When the first sunlight lit up in the morning in the north, an exciting experiment finally began in the underground laboratory of Changchun Institute of Optical and Mechanical Engineering.

The laser generator began to preheat, which is one of the most core components of the complete set of lithography machines, designed and manufactured by the China Academy of Optoelectronics.

After the laser light source is emitted, it will first enter the beam corrector. There are three groups of correctors. Adjust the direction of the beam incident to keep the laser beam parallel as much as possible.

The adjusted parallel laser will enter the energy controller.

As the name suggests, an energy controller regulates the existence of laser power and controls the energy magnitude of the final irradiation onto the silicon wafer.

High-precision manufacturing industries like chips, whether underexposed or overexposed, will seriously affect the quality of the film, so the energy must be strictly controlled.

After the energy controller, there is a beam shape setter, which can set the beam shape, which is in different shapes such as circular, ring, scattering, etc., and different forms of lasers have different optical characteristics.

There is also a set of light shields at the tail of the beam shape setter. When no exposure is required, the light shield will block the light beam to prevent the light beam from illuminating on 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 adjusts the power with the energy controller.

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

The mask plate is also called a photocoat. In short, it is a glass plate with a line design drawing engraved inside, used to expose the silicon wafer. You can customize the mask plate of the semiconductor design circuit you want.

The price and accuracy of the mask version are proportional to the accuracy. Domestic Hai Expression, Wuxi China Resources, Zhongwei, Shenzhen Qingyi, Luwei, Thirteen Institutes, Fifty-five Institutes, Automation Institutes, etc. can all do this.

At present, Huaxia has already made the basic mask version price a bargain. The 2um photolithography of the Imperial Capital Microelectronics Institute only costs 1,200 yuan, 1,100 yuan from Nanjing 55 yuan, 5,000 yuan with an accuracy of 1um, and Wuxi China Resources is slightly more expensive, starting from 2,000 yuan, but the board is indeed beautiful.

If the board with a nano-level accuracy is quite expensive, it will be quite expensive. According to industry rumors, Apple's customized mask version for its m1 processor is as expensive as millions of dollars.

Below the mask plate is a mechanical device called a mask table. Its function is to carry the mask plate for movement, and the control accuracy is nanometers. In order to meet the strict precise control requirements, Changchun Optical Machinery purchased high-precision aurora motors from Kunlun Group.

In this set of machines, there are actually many technologies and products, all from Kunlun Group, but the most important part must be a huge and extremely precise objective lens under the mask table.

The objective lens is composed of more than 30 lenses. Its main function is to reduce the circuit diagram on the mask plate according to the scale, and then use laser-mapped silicon wafers. The objective lens also actively compensates for various optical errors and controls exposure accuracy.

It is no exaggeration to say that the objective lens is the heart of the lithography machine. If the objective lens technology passes, even if the mask technology is a little worse and the light source power is weaker, you can get good results in the end.

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

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

Many students who don’t understand the semiconductor industry often have some misunderstandings about it. The real chip manufacturing process is exposed by lasers through objective lenses on silicon wafers, rather than physically carved by machines.

When Gao Yuan glanced over the huge objective lens, a curve was raised gently at the corner of his mouth, and he was full of confidence.

This objective lens comes from the gift of the big pig's hooves of the system. It is definitely not as simple as splicing 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 in terms of accuracy, it can be infinitely close to perfection.

In short, it means it is very awesome and powerful. It has a plug-in objective lens, and the effect is amazing.

Below the objective lens is the measuring table and the exposure table. The old lithography machine needs to measure first and then expose it. This dual-working table system can achieve exposure of one silicon wafer and measure and calibrate another silicon wafer, which will increase the working efficiency by more than double.

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

At the bottom of the entire machine, there is an internal closed frame and vibration absorber. They are responsible for isolating the workbench from the external environment, maintaining level, reducing external vibration interference, and maintaining a constant temperature and pressure.

This is extremely important. After all, it is to make high-precision chips. Even the slightest vibration, a particle of dust, or the difference in air temperature and humidity may lead to failure of exposure of silicon wafers, or the performance of the two batches of chips in the front and rear is inconsistent.

This is basically the case with a complete lithography machine.

It sounds simple, but it is actually the most complex and sophisticated machine in human history, no doubt about it.

Looking around the world, there are only three companies that can achieve ultraviolet, asml, Canon and Nikon, while only Dutch Asml can achieve extreme ultraviolet, and all other competitors have been eliminated and disappeared into the long river of history.

"start!"

The director of Changchun Optical Machinery Institute was Du Weiming. With his order, the lithography machine began to run in the Juechen Laboratory. After about ten seconds, a twelve-inch silicon wafer was sent off the machine.

In fact, the lithography machine works very fast, with more than 200 films per hour, and there is no problem at all.

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

The Fab manufacturing line with a monthly production capacity of 10,000 12-inch wafers may only have four or five lithography machines, but the etching machines must start at least sixty. If you want to pursue high efficiency, you may even stack more than one hundred etching machines.

At present, China Micro Semiconductor's dielectric etching technology and silicon through-hole etching technology rank among the top three in the world. TSMC, the world's best semiconductor foundry, has hundreds of etching machines from China Micro on its production line, which is a relatively successful existence in the domestic semiconductor industry.

"It's done!"

"It was a success in the film in one go, which was even smoother than I expected!"

"It's worthy of being Kunlun Group. The optical system that was temporarily added is so well cooperated with the old machine!"

In the laboratory, an engineer wearing a full set of dust-free suits took off the twelve-inch silicon wafer and looked carefully, he would find dense and complicated lines on it, which were shiny under the light, which was very gratifying.
Chapter completed!