Chapter 1650 7nm era, here we come!

The cool breeze of early spring blew away the burning sensation caused by the discussion in the car.

Luan Wenjie took a deep breath and forced himself to withdraw from the overly advanced and shocking goal of "fusion demonstration reactor".

Before our eyes is a tangible and tangible milestone - the Sinochip International Tianjin Haihe Base.

The last time Chang Haonan visited was nearly two years ago. At that time, the ArF1800 lithography machine had not even been developed yet, and the entire Haihe base was researching multiple exposure technology in order to use DUV light source to produce high-process chips.

But now, the "national heavy weapon" that carries countless expectations has been firmly placed in the heart of the production line.

Base director Huang Wei and Huaxin International's technical director Wu Minghan came up to greet them with warm but restrained smiles, followed by a group of base management and technical backbones.

"Director Luan, Academician Chang, and President Xiang, thank you for your hard work along the way! Welcome to our guidance!" Huang Wei's voice was loud and powerful, and he took a few steps forward as he spoke, almost with excitement.

"I've finally waited for this day and have been looking forward to all the leaders coming to witness it." Wu Minghan was relatively restrained, but when shaking hands, the amplitude and strength of his shakes were much greater than usual.

It was obvious that their joy was genuine.

Even when greeting, the curve of the corners of his mouth could hardly be suppressed.

After a brief welcome ceremony, the group was led into the changing area.

The cumbersome procedure of donning cleanroom clothing is carried out meticulously: take off the coat, put on a one-piece cleanroom suit, put on a hood, mask, goggles, and shoe covers.

This is followed by a rigorous air shower, where a strong air flow blows away all possible particles.

Finally, we passed through an airlock door and officially entered the core area of the production area——

Constant temperature, appropriate humidity, and Class 100 dust-free clean room.

The soft top light evenly illuminates the neatly arranged automated equipment and the criss-crossing material transmission lines.

The technicians wearing the same white dust-free suits are like part of the precision instruments, concentrating on operating or monitoring data at their respective posts. Everything is in order, with only slight buzzing and airflow sounds.

Almost as soon as they entered the door, everyone's attention was drawn to the center of the production area.

There stands a significantly smaller lithography device.

After walking a few steps closer, you can see the clear and eye-catching "ArF1800" logo on the silver-gray shell.

At this moment, a group of technicians are gathered around its operating table and monitoring screen, making the final confirmation before tape-out.

A sign hung high above his head: F-3 Production Line.

"That's it," Wu Minghan said proudly, leading everyone to a safe observation distance. "ArF1800, our own deep ultraviolet lithography machine."

He pointed at the equipment and began to introduce it, his voice steady but confident. "This machine, including the light source, mask stage, alignment system, and control system, fully inherits the proven design concepts and operating logic of the previous generation 1500 and 1200 models, and has undergone extensive optimization. In particular, the stability of the light source and the alignment accuracy have been significantly improved."

He looked at Chang Haonan with gratitude in his eyes: "Our engineering team participated in the assembly and debugging of Shanghai Microelectronics throughout the process and understood its 'temper' very well. Therefore, the production line upgrade and personnel training went very smoothly, and we overcame some of the last technical problems faster than expected."

At this moment, a box of silicon wafer substrates carrying hope was smoothly transported to the starting station of the F-3 production line through the robotic arm of the automatic material handling system (AMHS).

Chang Haonan still remembers the scene when he came here last time.

These wafers were a size larger than the ones he had seen before.

"This is a 12-inch wafer, right..." Chang Haonan asked, "Has the new silicon wafer factory you mentioned to me last time started production?"

"Academician Chang has good eyesight!"

Wu Minghan praised, his smile growing wider:

"The high resolution and high production efficiency of the ArF1800 have saved us a lot of resources and effort, so this time we simultaneously upgraded the wafer processing system of the F-3 production line to be fully compatible with 12-inch wafers. Large-size wafers can significantly increase the number of chips produced in a single batch and reduce costs, which is also the mainstream international trend."

Everyone's eyes were constantly shifting along the entire production line as the wafers were spread out one by one.

The wafer first enters the fully automatic cleaning and pre-baking equipment to remove surface contaminants and moisture.

Next is the oxidation furnace, which grows a thin and uniform layer of silicon dioxide on the surface of the wafer.

The wafer is then fed into the critical coating machine.

During high-speed rotation, the viscous photoresist is precisely coated on the surface of the wafer, forming a uniform film with a thickness of only microns. Then the pre-bake oxidation further removes the solvent and solidifies the film.

For Huaxin International, these steps are already quite mature.

But everyone still held their breath and concentrated, fearing that slightly heavier breathing would affect some subtle parameter or make the machine spirit unhappy.

After completing all the front-end preparations, the wafer was finally carefully sent into the ArF1800 lithography machine by the robotic arm.

Dozens of hearts were lifted up at the same time.

But we can only do it in a hurry.

The photolithography process is completed inside the equipment and cannot be observed directly by the naked eye.

All the crowd could hear was the changing rhythm of the low humming sound, and saw the servo mechanisms around the equipment start to move. The high-precision mask stage and wafer stage moved in coordination with high speed and precision at the nanoscale, full of the unique sense of power of technology.

"The core of photolithography, in simple terms, is like using an extremely precise 'light' pen to 'draw' a designed circuit diagram onto a wafer coated with photosensitive adhesive."

Perhaps to ease the tense atmosphere, Wu Minghan turned around and used the most popular analogy to introduce the entire lithography process:

"The mask is the high-precision 'negative', engraved with a magnified circuit pattern. The deep ultraviolet light emitted by the light source is focused by the objective lens group and passes through the mask. It is then reduced and focused by a series of complex optical lens systems. Ultimately, the circuit pattern, which is miniaturized dozens or even hundreds of times, is accurately 'exposed' on the photoresist layer of the wafer..."

"..."

He paused, his tone filled with relief and confidence:

"Thanks to the extremely high resolution and overlay accuracy of the ArF1800, we no longer need to rely on extreme technologies such as phase-shift masks or multiple exposures when producing the current generation of 7nm process node products, so we are very confident in the yield rate of this tape-out."

As Wu Minghan spoke, a delicate process invisible to the naked eye was taking place inside the ArF1800:

The laser pulse is precisely excited, the mask stage moves and aligns with nanometer-level precision, and the complex optical system projects the pattern on the mask onto the photoresist layer of the wafer with extremely high resolution.

On the monitoring screen, the progress bar representing the exposure process advances steadily.

The wafer after exposure is sent out and enters the post-baking step to make the chemical reaction in the exposure area more thorough and the pattern more stable.

Next is the development stage, where a specific chemical solution is sprayed onto the wafer surface to dissolve the photoresist in areas not illuminated by the light source, thereby "developing" the circuit pattern on the mask and clearly presenting it on the wafer surface.

The fixing process further enhances the stability of the remaining photoresist pattern so that it can withstand subsequent etching impact.

The wafer is then immersed in a special chemical etching solution, and the areas not protected by the photoresist are selectively removed.

Finally, after the etching is completed, the photoresist layer that has completed its mission is completely removed...

……

When the last deposition process is completed, the first batch of wafers that have undergone complete front-end processing are sent out of the working chamber, which also pushes the atmosphere to its peak.

Wu Minghan instructed the staff to place one of the wafers on an observation platform with special angle lighting and display it to everyone through a clean protective cover.

When illuminated by light at a specific angle, the mirror-smooth surface of the silicon wafer clearly reveals countless geometric shapes that are so fine that the naked eye can hardly distinguish the details, but are arranged in an extremely regular and orderly manner - those are the outlines of basic components such as transistor gates, source and drain regions, and isolation trenches.

They are stacked layer by layer to form the most basic "foundation" of the chip.

In fact, Wu Minghan had already prepared the commentary for this purpose.

Both professional and sensational.

However, looking at the scene in front of him, he was the first to be unable to suppress his long-pent-up emotions. He bent over and pressed against the surface of the protective cover, staring at the wafer in fascination as if he was admiring his own child.

Even the words he uttered had a hint of tears in them:

"Everyone..."

He only said two words before he choked up and became silent.

Luan Wenjie and Chang Haonan both come from the aerospace industry and aviation, so they can understand his feelings at this moment.

Therefore, no one urged.

Just let the other party adjust his mentality under the mask.

After a long while, Wu Minghan spoke again:

"Leaders, although these patterns still need to go through subsequent metal interconnection, using metal wires to connect them according to the design requirements and pass electrical pulse signals, they can truly become a functional chip. But -"

He took a deep breath, his eyes swept over Chang Haonan, Luan Wenjie, Xiang Huaping, and the surrounding technical team who were holding their breath in concentration, and spoke each word with sonorous force:

"At this point, the most complex and core lithography step in the wafer manufacturing process, which determines the minimum feature size of the chip, has been completed... We... have successfully completed the first production test mission of the ArF1800 lithography machine!"

"In the 7nm era, we Chinese are here!"