Chapter 568 Troubleshooting by Restarting (5400)

The huge fresh air duct whirred, delivering absolutely clean air into the factory.

A researcher wearing a full-body cleanroom suit pointed at the equipment that looked like an iron house without windows and explained it to Fang Yu, who was also wearing a cleanroom suit.

Through the transparent mask of the cleanroom suit, you can see Dr. Zhang’s round face.

"Zhou Microelectronics' ICP-RIE plasma etcher just arrived last week and is being assembled now. The Compact-300 thin film deposition system will take about a week to complete."

Dr. Zhang has a round head and face, but he is not fat, just round. He does not look old, but has very serious bags under his eyes, which shows that he has not slept well for a long time.

"This is mainly the front-end process area, which requires very high cleanliness. The etching machine, wafer AOI and probe station are all in this area, and the cleanliness level is lower than Class 10."

Dr. Zhang led the two of them and pointed at the equipment on both sides of the passage as they walked.

Ning Yu turned her head curiously to look at it. A photolithography machine? An etching machine? What was that?

I didn't see any machines, just rows of gray iron house-like things.

"The Orbotech automated optical inspection machine has been basically debugged."

"This batch of goods is a bargain. Orbotech is probably in talks to be acquired. They are focusing on increasing revenue and raising their valuation. Once the money is in place, they will sell anything."

Dr. Zhang snorted, his tone quite disdainful.

"Sixty percent of production equipment can now be replaced by domestic products, but key equipment cannot be domestically produced."

"It's not just DUV and EUV lithography machines, but also CMP chemical mechanical polishing, wafer packaging, MEMS packaging/sensor alignment, MTF measurement... all of which can only be bought second-hand at high prices."

As he spoke, he walked through two rows of equipment areas, and a door with a red isolation sign appeared in front.

Dr. Zhang took off his work badge hanging on his chest and swiped it against the sensor, then leaned forward slightly in front of the iris reader.

"Authorization confirmed." An artificial voice sounded, and the door opened automatically with a "pop".

Seeing that there was a long corridor inside the door with various holes on the walls and the top, Ning Yu couldn't help but feel a little nervous.

Didn't you just spray once? Do you want to spray again?

Before entering the front-end process workshop, Dr. Zhang took the two people wearing dust-free suits to take an air shower. At that time, the huge airflow sound in the air shower room even made Ning Yu feel suffocated.

Although she was wearing a dust-free suit and her breathing was not affected, Ning Yu still felt a little nervous when she felt the strong airflow making the suit rustle.

“DUV requires a higher level of cleanliness, so a secondary air shower is necessary.”

Dr. Zhang explained briefly, then locked the inner door. The nozzles on the four walls immediately swung out high-speed ion wind, whistling and washing over the three people's dust-free suits, taking away any remaining dust.

The difference is that this time the airflow is louder and more violent than when it just entered the previous process workshop, and it lasts longer, spraying for more than half a minute.

Ning Yu might have felt a little claustrophobic, and subconsciously reached out and pinched Fang Yu's dust-free suit.

Fang Yu glanced at her sideways, then suddenly reached out and patted her on the back as if to comfort her.

Ning Yu couldn't help but shudder, and subconsciously looked at Fang Yu who was wrapped tightly in the dust-free suit.

Through the double-layer mask, Ning Yu seemed to see Fang Yu, who was also wrapped tightly, smiling at her.

Ning Yu's body trembled, and a strange emotion grew from the bottom of her heart.

This emotion is very special, itchy and weird, as if there is a kitten scratching in my heart, and from time to time it stretches out its claws, hooks it lightly, and then quickly retracts it.

The kitten was very naughty and refused to let her catch it, leaving only waves of numbness and warmth spreading in her heart, throat, and ear tips.

She felt her breathing become light and rapid through the double-layer mask, as if she was afraid of scaring away something fragile.

She wanted to raise her hand to press her chest, but was afraid that he would see; she wanted to look away, but she seemed to be glued to the pair of eyes behind the mask and could not move away.

This was the first time in her life that she had felt this way.

Even when he was forced to experience the feelings of Liu Feifei and Fang Yu, he had never experienced this before.

“Beep~~~”

The nozzles around suddenly stopped spraying, the huge wind noise stopped instantly, a beeping sound was heard in the air shower room, and the indicator light on the inner door head turned from red to green.

"Shh~"

The inner door of the air shower room opens automatically.

Ning Yu quickly withdrew her hand from Fang Yu's dust-free suit, and her face turned red.

Didn’t he notice? Didn’t he notice?

The cleanroom suit was wrapped so tightly that I couldn't see anything, so I guess he didn't notice anything.

The moisture exhaled from Ning Yu's mouth condensed into a thin layer of mist on the mask, but it was quickly drawn away by the automatic air supply system on the top of the dust-free suit mask.

"Mr. Fang, both of you, this is the exposure room, which is what people now often call the lithography room."

Dr. Zhang pushed open the door, and Liu Feifei couldn't help but squint her eyes.

The brightness here is much lower than that of the previous process area, and the color of the lighting has also changed from bright white light to dim yellow light.

If you look closely, it seems that the walls and ceiling are also painted with yellow matte paint, as if the yellow color is used to isolate the color of the entire world.

The metal house in the photolithography room, which covers an area of ​​40 to 50 square meters, is also yellow, while the surrounding corners and the base of the metal house are pure black matte metal plates.

On top of the yellow metal house, there is a tower-shaped LED lamp post with a red light on, and the yellow light strip on the tower post is also flashing intermittently.

"Photoresist is sensitive to blue light. To avoid accidental exposure, yellow sodium lamps must be used for lighting here."

Dr. Zhang explained, sighing as he looked at the two giant devices in front of him with red lights on.

"This 1400F DUV line is second-hand equipment obtained from Intel. Theoretically, its process can only reach 40 nanometers, but in practice it can only reach 60 nanometers."

"There are also problems with the dual worktable and the KrF light source system. The Mai people are simply crazy. They dare to sell two crippled production lines at such a high price!"

"We plan to first research whether we can fix it ourselves. If we can't, we may need to replace the parts, and we will have to find special channels to have ASML engineers come and take a look privately."

Dr. Zhang was filled with righteous indignation. When he mentioned the Mai people, his facial features were wrinkled, his eyebrows were raised, and he gritted his teeth, obviously hating them deeply.

Ning Yu was curious but also a little embarrassed. She was glad that she had worn a mask when she came in, and later put on a cleanroom suit so that Dr. Zhang didn't recognize her.

Her nationality is also Malaysian.

Why does this person hate Maiguo so much?

Ning Yu felt a little strange.

She knew that many people in the Great Zhou would gloat over the Mai Kingdom's misfortune, but it was very rare to see someone hate it so bitterly, as if they hated the Japanese.

What does this person do? I don't understand what he said...

Upon hearing this, Fang Yu asked Dr. Zhang to point out the damaged locations of the two DUVs and touched them out of curiosity.

Dr. Zhang wanted to say that these two devices were too delicate to be touched casually, but just as he opened his mouth, he realized that this was the boss.

The things were bought by others, so feel free to touch them if you want.

Fortunately, Fang Yu let go of her hand after touching her for a short while.

"I don't think this thing is bad. It looks normal. Let's test it again."

Even though Dr. Zhang was wearing a cleanroom suit, the veins on his forehead could be seen through the mask.

What do you think?

If this thing is broken, it is broken. If it is not broken, it is not broken. Do you think it is of any use?

I also think that Liu Feifei should be deeply in love with me. Do I think it will be useful?

Can't you see the fault light on there?

If it wasn't for you saving me, I would jump up and hit you on the knee!

"Mr. Fang, a DUV restart will take at least ten hours and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. We can be sure..."

Dr. Zhang racked his brains and tried to persuade her dryly.

What Dr. Zhang said was not entirely an excuse. ASML's DUV needs to completely replace the gas every time it is cold-started. The excimer laser light source gas mixture containing neon, argon and fluorine is very expensive, at least several thousand dollars.

Moreover, the life of the DUV laser cavity is counted by the number of pulses, and each time the power is turned on or off, the life will be reduced.

The most important thing is that the lithography machine is a bit mysterious. It is possible that there is only a problem with the dual worktable and light source system before the machine is shut down. After restarting, new problems may pop up somewhere.

"It's nothing more than a loss of rare gas, which isn't a big deal. And there's no need for a cold start. All we need to do is reset the module on the HMI and run the qualification for the affected subsystems. It takes 20 to 30 minutes, so there won't be any significant loss."

Fang Yu reached out and knocked on the yellow shell of the DUV in front of him.

After hearing Fang Yu's words, Dr. Zhang was stunned.

Do you understand lithography machines?

Since you understand, why do you still say "I think"?

"This...this...but..."

Dr. Zhang's mind was in a mess. He hesitated for a long time and didn't know what to say.

"Re-check the self-test to see if the fault can be eliminated. If not, we will find another way." Fang Yu crossed his arms, his tone relaxed, but full of unquestionable flavor.

"...Okay then." Dr. Zhang was forced to compromise and called two technicians to help.

The three people first logged into the HMI terminal with engineer privileges, and a series of system menus with white text on a gray background popped up on the screen.

Dr. Zhang reached out and clicked on the subsystem control group of the maintenance interface, and found the workpiece stage control and light source module with a red light on.

"Let's do a self-inspection of the workpiece table first."

After a series of operations, Dr. Zhang clicked the confirmation button in the dialog box, and then he heard a few "click, click" sounds from inside the device, indicating that the electromagnetic lock was switching.

The vacuum pump under the double worktable began to pump air, and with the sound of low airflow, the entire platform slowly lowered to the maintenance position.

Ning Yu watched the movement of this large equipment in shock. It was full of the beauty of top mechanical engineering and felt like a Transformer.

After a few seconds, the interferometer and temperature control system of the workpiece stage began to reinitialize one by one, and the progress bar on the HMI slowly advanced.

The red dot of the high-precision laser interferometer scans back and forth on the table, and the feedback curve on the right side of the screen jitters in real time and then stabilizes.

The whole process lasted only three or four minutes. The screen flashed, and the position that originally displayed the fault instantly changed to the words "Stage OK", and the warning status disappeared instantly.

Disappeared?

Dr. Zhang was shocked and rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

The two researchers were also surprised. They had been tinkering with this machine for a long time, but only one of the two worktables was still usable. How come it had inexplicably recovered now?

Troubleshooting by restarting?

This is impossible!

After getting this machine, I reset the submodule so many times, but it never passed the self-test.

How did you recover?

Are you kidding me?

Dr. Zhang took a deep breath and said, "Let's take a look at the light source system."

The two researchers hurriedly controlled the light source and began to execute the reset procedure of the light source system.

The laser generator in the distance first emitted a low hum, and then switched to a high-frequency pulse sound, like someone was hammering on metal.

Then, a hissing sound of gas injection was heard in the laser cavity, and the mixed special gases were introduced in sequence through the gas regulating valves. The sensor readings on the screen began to jump rapidly.

The light beam is directed to an optical power sensor and stability monitor, and the curve on the HMI gradually converges from the initial fluctuations to a smooth straight line.

Ten minutes later, a line of large green characters popped up in the center of the screen:

Laser Source: PASS.

PASS! ?

Dr. Zhang thought he was seeing things and raised his hands to rub his eyes in disbelief, but found that he was wearing a fully enclosed mask and could not rub his eyes at all.

What’s going on!?

Wait, I just talked about the problem for so long, and also said that parts needed to be replaced. Will the boss think that I am trying to cheat him out of his money?

Cold sweat suddenly broke out on Dr. Zhang's forehead.

"Not bad, not bad." Fang Yu clapped his hands and said with a smile, "It might be that the light source is slightly aged and the ground has settled, which caused the workbench to have a problem with its balance. Passing the self-test on the first try is not easy even for a new machine. Dr. Zhang really lives up to his reputation."

"No... this has nothing to do with me. I mean..." Dr. Zhang grinned behind the mask, not knowing what to say.

"Oh! It would be great if a domestically produced lithography machine could be developed someday, so I wouldn't have to endure this humiliation in front of the Dutch and the Malaysians."

Thousands of words finally turned into a sigh.

Hearing Dr. Zhang's sigh, Fang Yu patted him on the shoulder meaningfully and said, "There will be bread, there will be DUV, and there will be EUV."

Dr. Zhang's chest heaved for a moment before he calmed down. He gave a wry laugh, "It's too difficult. The lithography machine is just one piece of the puzzle. The core technologies for the six upstream raw material industries and twelve key equipment in the front-end and back-end of the chip industry are almost entirely in the hands of others."

Fang Yu smiled slightly.

Six major raw materials and twelve key equipment?

Are you talking about Shin-Etsu Chemical and SUMCO's wafers, JSR's photoresist, Kanto Chemical's reagents, Air Liquide's electronic specialty gases, JX Wokoh Metal's targets, Cabot Microelectronics' CMP polishing materials...?

I've already achieved AGI and am moving towards ASI, so why should I worry about these technologies?

If you can get it through the Internet, you would have gotten it long ago.

As for the key preparation processes and formulas that are not available online, I personally went to Japan and Miami to take pictures.

For example, JSR, the largest supplier of photoresist, rarely applies for patents for its core photoresist formula and preparation route.

The real core content is sealed in the internal database, and an extremely strict authority classification, recipe splitting, and core step shielding system is adopted internally. Each employee only has a little information about his or her own process.

The key modulation technique is only mastered by two master craftsmen.

The final preparation work of the photoresist before it leaves the factory is completed by these two masters who have basically signed a contract to sell themselves in a small dark room that is completely closed and has no monitoring equipment.

Not only JSR, but TOK, another giant photoresist workshop, has stricter confidentiality.

These technologies are not available on the Internet at all and are therefore inaccessible to Youzi.

But this naturally did not pose a problem for Fang Yu.

In two days, he installed "Mirror Flower Water Moon" recording terminals in all the small dark rooms of these companies, and broadcast live 24 hours a day through the "Mirror Flower Water Moon" playback terminal in the No. 5 computer room located 500 meters underground at Youzi Technology.

Then, more than a dozen 3D ray tracing cameras here convert the images of the water mirror technique into video data.

Compared with 2D flat images, the holographic projection of Mirror Flower and Water Moon almost moved the opponent's confidential workshop completely to this machine room 500 meters underground.

Not only JSR, but also TOK, Shin-Etsu, DuPont... every formula and every reaction curve are automatically archived in the Youzi Technology server.

Of course, Fang Yu was not stupid enough to make these technologies available to domestic manufacturers for free. That would simply cause trouble for himself and be a thankless task.

What he wants is to learn.

Let the Orange Big Model thoroughly understand, dissect, and reconstruct those closed technologies, and evolve a more efficient and adaptable technical path in the algorithm architecture.

Commonly known as washing technology.

After whitewashing the technology, we provide customized consulting services to Youzi Technology's core corporate users based on each customer's process structure and resource constraints.

Fees vary depending on the size of the client and the industry they belong to.

For some clients, the annual consulting service fee alone exceeds hundreds of millions of dollars.

In fact, this is not Fang Yu’s original idea. He basically follows the path of Yingji Semiconductor.

Ying TSMC provides customized consulting services on process interfaces to certain equipment manufacturers, and the one-time fee is no lower than the annual fee of Youzi Technology.

Of course, not all customers can become core corporate users of Youzi Technology. This customer list is screened and will not be disclosed to the public.

Even the internal employees of Youzi Technology do not know the screening criteria. It is entirely self-judgment made by AI based on big data.

This system has been running for three or four months. To date, most chip companies among Youzi Technology's core customers have been empowered by AI.

At least five companies have launched different EUV-related projects.

Upstream industries such as special gases, target materials, and CMP have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.

Judging from the speed at which the Zhou Dynasty is moving, some upstream chip industries will completely enter the Warring States period in two years at most and seven or eight months at least.

Once these upstream industries are established, EUV or more advanced lithography machines will be a natural outcome.

There is a singularity in the progress and explosion of an industry. Before this point, it may develop slowly or even not for several years or even decades, just accumulating energy.

But once the singularity appears, the related industries will be like the explosion of the universe, the accumulated energy will undergo a qualitative change, explode and scatter into stars in the sky.

Yuzu Technology is this singularity.

——

"This Dr. Zhang is so interesting. His head is so round, and his eyes are so round too. And both eyes can turn to both sides at the same time. Hahahahahahaha."

Ning Yu sat in the car, grinning with her teeth showing.

Just after coming out of the clean room and taking off her disposable dust-free suit, Dr. Zhang saw her and his eyes almost popped out.

Although Ning Yu was already accustomed to this kind of gaze, she felt particularly uncomfortable today for some reason.

Fang Yu glanced at Ning Yu and felt that the tooth flower didn't seem so abrupt after looking at it for a long time.

Ning Yu is the pure state of Liu Feifei. She does not hide her flaws at all when she smiles. I remember when she first debuted, Master Jin told her that she was too obsessed with beauty and did not dare to smile for the sake of her image. It seems that the two consciousnesses were not completely separated at that time.

"By the way, why does he hate Mai people so much?"

Ning Yu smoothed the hair by her ears and looked at Fang Yu who was driving from the side.

Fang Yu casually said, "If you were detained and tortured for over a year for no reason and accused of stealing technology just because you developed chip technology that was more powerful than that of the MacGuardian company while attending an academic conference there, you would also hate it."

Ning Yu was stunned when she heard this.

"Didn't you just say his eyes could be split to the sides? Do you know how to do that?"

"The Mai people beat them."

(End of this chapter)