Chapter 1149 The Imperial Group developed the first commercial lithography machine

Chapter 1149 The Empire Group developed the first commercial photolithography machine!

Empire State Building.

Conference room at Imperial Group headquarters.

"Oriental Daily News", "Ming Pao", "Sing Tao Daily", "Hong Kong Commercial News", etc., major media newspapers and periodicals in Hong Kong, as well as Heung Kong TVB, Heung Kong Asia Television, Heung Kong Radio, Heung Kong Commercial Radio, as well as major global journalists stationed in Hong Kong , they were all invited to attend the press conference for the Imperial Group’s acquisition of Huifeng Bank.

In addition, the Governor-General of the Government House, John Maliho, did not attend, but the Chief Secretary Chung Yat-jie, the Financial Secretary Peter Litch and many other important figures were present.

For the Imperial Group, in addition to Meilisi, Ma Shimin, Wei Li, Li Caixin and others present, there were also Huifeng Bank headed by Shen Bi, and other Huifeng Bank board members Zheng Weijian, Xu Shixun, Deng Lianru, Taikoo Shi Jodi and others attended the press conference.

18:00 in the evening.

Led by Mai Lisi, Shen Yi and others, they sat in front.

Merlis announced that he would officially announce the acquisition of Huifeng Bank on behalf of Sir Yang, Chairman of Imperial Group, the Imperial Group Cabinet, and the Imperial Group Secretariat.

Imperial Group will acquire Huifeng Bank with a total market value of HK$40 billion.

At this time, globally speaking, acquiring Huifeng Bank based on a total market value of HK$40 billion is indeed not low.

Except these.

Meris also announced new personnel appointments at Huifeng Bank.

Shen Yi still serves as the chief executive of Huifeng Bank, but now he has become the new general manager of Huifeng Bank and is directly responsible to Yang Ming.

In addition, Shen Yi is also a director of Huifeng Bank and a cabinet member of Empire Group Corporation.

In other words, Shen Yi became a new cabinet member of the Imperial Group.

However, Shen Bi is now 60 years old. Under normal circumstances, he can only hold one more post at most, that is, when he is 65 years old, he will definitely resign from his position as a supervisor at Huifeng Bank.

The reason why Yang Ming allows Shen Bi to continue to serve as the chief executive of Huifeng Bank is that, in addition to Shen Bi's own ability, Huifeng Bank's internal stability still needs to be handled by Shen Bi.

In other words, it is equivalent to Huifeng Bank having a new boss, and everything else seems to have remained unchanged.

When this press conference is over.

Someone rejoices.

Some people's expressions became ugly.

. . .

When the press conference is over.

Shen Yi, Mai Lisi and others were interviewed by reporters.

Afterwards, Shen Bi, Mai Lisi and others took cars to the Repulse Bay Mid-Levels Villa to meet Yang Ming.

. . .

Have a night's rest.

Early the next day.

Yang Ming got up for a walk. When he finished his walk and had breakfast, he learned from the newspapers that it was all about the press conference jointly held by Imperial Group and Huifeng Bank last night, in which Imperial Group had officially swallowed up Huifeng Bank.

In other words, they were the two largest banks in Hong Kong.

Huifeng Bank and Zada ​​Bank are now owned by the Imperial Group.

In addition to these two banks, Hengshan Bank, a subsidiary of Huifeng Bank, has also indirectly become a part of Imperial Group Financial Bank.

In other words, as long as the Imperial Group does not ask these banks to move out of Xiangjiang from now on, Xiangjiang's finance will still be very stable.

Nowadays, there are various reports and comments in these newspapers. It can be seen that the sudden acquisition of Huifeng Bank by Imperial Group still caused a great sensation.

The news after Imperial Group acquired Huifeng Bank is still making waves.

Yang Ming has already turned his attention to other aspects.

February 17, 1987.

Thursday.

Early this morning, Yang Ming just woke up. Although it was drizzling outside, Yang Ming was very happy today.

Yesterday, he had received exciting news.

Imperial Group has officially developed a commercially available photolithography machine at a technology company in Xiangjiang Science and Technology City.

what does that mean?

One can imagine.

Since the early 1980s, Yang Ming has established a science and technology city in northern Xiangjiang to lay out the semiconductor industry chain. In addition to establishing Xiangjiang Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Company.

For example, photolithography machines have already been established by Yang Ming.

In recent years, in addition to talents from Japan, Europe, America, and local Xiangjiang, there have also been talents from Sulian in the past two years.

Now a few years have passed, and the first photolithography machine has finally been developed.

Of course, compared with the lithography machines of the next thirty or forty years, the complexity of today's lithography machines is actually much simpler.

Domestically, as early as 1965, the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed the Type 65 contact lithography machine.

If the performance gap is not considered, the first contact lithography machine in M ​​country was manufactured by GCA Company in 1961, which was only 4 years apart.

At that time, the people of the Z country held back their ambition to "surpass the United Kingdom and catch up with the United States" and never admitted defeat. Supported by this belief, country Z's lithography machine technology has entered a period of vigorous and glorious independent development.

In the early 1970s, the Chinese Academy of Sciences began to study computer-aided photolithography mask technology;

In 1977, my country successfully developed the GK-3 semi-automatic lithography machine.

In 1980, Qinghua University achieved success in researching the fourth-generation step-by-step projection lithography machine technology. The lithography accuracy reached 3 microns, which was close to the international mainstream level.

In 1982, Factory 109 of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed the first KHA-75-1 lithography machine, shortening the gap with the world's leading level to within 5 years.

In 1985, the domestic new step-by-step lithography machine test machine passed the acceptance inspection. After expert appraisal, its performance was close to the level of the 4800DSW lithography machine of GCA Company, the giant lithography machine in China.

It is worth mentioning that this is the first step-by-step projection lithography machine in country Z. Although it is not as "world-leading" as described in some materials, it has made the country firmly grasp the field of lithography machines. He has beaten the pace of the world's first echelon, and the gap between him and the top is only seven or eight years at most.

At this point, the development history of photolithography machine technology in country Z has reached its peak, but who would have thought that it would also become the end of a glorious era?

With the deepening of the great opening-up, Country Z has actively integrated into the world, and the huge opportunities that are coming to us also contain many "sweet poisons".

In the 1970s and 1980s, Country Z and Country M went through a "honeymoon period." From advanced weapons to various civilian products, as long as the money was in place, they were no longer an unreachable luxury.

Western countries have also been quite "generous" and are even willing to sell cutting-edge products such as photolithography machines.

It can be said that whether the West's "generosity" to the country is a momentary good intention or a sinister conspiracy, the stakes are profound.

On the other hand, the development of domestic lithography machines has encountered a bottleneck and has been stuck at the 193nm light source for two decades.

Why bother developing it when it can be easily obtained? At that time, Country Z was far from wealthy. Compared with the two countries, "comprador thinking" quickly took over the mainstream.

Sailing against the current will lead to retreat. The distance between Country Z and the first echelon is getting wider and wider, and it will soon be completely out of touch.

In fact, in this field, compared with the gap between China and the United States, Japan, and Europe, the struggle within the first echelon is much more tragic and cruel.

The principle of a lithography machine is actually not complicated. Even in its early stages of development, it was not even as complex as a camera. Some companies that have a need for lithography machines do not buy from professional manufacturers, but buy the parts and assemble them themselves, such as Intel. .

The earliest development trend of lithography machines was led by people from the country M.

GCA Company of 1 country developed the first contact lithography machine and became a giant in the lithography machine industry.

With the support of the Air Force of the United States, PerkinElmer Instruments launched the world's first projection lithography machine Micralign100, which increased the wafer yield rate by 7 times overnight.

In 1978, GCA launched the stepper lithography machine DSW4800, with a resolution of up to 1 micron.

Although the unit price of this type of lithography machine is as high as US$450,000, major companies are still flocking to it and have no worries about selling it. At this point, the GCA company has entered its heyday. Under its leadership, the photolithography machine industry in M ​​country is booming. However, it is not known that there is a danger of breeding tigers. The "industrial prosperity" created by the people of M country has entered the countdown.

In the 1970s, major semiconductor manufacturers increasingly chose Toyo companies to provide optical lenses for photolithography machines, such as Nikon and Canon.

In this process, Toyo Enterprises clearly understood the uncomplicated lithography machine technology and began its own attempts.

With the continuous advancement of lithography technology, wafer manufacturing processes are becoming smaller and smaller, and lithography machine technology is becoming more and more dependent on optical systems. In this process, Japanese companies that specialize in optical components gradually emerged and quickly took away market share from the Chinese people. GCA declined and was acquired. Eventually, Toyo became the new leader in the field of lithography machines.

Historically, in 1984, when the domestic pursuit of independent research and development of lithography machines was gradually being eaten away by the "comprador mentality", the Dutch Philips Company temporarily built a row of simple factories in the open space in front of the headquarters building. As a company with 31 employees The office space of the newly established joint venture company of employees. This humble small company is the Dutch company ASML (ASML), which later controls more than 60% of the photolithography machine market and has an unshakable position. If it wants to produce below 10nm For wafers, you can only buy cutting-edge lithography machines from this company, and there is no other option; such a lithography machine costs US$120 million, and you may not be able to buy it if you have money.

Even later, I ordered an advanced photolithography machine from ASML and paid a deposit. Unexpectedly, a fire broke out in an industrial park in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, affecting an ASML company. An important supplier, but many years later, no goods were received in China.

In 2007, ASML's market share surpassed that of Nikon for the first time, and the world's top spot officially changed hands.