Rebirth of Hong Kong's tycoons, shorting Eagle Sauce

"Boss, we just developed the PAS 5500 lithography machine... Isn't it too early to launch it?"

"Not at all. The lithography machine industry requires continuous investment. If we stop research and development for a while, we will be eliminated by the entire market.

To develop the next generation of lithography machines, we need to invest multiple times more money. With the current profitability of Peninsula, it is very difficult to independently bear the research and development costs."

In Wang Lei's expectation, once the PAS 5500 is launched, it will quickly occupy the lithography machine market, and orders from Samsung and TSMC will continue to flow to Peninsula Technology. At that time, it will be easy to raise tens of billions of funds by listing.

Qiu Mingxiang couldn't help interrupting Wang Lei's thoughts:

"Boss, our first priority now is to get the first order."

"Yes, we have to take the first step first."

Peninsula Technology is still a new player in lithography machines and is still an unknown player in the entire semiconductor market.

Is it a small matter to let the big semiconductor manufacturers change partners?

The first thing they had to do was to promote their products.

"Send an invitation letter to the industry giants, saying that we have produced the latest generation of lithography machines and invite them to visit."

"And send an invitation letter to those friendly companies, I plan to formally establish our leading position at the exhibition."

Qiu Mingxiang nodded and said that he would prepare immediately.

At this time, Byers woke up slowly, and he immediately realized that the person who was surrounded by stars was Wang Lei, the boss behind the scenes of Peninsula.

"Mr. Wang, you are here?"

"Byers, you have done a good job. I have decided to officially promote you to the chief technical consultant of Peninsula Technology, with a 50% salary increase. The rewards of your team members will be determined by you."

Byers was surrounded by a huge surprise. As the person in charge of the R&D project, his salary was already the top level in the industry when he was poached.

Such a salary increase immediately made this foreign expert want to die for his confidant.

He came to Hong Kong across the ocean just to earn more dollars.

Wang Lei patted him on the shoulder:

"Salary increase and promotion are just the beginning. After the mass production of PAS 5500, I will give you a huge bonus at the end of the year."

"You can tell me in person if there is anything you are not used to in your life."

Byers shook his head hurriedly: "We are all very satisfied with our current life."

Peninsula Technology treats technical talents very well. Each expert engineer will receive a small villa and a driver who is responsible for pick-up and drop-off.

Although they know that this is a means for the company to win people's hearts, many people are deeply moved.

"The 5500 you developed is indeed very advanced and can be used for chip manufacturing from 70nm to 2μm."

Speaking of this, Byers is also very proud. PAS 5500 is the most advanced lithography machine in the world and can meet various needs of large integrated circuits.

Byers emphasized:

"Boss, the 5500 is more advanced than that. It is also the world's first lithography machine that can be disassembled and assembled."

He personally demonstrated the operation of partial disassembly and assembly to Wang Lei.

They divided the lithography machine into ten modules, each of which can be assembled separately.

In this way, no matter which part has a problem, it can continue to work by replacing the new module parts.

Wang Lei and all executives realized that this would be a very important point to impress semiconductor manufacturers.

In the past, if the lithography machine was damaged, it meant that a production line would be shut down and the manufacturer would need to send engineers to repair it until it was completely repaired before it could resume work.

The biggest problem facing semiconductor manufacturers is often production capacity, and time is life for them.

A detachable lithography machine can solve many production capacity problems.

Stimulated by money, Byers took the initiative to propose:

"Boss, what we need to solve now is the order problem. With orders, the production line can operate at full capacity.

We can try to talk to the giant IBM. They have publicly stated that they will cooperate with whoever is the first to produce more sophisticated lithography equipment."

Qiu Mingxiang also knew about this and explained:

"IBM was the first to announce in 1989 that they had successfully manufactured chips on 8-inch wafers, and the process would be refined to 365nm. Their president called on lithography machine manufacturers to develop more precise lithography equipment.

And publicly guaranteed that whoever made it first, IBM would give priority to buying their lithography machine!"

Wang Lei's eyes lit up. He was selling the lithography machine to someone, and the buyer came just like that.

"This time, we must invite IBM people to come and observe the exhibition. You know, the precision of our lithography machine has been improved to 70nm.!”

It far exceeds the 365nm required by IBM.

Wang Lei is looking forward to seeing the surprised and stunned eyes of a group of foreigners.

Several people can't help but smile at each other.

"Boss, as long as we take down IBM, our market share can be increased to 5%!"

Seeing that Byers was a little bit arrogant, Wang Lei couldn't help but knocked:

"Byers, although we have currently produced lithography equipment that far exceeds our peers, it is far from the time to be careless. We must increase the wavelength of the light source to 157nm as soon as possible! ”

The upgrade of lithography technology can be simply regarded as the upgrade of the wavelength of the light source.

By using more advanced exposure light sources, the technology can be advanced to the next generation.

In order to pursue higher resolution, the wavelength of the light source has been increased from the initial 365nm to 248nm, and then to the 193nm used by the current PAS 5500.

According to Wang Lei's understanding of the development process of lithography, it is not the most difficult step to evolve from 248nm to 193nm.

In a few years, Nikon, Canon, and GCA of the United States will all reach this step one after another.

The most difficult thing is to upgrade to 157nm technology.

All major manufacturers are stuck at this step.

Whoever takes this step first will lay the foundation for a pattern of one superpower and many strong powers, and completely become the overlord of the lithography industry.

Byers did not expect Wang Lei's ambition to be so big. He had just completed the technology upgrade and began to think about the next generation of lithography.

"Don't worry, no matter how many difficulties you encounter in research and development, I will fully support your research and development! ”

While saying this, Wang Lei’s thoughts drifted to TSMC.

There is a dragon scientist there, who can be called a semiconductor “genius”.

It was he who proposed a bolder concept – immersion!

He creatively proposed to use water as the exposure medium. The wavelength of the light source is still the original 193nm, but through the refraction of water, the wavelength entering the photoresist is reduced to 134nm.

In the previous dry method, the exposure medium used was air.

The difference between them lies in the refractive index. The refractive index of the 193 nm light source in air is 1, and the refractive index in water is 1.4.

This means that under the same light source conditions, the resolution of the immersion lithography machine can be increased by 1.4 times.