Chapter 1695 Overtaking (Part 2)

The 90nm process is already the strongest production technology on the market. Although everyone knows that the virtue of Intel is to sell a generation, reserve a generation, and develop a generation. They must have more advanced technology than the 90-nanometer process in their hands, but no matter how leaps and bounds they make, it is impossible to go from The upgrade of the ninety-nanometer process to forty-five nanometers is so exaggerated.

According to the chief engineer's understanding, the manufacturing process of Intel's next-generation Xeon chips should be between 70nm and 65nm. The specific data is not clear, but the range is generally clear. The new technology being developed may fall around fifty nanometers.

Guo Tailai suddenly asked to test the 45nm process? Although the design of the lithography machine this time is designed according to the technical limit, it must be the result that can only be achieved under ideal conditions. In essence, as a machine, a lithography machine must have manufacturing tolerances, which is impossible. No matter how perfect the design is, it is impossible to achieve zero tolerance.

According to the calculations in the design, if this lithography machine can be perfect, the manufacturing process should be around forty nanometers. However, if one nanometer of error is added in part processing, or one nanometer of assembly error is added in assembly, the combination of countless parts will definitely bring about an error of more than tens of nanometers.

Ninety nanometers is already very surprising. This is already the world's advanced level, which means that the country has been able to catch up with the world's cutting-edge technology. It may be produced stably.

The chief engineer knows better than anyone that although most of the chips for civilian use have been unblocked by China, a series of special chips such as military chips and some urgently needed communication encryption in China are still out of reach. With the ability to mass-produce lithography machines, it means that people will no longer be stuck on chips in China. How wonderful would that be?

The current test results have satisfied the chief designer, but Guo Tailai is still shaking his head? Still want to hit 45 nanometers? is it possible?

"Try it!" Guo Tailai smiled calmly: "What if it succeeds? Even if it fails, what effect will it have on us? The design has been designed and the samples have been manufactured. It is nothing more than a waste of a batch of silicon. Wafers and other materials, just wasting some time and electricity, you have to try anyway, don’t you?”

The ninety-nanometer process has satisfied many people, and almost the entire project team is cheering to illustrate this point. But this does not mean that this sample lithography machine only has this precision. Everyone will always reduce the size little by little and test it over and over again. Guo Tailai's request is actually just to raise the testing standard extremely all at once. If the 80nm and 70nm are tested one by one, it will always be his turn in the end.

Of course, it is also very likely that it will fail the test at 60nm or 50nm, and it will definitely not be considered at 45nm. But the one-step test seems to only waste some materials and time, and there really won't be any big loss, just as Guo Tailai said, try it!

"Then... try it!" The chief teacher also looked forward to it, gritted his teeth and said, but there was an unconcealable light in his eyes.

When the chief engineer immediately told the controller who controlled the lithography machine the request, everyone saw the surprised expression of the controller who could not suppress it. As if he didn't hear the chief teacher's words clearly, the controller asked repeatedly, until the chief teacher nodded affirmatively, and then began to operate and input data with a face of shock.

"Next, we will try to tape out the 45nm process." The chief teacher did not make everyone wait too long, and quickly revealed the answer: "Everyone, get ready, it will start in ten minutes!"

A group of white coats were frightened by the words of the chief teacher, and it was not until the chief teacher reminded them again that everyone started to get busy as if they had just woken up from a dream. Preparing materials for materials, starting machines for starting machines, all in a hurry.

Guo Tailai just talked about it, but he didn't do it himself. This is someone else's design and someone else's work. Guo Tailai is at best a manufacturer and assembler, and should not and cannot be the leader. The suggestion just now is considered as the maximum interference, and he is not suitable to intervene in any of the work in the future, as long as he watches honestly and waits for the test results.

Even though everyone was in shock, everyone was professional. Just testing, how to feed materials, and how to package them are all done in an orderly manner. Even though this is the first prototype, the machine itself was designed by their project team, and they have been familiar with it for two days during the previous system test, and it is very proficient in operation.

Seeing the silicon wafer enter from the entrance, a series of operations inside the lithography machine, followed by stable cutting and packaging, and finally the packaged finished product comes out. There was no alarm error during the whole process, all the processes looked normal, and the appearance of the packaged chip seemed to be very normal, but I don’t know if it can be used normally.

A part of the unpackaged chip was taken out, and the circuit was directly observed with a microscope to determine the process size. The packaged chip is tested according to the standard test process. To put it bluntly, it is actually very simple, just plug it directly into a test circuit board, flip a few switches and see which indicator lights are on. If the light is on normally, it means that the basic circuit is normal.

All eyes were focused on several test circuit boards. Several testers each had a freshly baked chip, inserted the pins of the chip into the standard interface, and started to flip the switch after everything was ready.

Snapped! Bright! Snapped! Bright! On this kind of non-stop flipping different switches, different indicator lights light up one by one, and then the tester ticks a form one by one. Sixteen test chips from the same batch all passed this simple test.

how is this possible? Except for Guo Tailai and the chief teacher who were relatively a little psychologically prepared, all the other personnel involved in the design and testing were dumbfounded looking at the lights that were correctly lit at the moment. Could it be that the operator made a mistake and entered 85 instead of 45 when inputting numbers?

All eyes were on a group of testers who were in charge of operating the microscope. They will rely on microscopes and measuring tools to measure the dimensions of the chip's circuits. The test just now only shows that the basic functions of the chip are normal, and cannot explain the size of the circuit, but this most direct measurement cannot be faked.

"Forty-five nanometers!" A tester was the first to report the number in a trembling voice.

Next, there was a continuous sound of reporting numbers, without exception, all of which were forty-five nanometers, and every sound was trembling.

When the 90nm process was successful, everyone was cheering. But this time, no one made a sound. Everyone Guo Tailai saw under the 3D vision, including the Grand Master, was completely silent, but everyone's eye circles were red.