The technological empire begins with polymer materials

When the first ray of sunlight shines in the northern morning, an exciting experiment finally begins in the underground laboratory of the Changchun Institute of Optics and Mechanics.

The laser generator begins to warm up. This is one of the core components of the complete photolithography machine. It is designed and manufactured by the Chinese Academy of Optoelectronics.

After the laser light source is emitted, it will first enter the beam straightener. There are three sets of straighteners to adjust the incident direction of the beam to keep the laser beam as parallel as possible.

The adjusted parallel laser will enter the energy controller.

As the name suggests, the energy controller adjusts the laser power and controls the amount of energy that is ultimately irradiated onto the silicon wafer.

In high-precision manufacturing like chips, underexposure or overexposure will seriously affect the quality of the film, so energy must be strictly controlled.

After the energy controller, there is the beam shape setter, which can set the beam shape into different shapes such as circular, ring, scattering, etc. Different shapes of lasers have different optical properties.

There is also a set of shutters at the end of the beam shape setter. When exposure is not required, the shutters will block the beam to prevent it from hitting the silicon wafer.

Then there is the energy detector. This thing is mainly used to detect the power of the beam. It cannot be used alone. Instead, it feeds the detection signal back to the energy controller and cooperates with the energy controller to adjust the power.

The adjusted laser beam will pass through the mask and enter the objective lens.

A mask is also called a photomask. To put it simply, it is a glass plate with a circuit design engraved inside. It is used for exposing silicon wafers. You can customize what kind of mask you want for the semiconductor design circuit. Version.

The price of the mask is directly proportional to the accuracy. Domestic Haitoppan, Wuxi China Resources, China Micro, Shenzhen Qingyi, Luwei, Thirteenth Institute, Fifty-fifth Institute, Automation Institute, etc. can all make this thing.

At present, China has reduced the price of basic masks to cabbage prices. A 2um photolithography board from the Imperial Microelectronics Institute only costs 1,200 yuan, a 1,100 yuan from Nanjing 55 Institute, and a board with a precision of 1um costs 5,000 yuan. Wuxi China Resources is a little more expensive, starting at 2,000 yuan, but the board is really beautiful.

And if the precision of the board reaches the nanometer level, it will be quite expensive. According to industry gossip, Apple's customized mask for its m1 processor costs up to millions of dollars.

Below the mask is a mechanical device called the mask table. Its function is to carry the mask for movement. The control accuracy is nanometer level. In order to meet the demanding precise control requirements, the Changchun Institute of Optics and Mechanics purchased the mask from Kunlun Group. High-precision Aurora motor.

On this machine, there are actually many technologies and products from Kunlun Group, but the most important part must be the huge and extremely precise objective lens under the mask table.

The objective lens is composed of more than thirty lenses. Its main function is to scale down the circuit diagram on the mask and map it onto the silicon wafer using laser. The objective lens also actively compensates for various optical errors and controls the exposure accuracy.

It is no exaggeration to say that the objective lens is the heart of the lithography machine. If the objective lens technology is passable, even if the mask technology is inferior and the light source power is weaker, good results can be obtained in the end.

But if the objective lens technology is not good, all other subsystems will have no effect no matter how well they are made.

After all, the essence of a lithography machine is an optical system.

Many students who don't understand the semiconductor industry often misunderstand it. The real chip manufacturing process is exposed by laser on the silicon wafer through the objective lens, rather than being physically carved by a machine.

When Gao Yuan glanced at the huge objective lens, the corners of his mouth slightly raised, full of confidence.

This set of objective lenses is a gift from the big pig's trotters of the system. It is by no means as simple as splicing together more than thirty pieces of polished glass. In addition to accuracy, it also has a powerful power compensation mechanism and fault tolerance mechanism.

In other words, after the laser passes through the objective lens, the power can be improved to a certain extent, and the accuracy can be infinitely close to perfection.

In short, it means that it is very awesome and powerful. When the external objective lens is turned on, the effect is amazing.

Under the objective lens are the measurement stage and exposure stage. Old-fashioned photolithography machines need to measure first and then expose. This dual workbench system can expose one silicon wafer and measure and calibrate the other silicon wafer at the same time. Efficiency is more than doubled.

At present, only Dutch ASML in the world has mastered the dual workbench technology. If this machine in Changchun is mass-produced, it will be the second in the world.

At the bottom of the entire machine is an internal closed frame and shock absorbers, which are responsible for isolating the workbench from the external environment, keeping it level, reducing external vibration interference, and maintaining constant temperature and pressure.

This is extremely important. After all, we are manufacturing high-precision chips. Even the smallest vibration, a particle of dust, or a difference in air temperature and humidity may cause the silicon wafer to fail to be exposed, or the performance of the two batches of chips to be inconsistent.

A complete photolithography machine is roughly like this.

It sounds simple, but it is actually one of the most complex and sophisticated machines in human history.

Looking around the world, there are only three companies that can do ultraviolet, ASML, Canon, and Nikon. And the only one that can do extreme ultraviolet is Dutch ASML. All other competitors have been eliminated and disappeared in the long river of history.

"start!"

The director of the Changchun Institute of Optics and Mechanics is called Du Weiming. Following his order, the lithography machine started running in the fully enclosed laboratory. After about ten seconds, a 12-inch silicon wafer was delivered. Got off the machine.

In fact, the photolithography machine works very quickly, producing more than two hundred pictures per hour, without any problems at all.

The main constraints on production capacity are deposition equipment, such as PVD and CVD, followed by etching equipment including ICP, CCP, and DIE. In addition, the working efficiency of heat treatment equipment is also very impressive.

A fab manufacturing line with a monthly production capacity of 10,000 12-inch wafers may only have four or five photolithography machines, but it must start with at least 60 etching machines. If you want to pursue high efficiency, you may even need to pile up a dozen. More than a hundred etching machines.

Currently, AMEC's ​​dielectric etching technology and through-silicon hole etching technology are among the top three in the world. TSMC, the world's most powerful semiconductor foundry, has hundreds of etching machines from AMEC on its production lines. It is considered a relatively promising presence in the domestic semiconductor industry.

"It's done!"

"The film was successfully produced in one go, and it was smoother than I expected!"

"As expected of the Kunlun Group, the optical system that was temporarily added works so well with the old machine!"

In the laboratory, engineers wearing full dust-free suits took out the twelve-inch silicon wafer. If you look closely, you will find that there are dense and complicated lines on it, which are sparkling under the light, which is very gratifying.

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