Hammer of Technology

In short, the rhythm is crooked, but those who really know the inside story are very busy at this time.

……

Chen Mingcai almost rushed into the laboratory, followed by Lu Gong, the laboratory logistics supervisor whom Ning Wei hadn't seen yesterday, but this logistics supervisor is indeed very competent, for example, he still has a lot of contracts.

"I didn't sign the contract yesterday, so hurry up and make it up today." It's winter, Chen Mingcai said profusely, and there are probably countless MMPs in his heart.

For this boss, no matter how outrageous the complaints on the Internet are, it is not as outrageous as today's incident.It took less than 24 hours for the laboratory to be handed over to Ning Wei, and the chip was really made?The contract hasn't even been signed yet, so the results are coming out?What kind of international joke are you making?

He was not afraid that Ning Wei would not accept his account, but the contract was signed late, and even after the results were produced, when he reported it later, if the careful boss found out, he would have a head start.

So Lao Chen was really anxious, not worried at all.

Although he really can't blame him completely for this matter, after all, it is hard for normal people to think that there is such a high research efficiency in this world, but how should I put it, it at least involves a problem of vigilance, and it is not wrong to trouble him at all.After all, last night Liu Wei called to inform him that Ning Wei had to rub the chip with his hands.

Fortunately, Ning Wei didn't insist on studying the contract carefully, but signed it under the camera in the office, which made Old Chen breathe a sigh of relief.I can finally care about what happened last night.

"Well, Dr. Ning, can our chip solve the problem of getting stuck?"

Chen Mingcai didn't know as much about technical things as Liu Weiyi did, but after all, he couldn't be stupid to be able to sit in his current position.The results in front of him today combined with Liu Weinatong yesterday sounded like a joke at the time, but now it seems that it is actually quite serious, which is enough to explain a lot of things.

"It's better to communicate with Mr. Chen. He didn't understand this after talking to Brother Liu for a long time yesterday. Mr. Chen can see it now. That's right, that's what it means." Ning Wei replied with a smile.

Before he could pay attention to Liu Wei's rolled eyes and react to Ning Wei's disguised compliment, Chen Mingcai saw that Lu Gong who came with him was already holding a chip and began to study it curiously, and said quickly: "Ahem, Old Lu, be careful not to damage it."

"How can a chip be so delicate?" Lu Gong turned his head, glanced at Chen Mingcai, and said innocently.

"Haha, indeed, it's really troublesome to make this thing, and there can't be a little dust, but it's not so precious after it's packaged." Ning Wei replied with a smile, and then asked, "Who is this?"

"Oh, I forgot to introduce you. I mentioned it to you yesterday. This is engineer Lu Chengze, who is also the chief steward of our R&D center. In the future, if Dr. Ning needs anything, just call him. He will solve it No, it can also help you find someone who can solve the problem." Chen Mingcai obviously became in a good mood, and introduced it easily.

"Gong Lu, hello, but should we stop being polite today? I was just saying that these chips will be sent to the testing center for some detailed testing. I didn't sleep all night last night, so hurry up and send them over. Go back and catch up on sleep." Ning Wei said, pointing to a few chips.

"Yes, yes, but two or three chips are enough for testing. I still need a few chips to go to other places for testing. Is it convenient for Dr. Ning?" Chen Mingcai said immediately.

"Whatever, since this thing can be successfully built for the first time, it will be no problem to turn it on next time. The key is to get more detailed technical data, so that we can know whether to make some changes to the internal circuit design. To be honest, Mr. Chen, the testing equipment in our R&D center is still too backward, look, I could have finished it by working overtime last night, and I have to wait for others to go to work..." Ning Wei complained.

"The equipment is already in contact, and the testing center is also under construction. Isn't there still too much work to be done? Don't worry, Dr. Ning, I am here to assure you that as long as this chip can stand the test, we will Here is a higher-end testing center than the national-level chip testing center. My old Chen will do what he says. How about it?" Chen Ming said these words with a pat on his chest, without the slightest hesitation.

"Okay, let's make a deal!" Ning Wei said seriously.

"It's a deal! It's better than this, Dr. Ning, you don't have to go to the inspection, I will run with Lu Gong. You should take Dr. Ning back to rest. After all, you were tired all night yesterday. " Patting his chest to assure, Chen Ming looked at the chips in the tray and said.

After hearing this, Ning Wei suddenly felt really tired.He didn't close his eyes all night, but he actually relied on the excitement to support him. After the excitement passed, and someone reminded him, the exhaustion hit him immediately, and he suddenly wanted to sleep, so he nodded and said, "That's fine." , the rest will be troublesome to Mr. Chen."

"No problem, no problem, Xiao Liu, quickly take Dr. Ning back to rest. We also took the chip to test."

……

Ning Wei was probably really tired. When the car drove out of the R&D center, Liu Wei heard a slight and rhythmic snoring from the rear seat, and subconsciously closed all the windows tightly. This guy must not catch a cold at the critical moment.

The car drove downstairs smoothly, woke up Ning Wei, and then carefully sent the guy to the door of the house.

"Oh, Xiaoliu, I'm sorry to trouble you, this child, why is he so busy, and he has to work overtime all night, this doctor's degree is not reassuring." As soon as he entered the door, he saw Ning's mother and started talking.

Without waiting for Ning Wei to speak, Liu Wei immediately opened his mouth to help explain: "Auntie, it is indeed a very important matter. Really, it is of great significance. It should be able to be on the simulcast."

Lao Ning, who had just walked out of the room, happened to hear this sentence, and his eyes began to shine: "Xiao Liu, I'm not kidding, this kid was able to be on the news broadcast all night yesterday, at [-] o'clock every night?"

"Hey, Dad, anyway, you watch it every day, and you'll know if you can get on it when the time comes. Don't talk anymore, I'll go to bed first, and what about Chenshuang?"

"Xiaojiang went to buy vegetables. We wanted to go with us, at least we could help with things. Xiaojiang was afraid that you would come back all night and no one would take care of you at home, so he insisted on letting us stay at home. This girl really liked it." That's it. That's it, that's it. Let's not talk anymore. You should go to rest quickly. Xiao Liu, you should also take a rest. I see that you also stayed up with Ning Wei all night. You have worked hard. If you wake up at noon, come over for dinner! "

……

Ning Wei can fall asleep, but the impact caused by the chip is slowly fermenting.

In the medium-sized modern conference room in the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, more than a dozen Chinese academicians and researchers who study semiconductors and nanotechnology gathered together. Not only the academicians on site, but also six academicians participated remotely on the screen in the conference room. in.

Of course, most of these academician relationships are not in the Institute of Microelectronics. Among them are professors from universities, as well as leaders and researchers from other sister institutes, such as the Institute of Semiconductors, the Nano Science Center, and the Institute of Future Science and Technology.Of course, these bigwigs have a common feature, no matter what, they support half of China's semiconductor technology research and development.

Before the leader who convened the meeting arrived, these bigwigs sat in the meeting room and chatted casually, and some people greeted their old friends in the video through the screen.Probably only Zhang Yuan was drinking tea quietly there.In his impression, since he became the head of the Semiconductor Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, apart from attending some important conferences and reviews in the industry, he has never sat in such a small conference room with so many colleagues.

Today's situation also surprised him, even interesting.

This time he was going to the capital for a meeting, a relatively important meeting in the industry, but in the middle of the meeting in the morning, he received a call from the ministry, telling him to ignore the next meeting. I rushed to the Microelectronics Institute in Beijing to hold a small meeting.

Really, after so many years, this is the first time Zhang Yuan has encountered such a situation.

Naturally, he couldn't help asking a few more questions on the phone, but the staff member who notified him in the ministry said something very politely. He also received the notification from his superiors, and he didn't know exactly what the situation was, but the staff member was very polite. Politely told Zhang Yuan that according to his personal guess, it might have something to do with the hot searched information on Weibo today. When Zhang Yuan was stunned, he explained that it was the Weibo posted by the artificial intelligence in March. .

After hearing this, Zhang Yuan suddenly felt that he could not keep up with the times.

Naturally, he knew about the artificial intelligence March. After the exhibition at Yanbei University, he called Tian Yanzhen specifically for this matter, and inquired about the situation of the designer Ningwei in March.Zhang Yuan even remembered when he teased Lao Tian that he regarded Ning Wei as a treasure and was afraid of being robbed?No matter how you introduce someone, you are all coy.

But he really doesn't have Weibo. In his opinion, Weibo is a thing that young people like. The topics discussed on it are completely incompatible with what he usually thinks about, so naturally he has no interest.Who would have thought that artificial intelligence has accounts on Weibo now?

The times are developing so fast that Zhang Yuan feels that if he does not apply for a Weibo account, he will be left behind.So just now he asked his assistant to apply for a Weibo, and then asked someone for advice. He found March's Weibo homepage, took a look at it, and then roughly understood why he was suddenly called to this meeting.

How should I put it, although the words "Little Claw Claw rubbed out the chip" made March's fans think it was cute, but Zhang Yuan thought it was quite unpleasant after reading it.What about trouble?If a chip can be rubbed out with a pair of cat paws, then he really lived on a dog in this life.

Although he believes that artificial intelligence must have made some breakthroughs to post this Weibo, but this wording is really unacceptable.But he didn't bring it up in the conference room. Since he was promoted to director, he has rarely expressed a clear attitude in such public places, but it is clear that everyone has received similar news.No, many people in the meeting room are complaining.

"An artificial intelligence can say that kind of thing? I don't believe it! Look at the young man who said that, right?"

"Hey, Lao Tan, you can't say it so deadly. People have said that it is a special account for artificial intelligence. Seriously, looking at the picture, it is for radio frequency, right? It should be some new technology, or it shouldn't be will find us all."

Obviously, the bosses don't have the habit of reading the comment area.

Of course, they can’t be blamed for this. Now there are more than [-] comments in the comment section of the Weibo post in March. Netizens probably don't have that interest in clicking on the comment section.

"Hey, I heard from my assistant that he can surf the Internet. It is said that it is a new material and new technology."

"New material? New process? Isn't that going to revolutionize the semiconductor industry at this stage? Is it a fool? How could this thing suddenly appear?"

"That's right, hey, by the way, Lao Zhang, what do you think?"

Professor Wang from the National University of Science and Technology next to him looked at Zhang Yuan, who had been silent all this time, and asked a question.

"What do you think? Just sit here and watch."

Zhang Yuan smiled, put down his teacup, and casually said a joke that he just learned from Weibo today, and then he became serious: "After all, the artificial intelligence platform is a field that we have not touched, and Lao Tian called me to mention it before." , Whether some data of our research institute can be directly connected to the platform is still being discussed in the institute. Let’s assume that this artificial intelligence really solves some of our current pain points, maybe we also plan to open the database to a limited extent. "

As soon as Zhang Yuan finished speaking, someone questioned: "No, don't you really believe that little guy can turn the world upside down? Isn't that Ning Wei good at mathematics? He is also good at programming, but he can also do in-depth research on semiconductors? "

The person who spoke was Feng Zhenggang, a researcher at the Institute of Microelectronics and a doctoral supervisor. Although this statement was a bit blunt and even offended, it probably expressed the aspirations of these people in the conference room.

"Haha, old Feng, don't talk so badly. That Xiao Ning is still the idol of one of my students. My student also said that Xiao Ning in Yanbei has some big news every month. Go on Everyone knows that after a month of exhibitions, the whole world knows that the artificial intelligence program he developed is very powerful. No, what turbulence algorithm is there in the future? Gossip. You see, it’s already February, and if Xiaoning’s rule of making big news in January is true, the time is almost up.” Zhang Yuan joked with a smile.

"Old Zhang, do you think that Moore's Law is not lively enough, and you want to come up with a law of peace? There is a big news in a month, artificial intelligence last month, and new materials and technologies for semiconductors this month. There is hope for the day when I come down."

"Hey, listening to everyone chatting so happily, I remembered something. You may not know that the High Energy Institute next door and Lao Tan, who is engaged in materials at Yanbei University, collaborated on a thermoelectric material project. After the project was successful, we had dinner together. I I happened to be there too, and I heard from Lao Tan at the dinner table that there were some difficulties encountered in this project. They just invited Xiao Ning to go. As a result, they gave a plan in one day and solved the problem perfectly. And it is said that The effect of the new material is particularly good, it seems that the paper has been submitted to Science and has passed the preliminary review."

"Oh? There is such a thing? Then Xiao Ning is really all-rounder." Zhang Yuan sighed.

Everyone was chatting happily when the door of the conference room was suddenly pushed open, and the staff hurried in and said to everyone excitedly: "Masters, please move to the next-door laboratory first, some things need help Judge the professional knowledge of the teachers."

After finishing speaking, the young staff member did not forget to explain to the academicians who were connected via video: "Teachers participating in the video conference, please wait a moment, our test report will be sent to In your backstage, about half an hour later, the meeting will officially begin."

The bosses looked at each other, looking at this, is there really big news?

But no matter what, they came here. Naturally, they still listened to other people's arrangements, so everyone followed the staff out of the administrative building and came to the experimental hall in the backyard. After washing their hands and cleaning them in an orderly manner, they put on white coats and walked in. in the laboratory of the Institute of Microelectronics.

As soon as he entered, Zhang Yuan saw his old friend Zhong Chengming, who was also a well-known academician of the Institute of Microelectronics, who was in a daze in front of the computer.

Although not many people know about this boss, he is a well-deserved figure in the field of Huaxia Semiconductor.

Academician Zhong has overseas study experience in his early years, and has been engaged in CPU, Flash and other high-performance chip research and product development in AMD, IBM, SanDisk and other world-class chip companies. After working abroad for ten years, he and 2012 He returned to China for development in [-] and stayed in the Institute of Microelectronics until today.

Leaving aside other achievements, the most well-known move of this boss in the industry is probably that he declared war on Intel four years ago and filed a lawsuit in the court, accusing Intel of infringing on the FinFET patent of the Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and demanding compensation of at least 2 million Yuan, and at the same time requested the court to impose a ban on the sale of Core series products.

You know this is not unreasonable.At that time, Intel tried to invalidate the FinFET patent of the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences five times in China and the United States, but all ended in failure.

This Huaxia Patent No. ZL201110240931.5 patent is mainly able to effectively improve chip integration and reduce manufacturing costs. It belongs to the most advanced semiconductor technology core patent at that time. It was under the leadership of Academician Zhong that countless people succeeded in tackling key problems. .Although the final lawsuit ended with a settlement between the two parties, it did cause a great sensation in the industry under the circumstances at the time.

"Hey, old Zhong, I said why didn't I see you today, have you been in the laboratory for a long time?" Zhang Yuan greeted him as soon as he entered the door.

"Old Zhang, here we come. Come and see this, it's amazing. Everyone, come and see." Looking back at Zhang Yuan, Zhong Chengming didn't even come to greet him, and waved directly.

"Oh? Here we come, here we come." A group of bigwigs who had just entered the laboratory gathered together in front of the screen. At this time, the computer screen on the console displayed the internal structure of the chip observed through the differential interference microscope. If you can see The chip body will probably find that the package of the chip rubbed out by hands in March last night has been disassembled, and the complete internal structure is displayed on the monitor through a microscope.

The first thing to see is the neatly arranged tubular silicon tubes. The inner and outer parts of the silicon tubes are covered with dense transistors. When you switch the angle, you can see that there are lines on the silicon base connecting all these silicon through tubes.

"This, a three-dimensional structure?"

"Yes, the three-dimensional structure! We took it over today and gave us a total of three chips for testing, two of which are doing performance tests. We directly disassembled this one to study the internal structure. Its base material is still Silicon, but the transistors are all made of CNT materials. The overall 180nm manufacturing process is used, and obviously there is still a lot of room for improvement in this process level."

"There are also some performance test reports that have been released just now. Everyone can see the specific reports. Now I can only tell you that the results are still very gratifying. Genius design, really, genius design."

"How did he solve the cooling problem?"

"For heat dissipation, look here. You can see that this is the structure on the base and the package. Do you see the carbon nanobeams on the edge? This design overcomes the thermal resistance of the interface. There are four lines on the edge of the outer wall of the side opening of the TSV and inside. , here is filled with carbon nanotubes, the thermal conductivity of this material is much higher than that of traditional materials, and the heat is more easily transmitted, which should belong to a new all-carbon heat dissipation structure.”

There was a sound of swallowing saliva, and soon there were new doubts.

"How does he solve the crosstalk problem caused by this array? If these silicon through tubes are loaded with electrical signals at the same time, the peak value of the output noise should be the sum of the output noise of each single through tube, right? This design really has no noise. Crosstalk problem?"

"Yes, when I saw this structure, I suspected this problem at first, but you see, this is the test report, which proves that the output noise is not bigger than our traditional manufacturing. I didn't think about this problem too clearly, but after Some simple electrical signal tests, I found that in order to solve this problem, the chip most likely adopts the way that the signal and the ground are arranged at intervals."

"Come on, let's look at this dynamic simulation. We have done a preliminary modeling based on this arrangement. First, inject the working signal, set the peak value of the signal to 1V, and the period is 1ns and 0.1ns respectively. The rise time and fall time are the cycles. 4%, the duty cycle is 0.5, the signal line is connected to the lower end of the open circuit, and the upper end is connected to a 50Ω load. According to the calculation results of the circuit model, the impact of the peak crosstalk noise on its performance is almost negligible. Because even in its full load operation Underneath, adjacent signal processing is always arranged at intervals, that is, internal communication and external communication, and I can only say that this is a genius design!"

The bosses looked at each other...

"Also, here are the transmission characteristics we predicted. We roughly calculated its various circuit parameters through the formula. Here is the impedance parameter. It is found that there is no such structure. In addition to heat dissipation, the use of carbon nanotube bundle channel filling technology also improves the signal. For transmission performance, the influence of quantum capacitance here can basically be ignored, and there are only changes in resistance and inductance here."

"Comrades, this is a new material, a new structure, and a new manufacturing process! The performance of the 180nm manufacturing process is already enough to compete with the performance of the RF chips produced by the 60nm manufacturing process on the market, and some characteristics are even better than the current traditional ones. Chip! It is conceivable that if this technology is used in general-purpose chip design, such as CPU, GPU, where is this chip? This is the future!"

Lao Zhong swears again in a rare way!

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278 News in 2 minutes

What kind of experience is it for a group of scientific research leaders to collectively fry pots?Tian Yanzhen felt it first.

In the afternoon, Tian Yanzhen, who was also attending a meeting, had the phone in his pocket vibrating non-stop. He took it out to look at it, hung up, and planned to go back later, but the other party called again.

Well, maybe there was something urgent, Tian Yanzhen had no choice but to get up, walked out of the conference hall, and went to the corridor to answer the phone.

"Old Zhang, what's the rush?"

"Old Tian, ​​what's Ningwei's phone number?"

"Ning for the phone? Why are you looking for him?"

"Don't talk nonsense, tell me quickly, I want to treat him to a meal, okay?"

"What kind of meal do you invite a junior from him out of nowhere? He's also been very busy recently."

"Fuck, I said Lao Tian, ​​how can you teach such a student? What can you teach him? Really, listen to an old friend's advice, quickly sign a diploma for him, and return freedom to Ning Wei , you can rely on such a student to brag in front of old friends for the rest of your life! Let me tell you, don’t delay the development of your children! Otherwise, you will be a sinner of history!"

Tian Yanzhen was stunned by the series of complaints, and even with a good temper, he couldn't resist being hurt so inexplicably.

"I said, Lao Zhang, are you not mentally normal today? Are you okay? What stimulated you? I wondered, when will my students teach and how will they develop in the future? Are you worried about it? Do students need to care?"

However, what Tian Yanzhen never expected was that there was a substitution on the opposite side.

"Director Tian, ​​don't get excited, oh, by the way, I'm Zhong Chengming."

"Oh, Academician Zhong, hello, hello."

"Well, to be honest, Lao Zhang's temper is too hasty, and he likes to offend people when he speaks. Why don't I say something fair, Ning really wronged him for studying math for this kid, and his talents should be put to better use. The vast world is like this. Our Institute of Microelectronics is in urgent need of such talents. Look, the child is energetic anyway, and studying mathematics alone will not satisfy him. Why not come to our Institute of Microelectronics as a researcher? By the way, let him be a researcher. The specialty of leading students?"

A fair word...

mmp, what does it mean that just studying mathematics will definitely not satisfy him?This is turning a corner and thinking that he didn't teach enough?

This is just across the phone, otherwise Tian Yan really wanted to dig out the brains of these old guys to see how much water was stored inside.

"Ahem, academician Zhong, you're wrong to say that? So many scientists can't explore the true meaning of even one direction after spending their entire lives. How can mathematics not satisfy Ning Wei's desire for research?"

"Hey, Lao Tian, ​​don't be so smug, everyone is doing research, don't talk about it, why don't you spend your whole life exploring? Just ask you for a number. Why are there so many blah blah blah? How do people choose their dolls, can you, as a mentor, interfere? This is not the feudal society before, can you stop doing that?"

"This one again?"

"If you don't want to change your name or change your surname, I'm Liu Chenggong from the Pearl Nanoscience Center. If you think I'm wrong or not convinced, come here now. I'll wait for you in the conference room on the third floor of the administrative building of the Institute of Microelectronics. Come here and let us Let’s have a good theory face to face!”

Tian Yanzhen: "..."

After calming down for a while, Tian Yanzhen held back his anger and said, "Let Lao Zhang answer the phone."

"Old Tian, ​​don't be angry. Lao Liu's temper is indeed a little bit big, but everyone is kind. I can't bear to see a good boy's future ruined."

"Hehe, let's not talk about this, did Ning Weishi do something shocking and weeping ghosts and gods again? It shocked all monsters and snakes all at once."

As soon as he uttered a sentence, there was a noise from the opposite side.