After two, Cao Yang took Pei Siqing and his daughter to visit Fang Qiong.

This time, Teacher Fang's cheeks became more sagging, and he became thinner and thinner.

Seeing her like this, Pei Siqing couldn't help but secretly wipe her tears.

According to the doctor, Professor Fang Qiong's cancer has spread all over her body now, and she basically doesn't have much time to live. The key is that she has no appetite yet. Due to the invasion of cancer, Fang Qiong feels that her whole body is as painful as being pierced by ants every day, and her bone marrow is about to be eaten up.

The pain and not eating much, so people look particularly thin, skinny and bone-skinned in the later stages, and look particularly pitiful.

Who would have thought that this young old lady was in high spirits and energetic a few years ago?

So cancer patients are really in pain, and those who are truly happier are those who have Alzheimer's disease or cerebral infarction. Death is like a dream, without much pain.

Like Professor Fang, your brain is very clear, but the more you wake up, the more painful it is, because you realize that cancer is eroding your life at all times, and the only thing you can do is to muster up the courage to face it.

Professor Fang is a very strong person. Even if he never shows any pain in front of Cao Yang and the others, but in this case, Cao Yang will often feel that she is really in pain.

However, every time I see Cao Yang, especially Cao Sining, Teacher Fang seems particularly happy.

After all, Cao Sining is also a child she watched as she grew up.

As soon as Cao Sining entered the ward, she enthusiastically climbed onto Professor Fang's bed and then lay in her arms to eat apples.

The relationship between the two is very good, and they look like they are their mother-in-law.

Pei Siqing couldn't help but scold Cao Sining and said, "Come down quickly, don't mess around here."

Fang Qiong stopped quickly, "How is this a mess? It's good to just do it. Later, grandma will tell you a story."

"Okay, okay." Cao Sining smiled happily.

She likes to listen to Fang Qiong telling stories the most. This old lady tells stories vivid and interesting, and there are many philosophy in it.

"Do you still remember? You were born in this hospital back then. You were only a little older when you were born. I wanted to hug you, but your parents didn't agree.

snort."

Speaking of this, Professor Fang gently shook Cao Sining in his arms, then let out a cold snort in his breath, glaring at Cao Yang and Pei Siqing with resentment.

Pei Siqing sneered twice, embarrassed to say something.

Often at this time, Cao Yang would tease, "Teacher Fang, where did she get the memory when she was just born?"

...

March was really a month for Cao Yang to make him feel ups and downs. During this month, he first received a notice about Teacher Fang's condition, and then a few days later, Cao Yang received another call from the American Amsl Company.

On the phone, the other party's president told Cao Yang that the current Asml company has been able to produce extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, that is, EUV lithography machines.

Although it is successful in research and development, it is still a long way from production. ASML will also do a series of testing work, improve later, and compress manufacturing costs, and seek better solutions...

All of these take a lot of time.

So the other party replied to Cao Yang that it is expected that two EUV lithography machines can be delivered within 5 years.

Bomi Company owns 10% of the shares in ASML and is considered one of the company's major shareholders, so it has the right of first refusal. Moreover, Cao Yang had signed an agreement with them many years ago. As long as the EUV research and development is successful, one Bomi Company will be given priority at that time.

Although ASML didn't know what Boss Cao was using this at that time, after all, Bomi Company did not produce chips at that time.

However, as they began to make smartphones, laptops, tablets, and then acquired SMIC, the senior executives of ASML finally understood Mr. Cao's good intentions and had arranged the situation early, but these puzzles were not complete enough at that time, so everyone still couldn't see it.

Now anyone with a discerning eye knows that Bomi Group is about to enter the semiconductor industry.

This area can be said to be a blind spot for China and is the weakest place.

So ASML's lithography machine can be said to be just in handy.

Although the technology has been blocked, at least the equipment can still be purchased.

So after receiving the call, Cao Yang was happy for a long time. This was indeed exciting news. So he quickly placed an order with ASML and asked them to give priority to shipments to Bomi Company. Two lithography machines worth US$200 million will be delivered within about 5 years.

After hanging up the phone, Cao Yang still felt a little uneasy.

I always feel that things are going too smoothly, and it doesn't look like the beautiful style he encountered in his previous life.

Or, they may not have been aware of it, so they did not intervene directly?

Cao Yang thought for a few seconds, then shook his head and gave up this idea.

If Jobs was alive before, it would probably be better. Now that Jobs died, it is obvious that Bomi is the dominant player in the field of smartphones, and countless pairs of eyes are staring at them. I wonder how many people hope that Bomi's smartphone will collapse.

So how could Dapiaoliang give up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? If nothing unexpected happens, Cao Yang is sure that they will soon face Bomi on chip manufacturing issues.

...

A few days later, just after a while, Cao Yang received a call from Zhang Rujing, Xinzhong.

"By the way, I told Professor Fang you before." Cao Yang smiled after receiving the call, "She is very concerned about the chip issue. Although Teacher Fang doesn't know much about chips, she knows that this thing is related to the future of the country and is a very important technology."

Zhang Rujing was silent for a while, and then said, "Yes, Mr. Cao, this is what I want to say. Professor Tang Chuanli's team of Qing Dynasty University has developed a stable ultraviolet light source. Do you want to come and have a look together?"

"ha?!"

Cao Yang was stunned for two seconds, and he was so happy that he couldn't stop talking, and he looked extremely surprised.

"Really or not?"

Mom!

I didn’t expect that I could do something that I didn’t do in my previous life?!

But don’t pretend to cheat money!

...

Extreme ultraviolet light source is one of the three major problems in EUV development.

Some people describe lithography machines like this: "This is a product that combines top technologies in the fields of mathematics, optics, fluid mechanics, polymer physics and chemistry, surface physics and chemistry, precision instruments, machinery, automation, software, and image recognition."

We can regard the lithography machine as a high-precision negative exposure and printing machine, which is responsible for exposing the "negative film", that is, the designed chip circuit diagram, to the "photo paper". This "negative film" has a professional name, called "mask". The "photo paper" here is the silicon wafer, the base material of the chip, which makes the chip; the final "photo" obtained after exposure is the chip.

There are only three most critical components in the basic structure of the lithography machine: a light source emitter, an optical lens used to adjust the optical path and focus, and an exposure platform for placing silicon wafers.

It is precisely because the working principle and basic structure of lithography machines are not complicated that there were no special lithography machine manufacturers in the early stages of the development of the chip industry.

Chip companies only need to go to the photography equipment store to buy ordinary photo washing and printing equipment, and then process and transform it by themselves. Later, with the continuous increase in demand, the emergence of smartphones has put forward higher and higher requirements for chips.

After so many years of development, although Bomi has the highest chip design capabilities in the world, it still lacks chip manufacturing technology.

Or, the source of all this is stuck here in the lithography machine.

This brings us to the famous "Moore's Law" in the chip industry. Moore's Law means that every two years, the number of transistors on a chip of the same size will double.

In other words, the performance of chips has also doubled. But Moore's Law is not an objective natural law, but an empirical law formed by the chip industry in fierce competition: once the R&D speed of chip companies lags behind this pace, it will be ruthlessly eliminated. Moore's Law has dominated the chip industry for half a century since its inception in 1965.

For half a century, the number of transistors on chips has been increasing exponentially. If the chip is also compared to "photos", then the pixels of this photo are increasing exponentially. Correspondingly, the accuracy of the lithography machine used to expose and print "photos" must also be higher and higher. Otherwise, no matter how exquisite the "photos" you design, it will be useless if they cannot be printed.

For example, in the future, Bomi's smartphones need to use chips below 10nm level. To produce such chips, the most advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography machine is needed.

What level of accuracy should it reach? First of all, if you imagine light as a carving knife, the shorter the light wave, the sharper the carving knife will be.

1 nanometer is equal to one millionth of a millimeter, and 7 nanometer chip means that only a few nanometers are allowed to be spaced between each component, which is equivalent to one ten thousandth of the thickness of a hair.

To expose such a chip, a special light source, that is, extreme ultraviolet light, has a wavelength of only 13.5 nanometers, which is one-tenth of the visible light wavelength.

However, extreme ultraviolet light sources are difficult to manufacture.

It was not until the beginning of this year that Asmay developed the first extreme ultraviolet lithography machine.

However, this process is much earlier than Cao Yang's previous life.

The second technical difficulty of lithography machines is the optical lens used to adjust the optical path and focus. Highly precise optical lenses are one of the core components of lithography machines. Therefore, two other lithography machine manufacturers, Nikon and Canon, are both the best in the production of optical lenses.

Asmay does not produce lenses themselves, and its lens comes from German optical master Carl Zeiss. How precise is this lens? If the lens is enlarged to the size of an earth, it only allows a bulge like a hair. So some people say that this may be the smoothest artificial object in the universe.

If you suffer a loss in China, you will suffer a loss in the absence of a complete industrial chain, especially the industrial chain required for optical components. Camera and camera are basically produced by foreign companies, and optical components can rarely be polished to such fineness.

So there is still a long way to go in this area.

The last difficulty lies in [precision]

The chip cannot be completed in one exposure, but different masks must be replaced and multiple exposures must be performed.

Only a few nanometers are allowed between each component of the chip. This means that the error of the mask and silicon wafer alignment each time must also be controlled at the nanometer level.

After exposing an area, the exposure platform where the silicon wafer is placed must move quickly, and then expose the next area.

To achieve nano-level alignment in rapid movement, the difficulty is equivalent to rushing from BJ Tiananmen to Shanghai Bund in the blink of an eye, just stepping on the predetermined footprints, and the dishes are still flat and cannot be sprinkled.

Of course, there are also a series of peripheral technical problems, such as ultra-clean factory buildings with 10,000 times clean outdoor air, magnetic levitation devices that prevent machine jitter, and supporting computing lithography software.

This is why lithography machines are called the "jewel in the crown of the semiconductor industry."

Making an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine is challenging the limits of human industrial civilization.

...

When Cao Yang heard that the team of Professor Datang of the Qing Dynasty could actually develop a stable ultraviolet light source, he was excited to see the naked eye.

Because this incident is really great, it means that Boss Cao has not lived in vain for his whole life, nor has he invested in the development of the chip field in vain. It is already amazing to be able to promote the solution of one of the three problems.

So Cao Yang quickly replied to Zhang Rujing that he must visit.

...
To be continued...