Development of productivity started in 1981

Chapter 156 Fiber Optics
After leaving the chip manufacturing plant, Wang Jiankun came to the industrial park of Xingzhou Group.

After half a year of construction, the industrial park of Sin Chew Group has become quite popular.

In the winter sunshine, the industrial park presents a vibrant scene.

There are people coming and going and vehicles flowing in front of the park gate. Workers with dreams and aspirations and vehicles loaded with goods are constantly coming in and out.

At present, there are three SMS production lines in the factory building in the park, which can produce 3 SMS machines per month.

Currently, 80% of these SMS machines are still supplied to the local market in Hong Kong, and the remaining 20% ​​are sold to Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, etc.

Of course, when entering these countries, the SMS machine's system and are localized and modified to be able to send the official texts of these countries.

In the conference room of Sin Chew Group, Executive President Zheng Tianming reported to him on the development of the group.

"Boss, the base stations in Hong Kong have been laid out and are now being upgraded to speed up the laying of optical fibers and increase communication capacity.

The site selection for mobile phone base stations is also in progress and they are expected to be laid next month.”

“It shouldn’t be that difficult to lay fiber optic cables, right?”

"Boss, we did encounter some problems in the early stages. It was not so bad in the urban areas because the government had already coordinated and our background was strong enough to handle those with bad intentions. But in the countryside, some diehards were instigated by people with ulterior motives to block the passage of optical fiber through some places."

"Oh, so how did you solve it?"

"We used a multi-pronged approach, using both soft and hard tactics. On the one hand, we talked to them and gave them some compensation. On the other hand, we asked some people to come forward."

Zheng Tianming did not explain in detail, but Wang Jiankun roughly knew how it was done.

"Then tell me about the current installation of the mobile phone production line. Are the corresponding suppliers and samples ready?"

"Boss, we have already built a mobile phone production line. All equipment has been powered on and tested, and can be used normally. We have also tried out some routine processes several times with samples. Now we are waiting for the key processor chips, memory chips, power management chips, and display chips to arrive.

After all these are in place, we can conduct full-process testing. According to the designed capacity, this line can produce about 200 units per day in the initial stage. After half a month of capacity ramp-up, it is expected to reach the designed capacity, which is 5 units per day. "

"That is to say, if everything goes well, we can start mass production before the Lunar New Year?"

"Yes, boss. But the construction of the second line will have to wait until the first line is running smoothly and the new employees are trained and skilled before we can start production. It will probably be April."

"That doesn't matter. It will take time to build our base stations. An initial monthly output of 1.2 units is enough. After all, our phones are more expensive than Motorola's big brothers, so sales may not be good at the beginning."

"That's not necessarily true, boss. Our cell phones are much better than those big brothers. The communication quality is much better because we have adopted digital signals while Motorola's big brothers still use analog signals. Moreover, our cell phones can also support sending and receiving text messages. Buying a cell phone is like getting a text message machine for free. Many rich people and small bosses in Hong Kong will definitely be very willing to buy them."

Zheng Tianming was very optimistic about the sales of this first mobile phone. He was more confident than Wang Jiankun because he was comparing it with Motorola's big brother, and he often stayed in Hong Kong and knew the consumption level here.

Wang Jiankun spends most of his time in China and northern Myanmar, both of which are very backward places compared to Hong Kong, and he doesn't know much about high-end consumption.

Since Zheng Tianming was so confident, Wang Jiankun also raised his sales expectations for this first mobile phone.

"Since you are confident in this phone, I will ask Xingyao Electronics to speed up the process. I just came back from there and their first batch of mass-produced chips have been produced. You should contact them as soon as possible and bring back a batch to start running the production line."

"Okay boss, I will talk to Lao Huang about getting the goods.

Boss, the optical fiber production plant you asked me to prepare has been renovated. When will the corresponding equipment be delivered?"

"Is the decoration completed? You're pretty quick. I thought it would be completed by the end of the month. As for the equipment, you can go to a warehouse at Tuen Mun Pier tomorrow to ship it back. There are videotapes of the corresponding installation and production operation tutorials, and the manuals will be very detailed. You can lead the team to install and debug. It doesn't matter if some raw materials are wasted in the early stage. They must be qualified before they can be shipped."

"Boss, is it difficult to produce this optical fiber? What kind of technical talents are needed?"

"It's not difficult. Although this technology was invented not long ago, in layman's terms, it is drawing glass fibers. In the early stage, this factory mainly carries out the back-end process. The front-end optical fiber preform rods are manufactured by another factory, and the optical fiber preform rods will be delivered regularly."

Wang Jiankun had completed the testing of the optical fiber production process last year, and the corresponding equipment had also produced samples. However, the front-end production of optical fiber preform rods is still relatively difficult, and Wang Jiankun intends to keep this process confidential, so the optical fiber production is planned to be carried out in two locations.

The front-end production of optical fiber preform rods will be placed in northern Myanmar. After manufacturing, they will be transported to the factory in Hong Kong and told to the outside world that they are imported.

The factory here mainly carries out wire drawing and lamination processes.

The optical fiber drawing process is relatively simple in terms of equipment. The manufactured optical fiber preform rod is placed in a high-temperature (about 2000℃) drawing furnace to heat and soften it. The viscosity of the tip of the rod will become lower, and it will droop and become thinner under its own weight to become a bare optical fiber. It passes through a coating and curing system and is then pulled and wound onto a drum.

Considering that the current usage of optical fiber is not very large, in order to reduce the difficulty of production, the optical fiber preform rod that Wang Jiankun plans to manufacture is only 2 meters long and weighs 5 kilograms, so the corresponding high-temperature furnace will not be very large.

Each batch of heated and softened optical fiber preform rods can be drawn into approximately 50 meters of finished optical fiber. About 10 batches can be drawn each month, and approximately 5 kilometers of optical fiber can be produced each month. Multiple optical fibers are then combined into optical cables with different communication capacities.

At present, the communication optical cable designed by Wang Jiankun is composed of 6 optical fibers combined into one. That is to say, more than 830 kilometers of optical cable can be produced every month. This output is sufficient to cope with the construction of communication networks between base stations and local area networks in northern Myanmar.

After production is streamlined and the domestic market is opened, Wang Jiankun plans to move optical fiber production to special economic zones in the mainland, and then build larger production equipment to meet the huge domestic demand.

Following Zheng Tianming to the renovated optical fiber drawing factory, Wang Jiankun checked the size of the factory building and the corresponding work stations and found that it was decorated according to his drawings.

"Boss, does the factory meet the requirements?"

"Yes, sure. When installing the equipment, find some workers who used to work in the glass factory. First, train them through video tutorials. Then, use the prepared sample preforms to debug the equipment, master the corresponding process parameters, and then start production."

After explaining the production of the optical fiber factory, Wang Jiankun had a staff meal at the Xingzhou Group and declined Zheng Tianming's farewell. After leaving Xingzhou Group, he came to the warehouse area of ​​Tuen Mun Wharf and found the warehouse that was rented at that time. There were people arranged by his uncle to help prepare some metal and non-metal elements.

Inside the warehouse, Wang Jiankun first used his superpowers to check if there were any suspicious people around, and then started to manufacture optical fiber production equipment according to the drawings finalized from previous tests.

The first is the high-temperature softening furnace. Because of the high temperature control requirements and the fact that the lower end must not be sealed, this furnace is quite complicated.

After making the softening furnace, the next step is to make the equipment for coating the polymer material, which also needs to have a heating function and is used to coat very thin glass fibers, so it is also a relatively sophisticated equipment.

The traction winding machine is relatively simple. The reel is driven by an electric motor and some corresponding speed regulation mechanisms are added, which are not very complicated.

Originally, it would be possible to go to the market and let the relevant factories manufacture the parts and then assemble them. However, one reason is that the demand for this equipment is not large, and it may not be that fast to find a manufacturer to make parts alone. Another reason is that assembly is also rather troublesome, and Wang Jiankun still has to do it himself, so it is more convenient to just use superpowers to manufacture it.

But when the factory is built in China later, Wang Jiankun plans to adopt conventional manufacturing methods. After all, as the demand increases, mold manufacturing will be more cost-effective.

After the equipment was manufactured, Wang Jiankun then started to manufacture optical fiber preform rods.

Because the factory in northern Myanmar is still under construction and it will take at least three months to reach production capacity, this first batch of optical fiber preform rods was manufactured using super power.

Wang Jiankun sent the quartz sand, germanium and boron elements in several other containers to the corresponding locations in a certain proportion, and the crystal clear optical fiber preform rods were neatly stacked in the warehouse.

Although it would take three months to prepare 3 optical fiber preform rods, their volume would not be very large and could not even fill up a large container. Wang Jiankun saw that there was still space, so he made 60 more and filled up the entire container.

The core layer of these preforms is germanium-doped silica, which has a higher refractive index than pure quartz, and the cladding is doped with boron, which has a lower refractive index than quartz.

When the two are drawn, the core layer is inside and the cladding is outside. The laser will refract at the interface where the two meet. The light will not escape from the core layer, but will refract repeatedly at the interface and transmit the information far away.

When Wang Jiankun began to prepare for large-scale fiber-optic communications in 83, he also took into account the current development history of communications.

Today's wired communications use coaxial cables, which are much larger than optical fibers, with a diameter of nearly 1 cm. Secondly, they cannot withstand entanglement, pressure, and severe bending, which will damage the circuit structure and prevent signal transmission.

Its cost is higher than that of mass-produced optical fiber, especially since domestic copper resources are scarce and the manufacture of coaxial cables consumes a large amount of precious copper.

The signal is also easily affected. If a certain section of the cable is squeezed or twisted, the distance between the central wire and the mesh conductive layer will not be consistent, which will cause the internal radio waves to be reflected back to the signal source. This effect reduces the receivable signal power.

The use of optical fiber for information transmission has many advantages.

First, it has an extremely wide bandwidth, like an information superhighway that can carry massive amounts of data. Its transmission capacity is staggering and it can easily handle high-definition video, massive files, and complex multimedia information.

Secondly, its loss is extremely small and the relay distance is long, allowing information to remain stable during long-distance transmission, and the bit error rate is so low that it can be almost ignored. It is like a loyal and reliable messenger, accurately delivering every important message.

Third, optical fiber is small in size and light in weight, like a light magic thread, which is easy to lay and install. It does not take up too much space but can play a huge role.

Fourthly, it has excellent anti-electromagnetic interference performance. Even in various complex electromagnetic field environments or facing the threat of lightning strikes, the optical fiber communication line remains as stable as a rock and is not affected at all, ensuring the safe transmission of information.

Fifth, when information is transmitted in optical fiber, leakage is extremely weak and confidentiality is excellent. It is like a secret hidden in a mysterious castle that cannot be stolen without special tools. It can provide solid protection for important areas such as military, politics and economy.

Sixth, quartz, the material used to make optical fiber, is inexhaustible on the earth, which is more conducive to the rational use of resources compared to those communication methods that rely on limited metal materials.

Finally, within the application frequency band, the optical fiber has equal loss for each frequency, eliminating the need for complex amplitude equalization at the receiving end, greatly reducing system complexity and cost.

The above advantages can beat the current coaxial cables and copper wires. It is not unreasonable that the United States has invested the most in research in this area. Its domestic demand for communications has reached a point where it has to change, and optical fiber, which can accommodate large amounts of data transmission, will of course be rushed into the market.

From the information collected, the United States has begun to replace the communication networks connecting various research institutes and universities on a large scale, and is also conducting communication tests between computers.

Its military communications should have already started using fiber optics. After all, with fiber optic communications, the probability of information being intercepted and decrypted during transmission is greatly reduced, or even eliminated.

After Wang Jiankun finished manufacturing the optical fiber production equipment and the optical fiber preform rods needed in the previous few months in Hong Kong, he drove a speedboat out of the waters near Hong Kong one evening, and then manufactured a Y-1 transport plane and flew it to the base in northern Myanmar.

After arriving at the base, he first checked the materials prepared in several warehouses, and then began to manufacture the production equipment for optical fiber preforms.

There are many methods for manufacturing optical fiber preforms, such as vapor phase oxidation, MCVD (chemical vapor deposition), and VCD.

When Wang Jiankun was researching blue light LED production, he had studied the MOCVD method. Its principle is the same as that of MCVD, so when choosing the production process for optical fiber preform rods, he first chose the MCVD method.

The MCVD method uses high-purity useful gas with oxygen as the carrier to obtain solid-phase deposits through high-temperature vapor-phase oxidation reaction in a rotating quartz tube.

High-purity gases such as SiCl4, GeCl4, POCl3, and fluorine are sent into a rotating quartz tube together with a carrier gas O2. A high-temperature hydrogen-oxygen flame at 1400°C to 1600°C moves back and forth outside the tube, causing the substances in the tube to undergo an oxidation reaction at high temperature to form dust-like oxides such as SiO2 or GeO2, which are deposited on the inner wall of the tube.

When the high temperature zone of the flame passes through here again, a uniform and transparent quartz glass film layer is formed on the inner wall of the tube.

Different doping agents are introduced according to the different refractive indices of the cladding and the core. For example, fluorine can be used to reduce the refractive index of the cladding, and GeCl4 can be used to increase the refractive index of the core.

Complex refractive index profiles can be achieved by computer-controlled doping levels in each layer.

After several hours of deposition, an inner cladding and a fiber core of a certain thickness are formed on the inner wall of the quartz tube. By increasing the flame or reducing the flame movement speed and keeping the quartz tube rotating, the quartz tube softens and shrinks when the outer wall temperature reaches 1800°C, becoming a solid rod, namely the optical fiber preform.

After Wang Jiankun finished manufacturing this entire set of production equipment inside the base in northern Myanmar, he notified his uncle and asked him to arrange personnel to receive the equipment.

(End of this chapter)