Rebirth 08: Equipment God

Chapter 375 Black Box? Doesn't exist!
During the first week after school started, Zhai Da temporarily focused on his studies, attending every class to show his face, which made him exceptionally busy.

The teachers were aware of his special circumstances and didn't make things difficult for him. A few teachers even taught Zhai Da several courses over several semesters.

The total time they spent together never exceeded 10 hours.
Three meetings between teacher and student, yet they remained strangers.

In the first week, Zhai Da also did something important: he polished "The Severed Finger," copied it into an electronic file, and sent it to Lu Siwen and Lou En.

It will definitely be published. With Zhai Da's current reputation, even if he wrote three hundred children's songs, he could sell hundreds of thousands of copies. But after all, it is a completely new subject and style, and Phoenix Media attaches great importance to it. It is estimated that many study sessions will be held.

As for Lu Siwen, he had promised to let him feast his eyes first.

Even today, the friendship between the two writers is somewhat reminiscent of that between Lin Huiyin and Xu Zhimo. Wait, that doesn't seem very auspicious.

In short, the ties in the literary field have always been very strong.

"This thing is so expensive, it's come at a huge cost."

Ge Qiaoqiao held up her pants with one hand and held up a transparent brown disc with the other, which was only 4 inches in diameter, or about 10 centimeters.

Although it was perfectly encased in a glass dish, it was still handled with great care.

This thing, smaller than her panty liner, costs $3000! That's over 20,000 RMB!
It is close to the annual income of a grassroots worker.

The research institute purchased 20 of these substrates at once, totaling more than 40 RMB. And this was just the beginning; during the research and development phase, this material was a consumable.

Although as a graduate student she had already dealt with some expensive experimental materials, this still made her want to complain.

Zhai Da helped Ge Qiaoqiao pull up her pants, which didn't seem to fit her very well: "You've seen the craft brewing equipment on the first floor of the research institute, right? Before we cracked it, they were selling it for 30 yuan. Of course, this one is definitely more technologically advanced, but ultimately the price is too high, and making money is too easy."

"That's why I said before that we don't need to master substrate technology in the short term, but we must master it in the future."

As Sun Ting put on her clothes, she nodded: "It's too expensive, and I heard that their technology updates very slowly."

Sun Ting wanted to tighten the rope around her waist because it was a little loose, so Zhai Da kindly pulled on the rope for her.

"After all, it's a niche market, and very few products can use silicon carbide now. I heard the yield rate is only 30%, so it's basically a laboratory product."

The three of them helped each other and finally managed to get dressed.

Ge Qiaoqiao and Sun Ting were already sweating.

There was nothing romantic about it, even though Ge Qiaoqiao and Sun Ting were drenched in sweat.

Because they don't need to take their clothes off, they only need to put them on, and what they wear is a stuffy and ugly kind of clothing.
Cleanroom suits, also known as dust-free suits.

Ugly, cumbersome, and uncomfortable—there's no such thing as a cool outfit for doing experiments. Even if you put Hu Ge in this outfit, he'd look like Patrick Star.

At this moment, in the changing room outside the "Silicon Carbide Vapor Deposition Epitaxy Equipment Laboratory," they are about to learn how to use this equipment for the first time and perform substrate epitaxy.

Ge Qiaoqiao finished dressing, but felt the clothes were too loose. She subconsciously pressed her hands against her chest, feeling that the fabric was so thick she could stuff two more watermelons inside.
Turning to look at Sun Ting, even in this kind of clothing, there was a noticeable curve to her figure, and tears of envy welled up in my eyes.
If she had a choice, she would trade 1cm of her already precious height for a pair of watermelons.
Oranges are fine too.
When they were almost finished getting dressed, a graduate student came into the changing room. He seemed to be a third-year graduate student and his name was Tao Zheli.

Most third-year graduate students focus on their theses, so the fact that Zhai Da was called in to "do odd jobs" is clearly not because he's bad at it, but because he has a lot of influence.

The field of silicon carbide is cutting-edge enough that currently only a small amount of electricity is used in aerospace, military, and industrial applications.

Harbin Institute of Technology is clearly one of the first two. So Tao Zheli's level must be quite good, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to get into the cutting-edge project team.

He didn't feel there was anything wrong with these junior students who got in through connections. He was just a worker, why should he care about the principal? On the contrary, he was very interested in Zhai Da, a celebrity, and treated him very well.

"Are you all dressed? Wait a moment, let me put on an outfit."

Compared to the three, Tao Zheli was much faster, finishing in no time, saying:
"Sometimes when there are a lot of people, we have to write names on our clothes because it's hard to tell who's who when everyone's wearing them."

"Doing experiments is quite tough. Sometimes when we come out and take off our clothes, they're half soaked. Some labs are lax in their management, but the equipment we have today is really expensive, so we have to strictly follow the rules."

Zhai Da nodded. The other party was quite responsible and kept sharing some experience.

"Did you get the substrate?"

Zhai Da took out the box from earlier.

"High-end equipment, Infineon, but we probably won't need it today. It's just for familiarizing ourselves with the operation; there's no need to bring a brand new substrate."

After the final step of eliminating static electricity, Tao Zheli led the three of them into the laboratory, which was a separate room due to the high cost of the equipment.

A silicon carbide vapor deposition epitaxy system worth 1400 million yuan appeared before my eyes.

It lacks any sense of technology, or rather, industrial equipment doesn't pursue aesthetics; it's just a square, white "iron box" with a volume of about several dozen cubic meters.

The three of them had already previewed the material, but they still listened very attentively, especially regarding operating procedures and safety issues.

Even the most skilled can be harmed by chemical solvents that dissolve instantly upon ingestion; they can't protect your life or your wallet.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step; even the divine tortoise, though long-lived, still has a long neck.

Geniuses have lofty goals, but they also understand that one must take things one step at a time. No matter how strong their talent and inspiration are, they must start by learning how to operate the equipment. If we break down their future work, it would probably involve generating epitaxial films on a substrate using chemical vapor deposition, then constructing the required structures and functional areas using photolithography, and finally cutting and applying them to the required power devices.

Finally, it was time to build a prototype of the motor.

There are many steps involved, such as passivation, sputtering etching, gate structure fabrication, and controlling doping concentration, which I won't go into detail about.

In layman's terms: This is standard high technology!

This is the first step.

Tao Zheli explained step by step: "Only acid washing and ultrasonic cleaning require manual operation; the rest are automated and computer-controlled. The most important part is setting the parameters for the buffer layer and drift layer."

After talking for a full hour and confirming that all the questions were clear, Tao Zheli took out a separate negative from a cabinet next to him. Visually, it was not much different from Zhai Da's negative, except that the colors were a bit darker.

"Today is just a quick familiarization session to save you some trouble. This is a substrate that we scrapped before, but it can actually be used on both sides."

From a practical standpoint, extending both sides is meaningless because it will become messy during the cutting process, but it's fine for practice and demonstration.

Zhai Da asked, "By the way, senior, what country is this device from?"

"Tokyo Electron TEL, a Japanese company, has ridiculously expensive maintenance. It broke down once last year, and the repairman had to fly in from Japan. Moreover, we weren't allowed to watch the repairs; they had to clear the area to fix it."

Sun Ting asked in confusion, "Shouldn't we be entitled to a warranty if the equipment we bought for so much money breaks down? Why can't we even look at it?"

Tao Zheli smiled helplessly: "Most imported equipment is like this. Have you heard that story? When repairing imported equipment, Americans have to fly in, even though it's just replacing a rubber gasket. But they won't let you see it, and they won't let you remove the gasket. The repair cost is hundreds of thousands of US dollars. These are all true stories."

Tao Zheli was quite talkative. While operating the machine, he said, "I used to think this was a matter of 'intellectual property,' but now I realize it's not like that at all. If you have intellectual property, you can register a patent. Using these tricks is just about preventing others from making technological progress, increasing dependence, and making extra money on the side."

"This device is the same; about a third of its interior cannot be disassembled, making it a black box."

Zhai Da clicked his tongue.

That day, they performed two operations, mainly to familiarize themselves with the epitaxial process and various parameters. Zhai Da and the other two had less hands-on experience, while Tao Zheli did most of the work.

The substrates they brought were unused; they were all scrap wafers provided by Tao Zheli. Zhai Da had a good impression of him and even asked which lab he worked in.

The silicon carbide project couldn't stay with just the four of them forever; team expansion was inevitable, and he thought Tao Zheli was excellent.

Regarding the questions of "which laboratory" and "what research direction are you currently conducting," Tao Zheli's answer was:

"Sorry, I really can't say."

Okay, got it.

Perhaps Harbin Institute of Technology doesn't have the same convenience as Zhai Da's system for discovering geniuses, but its scientific research also has its own system, and Tao Zheli is clearly a promising young backbone.

The best talents have indeed been handed over to the country.

Three hours later, when I left the lab, my cleanroom suit was soaked with sweat, or rather, all the moisture that naturally evaporates from the body was trapped inside.

Tao Zheli suggested, "Let's go, as your senior, I'll treat you to a meal and talk to you about the equipment."

The group naturally agreed, but as they walked out, Zhai Da suddenly said, "I forgot my phone in the locker room. You guys go first, I'll be right back."

Back in the locker room alone, Zhai Da checked again to make sure there were no cameras.

Then, he reached forward with both hands and grabbed, revealing a "Souvenir Polaroid" in his left hand and a "Pure Gold Secret Cane" in his right.

What needs to be done is obvious.

It wasn't because of the story told by Tao Zheli, nor because the equipment came from Japan. As someone who wants to penetrate the entire upstream and downstream industrial chain, how could I not study this equipment?

A few minutes later, Zhai Da walked out of the locker room again, his pockets now filled with many Polaroid photos.

Let's take the items back and study them slowly first; there's no need to worry about it being a black box.
None of that exists for me!
No one can be as dark as me.

Any structure that can be distinguished by the naked eye will be clearly displayed in the white model's field of vision, even if you surround it with "lead plates"!
However, if he wants to reverse engineer so many different types of critical equipment more conveniently and efficiently, he may need an additional convenience.

For example, "airborne object control" at the micrometer level.
　I've talked about reverse engineering before. That's how it is in the tech world: whoever is more advanced gets studied, and if someone has a patent, you have to find a way to bypass it; if they don't have one, you have to seize the initiative and block others.

　　Intellectual property is not a game of pure innocence; it's an invisible war where everyone is cracking each other's intellectual property. It's just that in the past, we were more often the ones cracking others' intellectual property, but now others are cracking ours.

　　New energy vehicles have been dismantled so many times that books have been published about it. Recently, tunnel boring machines were also dismantled, not to mention military vehicles. They study every scrap they find to death.

　　So there's no need to feel guilty; the protagonist's "grand ambitions" might also be being "dismantled" by others.

　　Human nature is inherently competitive, and this is true all over the world.

　　However, with the development of the times, a new narrative has begun to emerge regarding industrialization. In addition to patented technologies, industrial scale, comprehensiveness, and infrastructure support are also powerful barriers that others cannot learn or crack.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)