Riding the wind of rebirth

These are all concrete examples of how reform and opening up have affected the family. After discussing this part and satisfying Hu Changfeng's gossip, the topic shifted back to the layout of the information industry.

"So, as things stand, our technological preparations, particularly in terms of intellectual property, are quite thorough. However, there's still a huge obstacle in terms of industrial layout, which is the key to transforming intellectual property into products..."

"Chip manufacturing!" Hu Changfeng understood the implied meaning perfectly: "It can support the brand-new CHNUX system and be used to build the CPU for non-linear personal computers!"

“Exactly!” Zhou Zhi said, “In fact, we already have nonlinear cluster computing cards. We are almost one step away from producing nonlinear computing CPUs with independent intellectual property rights. The current limitation is the establishment of the production line!”

"Hmm, this is indeed a major undertaking." Hu Changfeng pondered for a moment: "This year is a pivotal year for the chip industry's transformation..."

“Yes, taking advantage of the current chaos, we need to quickly bring the technologies and production lines that should be transferred to China,” Zhou Zhi said. “While the Wassenaar Arrangement has just been established and before a restriction list is formed, we should seize the opportunity to import key technologies and equipment!”

The Wassenaar Arrangement was originally the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) established in Paris in 1949. After COCOM was dissolved in 1994, the alliance was established at the suggestion of the United States.

The full name of the agreement is the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls of Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies, and its members include 42 countries such as the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Russia. The agreement implements export controls through a list of nine categories of dual-use goods and technologies and a list of 22 categories of military products. Member states decide on the approval and notification of information for the export of sensitive technologies on a voluntary basis.

China has not joined the organization; on the contrary, it is often the target of actual restrictions. Although the agreement does not establish a formal list of controlled countries, China is actually heavily targeted.

The current agreement only continues the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM)’s traditional technology restriction policy towards China. Member states are required to notify China of the export of sensitive technologies but do not have veto power. The main restrictions are on military facilities or advanced technology facilities, such as precision five-axis CNC machine tools.

However, this machine tool has been successfully developed by Mai Xiaomiao and Anran's cousin, who are responsible for software and hardware respectively. The compensation algorithm for the nonlinear system is so powerful that even with some deficiencies in materials and absolute precision, the five-axis CNC machine tool developed by Jinan Group can achieve precise control through algorithm compensation, and the products manufactured are in no way inferior to international advanced standards.

Even more impressive is nonlinear function CAD, which elevates the machining accuracy of complex surfaces to the vector level. The control function, which previously could only sacrifice accuracy and simulate complex surfaces as linear trajectories, has been changed to a nonlinear control function that guarantees accuracy and uses vector matrices. The machining accuracy has surpassed that of European and American products by an order of magnitude.

Of course, this is one of the country's biggest secrets. Currently, it is mainly used for the design and manufacturing of propeller surfaces for flight and underwater propulsion. It has not yet been made public as a scientific research achievement. Therefore, everyone can only secretly rejoice and continue to watch as precision five-axis CNC machine tools swagger around on the "Dual-Use Goods and Technologies Export Control List".

"Although the dual-use goods and technologies list covers nine major categories, including advanced materials, materials processing, electronic devices, computers, telecommunications and information security, sensing and lasers, navigation and avionics, ships and marine equipment, and propulsion systems, the current definitions are still very general," Zhou Zhi said. "Many emerging technologies and processes, such as computational lithography software, large silicon wafer cutting and polishing technology, as well as the latest semiconductors, sensors, and quantum technologies, have not yet been included in the list."

"In the information industry alone, our wafer fabrication, EDA, and packaging are already quite mature. What we lack most is a 2.5-micron process copper interconnect CPU production line and fin field-effect transistor technology!"

“The copper interconnect technology production line is understandable, but isn’t the fin field effect still under discussion?” Hu Changfeng suddenly felt immense pressure: “Neither of these two technologies is easy.” In fact, in 1994, the successful development of 1G DRAM integrating 1 million components marked the entry of chip technology in the information age into the era of massive scalable integrated circuits, namely GSI.

Because the current mainstream chip interconnect technology in the world is based on aluminum material interconnect process, when the chip manufacturing process shrinks to 180 nanometers, the processing speed of CMOS is not fast enough.

Copper has 40% lower resistance than aluminum and is 100 times more reliable. When used in 300MHz chips, copper interconnects can be at least 30% faster than aluminum interconnects. Furthermore, they can be smaller. This means copper interconnect chips require less battery power, resulting in faster page loads for internet servers. It also allows for smaller, faster, and cheaper computers, cameras, phones, and other devices that use copper interconnects.

However, there is still a lot of controversy in the industry regarding this technology, because its implementation difficulty is not on the same level as that of aluminum materials.

Unlike aluminum, copper atoms can float within the insulating layer of a chip and potentially alter silicon, changing its electrical properties and disrupting device performance. To utilize this technology, several accompanying technologies must be developed in the field of new materials, such as tungsten contact technology, padding technology, and composite technologies that enable copper to float and isolate from the insulating layer, helping to isolate copper from silicon and prevent these negative effects.

"As smaller and more efficient chip technologies continue to be developed, the tipping point for aluminum interconnect technology is approaching," Zhou Zhi said. "If we take over something that others are about to phase out, we will undoubtedly fall into their technological trap."

"But currently only IBM has copper interconnect technology, right?" Hu Changfeng is quite familiar with the industry's progress: "As far as I know, they have already started developing the PowerPC 750 with copper interconnect."

“Yes, this is also a very intuitive comparison,” Zhou Zhi said. “IBM’s copper interconnect technology can currently accommodate six levels of copper interconnects on a single semiconductor. The PowerPC 750 was originally a standard aluminum product with a speed of 300 MHz. After being replaced with copper interconnect technology, the speed was increased to 400 MHz.”

"How did you obtain this intelligence?!" Hu Changfeng's eyes widened. "Is it true?"

"Don't forget that we have a deep collaboration with IBM in the research and development of command-line development environments," Zhou Zhi said with a smile. "Moreover, AXA holds a significant amount of IBM stock and is an independent director."

“Oh right,” Hu Changfeng realized, “you guys have a deep level of cooperation in C language.”

“Yes, IBM’s OpenC++ is a compiler specifically designed for the Power platform and AIX operating system. We open up the compiler, and they open up the interface layer between the Power platform and AIX. We cooperated to help them develop OpenC++, and at the same time, we also developed our CHNUIX platform and the compiler JC++, which is used for the interface layer between the platform and the Java high-level language.” Zhou Zhi smiled and said, “Therefore, we were the first to obtain information about the IBM PowerPC 750 technology upgrade.”

"This year marks a major transformation and upgrade for central processing units. Intel released the Pentium II processor, which uses a 0.35-micron process and integrates L2 cache for the first time, nearly doubling its performance compared to its predecessor." (End of Chapter)