If aeroengine is the crown of human industry, then chips are the jewels of this crown.

This is the industry's evaluation of chips.

A small chip needs three steps to turn it from sand into an integrated circuit that integrates billions or even tens of billions of transistors.

Design, manufacture, packaging and testing.

Among these three major steps, chip manufacturing is the most difficult, followed by design and packaging and testing are the easiest.

At present, the only thing that can be seen in the high-end chip industry in China is chip design. As for manufacturing and packaging and testing, they have been strictly blocked by Western countries, especially manufacturing.

If you want to make a chip, the first thing you need is the material to make the chip.

Although sand is the material for making chips, it still needs to be processed in complex ways to turn it from silica to pure silicon wafers.

The pure silicon wafer here is not a simple purity, but requires the purity of silicon to reach 99.9999999999 (11 9s) to meet the most basic requirements for manufacturing electronic chips.

People generally divide silicon wafers into three levels in terms of purity: ordinary level, solar level, and electronic level.

Among them, the single crystal silicon used to make semiconductors must have at least the purity of electronics, which is called 11n in the industry.

China has not mastered the technology of producing large electronic-grade silicon wafers at present.

Every year, China needs to import up to tens of millions of large electronic-grade silicon wafers. The total import volume of the entire semiconductor industry, from basic materials to chips, is about 300 billion US dollars, and this amount is still increasing year by year.

This is just the most basic electronic-grade single crystal silicon. In addition, in the high-end chip industry, China can be said to be completely backward in photoresist, lithography machine, packaging and testing materials, etc.

Someone once said this online that even if the manufacturing drawings of the amsl lithography machine are placed in front of Chinese people, Chinese people cannot make lithography machines.

Although this sentence is cerebral palsy, it is not a reason.

Because none of the core parts in high-end lithography machines are produced in China.

Whether it is lenses or light source technology, they are monopolized by developed Western countries.

In fact, if you break the entire semiconductor industry apart bit by bit, you will find that the biggest gap between China and Western countries is not in design, but in materials.

Large electronic-grade silicon wafers belong to materials, photoresist belongs to materials, packaging and testing materials also belong to materials, and the core parts of the manufacturing of lithography machines are still materials after all.

If the materials are not good, everything is false.

But the people who work on the materials also feel wronged.

It’s not that their materials are not good, but that domestic machinery workers are not good enough and cannot produce good equipment to make materials.

The mechanical equipment is not good at making materials, so the mechanical equipment they make will lag behind others.

It sounds a bit funny, but this is indeed the current situation in the materials industry and machinery industry.

But what causes this situation is not because domestic scientific researchers are not working hard, but because we are already in the past century with the old industrial countries.

In addition to the hard work of countless people, this gap also requires time to catch up a little bit.

......

Chensheng Science and Technology Industrial Park.

The office fell into a strange silence, and the quiet Lu Chen seemed to be able to hear Qin Ruolan's breathing.

After a while.

He raised his head: "Didn't Huawei join forces with several universities to build lithography machines? How are you doing now?"

Qin Ruolan didn't expect Lu Chen to ask this question suddenly, and he didn't react for a while.

Huawei said that it is also a victim of North American chip sanctions, but their sanctions are earlier than Chensheng Technology.

Speaking of which, this company is tough enough. If you sanction me, I will make this thing out.

Independence is a bit incredible for comprador companies, but for Huawei, they are indeed doing this.

However, Lu Chen is one of the victims of sanctions.

He was thinking, maybe Mr. Ren didn't want to be so tough, but there was nothing you could do, you didn't have a way out if you weren't tough.

Only by gritting the bullet and walking down can one find a way out.

Seeing Qin Ruolan frowning, he knew that Qin Ruolan should not know the specific news.

Lu Chen was not surprised, after all, this belongs to Huawei's trade secret.

However, judging from the fact that Huawei has not released news to the outside world, the development of high-end lithography machines may not be so smooth.

"Mr. Lu, you want to..."

"That's right," Lu Chen nodded, "I want to get involved in the semiconductor industry."

What he said was light and calm, as if this industry with a market of hundreds of billions of dollars was so worth mentioning in his eyes.

If the new energy vehicle industry is an industry whose market share is expected to reach hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars in the future, then the semiconductor industry is an industry that has reached this market level.

The semiconductor industry is a banned body among North America's banned body.

When you look at all companies in the world in the semiconductor industry, no matter which country it is, the largest shareholder behind it must be Wall Street's capital.

Intel, Apple, Samsung, TSMC...

These well-known technology giants or chip foundries are all companies controlled by North America.

Wanting to force yourself into this industry is tantamount to snatching food from a tiger's mouth.

If North America's sanctions on Chensheng Technology are just a by-the-stop, once Chensheng Technology really takes root in the semiconductor industry, it will become a thorn in North America's side and a thorn in the flesh.

By then, I guess Chensheng Technology will really be treated with Huawei and ZTE.

Hearing Qin Ruolan's concerns, Lu Chen shook his head: "Will the enemy let us go if we don't resist now? Although Chensheng Technology's market value is not high and its reputation is not obvious, the battery management technology we master is one of the core technologies of new energy vehicles.

And the potential of the new energy vehicle industry is so great that everyone can see, otherwise they wouldn't put us on the sanctions list."

That’s right, the current technology giants such as Chensheng Technology are not worth mentioning compared to Huawei and Samsung, but who can tell what its future will be if it masters the core technology of new energy vehicles?

Moreover, Chensheng Technology's layout in the wireless charging pile industry has made North America feel very afraid.

Several major charging pile operators in North America are all using Chensheng Technology’s wireless charging technology.

The fucking thing is that Chensheng Technology’s wireless charging technology is free.

You can't find a way to sanction it.

You can't do your own business, right?

Besides, even if you ban these leading operators and are not allowed to use Chensheng Technology's technology, other companies won't need it?

It can't be banned all of them!

The North American Business Department does not have such great courage and energy either.

Because behind these charging pile operator giants, there are trembling capital forces.

"But...we only have half a year."

Lu Chen knew the meaning of half a year in Qin Ruolan's words.

"In half a year, it is definitely not enough to occupy the core position of the semiconductor industry, but if you want to have enough voice, half a year is enough!"

As he said that, Lu Chen looked at the crowd like ants after get off work in the industrial park through the floor-to-ceiling window, "We must fight this battle and we cannot lose!"

Qin Ruolan took a deep breath: "Where are you going to start?"

"Big silicon wafer!"

The most upstream basic materials in the semiconductor industry.

At present, the company with the highest market share in the large silicon wafer industry is Sakura Guo's Xinyue Daily Chemical.

It is said that the single crystal silicon they produced has reached 13n in purity, which is 99.99999999999999 (13 9s), which is the leader and unattainable.

Of course, their 13n large silicon wafers are not commercialized yet, they are just laboratory products for showing off their muscles.

Just like TSMC claims that they can achieve 3nm process chips, they can actually do it, but being able to do it is different from energy production.

Energy production and commercialization are a long way from the moment it is.

TSMC can achieve 3nm process chips, but it just means that their most advanced level can reach this level, not that they can commercialize it now.

These are two concepts.

However, we can also see how big the gap between the most advanced chip foundry and the domestic ones is.

Huaxin International can currently produce the most advanced process chips, only 14nm, and this 14nm is the same as TSMC's 3nm, and cannot be commercialized.

In other words, Huaxin International cannot even make 14nm chips.

Get back to the point.

Not to mention occupying the voice of the semiconductor industry, high-purity large silicon wafers are currently in short supply in China, especially large-size and high-purity large silicon wafers.

The large size here refers to large silicon wafers with a size of 12 inches.

You should know that the larger the size of the silicon wafer, the more chips a single wafer produces and the lower the manufacturing cost of the chip.

Therefore, at the same purity, large-size silicon wafers are much more popular than small-size silicon wafers.

The current silicon wafer market can be divided into 6 inches, 8 inches and 12 inches in size.

Among them, 12-inch electronic-grade silicon wafers are all monopolized by foreign manufacturers.

Chensheng Technology’s goal is to have silicon wafers of 12-inch or even larger size and higher purity.

To be honest, the difficulty of producing large silicon wafers may be easier than producing lithography machines. After all, production of lithography machines requires thousands of parts.

But even if it is lower than that of a lithography machine, it is almost hell-level difficulty.

Relying on domestic mechanical equipment, even if Chensheng Technology has complete production technology, it will be unable to produce due to lack of production equipment.

As for purchasing advanced equipment from abroad? According to the embargo regulations of the Wassenah Agreement, don’t even think about it.

Therefore, Lu Chen must find another way.

It is best to have a technology that does not require advanced equipment, but also produces high-purity silicon wafers.
Chapter completed!