Chapter 179 Tominaga Junji
“Of course, I know that we cannot agree to the Federation’s request. China is a hungry beast. They are eager for someone to jump out and help them prove their strength.
Of course I know this, but just like the semiconductor agreement we signed with the Federation in the 1980s, the semiconductor agreement seriously harmed the interests of Neon Semiconductor. Do we have a choice?
We cannot refuse the federal request, just like Perry blasted open the neon gate in Edo Bay in 1852. "
In July 1853, General Perry of the Federation opened the black ship at that time. Neon closed the country's door, forcing the Tokugawa shogunate, the actual ruler of Neon at that time, to open the country.
The two sides signed the Neon Federation Peace Treaty, forcing Neon to open the port.
It has been more than 100 years since then. It is not that Neon has never resisted. Pearl Harbor was a landmark event in the resistance process, but the resistance failed.
While Kishida was looking for objective reasons for his actions, Nikon had already negotiated with the Chinese side behind the scenes. Nikon’s president went to China more than five times and finally convinced the Chinese side. , Nikon will enter the entire new technology industry chain in China.
The price Nikon pays for this is that the photolithography machine technology they developed based on topological semi-metal must be fully disclosed to China, and the technology patents are jointly owned by both parties.
In other words, in the future, under the leadership of Nikon, each of us will develop half of the technology.
"This is unfair. China has the topological semi-metal manufacturing technology. With advanced manufacturing technology, they can make topological chips by themselves regardless of Nikon. If we lose China, we will not be able to use topological lithography machines. Play a small role.”
Nikon executives have expressed dissatisfaction and believe that this is an unequal agreement. What they are even more frightened is that they will be kicked after helping China complete its technological upgrade. open.
Just like Amerikan did to them.
Everyone once thought that the semiconductor industry agreement that Neon was forced to sign in the 1980s was only temporary because it restricted Neon's export of computer chips to Amerikan, but it also harmed Amerikan's computer manufacturing. It is in the interest of business owners to use more expensive computer chips, thereby driving up the cost of computers for all Americans.
Because of this, the Neon industry did not take the signed agreement seriously at that time. They believed that it was just a temporary difficulty and Americen's computer manufacturers would not be able to bear the costs. rising to put pressure on Washington.
However, this is just their wishful thinking. Amerikan supports the semiconductor manufacturers of Korea and 4V, and takes away the orders of Neon. In the semiconductor industry chain, Neon has been reduced from the overlord of the entire industry chain to a supplier of raw materials and a supplier of raw materials. The technology content is very high, but the profits it receives are obviously far less than those of the overlords of the entire industry chain.
“This is indeed unfair, and it is a gamble in itself. If we don’t gamble, we will be marginalized in the field of lithography machines, and there will be no hope of catching up with ASML in our lives.
But a gamble Well, we have something to rely on.
Technology sharing is technology sharing, but the technology of optical devices is not so easy to break through. Even if we break down the manufacturing process, we will tell the Chinese people, and there will be nothing hidden.
There is still a lot that can be done in terms of technology, and we can set up obstacles for the Chinese in terms of precision.
This is the best result we can negotiate. ”
For a high-precision industry such as chips, there is no doubt that process determines too many things.
With the same photolithography machine, TSMC’s process yield rate is higher than that of SMIC Higher, with the same ASML lithography machine, TSMC can produce 3nm chips as soon as possible, but Intel has repeatedly delayed the purchase.
The most valuable thing about TSMC is these engineers, who have decided that 4v will be in the near future. In the past ten years, 92% of the world's most advanced semiconductors have been produced, which is a very exaggerated proportion.
"In addition, Mr. Morita, you have a very important task, which is our cooperation with China. Invite Mr. Tominaga Junji.
We will establish a brand new company in China. This company will not have anything to do with Nikon. We need to have enough professional people to be responsible for the operation of this new company.
Mr. Junji Tominaga should be the person who knows the most about topological semi-metals in Neon. "Tokucheng concluded in the end.
Mahiro Morita, the president of Nikon's semiconductor division, had been thinking about it for a long time, and he did not remember who Tominaga was.
"President , I will definitely complete the tasks assigned by you, but just having a name may not be enough. "Michi Morita.
"Junji Tominaga, a distinguished senior researcher at the Device Technology Research Department of the Institute of Advanced Industrial Technology.
Oh, I forgot to tell you, this guy was the lead researcher ten years ago. "
This is the first time Morita has heard that there are still people who can go from chief researcher to senior researcher. Why do they keep going back?
This is extremely important in seniority and hierarchies. Neon, the cliff is a rare thing, Morita is full of doubts, and plans to look back to see what the origin of this person is.
It is possible to be so respected and demoted at the same time. " Tominaga-kun, morning. ”
"Good morning, Tominaga-kun."
Junji Tominaga watched the colleagues who greeted him reply one by one, and then went to his office as usual.
His job has not changed this year, which is to figure out how the Chinese prepare topological semimetals that can be applied on chips.
After graduating from the University of Sheffield in England with a PhD, he joined the Institute of Industrial Technology. He has been doing research on topological semimetals since his PhD. It can be said that he has devoted his entire academic career to Gave this thing.
Topological semimetal is a very new concept now. This thing was updated fifteen years ago when he first joined the Institute of Industrial Technology.
At that time, topological semimetals only existed in theory. Scientists only believed that such a thing would exist based on the basis of quantum field theory and the mathematical concept of Weyl spinors.
But no one knows whether it exists or not, because no one has made it.
People have been joking about quantum mechanics, which is indecisive. It is true. Although this thing exists based on theory, no one dares to say that it exists before it is built. What if the theory is patched and this thing will happen again? there is none left.
It is equivalent to investing your own time in this, only to be falsified in the end, wasting several years of precious academic life.
Because of this, there were very few people doing topological semi-metal in that era, and even fewer in Neon. Tominaga was considered one of the pioneers in this field in Neon academia.
And he lived up to expectations and successfully created a topological semimetal in 2015, although the first one on Wiki was created by Princeton and published in Science in July of that year.
But judging from the report on Tominaga in the 8th issue of Neon Technology Space Magazine in 2015, he created a topological semimetal almost at the same time and caused a sensation in the Neon physics community.
"Morita-kun, from Nikon, Nikon, I seem to have some impression." Tominaga looked at the business card placed on the desk by his assistant, guessing the purpose of the visit.
He guessed it must be related to topological semi-metal. To be precise, many neon semiconductor manufacturers came to him, hoping to fund his project.
The industrial mass production of topological semimetals in China has caused the entire research related to topological semimetals to be particularly hot. In a sense, in the first half of this year abroad, as long as your previous research direction and topological semimetals are If you have a little bit of metal, you can ask companies for money at will.
Tominaga heard from colleagues at Amerikan that they could easily ask for a lot of US dollars, and two million US dollars was considered a starting price.
Before, everyone could only struggle to compete for federal funding or internal university research funding.
In terms of subdivided fields, topological semimetals and room-temperature superconductors belong to condensed matter physics. The competition for scientific research funds has to compete with materials. Even in Americen, it is already a calf to apply for US$150,000. Level.
Generally, Mavericks applies for four to five projects a year. Each project costs more than US$150,000, which is about US$600,000 in scientific research funding, which is enough for them to live a very comfortable life.
Now Chen Yuanguang has completely broken the original order. He can easily get 2 million US dollars in scientific research funds for making topological semimetals. This has led to a large number of scholars who originally made materials to recruit a few people who study condensed matter physics. Students just squeeze in the direction of topological semi-metals, regardless of how much they know.
It’s alchemy anyway. I can refine gold from material science, but can’t I refine gold from your condensed matter?
Everyone holds similar ideas. In such a general environment, as Chinese students are excellent students with scientific research experience in condensed matter physics, it is zero difficulty to apply for US50 universities. As long as you apply If you can get an offer, it's at least a half-prize.
If you have a master's degree in condensed matter physics from a C9 university, you can apply for a PhD from MIT. The MIT PhD offer is the same as wholesale.
If you have been an intern at a photonics company, sorry, Nvidia and Intel will directly send you an offer, and even sign you up for an English tutoring class, so that you can learn English and work part-time after coming to Silicon Valley. Correct.
Under such an environment, Americen’s Japanese colleagues strongly urged Tominaga to go to Americen, “Tominaga-kun, with your qualifications, it’s easy to join giants like Intel and NVIDIA, they are willing to give you Offer an annual salary of at least over two million dollars
If converted into Japanese yen, it would be more than 300 million yen.
Why stay in that decadent country? They don’t realize the importance of your scientific research results anyway. ”
The reason why Tominaga is so important is that for China, which has already produced topological semi-metal chips on a large scale, Tominaga’s value is limited, but for these European and American semiconductor giants who have not even touched the edge, Tominaga's rich experience is definitely an extremely valuable asset
Because he is not just simply studying topological semimetals, but has been studying how superlattices are applied to semiconductors, which means that he has always been committed to it. Research on how topological semimetals are applied in the semiconductor field has made Nobel Prize-level achievements in the past
(End of this chapter)