157 nanometers, and the entire path through which the light passes must only be nitrogen, which will cause a lot of inconvenience and increase the cost of manufacturing, and if there is an accidental leakage of too much nitrogen, it will be fatal.

There are many, many problems that need to be overcome with 157nm light. Lin Benjian found that the wet method does not need to change the light source. As a Christian, he feels more and more that this is the arrangement of God.

It was precisely because he thought it was God's arrangement that he wanted to take a gamble.

Of course, when Zhou Xin said the water almost subconsciously, Lin Benjian felt in his heart that a genius is indeed a genius, with a beast-like intuition.

Zhou Xin said: "I think there is no problem, and I will support you. Have you disclosed this technical route to the outside world?"

Lin Benjian shook his head: "Not yet. I'm not sure that this technical route will work. In addition, we need to register some key technical patents. After registration, we may need to publish some articles to win support from Zeiss when we try."

Zhou Xin asked: "Can we keep a low profile as much as possible, whether it is Zeiss or other manufacturers, can we solve it with money?

To put it bluntly, we set a price and they provide services. For example, they cooperate with us to manufacture components that meet our requirements, and we charge a higher price. New chips are lacking in everything else, except for money. "

The reason why TSMC will unite with ASML is because Philips is one of TSMC's shareholders, and ASML was originally a department of Philips.

Lin Benjian said: "We can convince Zeiss. Zeiss only accepts money. As long as our price is high enough, they can produce whatever effect we want."

Zhou Xin thought to himself, it is better to be a manufacturer who only recognizes money, because I am so poor that only money is left.

"Okay, because we are behind other Nikon Canons in terms of process technology, we have to be as low-key as possible if we want to achieve a breakthrough.

We definitely have no way to keep them from knowing, because so many partners are involved, but we will not make any publicity until there are phased results. "

Zhou Xin set the tone, and Lin Benjian nodded: "It's just sporadic news, it's impossible for them to change the technical route.

You must know that Nikon has invested 700 million U.S. dollars in research and development expenses on dry lithography machines. If they change the technical route, it will be worth 700 million U.S. dollars. Shareholders will not let Nikon’s R\u0026D department and executives go.

Even if Nikon knows that wet lithography is the future, they will bite the bullet and go down the route of dry lithography until they fail. "

This is the characteristic of Nihong enterprises, including Tepco later, they have to admit that the nuclear leak actually happened, and it is a matter of not hitting the south wall and not turning back.

Zhou Xin said: "There is also ASML."

Lin Benjian said: "They are now cooperating deeply with TSMC, which is larger than us in terms of volume, but the size is limited.

They have technical advantages, and I believe we can surpass them after we make breakthroughs in wet lithography machines.

ASML also chose a dry lithography machine, or the technical route adopted by all lithography machine companies is a dry lithography machine, and no one chooses a wet lithography machine.

Although the light source with a wavelength of 157 nanometers has various problems, it is a continuation of the technical route that has been in the past after all, and it is different from changing the structure of a wet lithography machine.

Although from the pre-research and my personal intuition, I think the technical difficulties of the wet lithography machine can be overcome.

But what the reality is, I don't know.

On the contrary, you agree with my point of view, and add a point to water as the medium, which makes me much more confident. "

In a sense, it is equivalent to making an enemy of the world. After Lin Benjian made up his mind to develop a wet lithography machine in the original time and space, Nikon even found the president of TSMC to try to stop them.

Of course, Zhou Xin will stick to this technical route. The advantage of opening the sky is that you will never make a wrong strategic plan.

But there is also a problem, that is, after taking this technical route, it is impossible to buy technology from Nikon in the short term.

Zhou Xin said: "My intuition tells me that the wet lithography machine is definitely feasible. Uncle Lin, you probably expect that we will start to invest all resources in the research and development of the wet method technology route.

If there is a lack of funds and I raise additional funds in my own name, how long will it take to complete the research and development of the sample? "

To be honest, the in-depth cooperation between ASML and TSMC, as the major shareholder behind the two companies, Philips plays a crucial role.

Now that Lin Benjian is gone, lithography machine technology will still develop, but the route of technology development is different.