Rewrite the Technological Landscape

On December 11, 2001, Shanghai Microelectronics Division Changchun Laboratory will conduct an exposure system experiment.

It has been mentioned repeatedly before that the two core things of a lithography machine are the lens and the light source, but the purpose of today's experiment is not to say that the lens and light source can be solved directly. This is impossible. Only when the strongest combination on the surface is established. It took half a year, and it took only two months for the big bosses to join after the national project was completed.

Even though it was much easier to overcome the lithography machine technology in 2001 than in 2019, it will not be so fast. The purpose of this experiment today is to further prove that the development direction of the immersion lithography machine is correct.

Ji Kai demonstrated the feasibility of the immersion lithography machine before, but it is more of a theoretical conclusion.

This is like when Lin Benjian approached Nikon with his theory, he was ignored. A theory is a theory after all, and it still needs to be promoted to practical application.

Therefore, the purpose of this experiment is to further prove that the direction is correct, so as to give everyone greater confidence. The immersion lithography machine can break through the bottleneck of the entire lithography machine industry, and solve things that Americans and Neon people can't handle. , If this thing is really feasible, it will be of great significance to researchers in this field in Huaxia.

And on this basis, you can invest more financial resources and energy with more confidence, especially if you want the country to invest more.

At 9 o'clock in the morning, in the Changchun laboratory, there was a thing that looked obviously much rougher than a lithography machine. The biggest difference between further verifying the correctness of the research direction and actually producing a lithography machine is that it is not necessary to actually complete the lithography behavior of the chip, but only need to be able to collect some data smoothly.

And this difference will bring about a huge difference in equipment. For example, in terms of precision machinery, the experiment does not need to reach the level of automated machinery at the nanometer level, and you can even control it with your hands.

But some things still have requirements, such as the quality of the light source.

At 9 o'clock sharp, the preparations for the experiment began, and Meng Qian continued to look through Xu Guohua's notebook.

Xu Guohua's notebook records not only his experience, but the reason why he told Meng Qian to see if his notebook can help him is because it also records his technical accumulation over the years.

For example, after he participated in the company's lithography machine project,

"September 19, 2001

There are three ways to improve the resolution of the lithography machine, shorten the wavelength, increase the numerical aperture, and reduce the K1 factor. Some time ago, the concept of immersion lithography machine brought by Jiang University can greatly increase the refractive index, thereby increasing the numerical aperture.

In order to better cooperate with the new concept of immersion lithography machine, we have cooperated with Changguang Institute to achieve a huge breakthrough in lasers.

We have developed a high-power 193nm excimer laser, using a mixed gas of fluorine, argon and helium as the working medium, which can output the maximum ArF pulse laser energy of 424 millijoules, and the total power is basically stable at 1%. The laser is made of a fiberglass cylinder with an inner diameter of 8.4 cm and a total length of 94 cm.

The electrode adopts Zhang's uniform field surface electrode, the effective width of the electrode is 5mm, the length of the electrode is 80cm, and the distance between the two electrodes is 2.1cm. "

Changchun Laboratory at this time.

"Academician Wang, the power supply system has been prepared."

"Start the experiment."

"November 17, 2001, sunny.

The joining of Academician Wang greatly increased the confidence of the team. More than 30 scientific researchers have been working hard for a month, and finally achieved results in the beam stabilization technology.

The beam stabilization system this time includes two core functional modules: beam measurement and beam steering. After deriving the beam transfer matrix between the two modules, President Wang boldly decided to build a photoelectric closed-loop control system. By introducing known beam After the offset, the data shows that the pointing steady-state error of the system is less than ±3μrad, the position steady-state error is less than ±0.04mm, and the system adjustment time is less than 80ms.

The experimental results are exciting. "

"November 28, 2001, sunny.

The beam expansion system team jointly established by Changguang Optical Institute and Jiangda University brought good news. The newly designed system can meet the requirements of the beam within the range of 5-20m transmission optical path without adjusting the lens interval, and realize the spot size and divergence angle to meet the design requirements. It is required to ensure that the target beam aperture is within the range of (28. 5±0. 5) mm, the divergence angle in the X direction is 1.2mrad, and the divergence angle in the Y direction is 1.84mrad.

This research will have a huge impact on the development of lithography machines. "

Changchun Laboratory at this time.

"Academician Wang, the energy of the light source is stable, and the light spot data is normal."

"Open the shutter."

"yes."

"December 1, 2001, sunny.

Today, Professor Li from Congjiang University proposed a cutting-edge research, aiming at the characteristics of excimer light sources, and proposed two methods based on light rods and compound eyes to achieve highly uniform illumination on the mask surface.

Aiming at the fluctuation of incident excimer laser intensity and the randomness of intensity distribution, an array illumination mode conversion element is proposed to transform the beam, so as to realize the symmetry and consistency of the pupil under various illumination modes.

The effects of various error sources that may exist in the coherence factor adjustment system on the coherence factor, pupil ellipticity, pupil pole balance and telecentricity are studied. "

"December 5, 2001, sunny.

Tsinghua University, Yanhang and Changguang Institute have successfully developed a new diffractive optical element, which greatly reduces the impact of stray light. The new algorithm will provide strong technical support for our self-developed lithography machine. "

Changchun Laboratory at this time.

"Academician Wang, data collection is ready."

"let's start."

"yes."

"January 8, 2001, sunny.

This is a day of profound significance. The contradiction between the high numerical aperture of the objective lens and the extremely small system wave aberration has always been the biggest difficulty in the field of lithography machine objective lenses.

Now through the cooperation of aspheric components and reflective components, we are expected to break through this technical difficulty. Although the components this time are basically customized in Neon Country, it is only a matter of time before the upstream problem is solved, and the self-development of downstream components is only a matter of time. "

Through Xu Guohua's notebook, Meng Qian has a basic understanding of the research and development and main achievements of the lithography machine project in the past six months. The best display of China's scientific research strength,

There are too many core technologies in the design of lithography machines. There are thousands of patents involved in just one exposure system. In that life, these core technologies basically had nothing to do with Huaxia.

But now, on the land of China, scientific research forces are taking root in the field of lithography machines.

The big bone of the lithography machine is being eaten by Chinese researchers bit by bit.

This is only half a year's achievement, what about one year later, two years later, five years later?

Meng Qian's heart was churning. In his previous life, he had no chance or qualification to witness the strength of the older generation of researchers in China. In this life, he is so lucky to be able to witness it with his own eyes.

At noon, the food delivery person came, and Meng Qian carefully put Xu Guohua's notebook back into the drawer.

"President Meng, what time is it?" This was the fifth time Xu Guohua asked this question today.

"11:30." Meng Qian opened the vegetable box, "At least the results won't come out until evening. Teacher Xu, just wait patiently."

After lunch, Meng Qian, who hadn't slept all night, fell asleep. At three o'clock in the afternoon, because he was woken up by the nurse's rounds, Meng Qian simply washed his face and continued to wait.

At five o'clock in the evening, Meng Qian and Xu Guohua finally heard the sound of two hurried footsteps.

"Mr. Meng, Old Xu!" Liang Zhiguo had the answer written all over his face as soon as he entered the door.

Meng Qian's heart that had been hanging for a whole day finally let go, "Teacher Liang, please tell me the specific situation."

Liang Zhiguo sat next to the hospital bed with an excited face, "The direction of the immersion lithography machine should indeed be correct, and from the analysis of today's experimental data, the immersion lithography machine is very likely to push the lithography machine technology forward." 3-4 generations!"

Xu Guohua was greatly shocked, and Meng Qian cooperated with the shock, "What is the next research and development plan?"

"Poach people!"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Meng Qian didn't quite understand what Liang Zhiguo meant.

Liang Zhiguo explained, "We have now integrated all the forces that can be integrated, but this also exposes the reality of our talent gap in some aspects. There are too many subdivisions of lithography machines. Although it is impossible to develop all of them by ourselves, But we can't let go of several relatively core areas.

Therefore, for some core areas where talents are blank, it is definitely too late to cultivate them from scratch, and they can only rely on poaching. "

"Where are you going to dig?"

"We have sorted out the alumni resources of major universities, and there are some corresponding talents abroad in these blank fields."

Meng Qian understood Liang Zhiguo's meaning, "But they are going back to China, they should have returned to China, can they be called back?"

"As long as it is useful, someone will come back."

Meng Qian nodded. Liang Zhiguo had already said that, and he didn't question much, "By the way, there is one thing that Mr. Liang remembers to do."

"What?"

"apply for patent."

"Don't worry, our research has already applied for a patent."

"Not only our research, but around our research, we have applied for all the patents that can be applied for. The effect I want is that in the future, if others want to build an immersion lithography machine, even if they want to use water, they must get my nod!"

"Uh..." Liang Zhiguo and Zhu Weijun looked at each other, "Mr. Meng, isn't this... a technical hooligan?"

"That's right, our main opponent in the future will be a hooligan. Compete with a hooligan. Is it possible to reason with him? It's crazy for him to be able to reason.

Go ahead and play hooligans, I'm the boss, and if the world wants to scold me, they can scold me whatever they want, anyway, I don't care. "

Liang Zhiguo and Zhu Weijun looked at each other again, and after communicating with each other for a while, they finally decided to do what Meng Qian said.

At this moment, there was another sound of footsteps outside the door, and Liang Zhiguo's students came in carrying some vegetables and three bottles of Erguotou.

Liang Zhiguo took the food and drink, and said with a smile, "Anyway, today is a day of great joy, what time?"

"Okay." Meng Qian naturally did not refuse.

But Xu Guohua said with an aggrieved face, "Old Liang, are you greedy for me on purpose?"

"Hahaha, I'll drink your share for you."

Although they appear to be calm on the surface, in fact, the inner turmoil of the four people is very strong, and the wine is a bit high when they drink it.

In the evening, Liang Zhiguo's students stayed with Xu Guohua, and the three of them went back to the hotel to rest together.

Xu Guohua naturally didn't drink at all. When Liang Zhiguo's students sent the three of them off, he took out the notebook in the drawer and wrote with a pen.

"December 12, 2001, sunny.

my country's lithography machine field has made a breakthrough across the ages"