Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 174: The Most Accidental Episode

“Our laboratory capacity is already up to 6N. If we can reach a cooperation agreement, we are confident that we can increase the mass production capacity to 7N within a year.”

What does mass production of 7N mean?

Even Soviet Russia didn't have this technology.

East Germany is still crawling towards 5N from 4N.

The Chinese side was not very clear about it, but the East Germans were aware of it.

Texas Instruments' first commercial logic chips used the 6N to 7N range.

The sound of swallowing saliva was exceptionally clear in the room.

This is equivalent to directly surpassing the latest level in Silicon Valley.

"Dr. Huang, are you telling the truth?" Weiss's voice was a little hoarse.

Müller's hands, hidden under the table, were clenched tightly.

Huang Kun then displayed strong confidence: "Of course."

You should be well aware of China's weak industrial base and the gap between it and East Germany.

We can achieve 5N even using the simple CZ method to pull single-crystal silicon, which is based on the use of high-precision crucible materials and purification equipment.

East Germany's industrial base was much better than ours, but it could only achieve 4N.

Our technological roadmap for 7N is very clear, but the shortage of materials and equipment prevents us from moving towards this goal.

Weiss glanced at Muller, who knew it was his turn to speak: "Dr. Huang, could you give us a detailed explanation of your technical approach?"

Huang Kun stood up and stood in front of the blackboard that had been prepared in advance:
Have you ever heard of ion implantation technology?

Muller and Weiss replied, "We know."

Huang Kun continued, "That's good. This technology is a key process in semiconductor manufacturing used to introduce dopants onto pure silicon wafers, mainly to change the electrical properties of silicon."

It's a concept technology that originated in Silicon Valley.

We have completed data predictions for all implantation distributions involved in ion implantation, including ion-lattice collisions, energy losses due to nuclear and electronic blocking, defect formation, and diffusion.

"Impossible!" Weiss couldn't help but exclaim.

It's precisely because Huang Kun is indeed one of the founders of the field of lattice dynamics that he would say you're lying to us.

Because they are scientists and engineers who are familiar with semiconductor technology, they know how difficult this is.

The typical semiconductor manufacturing process involves simultaneous production and testing.

Now, Chinese people are telling you that we have completed the simulation at the mathematical level, and even produced good results.

This was somewhat beyond their comprehension.

“Dr. Huang, I’m not questioning your abilities, but this sounds a bit too incredible.”

It's like we're all exploring a forest, and you're telling us that you've already seen the whole forest even though you haven't set off yet. It's like we just need to lend you some tools so you can successfully explore the entire forest.

Doctor, do you know what I mean? This is incredible.

I'm familiar with ion implantation, and we've done some theoretical research on it. It involves such complex physical processes that it's hard to imagine that it could be calculated.

Huang Kun thought to himself, "Yes, I wouldn't believe we did it without the Raspberry Pi. Believe it or not, that's the truth."

Otherwise, we wouldn't dare say we could break through to 7N in a year.

Huang Kun didn't dare say that we can see the entire forest because we have satellites, which have already scanned the forest.

Huang Kun continued, "I can give you some data and mathematical models later, and you can go back and verify whether what I said is correct."

Okay, let's continue. Because ion implantation requires high purity silicon, 5N silicon is definitely not sufficient to meet the requirements for ion implantation.

We need to increase the purity of silicon by at least another order of magnitude.

This isn't just about radios; high-purity silicon performs better in power devices and low-noise transistors, and it's also true that ion-implanted high-purity silicon performs much better in other semiconductor components.

Therefore, we need to cooperate on purification equipment and testing methods in silicon purification.

Similarly, we can provide assistance to East Germany in terms of crystal growth precision.

The crystal growth control here relies on temperature gradient control and dopant addition to ensure the uniformity and stability of the wafer. China has a natural advantage in this regard.

"Once we can produce high-purity silicon, we can proceed with the next step of ion implantation."

In ion implantation, we lack ion implantation machines, high-precision accelerators, stable ion sources, high-vacuum systems, and mass analyzers. We also lack high-temperature annealing equipment and electrical testing capabilities.

Our strengths lie in component design, computational simulation, and the construction of physical models.

We have a natural foundation for cooperation.

After Huang Kun finished speaking, Weiss thought for a moment and said, "Dr. Huang, what you said is just empty talk. What we need to provide is actual equipment."

"And many of the devices you just mentioned, we don't have either."

Huang Kun said, "I know, but with East Germany's industrial base, we can design these things and you can produce them. We are capable of manufacturing them and putting them into use."

You are also restricted from obtaining ion implantation machines manufactured by the semiconductor industry.

But we can provide design assistance to build high-precision, stable equipment suitable for semiconductor manufacturing.

China's weakness in materials science has resulted in having the Raspberry Pi, which is like a martial arts master having techniques but no internal strength—an embarrassing situation.

It's not just Raspberry Pi; Chinese scientists have a very solid theoretical foundation, and with the entire inland market of China, the semiconductor components they produce can be absorbed.

East Germany, on the other hand, had internal strength but lacked the skills to execute them.

They lacked a market, and the Soviet Union didn't assign them the role of manufacturing semiconductors, so they didn't invest much in the semiconductor industry at all.

They possess certain semiconductor device design capabilities, but their manufacturing ecosystem is immature and lacks a complete industrial chain, making it impossible to achieve a closed loop from design to mass production.

For this reason, China naturally hoped to cooperate with East Germany on this matter, using East Germany's internal strength to cultivate its own power.

"Dr. Huang, what you say sounds wonderful, but the problem now is, how can we trust you?"

Huang Kun pulled a document from his briefcase: "This is a paper on the simulation of the entire ion implantation process. You can go back and take a look. This paper is enough to demonstrate our capabilities."

If the conversation with Li Zhiqiang was all empty talk and made no progress, then the conversation with Huang Kun was full of valuable information.

Much of the content is so factual that even seasoned professionals cannot determine its authenticity.

Weiss and Muller felt they had gained a lot, but they couldn't judge the value of that gain.

"Dr. Huang, we will definitely study your paper carefully after returning to Berlin, and we look forward to cooperating with China in the future."

As Huang Kun watched the departing figure, he hoped that he could remain unaffected by the political environment and reach a cooperation agreement with East Germany.

America's pressure was so great that they had to reveal some of their research results on ion implantation in hopes of securing cooperation with East Germany.

If it weren't for America, they wouldn't mind taking their time to develop and climb the technology tree.

The atmosphere in a meeting room at the East German Academy of Sciences was serious and focused.

Sitting in front of Muller and Hans was Professor Hermann, the expert in charge of research project decisions. In addition to Hermann, there was also Marthus Falter, a key figure in East German semiconductors.

He was sitting at the table, holding a paper that had just arrived from China. His brow was furrowed, and his eyes gleamed with a mixture of shock and excitement.

Falter took a deep breath and slowly opened his mouth, his voice revealing barely concealed excitement:
"Just as Huang said, the theory they constructed describes the distribution and residence of ions in solids and can be regarded as the standard model in this field."

It describes the distribution of ions in a silicon crystal when bombarded by a high-energy ion beam. The core of the theory is the two mechanisms of ion energy loss: nuclear stopping and electron stopping.

Huang derived the depth distribution of ions in the material by solving the transport equation, and he believed that such a distribution approximates a Gaussian distribution.

Oh my god! He even tried to precisely calculate the average penetration depth and variance of the ions based on their type and energy.

Falter's finger traced across the paper, pointing to a Gaussian distribution curve.
"Look here, they showed the depth distribution of dopants in silicon crystals and verified the results using Hall effect measurements. The simulation and experimental data are in high agreement."

However, due to limitations in experimental equipment, their experiments were rather crude, and the final ion implantation results were not good enough.

Although their experimental results were not good, they were in very good agreement with the results of the computational simulation!

As expected of Huang, his attainments in theoretical physics are at a master level.

Hermann asked, "Professor Falter, is it possible that the Chinese falsified the experimental data?"

Falter shook his head and said, "There's no need, because we can reproduce the experiment."

The experimental results they used to simulate were achieved using basic equipment, not secondary ion mass spectrometry.

In short, if things go quickly, we can simulate a result within the next few days and see if it matches the results of the Chinese model.

If the verification is successful, it will prove that China does indeed have its own system in theoretical foundations, model building, and simulation calculations.

Hermann asked, "So, Professor Falter, you mean we should cooperate with China?"

Fard nodded: "Of course."

Dresden in East Germany would gradually grow into the center of the microelectronics and semiconductor industry for the entire Soviet bloc.

By the end of the 1980s, it had more than 40,000 employees.

The largest of these companies is ZMDI, which produces DRAM, or memory chips.

The East German ZMD U61000, with 1Mb of storage capacity, CMOS process, is the highest-end memory chip produced in East Germany at the end of the Cold War.

At what level? Roughly the same level as Hitachi and NEC in 1984.

It can't be considered strong, but it's definitely not weak.

Now, thanks to the OGAS program, East Germany has already begun to invest resources in the semiconductor field.

If it weren't for this reason, they would never have sent Weiss and Muller to China just to confirm the level of Chinese technology.

If it weren't for the unprecedented emphasis on semiconductors, China wouldn't have ranked highly in the industrial landscape of the Soviet bloc.

China held some authority over Buddhist scriptures, as well as agriculture and the military. It was not positioned as an industrial nation, and at that time, Soviet Russia did not want China to become an industrial nation.

If China were to reach the same level of industrial technology as East Germany, Soviet Russia would probably be losing sleep.

After a moment, Falter continued, "Our Chinese counterparts have plotted the ion depth distribution curves and demonstrated a high degree of consistency between their theory and experiments."

I believe we should promote cooperation.

After listening, Herman nodded and said, "I will push for this, but don't have too high expectations."

After all, among the technologies our Chinese counterparts want to collaborate on, ion implantation equipment is still too sensitive, as you know.

The people present looked at each other in bewilderment.

We are all intellectuals, and reading newspapers is a daily routine for us.

Of course, he knew that China was developing an atomic bomb at that time.

Ion implantation technology includes a large number of ion-related devices. It may not be related to nuclear weapons, but who can guarantee that China will not use it in nuclear weapons development?

"Professor, you mean nuclear weapons development?"

"Yes."

Falter argued, "The sophisticated equipment required for ion implantation has nothing to do with nuclear weapons."

The goal of nuclear weapons development is to achieve nuclear fission or fusion reactions, which involves extremely high energy and large-scale facilities, while ion implantation focuses on semiconductor doping at the microscale, with significantly different energy requirements and equipment scale!

They're not the same thing at all.

As the head of East German semiconductors, Falter was eager to promote cooperation with China because he saw a glimmer of hope for the rapid development of East German semiconductors.

Hermann reached out and pressed down, signaling Falter to calm down: "I know, of course I know."

The problem is that we have to convince the bureaucrats in the Mittelland, and they also have to convince the bureaucrats in the Kremlin, that our cooperation with China is in the semiconductor field, that it's purely technological, and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons.

The problem is that even semiconductor technology can be used in missile control systems.

These are all obstacles to our cooperation with China!

Science and Technology Ministry Building in East Berlin
Hermann sat at one side of the table, opposite Friedrich Schmidt, the senior official in charge of international scientific cooperation, whose expression remained as calm as ever.

Friedrich looked at the report and said in a low voice, "Incredible. China's semiconductor physics research has reached such a level; their theories can actually achieve this." His tone was tinged with admiration.

Hermann crossed his arms and said in a deep voice, "Indeed impressive, Comrade Friedrich."

Friedrich cautioned, "But we must be careful. Semiconductor technology is not just about science. A wrong decision could have unbearable consequences."

Herman nodded and said, “You’re right. Their technology is impressive, but the potential for military applications cannot be ignored. If we get too involved, we might expose our weaknesses. However, I think there’s an opportunity where we can choose a limited area to cooperate on, such as optics.”

“Optics?” Friedrich raised an eyebrow, a thoughtful glint in his eyes. “Go on.”

Hermann leaned forward, his tone becoming firm: "The field of optics can make full use of their high-precision simulation technology without touching the sensitive parts related to semiconductor cores and nuclear weapons."

We can propose a collaborative development of optical instruments. This would allow us to learn from their methods while keeping the scope of the collaboration within safe boundaries.

Furthermore, semiconductors have numerous applications that utilize optics, and we possess unique advantages in the field of optics. The Chinese people will surely be satisfied with this.

Friedrich's lips curled into a rare smile: "Brilliant. This is a viable compromise. Optics has strategic value, but it won't directly threaten the Kremlin's security bottom line."

The two exchanged a glance, understanding each other perfectly.

Friedrich picked up a pen and his fingers flew across the paper, scribbling notes: "We need to draft a proposal and submit it to our superiors. The cooperation should be limited to the field of optics, with clear boundaries. We can emphasize the mutual benefits for both parties."

He had already begun to consider the political implications. This would not only bring them closer to China, but also improve East Germany's technological level without angering their allies, he thought to himself.

“The proposal must emphasize non-military uses,” Friedrich muttered to himself, his voice low but unequivocal, “to avoid any misunderstandings.”

"Of course. We position it as a purely scientific collaboration, for the common advancement of science and technology in both countries."

This means that China has achieved half of its goal.

Photolithography originated in the 1950s and was initially used to manufacture transistors and simple semiconductor devices. In 1957, Texas Instruments began applying photolithography to silicon wafers, replacing the inefficient methods of manual masking and chemical etching.

At that time, China did not have commercial lithography machines and could only rely on simple experimental exposure equipment.

We have the production capacity to manufacture photoresist, etching solution, and mask materials; the only difference is whether they are easy to use or not.

However, China has absolutely no way of obtaining the exposure light source and optical lens.

Therefore, East Germany limited the scope of cooperation to optics, with the renowned Zeiss taking the lead. Huang Kun and Dean Qian reported:
"East Germany did indeed take the bait."

(End of this chapter)