The research and development of a technology often involves the entire industrial system.
The tone of Gaoshou Company has been set, but the burden on Li Changxing's shoulders is not easy. Although diamond technology has been around for decades, mankind has still just begun to explore this material. But now, diamond technology is almost related to the cornerstone of the future development of Gaoshou Company, which puts Li Changxing under great pressure.
Over the years, while Gaoshou Company has continued to thrive, everyone has also been under tremendous pressure. There are pressures from the international environment and political environment, as well as pressures from foreign countries' strong industrial base. It is undeniable that in basic industries, foreign countries are stronger than domestic ones after all.
In addition, there is a large number of talents. Because of the talent training issues left over from China's history, China is a little nervous in this regard; of course, the master companies built on China's foundation have also been affected by these effects.
Fortunately, Zhang Jingyuan opened the golden finger, and he was able to catch up in the short term; but as the company gradually got on the right track, Zhang Jingyuan began to consciously turn off the golden finger. Development is best done one step at a time. Appropriate promotion is called fertilization; excessive help is called pulling the seedlings to encourage their growth.
Now, when Li Changxing takes over the research on the diamond industry, his first worry is that there are not enough talents! Almost all the existing talents are in silicon-based materials; even expert companies can only research diamond chips in small batches so far, and 99% of diamond chips need to be purchased from the state. The only talent is not enough.
The people who were responsible for researching diamond technology together with Li Changxing were Li Sheng, the general manager of the stone company acquired by Gaoshou Company, and Tang Feng, who worked in the diamond industry. Among them, Li Sheng specializes in the material of diamonds; while Tang Feng specializes in the industrial application of diamonds. Both of them have their own strengths.
Li Changxing, Huang Feifei, Tang Feng, Li Sheng. He is currently the research director of the diamond industry at Gaoshou Company. Of course, in order to break the country's monopoly on diamonds, Gaoshou Company has already laid a good foundation, but there is still some distance between it and perfection.
Hey... The huge steel door slowly opened, and the four of them, Li Changxing, followed the vehicle transporting supplies and entered one of the most stringent laboratories within the master company. The top laboratory of the Master Company includes research on energy, power, intelligence, materials, communications, weapons and currently diamond materials.
However, the research on diamond materials, even if the master company has opened a golden finger, is still progressing slowly. With current technology, we want to produce diamond fine particles, diamond coatings, etc. The technology is fully mature. But it is necessary to produce high-purity, large-grained diamonds. It makes people blind; purity is always one of the most important indicators in high-precision technology.
Ordinary diamond particles, such as diamond particles that can be used as glass knives. A few millimeters or less is enough; and there is no need to consider the purity of this thing. Just enough hardness.
But if you want to meet the production of chips. It must be at least 1x1 centimeter in size and one millimeter thick to meet the array requirements of the chip; and the purity requirements on the chip. Basically there will be no less than six nines! This makes it impossible for the traditional diamond production process to meet the requirements and can't even take up the edge!
The most important thing is that diamonds are not metals! It cannot be purified! In other words, whatever you produce it, you can only use it this way. It can only cut. As for talking about melting diamonds, it's just a joke.
Someone has said that the diamond industry determines the future of intelligence! Because among the materials discovered and developed by humans so far, there are no materials that are more perfect than diamonds. have! This is certain, human wisdom and technology can never be underestimated! However, industrial production is about cost and quantification; and the materials developed are often accidental and non-replicable. After all, current technology is still in its infancy!
Diamond research and laboratories are required to maintain a purity of more than 6 9s at all times. Even Li Changxing and others can only follow the planned door to enter, and cannot enter alone; and after entering, they also need to be disinfected and wear research clothes.
The research clothes are very sophisticated, and even breathing can only be done through filter cotton. Fortunately, the temperature here is very suitable and acceptable. Scientific research is accumulated bit by bit by these hard-working scientific workers.
Entering the laboratory, all the scientists were doing research around two huge machines.
These two machines are so huge, with a height of more than ten meters, a length of forty or fifty meters, and a width of seven or eight meters, with a mess of wires and pipes intersecting vertically and horizontally. All the staff are wearing research clothes, and at a glance, the place is pure white!
After the four people arrived, they observed quietly without disturbing the busy scientists. The surrounding scientists also knew these four people, but they did not say hello. In the expert company, researchers have a very high status and can even point their fingers at Zhang Jingyuan and scold him - of course, provided that you have a reason and the courage to do so. But no matter what, the research environment in the master company is definitely the best in the world! It is estimated that even Western countries cannot be like Gaoshou Company and give whatever they ask for!
The four of them, Li Changxing, watched from a distance. The two huge machines in front of them were diamond material production equipment developed by Gaoshou Company itself, and they almost completely mastered independent technology. Every screw in these two steel handicrafts weighing tens of thousands of tons was developed and designed by the scientists in front of them, or hand-selected. No one knows how much the Gaoshou Company has invested in research and development, but the two diamond chip production machines in front of them are worth n times more than the same volume of gold! Because, they can produce diamonds.
The two machines currently used are produced in two ways, and now scientists are evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of the two methods and so on.
The first method is chemical + physical deposition method, which uses alkanes (generally methane, acetylene) or alcohols (methanol or ethanol alcohol) to generate pure active carbon ions in a high-ionization environment of more than 2000 degrees. , the remaining part generates water, hydrogen, etc. Water and hydrogen will not affect carbon ions in such an environment. There is even a catalytic effect; the carbon ions will spontaneously gather in the prepared "petri dish". Yes, a petri dish! It is estimated that no one will believe that this kind of diamond produced by deposition method is actually "grown". Generally, cut diamond slices, usually very thin and flat slices, are placed on a base with negative ions; then carbon ions (positive charges) will spontaneously gather on it. The specific size depends on the design of the culture rice.
And now, there is a huge petri dish, one meter long and wide, inside which are spliced together large and small diamond flakes, and they fit together perfectly. And on the petri dish. A diamond layer of more than ten centimeters thick and uneven has grown - a whole diamond pie.
Streams of gas were sprayed into it. Then under the action of high temperature and blue-violet electric sparks, the organic molecules are completely broken up and carbon ions are automatically deposited; then the waste gas is discharged. Each cycle takes nearly two hours; to complete such a diamond pie, it takes half a month of "growing" time.
And the other side. It’s just another production method! It is the world’s most cutting-edge material production process: atomic sequencing! Produce directly from an atomic perspective! at high temperatures. Every carbon atom is ionized. Then arrange them one by one according to the crystal structure of the diamond. This method of production is like construction, except that the construction materials are not bricks, cement, and steel bars; they are carbon ions!
In a production room with a height of two meters, a width of one meter and a length of three meters. Tens of thousands of integrated pins are constantly busy, little light blue sparks are flashing, and the electromagnetic noise is extremely noisy. At the bottom of the production room, there is already a piece of 2.8 meters long, 0.7 meters wide, and about ten centimeters thick. Diamond "board".
Both machines are truly the pinnacle of technology, but the principles they utilize are completely different.
I believe that few people can imagine that when some people mine mines and look for natural diamonds at all costs, the master company here can already produce diamonds according to the cubic meter standard. Although it is only a laboratory environment now, there is still a certain distance from real industrial production. But once the basics are solved, the rest will be much simpler.
The scientists were very busy, and Li Changxing and the other two consciously did not interrupt them, waiting for them to finish their work. Some of them are responsible for checking the software, some are responsible for checking the mechanical seals, and some are responsible for checking the voltage. In fact, these two machines have many problems and there are too many areas that require in-depth research and development.
Why! A sigh came from an old voice. A wrinkled old scientist slowly walked up to Li Changxing and the other four.
"Professor Chen, how is the situation now?" Li Changxing asked respectfully.
"Come on, this is not the place to talk. Let's go to the office and talk."
Professor Chen Pingchuan walked slowly. The talents recruited by this expert company from the country are already over seventy years old.
The office is also inside the laboratory, but is completely isolated from the outside through two doors. The office environment is relatively relaxed. You don't have to strictly follow the six nines, just keep it appropriately clean. In fact, the old expert's office was simply miserable, with all kinds of information strewn all over the floor. Of course, there are still some rules.
Li Changxing, who has been here many times, tiptoes carefully; there is too much precious information here. The first time he came here, Li Changxing was pointed at the nose by the old professor and scolded him; just because Li Changxing thought everything on the ground was garbage, he stepped on it a few times...
"We are currently in trouble!" Before Li Changxing and others could speak, Professor Chen began to tell the whole story. "Production by deposition method can ensure purity and can be controlled to a maximum of nine nines. However, the efficiency is too low. Such a huge machine can only produce 300 kilograms of qualified diamonds a month.
Perhaps this efficiency is already among the best in the world, but it is far from sufficient to complete industrial quantitative production. Especially the machine still has a lot of problems and problems occur from time to time.
However, the atomic production method, also known as picometer production technology, cannot guarantee that all carbon atoms are 100% ionized. In fact, although production is very fast, it basically cannot meet the accuracy and purity requirements of the chip. It can be said that the diamond plate looks big and beautiful, but it is a complete waste. For the time being, PiMi production technology cannot even reach the purity of four nines. ”
"What if we want industrial production now?" Li Changxing was a little anxious. To develop the diamond industry, diamonds alone are not enough. There are more technologies that need to be developed; but all of this will have to wait for the rice to be ready! And this rice is made of diamond material. As the master company set the tone for diamond development, the burden on Li Changxing's shoulders suddenly increased too much.
"Then we can only use the deposition production process. But now it will be difficult for input and output to be equal." Professor Chen Pingchuan frowned - although his face was full of wrinkles, it could still be seen. "The current cost of this machine alone is as high as nearly 100 billion yuan. Of course, this is the result of continuous research and improvement. But I personally estimate that even if it is mass produced, the cost of such a machine will be difficult to reach 10 billion yuan. There are too many things in it that may not be produced by machine. Of course, the success rate may be only three thousandths if done by hand.”
"Some parts cannot be processed by machines?!" Li Changxing also frowned. After all, machines are not omnipotent! In cutting-edge fields, expert companies have never encountered such a situation; for some complex or demanding parts, machines often cannot meet the production requirements; at this time, manual processing is required!
The person responsible for processing them is an eighth-level technician! These people are comparable to the top scientists in the master company! With their eyes and hands, and with the help of simple tools, they can complete work that cannot be completed by the world's top machining centers. However, manual processing is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the scrap rate is extremely high! For some precision parts, with just a little force, the blanks worth tens of thousands or even millions will be completely scrapped.
"Huh..." Li Changxing suddenly exhaled, sat down and decided: "Professor Chen, we have to do it!
You also know what happened in Japan this time. Japan proved at the cost of a nation that the existing electronic technology is so fragile. It cannot withstand high temperatures, electromagnetic shocks, or low temperatures; it cannot withstand severe shocks. voltage changes.
Now, the most mature technology that can solve this problem is diamond chip technology.
According to the company's strategy, safety is above all else! Therefore, we must develop our diamond industry before other countries and institutions have developed the diamond industry in large quantities.
We cannot wait for the future, we must take the initiative to strive for it!
Our future must be in our own hands. ”
"Understood. I will improve the technology as soon as possible and sort out the production process of the machine. At the same time, I will also try my best to separate the core components that require manual processing and try my best to allow the machine to complete the processing. Approximately, it will take two month time.”
"Two months, yes! But the two existing machines need to be fully produced. We need to start vigorous research." Two months passed, which made Li Changxing frown a little. Time waits for no one these days, and you never know how far foreign countries have reached. You know, when China began to develop diamond chips, the original United States could already achieve simple diamond chip production. And that time was around 2000! The gap is too long. Perhaps the current American Federation has far surpassed the Master Company and China in diamond craftsmanship.
It is estimated that if Zhang Jingyuan had not planned alternative chip technology with the golden finger of the formation, the current chip technology would still be monopolized by the West.
But Li Changxing is not satisfied with the current situation. "Professor Chen, do you think, which one is better, the deposition method or the picometer production method?"
"There is no better way to explain science, only more appropriate." Professor Chen said in a somewhat educational and reprimanding tone, but Li Changxing was not angry, but accepted the teaching humbly. "For the time being, the deposition method is technically complex, but the requirements for cutting-edge technology are relatively simple. It is more in line with current company needs.
However, picometer production technology is widespread and can be used not only in the production of diamonds, but also in other productions. This is actually the advanced evolutionary technology of 3D printing in the past. Moreover, the structure is relatively simple, the speed is fast and controllable. But now purity cannot be solved, and it relies heavily on cutting-edge technology; it can only be said that there will be a broad market in the future. Theoretically, if it were big enough, a complete space shuttle could be produced directly from an atomic perspective. But the technology is not mature yet. ""good. Now it can only be the sedimentation method. "(To be continued...)