Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 310 28 nanometers autonomous control
In late April, in the office of the chairman of Liuhe Investment, on the 48th floor of Building A, Zhiyun headquarters park.

Xu Shenxue, Ji Chenghe and several other senior executives of the group gathered together.

Ji Chenghe held a report in his hand and said, "Currently our APO2000 graphics cards are selling very well, and the demand is far exceeding the supply!"

"Just yesterday, I received another order from Microsoft for 30,000 tablets. Before that, we had already received orders from more partners, including 50,000 tablets from Google, 10,000 tablets from Facebook, 10,000 tablets from Apple, and a lot from other foreign Internet companies."

"Domestic BTA has also ordered a total of 30,000 pieces, plus tens of thousands of pieces from other companies, the number of orders from these big companies for AI training alone has reached 180,000 pieces!"

"In addition, many retail channel merchants have also placed orders with us for the retail market. There are more orders for this part, but we have taken measures to limit the supply. Currently, we have only accepted orders for 5,000 pieces, just to show them off!"

"Because we found that even if we supply to the retail market, these graphics cards will eventually flow to various enterprises. Instead of letting enterprises buy them from second-hand dealers at a premium, it is better for us to supply them directly to enterprises."

"This graphics card has been on the market for more than a month and has received a total of 180,000 orders, which is a very good result. The current order volume is not due to limited market capacity, but our limited production capacity, which greatly restricts our ability to accept orders."

At this time, Xu Shenxue also saw the recent sales report of APO2000 graphics cards from the reports.

Just as Ji Chenghe said, the APO2000 graphics card has achieved quite good sales since its release, and it can be said that it is in short supply.

It’s just that the production capacity is limited, and there aren’t that many goods to sell even if I want to!
The reason why the APO2000 graphics card sells so well has a lot to do with its excellent performance.

As a high-performance computing power card positioned at the high end, APO2000 has greatly improved performance in all aspects compared to the previous generation APO1500, with lower overall computing power cost, making it more cost-effective when used for AI training.

After all, this is the only high-performance graphics card in the contemporary world that is manufactured using the most advanced mass production process, namely the 22-nanometer process (Intel's -nanometer process), and it is also a computing power card specially designed for large-scale parallel computing.

The best choice for AI training at the moment!

However, such excellent performance not only makes APO2000 better and more expensive, but also brings about the problem of limited production capacity.

The production capacity of Zhiyun Microelectronics' 18-nanometer process is limited!
This led to a severe shortage of APO2000 graphics cards. Not to mention individual consumers, even ordinary companies with weaker financial strength could not get them.

In Huaqiang South Market, for an APO19999 graphics card whose official retail price is 2000 yuan, the card dealers have quoted a purchase price of more than yuan. However, even at this price, the card dealers cannot get much.

Because most of the APO2000 graphics cards on the retail market have actually been purchased by various companies. As soon as the retail channel dealers receive the goods, they are bought in bulk at high prices by these wealthy Internet companies, and they will never flow into the market.

There are only a few APO2000 graphics cards that can actually make it to the consumer market!

So many people have heard of the name APO2000 and know that it has extremely powerful performance and is top-notch for playing games... but have never seen it.

Because it is not available on the market!

If you see so-called second-hand APO2000 graphics cards on an online shopping platform, don't doubt it, out of of them are scams!
Every APO2000 graphics card currently available is installed in the computer rooms of large companies with plenty of money, and has not entered the consumer market at all.

The production capacity of this graphics card is limited, and the demand is too great, which ultimately leads to this situation of supply exceeding demand!
----

At this time, Fu Zhengyang of Zhiyun Semiconductor said: "The production capacity of our APO2000 graphics card cannot be increased much in a short period of time."

"The GPU core of this computing power card has a larger area than the GPU core of a regular consumer graphics card, so the number of cores that can be manufactured on each 12-inch wafer is even smaller."

"But the 18-nanometer process capacity of the GPU core provided to us by Zhiyun Microelectronics is very limited!"

Ding Chengjun of Zhiyun Microelectronics said, "At present, our 24-nanometer process production capacity is very tight. The three factories are already running at full capacity. Except for the necessary equipment maintenance time, the rest of the time is hours a day!"

"There are also a lot of chips that require 18-nanometer process capacity, and we can't even schedule production!"

"We can't stop our core S500 series, W806 chips, and AI chips just to produce a graphics card!"

Xu Shenxue also spoke up at this time: "This graphics card is in short supply, so let it be. Our 18-nanometer process production capacity should still give priority to meeting the group's own needs!"

"Then we can increase the promotion of APO1500 graphics cards. Our APO1500 graphics cards are not unusable, but the comprehensive computing power cost is higher. Considering that the price of APO2000 is higher, the computing power cost of customers using APO1500 chips will not be much higher!"

Fu Zhengyang said: "I understand. We are currently doing the same thing. We are actively promoting the APO1500 graphics card to our customers. The sales of this graphics card have also increased a lot, and the monthly shipment volume can reach about pieces."

The APO1500 graphics card, although its technology lags behind by one generation, its 28NLP technology is not too bad. Whether it is used for AI training, mining, or even playing games, it is still one of the top graphics cards at the moment, second only to the APO2000 graphics card.

The wholesale price of this graphics card at Zhiyun is currently US$1,200 per piece. It is not some outdated and worthless graphics card, it is very expensive.

This graphics card alone can bring Zhiyun about $1 billion in revenue a year, which is very good for a single product.

The APO2000 graphics card is more expensive and more profitable. The wholesale price of this graphics card is three thousand US dollars.

Ji Chenghe said: "We estimate that this APO2000 graphics card should be able to bring us about US$ billion in revenue within a year."

"In addition to the APO1000 graphics card, which is still on sale but has already shifted to the consumer market and the AI ​​market for small and medium-sized enterprises, the entire APO graphics card business unit is expected to provide us with approximately $ billion in annual revenue this year."

"At the same time, the computing power card business has a higher gross profit margin, which is expected to reach 70%. Currently, this computing power card business has become a new revenue and profit growth point for our group."

“Next year, as the production capacity of the 18-nanometer process becomes more relaxed and the 14-nanometer process matures, after the launch of a new generation of computing power cards, the growth rate of the entire computing power card business is expected to reach 100%, and the revenue will exceed US$7 billion next year!”

At this point, Ji Chenghe couldn't help but sigh: "I have to say, after the explosion of AI technology, let's not talk about other things first, but this computing power card is really selling well!"

"It's a pity that the current production capacity cannot keep up, otherwise I would be able to sell APO2000 graphics cards for billion US dollars or even more this year!"

Ding Chengjun on the side said: "Don't even think about it, the production capacity is not that high!"

"It's not just the computing power card business that makes money. Every other chip that uses our 18-nanometer process makes money!"

"And our recent production capacity expansion target is not 18 nanometers, but 14 nanometers!"

As he spoke, he handed Xu Shenxue a copy of Zhiyun Microelectronics' recent capacity construction plan and a report on its current capacity utilization rate.

Xu Shenxue took it and looked at it.

He can see that the production capacity of Zhiyun Microelectronics' 500-nanometer process is currently fully booked, and its main production is still the S series chips.

At this time, Ding Chengjun also continued: "In addition to producing S500 series chips, our 806-nanometer process capacity is also mass-producing W chips. Four Star is urging us to do so, and the production capacity schedule is also very tight!"

"Then there is the top-secret project AI4000. The demand for this chip is also huge and it has a high priority!"

"Then there are the WZ4000 series chips, AMD chips and Huawei's chip foundry projects."

"There is a huge demand for all kinds of chips, and it is difficult for us to schedule production!"

At this time, Bai Qiwen, who had been silent, said, "I don't care about other things, but you can't cut off the supply of this W806 chip. My Little Blue MAX7 will be on the market in June, and I'm waiting to use it!"

The W806 chip is a new generation of W series chips officially announced by Zhiyun Semiconductor in January this year. It is comparable to Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, Apple A8, and Zhiyun S503 chips.

To supply this year's flagship phones to Weiku Electronics, Sixing and other mobile phone manufacturers.

The chip adopts the latest 500-nanometer process and uses a six-core CPU design with four large cores and two small cores. It is also equipped with the same GPU architecture design as the S series, and its performance is quite powerful.

This chip was released in December last year. Its overall performance is second only to the S503 chip, and is roughly equivalent to Apple's A8 chip. It also outperforms Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 chip and Samsung's self-developed chips...

It was the emergence of this chip that made Four Star finally make up its mind to abandon its own self-developed chips once again!

Of course, the main reason is that their 20nm process is less reliable than TSMC's. At the same time, they overestimated the heat dissipation control of their own 20nm process when designing the chip. In the end, they stacked the main frequency and other performance factors relatively high when designing the chip, and then... this chip had extremely serious heat dissipation problems.

Its heat dissipation problem is said to be even more exaggerated than that of Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, which has been described as a fire dragon by the industry.

Under such circumstances, Sixin will naturally not continue to use this self-developed chip, but will instead start looking for external suppliers.

Of course, the four-star brand cannot choose the Snapdragon 810 chip, which is also a fire dragon. Everyone hates this thing... This chip is fine for other smart terminals because there is enough space to design a cooling system, but using it in a mobile phone where every inch of internal space is valuable is a dead end.

At the same time, it is impossible for Four Star to choose last year's Snapdragon 801, 805 and other series of Qualcomm Snapdragon chips that still use 28nm process, because these two chips are not as good as the W706 chip released by Zhiyun Semiconductor last year.

Chips like 801 and 805, or even last year's W706 chip, are not enough to power the new high-end flagships of the four-star Galaxy series.

They must need a real top-of-the-line flagship chip this year!

Under such circumstances, they once again reached a strategic cooperation with Zhiyun Semiconductor this year and decided to adopt the W806 chip.

It has become the flagship new model of the W series under Zhiyun Semiconductor, and the first manufacturer of the W806 chip.

In March, the Galaxy 806 phone equipped with the W6 chip was officially released to the public. This phone has sold quite well this year.

After all, the design of the phone is really good, with a metal middle frame, a double-sided glass body, and a flat round fingerprint recognition button on the front. It also follows the trend and uses a rear dual camera, the main camera of which is 16 million pixels.

And they also use wireless charging technology, but they use the QI protocol adopted by the 'Wireless Charging Alliance'.

This is different from Zhiyun. Zhiyun always likes to create its own set of technical standards and does not like to play with others. At most, it is compatible with others.

Bluetooth uses the Bluetooth 4.5 protocol and is only compatible with the Bluetooth 4.0 protocol.

As for charging and data interfaces, Zhiyun uses its own USB-T interface.

Zhiyun’s own wireless charging protocol is the YFC protocol. However, for compatibility reasons, Zhiyun’s mobile phone wireless charging is actually also compatible with the QI wireless charging protocol. However, for safety reasons, the power is limited and currently only supports 7.5W of wireless charging power.

Only by using a charging base that uses Zhiyun's own YFC charging protocol can a wireless charging power of fifteen watts be achieved.

Wireless charging, after Zhiyun set off a wave last year, four stars followed suit this year, and if nothing unexpected happens, Apple's new mobile phones will also follow suit this year.

The three mobile phone giants will basically try their best to catch up in high-end flagship phones. I must have what others have, unless I really can't do it.

This year's four-star Galaxy 6 has also had good sales, and the demand for the W806 chip is also relatively high.

At the same time, this W806 chip has also been selected by the flagship phones of many domestic and foreign mobile phone manufacturers, including the new generation of Xiaolan MAX model under Weiku Electronics, namely Xiaolan MAX7.

------

The order volume for the entire W806 chip is relatively large, so the demand for production capacity is also great.

This is also the reason why Bai Qiwen spoke now. This W806 chip is also related to the strategy of Weiku Electronics' flagship phone this year and cannot be lost.

At this time, Xu Shenxue said: "For the production schedule of the 2000-nanometer process, give priority to the S series chips and the W series chips. Others, such as APO4000, WZ desktop version, and server chips can be put on hold. There is no rush for the next two or three months. Just get through these few months and wait until July or August!"

The reason why it is July and August is that by that time, Zhiyun will start mass production and stocking a new generation of mobile phones, using the new generation of S603 chips with nm process.

Whenever Zhiyun launches a new generation of mobile phones, the sales of the old generation of mobile phones will naturally plummet, and the required S500 series chips will naturally be greatly reduced.

If there is no need to produce a large number of S500 series chips, more -nanometer process production capacity will naturally be freed up.

As for other projects during this period, such as the APO2000 graphics card, we will naturally just have to wait and see!
Anyway, Zhiyun doesn’t use this thing himself, he just uses it to make money, and he has no competitors.

So don’t worry if you don’t have goods to sell. Take your time and wait until the third quarter to ship out in large quantities.

----

At this time, Ding Chengjun was also talking about the capacity expansion of advanced process nodes: "In the first quarter of this year, our 14-nanometer process began trial production."

"During this period, we have been conducting various tests on the 14-nanometer process."

"Based on various test results, I believe that the performance of 14-nanometer chips is significantly higher than that of 18-nanometer chips, and the manufacturing cost will not be much higher."

"That is to say, the cost-effectiveness of chips produced using the 14-nanometer process is higher than that of chips produced using the 18-nanometer process!"

"Therefore, we believe that in the next few years, the 14-nanometer process will be the mainstream high-end process, with huge market demand, and will form a high-low matching market demand with the 28-nanometer process."

"And the 18-nanometer process will be in an awkward position of being neither up nor down."

"Under such circumstances, we have decided to temporarily postpone the expansion of the 18-nanometer process and instead use our limited funds, manpower and material resources to expand the production capacity of the 14-nanometer process!"

Xu Shenxue said: "This is a rational choice. Although we have money, we still need to spend it in a targeted way and save it!"

Ding Chengjun said: "Mr. Xu, we have allocated more funds and personnel to the 14-nanometer process since this month." "Currently, in addition to the trial production of Tongcheng Plant No. 18, testing the 14-nanometer process, we are making final preparations for mass production in June."

"Our No. 9 plant in the Shenzhen Semiconductor Base has also completed the upgrade and renovation, and is currently in the equipment debugging stage. It is expected to be put into mass production in October this year."

"Combining the 18th and 9th plants, we will have a 14-nanometer production capacity of 90,000 wafers per month by October this year, which will initially meet the group's internal chip needs."

"As for the 18-nanometer process, the current production capacity of 150,000 wafers per month will be maintained and there will be no large-scale expansion."

At this time, Ji Chenghe also said: "If you have the money to expand the production capacity of the 18-nanometer process, it is better to expand the 14-nanometer process in one step. I also support your approach!"

Fu Zhengyang on the side also said: "By the second half of this year, when the S500 series chips no longer occupy a large amount of production capacity, the production capacity of the -nanometer process should be sufficient, and it is better not to expand production!"

Ding Chengjun of Zhiyun Microelectronics said: "We think so too. The production capacity is tight now, but it will get better in the second half of the year!"

"What's more, apart from these few advanced chips, there is actually not much demand for 18-nanometer chips on the market. The main chips on the market today are still 28-nanometer chips!"

Xu Shenxue nodded slightly after hearing this: "The mature technology of 28 nanometers is still very important. You must continue to pay attention to it!"

Zhiyun Group itself is still producing a large number of chips based on the 300-nanometer process, including the S400 series, S700 series, W600 series, and W series SOC chips, as well as some single-hanging communication baseband chips, as well as various CPUs, GPUs, and automotive-grade computing chips for export.

In addition to the large number of chip foundry needs within the group mentioned above, there are also a large number of external orders. A large number of domestic chip design companies, including some foreign chip design companies, have asked Zhiyun to manufacture the corresponding 28-nanometer process chips.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that this year’s Zhiyun flagship phone and Apple’s flagship phone are all using 14/16 nanometer chips. Even the 20/18 nanometer process is last year’s old technology.

However, for the current smartphone market, chips using 28nm process are still the mainstream, especially for mid- and low-end phones.

The W700 series chips launched by Zhiyun Semiconductor last year, and even the W600 series chips launched the year before, are still selling very well, with large shipments.

In addition, a large number of chip design companies have also launched various 28-nanometer process chips, which have brought a large number of 28-nanometer process foundry orders.

The main advantage is the 28-nanometer process node, which has natural advantages. This process node is already the limit of single-exposure, planar transistor process technology.

If we push it further, we will need to do a second exposure, which will greatly increase the manufacturing cost of the chip...

And since it costs more to use secondary exposure, manufacturers might as well use the 14-nanometer process instead of the 18-nanometer process.

Although the cost has increased, it is not very significant, but the performance can be improved more, and the cost performance is higher.

This is the embarrassment of the 18-nanometer process node, it is neither high nor low.

Therefore, many chips that are more sensitive to cost prefer to keep the process node at 28 nanometers.

At the same time, it also brought a large number of orders for 28nm process foundry needs.

Under such circumstances, Zhiyun Microelectronics has actually been continuously expanding the production capacity of the 28-nanometer process while continuing to innovate.

After the 28NLP process was launched at the end of the previous year, the 28NLP2 process was launched in March this year. This is a high-performance 28-nanometer process aimed at customers with higher performance requirements.

As a result, Zhiyun Microelectronics' 28-nanometer process actually has two options for customers to choose from: the second-generation NLP process that focuses on low power consumption;

Then, based on the 28NLP process, the transistor size was further reduced, the transistor density was increased, and the 28NLP2 process was introduced. This process can actually be strictly called a 26-nanometer process.

It’s just that everyone has formed a habit, and is used to calling the process nodes in this range 28-nanometer process.

As for the early first-generation 28nm process, it has been eliminated by Zhiyun Microelectronics.

It is Zhiyun Microelectronics' established strategy to continue to advance technology in mature processes to reduce costs, improve performance, provide better choices for customers, and enhance market competitiveness.

This continuous innovation in mature processes has also enabled Zhiyun Microelectronics to gain more foundry orders in the foundry market at the 28nm process node.

The huge orders have also become the biggest driving force for the continued expansion of 28nm process production capacity.

However, unlike previous expansions of production capacity that all used imported equipment, this year Zhiyun Microelectronics began to use a large number of domestic equipment when expanding its 28nm process production capacity.

That is the HDUV-400 lithography machine produced by Gulf Technology, along with some other supporting equipment.

After months of continuous improvements, the HDUV-400 lithography machine provided by Gulf Technology has been able to stabilize the overlay accuracy at 28 nanometers. This level is sufficient for large-scale mass production of -nanometer processes, and the yield can be controlled at a relatively high level to achieve commercial production.

In this case, Zhiyun Microelectronics will naturally purchase on a large scale and use it for mass production.

In April, when Zhiyun was re-listed and its market value of 28 billion US dollars shocked the world again, Zhiyun Microelectronics, a subsidiary of Zhiyun, officially put into production the first 28-nanometer process production line using domestic lithography machines and a variety of core equipment, and began mass production of -nanometer process chips.

This means that China's 28-nanometer process has become independently controllable and there is no need to worry about being strangled by outsiders.

It also means that Gulf Technology's HDUV-400 lithography machine has matured, especially in terms of overlay accuracy.

For a photolithography machine, there are two most critical parameters. One is the wavelength of the light source. For example, the wavelength of a DUV dry photolithography machine is 193 nanometers, while for a DUV immersion photolithography machine, the wavelength of the light source can be reduced to 134 nanometers through refraction of water under the same light source.

Then another key parameter is the overlay accuracy. There are many terms for overlay accuracy. Generally, MMO is used in mass production process, which is the overlay accuracy between different devices.

This data is directly related to a series of related performances such as the minimum process and yield under large-scale mass production. Generally speaking, large-scale mass production of 28-nanometer process can only be achieved if the overlay accuracy of nanometers is met.

Otherwise, if it is barely used, the yield rate will be very low, the cost will be high, and it will not have commercial value.

As for the further 18nm, nm, and even nm processes, double exposure technology is required, which requires higher overlay accuracy, requiring an overlay accuracy of nm...

This is also why the 18-nanometer process node is somewhat embarrassing, because the lithography machine used to produce 18 nanometers can also be used to produce 14 nanometers.

Using the same equipment, why don’t I produce chips using 14-nanometer process?
However, for the next seven nanometers, quadruple exposure is required, which puts further demands on the overlay accuracy. Generally speaking, the overlay accuracy needs to reach 2.5 nanometers, so that the yield can be stabilized at a certain level.

If a lithography machine with insufficient overlay accuracy is forced to use quadruple exposure to produce seven-nanometer chips, the yield will be very low and the cost will be very high. No one would do this unless there are special circumstances.

The current goal of Gulf Technology is to further reduce the overlay accuracy, strive to achieve a level of 2.5 nanometers, and then meet the 7-nanometer production demand.

However, this is also quite difficult, as it is a real improvement in the physical limits, and it is extremely difficult to improve the overlay accuracy by each nanometer.

Of course, Gulf Technology is still unable to produce a lithography machine with an overlay accuracy of 2.5 nanometers. Even the lithography machine with an overlay accuracy of 3.5 nanometers is still struggling and needs further research. It is estimated that small batches will be available for testing in the second half of the year, and large-scale mass production will have to wait until next year.

However, the current HDUV-400 lithography machine with an overlay accuracy of nanometers is already mature and available... Zhiyun Microelectronics uses this lithography machine to mass-produce -nanometer process chips.

If it is used to produce more mature processes such as 32-nanometer process, 40-nanometer process or 45-nanometer process, then it's a piece of cake!
You can even say that there is overperformance.

Zhiyun Microelectronics has started to use the HDUV-400 lithography machine for production. This news has greatly attracted many other chip manufacturers in the industry who are paying attention to domestic lithography machines.

They also want this kind of cheap and good product to significantly reduce the capital investment in advanced technology.

Although the overall performance of Gulf Technology's lithography machine is slightly inferior to that of ASML's lithography machine, it is sold cheaply. Not only is the selling price cheap, but the subsequent maintenance costs are also cheap.

This makes many wafer fabs that do not have sufficient funds very interested!
Anyway, they have no ambition to develop more advanced double exposure, or play with the 18-nanometer or 14-nanometer processes. They just want to try the 45-nanometer process, and at most the 28-nanometer process.

This HDUV-400 lithography machine from Gulf Technology is already sufficient.

------

Soon after, SMIC officially announced that the first mass-produced HDUV400 lithography machine they purchased had entered the production line and was being used to produce -nanometer process storage chips.

At the same time, they also plan to use this lithography machine to build a second 28-nanometer process production line.

After seeing this, other domestic chip manufacturers became even more restless... The top two in the domestic semiconductor field have already started using it, so we have to use it too!

So they all turned to Gulf Technology, hoping that they would speed up the supply.

In this regard, Gulf Technology is extremely happy but also miserable... There are too many orders for the HDUV-400 lithography machines, and their production capacity is limited. They simply cannot provide so many lithography machines in a short period of time.

But too many people came to them and tried to use all kinds of connections to ask for favors, which scared the people at Gulf Technology.

Photolithography machines are not cheap cabbages, and Gulf Technology is just an assembly manufacturer responsible for system integration. In many cases, they cannot increase production capacity just because they want to. A long list of suppliers behind them must also increase their production capacity.

For example, the core lens.

Although it is just a lens, it is the core component of a lithography machine. The processing of this ultra-high precision lens is extremely difficult and complicated. The production capacity of Southern Optics in processing this ultra-high precision lens is extremely limited.

These lenses are processed bit by bit by the industry's top engineers using top-notch equipment such as ion beam polishers.

The entire production process is extremely complex.

The production capacity is naturally limited. In the first year, we can provide more than 40 sets of lenses to Gulf Technology, which is already the result of overtime work. Any more... that is impossible.

Southern Optics also needs time to purchase, install, and debug more advanced equipment and train more top engineers.

In the first year, I was able to make more than 40 sets of lenses by hand, which was the result of a great effort.

With these lenses, Gulf Technology can only produce more than 400 HDUV-500 lithography machines at best. In fact, that is not enough. It has to keep a batch of lenses for the trial production of the more advanced HDUV- lithography machine with higher overlay accuracy. That is, the overlay accuracy reaches nanometers, which can perform secondary exposure and is used to produce -nanometer and -nanometer chip lithography machines.

Finally, the number of HDUV-400 lithography machines that can be provided this year is at most forty sets.

Of these lithography machines, major customer Zhiyun Microelectronics will take most, and the second largest customer SMIC will take a small half.

The remaining single-digit production capacity will be shared among other manufacturers, and each manufacturer will not get much.

In order to solve the production capacity problem of advanced lithography machines, Xu Shenxue went to Gulf Technology in early May and summoned the subsidiaries of various lithography machine subsystem suppliers under the Fairy Mountain Holding system.

The heads of dozens of subsidiaries sat together, and Xu Shenxue took the lead, representing the problems encountered in the entire production process and how to solve them.

During this period, Southern Optics' lens production capacity was its biggest shortcoming and needed to be addressed.

In the entire HDUV-400 lithography machine project, other subsystems are all fine. The heads of some subsystem suppliers said that they can produce one or two hundred subsystems even this year.

However, Southern Optics only has more than 40 sets of lenses. After Xu Shenxue discussed this issue with the person in charge of Southern Optics, he went to the small conference room next door to communicate with the core technical team brought by Southern Optics.

We collected some of the questions they raised and the problems they encountered.

Finally, we found that the real difficulty lies not in funding or the progress of engineer training, but in the insufficient supply of some core equipment. For example, the supplier provides very few ion beam polishers, a key equipment, which is not enough.

In this regard, Xu Shenxue said that it was not a big problem, although this key equipment was not under the Fairy Mountain Holding system, nor was it provided by a conventional enterprise, but was provided by a scientific research institution.

However, Xu Shenxue's network of contacts is not comparable to that of Southern Optics.

Soon, he made a few phone calls and talked with the head of the other research institute. Finally, the other party said that they would let a group of technicians work overtime to make a few more sets.

Of course, Xu Shenxue also reciprocated the favor and immediately stated that Zhiyun Group also had a material research project and was ready to find a research and development institution to cooperate with, with a planned research and development budget of 1 billion yuan.

This is perfect. I won’t look for other research institutes but will cooperate with you.

The head of the institute immediately said: We are preparing to work hard for 100 days to produce a few more ion beam polishing machines to contribute to the large-scale mass production of domestic lithography machines.

A few days later, Zhiyun sent a cooperation team to the institute, preparing to work together to develop very metaphysical materials...

Xu Shenxue has numerous material research and development projects in various companies under his control, and material research and development is rather mysterious. In most cases, luck is more important than strength.

So it doesn't really matter who you cooperate with. When Xu Shenxue was doing research and development of these foreign cooperative materials, he would invest in whoever he liked.

Anyway, most of them are wasted, and in the end there are no actual results except some unnecessary papers.

Over the years, Xu Shenxue has gotten used to it, so now when it comes to material research and development, he just goes with the flow... and is very calm.

When results are achieved, it is a pleasant surprise.

It is normal if there is no result!
(End of this chapter)