Chapter 1621: The Leap from 40nm to 27nm
Ten minutes later.
The group of people wearing protective clothing walked through the double-layer airtight door and tiptoed into the newly established dust-free testing room.
Looking through the window of the protective mask, Luan Wenjie almost instantly caught sight of the giant optical platform in the center of the room.
It looks like an operating table but is enlarged several times. It is densely covered with adjustment frames, guide rails and sensor interfaces. Several indicator laser beams of different colors are scanning above the platform in an interlaced manner, which is a bit dazzling.
Around the platform, there are seven or eight busy figures wearing one-piece white dust-free suits and fully enclosed protective gear.
Zhang Runing and his team.
Most people were so immersed in their tasks that they were unaware of the opening of the airtight door behind them and the arrival of visitors.
He Xiujun, who was the only one sitting in front of the main control computer, had an easier task at the moment. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of the faint indicator light indicating the opening of the airtight door, followed by Chang Haonan and his companions who filed in.
He subconsciously wanted to get up, but when he was halfway through the movement, he saw Chang Haonan pressing his palm against him through the mask, indicating that he should continue working.
He Xiujun immediately understood, and forced himself to suppress his surprise, refocusing his attention on the data and waveform graph jumping on the screen.
About twenty minutes later, accompanied by a crisp prompt sound from the instrument, the last set of indicator lights on the console turned from red to green.
Zhang Runing breathed a sigh of relief and his shoulders relaxed slightly.
Then he turned around as usual, ready to ask everyone to take a short break.
However, when he turned around, his whole body froze instantly.
A few meters away, there were several figures standing.
Like them, they all wore closed white dust-free suits.
Because of the mask, the face is not very clear.
We can only tell from his body shape and movement habits that the one on the left of the two leaders should be Chang Haonan.
As for the remaining few people, they did not seem to be members of Torch Lab.
"Academician Chang?"
Zhang Runing's voice sounded a little muffled through the mask, but one could still hear his obvious surprise, and his eyes flickered between the few people.
Luan Wenjie knew that the person in front of him was the Changguang Group's technical team that was stationed in the Torch Laboratory to conduct system research and development, but for the same reason, he couldn't tell who was who.
Fortunately, Chang Haonan spoke in time and introduced each other's identities to the two of them.
Now, Luan Wenjie finally had a precise target. He took a few steps forward, came to Zhang Runing, and took the initiative to shake hands with him.
The latter was stunned after hearing the introduction just now.
The head of the Industrial and Construction Committee!
He subconsciously wanted to say something like "Welcome the leaders to inspect and guide us", but when the words came to his lips, they were suddenly stuck -
We are now at the Torch Laboratory, and as a partner who is temporarily working here, it would seem that I am taking over the host position if I make a welcoming statement.
As a result, I froze in place, not knowing what to do.
A subtle awkwardness instantly spread.
"Director Luan, the two modules that have just been promoted are the objective lens system we developed specifically for the SMEE ArF-1800 lithography machine, and the ArF-1500 objective lens as a control group."
It was Chang Haonan who spoke in time again, shifting everyone's attention to the testing platform next to them.
The invisible pressure disappeared instantly, and Zhang Runing immediately continued the topic as if he had been pardoned:
"The test we just conducted was to compare the performance of the new and old objective lens solutions under the 193nm DUV light source..."
Luan Wenjie did not come from optical systems or semiconductors, and had never seen a lithography machine after being disassembled into pieces, so he subconsciously came to the larger 1500 module, looked around, and then aimed at the more compact 1800 module on the other side.
"It's so much bigger?"
Apparently, he mistook the larger module for the more advanced one.
Of course, traditionally, the performance of the objective lens group in a lithography system is indeed proportional to its size.
But Chang Haonan's approach is really unusual.
Zhang Runing quickly explained:
"We used the negative refractive material provided by the Torch Laboratory and combined it with the concept of 'folding mirror integrated design' proposed by Academician Chang, which greatly simplified the optical design of the objective lens group."
When Luan Wenjie heard the word "simplify", he realized that he had got the goal wrong.
Fortunately, he hadn't lost face yet, so he pretended to be calm and walked to the smaller module, leaning down slightly, as if trying to find some similarities in the complicated structure in front of him.
It just failed as a matter of course.
"The traditional catadioptric objective lens group contains more than thirty precision lenses to correct aberrations, chromatic aberrations, and maximize the numerical aperture... Not only is the structure complex, the volume and weight are large, but the reflective elements in it also have very demanding requirements for processing accuracy."
Zhang Runing further introduced:
"In the updated 1800 objective lens group, most functions are integrated into a few core lenses, and the number of independent optical components is reduced to 14, so the volume is more than half smaller than the old model..."
"..."
At this moment, He Xiujun, who had been sitting in front of the control computer, suddenly stood up.
"Team Leader Zhang, the latest set of test data has been processed!"
He walked to Zhang Runing and Luan Wenjie at the same time and reported:
"At a wavelength of 193nm, the maximum measured equivalent numerical aperture (NA) of the 1800 objective lens group is 1.8009, the minimum is 1.7996, and the NA consistency reaches ±0.0013, which is much better than the ±0.006 required by our design index, and is also in full compliance with the theoretical NA value of 1.80 in the design plan..."
"The maximum RMS (root mean square) of the full field of view amplitude polarization is 11.85% and the minimum is 11.80%..."
"The maximum RMS phase delay of the entire field of view is 3.77nm, and the minimum is 3.45nm..."
In fact, most of the parameters here have been measured before, and he usually doesn't need to report them specifically.
Export the report and everyone can just read it separately.
But at this moment, facing Luan Wenjie who was on the front line, this data report, which was detailed to the point of being almost redundant, seemed particularly "just right" and substantial.
"and many more."
Sure enough, Luan Wenjie interrupted the subsequent parameter report.
Since he came here specifically to inspect the lithography machine, he naturally had some understanding of these basic parameters.
Although I was a little overwhelmed by the sudden influx of data, I still keenly captured the most critical part.
NA value, 1.80!
"I remember that in the evaluation report that I submitted earlier, the highest numerical aperture estimate was 1.70?"
Faced with this question, Zhang Runing showed a trace of confusion on his face.
He was not aware of any such assessment report.
Chang Haonan immediately took over the conversation and explained:
"Director Luan, the value of 1.70 used in that report was set when we were doing a horizontal comparison of different technical routes... um... a reference benchmark. At that time, in order to make a fair comparison and illustrate the advantages of the lutetium aluminum garnet system, I set the premise that all other conditions, such as light source, field of view, mechanical platform, etc., were consistent."
“However, in the actual design process, because the overall structure of the objective lens group has become much simpler, the effective field of view of the bottom mirror of this system is about 1500% wider than that of the previous 15 objective lens group… In other words, under the same NA value requirement, the incident angle of light passing through the edge area of the objective lens can be smaller, which greatly reduces the edge aberration pressure that is the most difficult to overcome when designing an ultra-high NA system…”
"..."
"In short," he concluded, "this extra improvement of 0.1 is a real engineering bonus brought about by increased design freedom, and is also a direct reflection of the comprehensive superiority of the new solution."
Luan Wenjie may not have fully understood his long speech, but the results in front of him obviously made him feel very happy:
"So Academician Chang, you just mentioned that Huaxin International can mass-produce a new generation of 7nm chips using the MPP process. The key lies in this NA value of 1.80?"
Chang Haonan nodded: "That's right."
Then, he took a form from the side and handed it to the other party:
“1.80的数值孔径，相当于我们把193nm DUV光源的等效波长压缩到了107.22nm，对比NA值1.35的老体系，相当于把特征尺寸的理论极限从40nm一举推进到27nm左右！”
Luan Wenjie's eyes quickly moved on the table, and finally found the node size corresponding to 27nm——
Samsung's 5nm, or TSMC's 7nm++, or Intel's 10nm.
In short, it is already the strongest one at present.
In the past, it was generally believed that only EUV lithography machines could enter this field.
Seeing that the other party's gaze had stopped moving, Chang Haonan finally gave a temporary conclusion:
"This capability is sufficient to cover all production needs of the 7nm currently defined by TSMC, Samsung and other manufacturers, as well as more advanced nodes that may appear in the next 3-5 years! Moreover, it can be stably achieved with a single exposure process."
"More importantly, the main structure of the ArF-1800 lithography machine, except for this revolutionary objective lens group, other core subsystems such as the light source system, precision workpiece stage, mask stage and aligner, all use the mature design of the ArF-1500 platform, which maximizes the reliability of the equipment and the user's production conversion speed."
Having said that, he paused for a moment to give Luan Wenjie some time to react.
Then, he emphasized again:
"This means that once the equipment is delivered, Huaxin International will be able to complete production line switching and capacity ramp-up in the shortest possible time without a long debugging and adaptation period. Every link in the supply chain, from materials, design to manufacturing, is firmly in our own hands, stable, safe and controllable!"
