Galactic Tech Empire

Chapter 95 Chip Tape Out
"Oye!" Zheng Xinwang exclaimed excitedly, and it took more than half a month to finally carve out the original piece he was in charge of.

"Is it finished?" Mr. Zhao hurried over and asked.

Zheng Xinwang nodded excitedly: "I have checked the instrument three times, and it is exactly the same as the design drawing of the star map."

"Great, I'm going to install the carbon nano-needle and mold immediately." Mr. Zhao patted Zheng Xinwang on the shoulder and ordered.

"No problem." Zheng Xinwang and several others rushed to prepare.

Installing the carbon nano-needle is to inject silver atoms into the carved circuit groove as the control circuit of C31, and then import C31, so that an original carbon nano-printing head is completed.

And the reverse mold is actually because the original carbon nano printing head they carved is exactly the same as the design drawing.

Anyone who has used a seal knows that the words or patterns on the seal are opposite to the printed words or patterns.

Therefore, if the mold is not reversed, the circuit printed on the original film will be the opposite of the design drawing. Although this can also be used, for unnecessary trouble, the mold is still performed.

The original film was very fast according to the speed of the carbon nano needles. In just over half an hour, Zheng Xinwang and others completed the installation of the carbon nano needles.

The next step is to use the carbon nano print head directly for reverse printing.

After printing the original film, the printing head of the original film is made on the original film.

In this way, the printing head of a layer of circuit is completed, and the printing head can be installed on the circuit printing machine for debugging.

Of course, for the sake of efficiency, it is impossible for a circuit printing machine to have only one printing head. After all, a printing head can only print one chip at a time.

Therefore, it took Zheng Xinwang and others three days to complete a circuit printing machine that can be used with 30 centimeter square wafers, and there are densely packed printing heads neatly arranged inside.

The mobile phone chip industry often sees 28nm, 14nm, 10nm, 7nm, etc., where xxnm refers to the width of the gate of the complementary oxide metal semiconductor field effect transistor formed on the CPU, because it is called the gate length, not what many people think chip size.

In fact, if the size of the chip is 5 nanometers, it will be the same as a hair.The graphics card chips and mobile phone chips that you often see are all millimeter-level in length and width.

Due to lack of reasonable design, the 5nm-level chip designed by Xingtu Company has only integrated 130 billion transistors, and the average layer is between 3 and 5 million transistors.

If a properly designed 5-nanometer chip can integrate at least 300 billion transistors, the most powerful chip currently on the market is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, which is a 845nm process processor with as many as 10 billion transistors.

Even with such an unreasonable design, Xingtu's experimental chip can still integrate 130 billion transistors.

In addition, Galaxy Semiconductor's silicon wafer cutting technology is also different from traditional ones.

Generally speaking, after Sanxin and Taiji Electric have completed integrated circuits on silicon wafers, they will use wire saws or lasers to cut individual chips on silicon wafers.

Since the silicon wafer itself is very fragile, if you are not careful, the chips on the silicon wafer may be affected. In order to avoid this situation, there are considerable intervals between the chips on the silicon wafer, which leads to the utilization of silicon wafers. area decreased further.

However, in traditional chip manufacturing, this situation is unavoidable. Otherwise, if the chip is too close, there will be a slight error in cutting, and the chip will be scrapped.

The cutting process of Galaxy Semiconductor is designed based on the material handling ability of C31, which can cut at the nanometer level.

Therefore, the silicon wafer of Galaxy Semiconductor is covered with chips, which are densely packed and almost connected together.

As more and more original films have been completed, Zhang Rujing and Wang Bosi have already started to prepare for production in Galaxy Semiconductor's factory.

Semiconductor factories must adopt a dust-free and anti-static space, and workers must wear clean clothes.

These are mainly to ensure that the particles, temperature, and humidity of the working environment are up to standard. Any particles, temperature and humidity that are not up to standard may affect the working performance and reliability of the manufactured device.

In addition, there are radiation hazards in traditional semiconductor factories. The most serious thing is ion implantation (physical examination once every six months, and once a year for other types of work), because of harmful ion excitation.

Lithography is actually the same as the place where photos are printed, and the yellow light area also has a certain amount of radiation.

Other departments are slightly less serious, but the general equipment in the manufacturing plant is relatively dense. You may be exposed to some radiation even if you do not work in this department. Of course, it is very slight, so the purification clothing also has a certain radiation protection effect. guaranteed.

Of course, these radiation hazards are relatively small for Galaxy Semiconductor, because the process that Galaxy Semiconductor will adopt does not have photolithography machines and ion implanters.

Wang Bosi and Zhang Rujing kept busy with the semiconductor factory. As time passed, circuit printing machines were installed in the factory.

On October 2017, 10, history will surely remember this moment.

Huang Haojie, Zhang Rujing, Wang Bosi and others are watching the engineers carefully debug the production line. It is true that the first chip production line of Galaxy Semiconductor has been completed.

Moreover, this production line of Galaxy Semiconductor is a universal production line. As long as the original film on the printing head is replaced, other chips can be produced without having to build a new production line for a new chip.

"Boss Huang! We're almost ready, shall we try this production line?" Zhang Rujing couldn't wait.

Looking at the eager crowd, Huang Haojie nodded.

"Okay! All departments are at their respective positions, and the trial production of the No. 0 chip will start." Zhang Rujing shouted loudly.

Engineers and workers began to operate the equipment.

First of all, the cleaned 30cm[-] wafer is accurately and smoothly placed into the circuit printing machine of the first layer of circuit by industrial robots.

Unlike the slowness of the lithography machine, the circuit printing machine is very fast, how fast is it?
The exposure time required by the lithography machine is calculated in hours, so it usually takes about one to two weeks for a chip to be cut from the silicon wafer to the integrated circuit.

However, the speed of the circuit printing machine is extraordinary, and it takes only 5 minutes to complete the engraving of the first layer of circuit grooves.

The next step is to inject conductive impurities into the first layer of circuit grooves to form switches, that is, to make transistors.

After a process, the first-layer circuit took about 10 minutes to complete the transistors of the first-layer circuit, and then continue to enter the process of the second-layer circuit.

The 32-layer circuit plus cutting chips took a total of about 12 hours.

Since it is a trial production, this production line only produced 3 silicon wafers.

Looking at the cut chip, Zhang Rujing couldn't help shaking his hands:

"Quick, let's check what is the yield rate?"

"Ok!"

Although everyone has been waiting here for 12 hours, it is an honor to witness the birth of the world's first 5-nanometer chip.

The size of this 5-nanometer chip is about the size of a fingernail. It is a square with a side length of 9 mm and a thickness of 200 microns.

And a 30 centimeter wafer can cut 900 chips.

After carefully inspecting 2700 chips, the chip quality inspector quickly handed over a test report to Zhang Rujing.

"How?" Huang Haojie asked with a smile.

Zhang Rujing replied excitedly: "It's amazing. Only two pieces of waste products were found, and the rest are finished products. And the high-quality products account for about 70%, the good products account for about 28%, and the defective products account for less than 2%. Miracle."

"Haha, this is not a miracle, it's the power of technology." Huang Haojie picked up a chip the size of a finger and said.

"That's right! This is perfect! The era of chips belonging to Galaxy Technology has arrived." Wang Bosi clenched his fists excitedly.

(End of this chapter)