Chapter 908: The Dawn of 7-Nanometer, Strange Orders From Nanshan Semiconductor

Nanshan Semiconductor has been relatively low-key in the past few months.

The company's main focus is on improving the yield rate of 14-nanometer chips.

However, the 915 electronic reconnaissance ship became so famous as soon as it was launched, and naturally presented gallium nitride power components to everyone.

As a result, the pressure on Northrop Grumman, the main manufacturer of military ships in the United States, has come up.

"Kevlar, if there are enough gallium nitride power components, how long will it take to produce your new generation of electronic reconnaissance ships?"

John specifically asked Kevlar, the vice president of Northrop Grumman, to come out.

He thinks there are some ways to do this.

If Northrop Grumman cannot purchase enough gallium nitride power components in the United States, he thinks he can consider helping.

His white glove company can import DJI drones from China and then resell them to relevant departments in the United States for use.

Then he thought there was a way to buy the gallium nitride power components produced by Nanshan Semiconductor.

Of course, it is definitely not purchased directly from Nanshan Semiconductor, but needs to be traded.

The final price will definitely be quite different from the ex-factory price of Nanshan Semiconductor.

But even if you add a zero to the ex-factory price of Nanshan Semiconductor, it is still much cheaper than the purchase cost in the United States.

In this way, the profit margin contained in it is very huge.

The number of various gallium nitride power components needed on an electronic reconnaissance ship is not small, and the procurement budget given by the relevant departments has soared to more than 1 billion US dollars.

As long as he takes a bite from it, John feels that he can live a very comfortable life this year.

Even if he is not in his current position in the future, he can still be a rich man.

"If we modify the existing hull directly, the time can be controlled within three years."

"Even if the budget is large enough, it will be no problem to modify a new type of electronic reconnaissance ship within two years."

Kevlar knew that the relevant departments of the United States were anxious this time.

Although they have more than 20 electronic reconnaissance ships, these ships were generally built several years or even more than ten years ago.

Electronic technology is developing so fast that ships from more than ten years ago would definitely not be competitive enough now.

There is definitely no problem bullying those countries that do not have electronic reconnaissance ships, but compared with China's latest electronic reconnaissance ships, it is completely not enough.

This obviously cannot satisfy the relevant departments of the United States.

So Kevlar has received countless calls in the past few days, all of which are discussing and urging the new generation of electronic reconnaissance ships.

With this background, he naturally wants to find a way to compress the schedule to the greatest extent.

Otherwise, according to the normal construction speed, he thinks that the new generation of electronic reconnaissance ships cannot be delivered to the relevant departments for use without five years.

"The budget is fine. I will try my best to find a solution, but I will try to compress the time as much as possible."

"If you can't purchase the relevant components, you can also ask me for help to coordinate."

Since John said so, Kevlar will definitely not be polite.

Although he knew that there must be some interests behind this matter, he didn't mind letting John make some money from it.

After all, John has a say in whether his own products can be sold at a relatively high price.

"Then thank you first."

"For gallium nitride power components, we have communicated with semiconductor companies such as Texas Instruments and Intel. Although they can produce some, neither the output nor the price is so satisfactory."

"If you can provide some other options, I think it would be the best."

With Kevlar's words, John naturally knew what to do next.

Under his promotion, the official order from the relevant departments of the United States was soon placed with Northrop Grumman.

At the same time, he also asked people to find a way to purchase gallium nitride power components from China.

He even planned to let the white glove company cooperate with a semiconductor company of a smaller scale to handle this matter.

In this way, the possibility of being exposed later is lower.

Anyway, it is no problem to transfer more hands and increase the cost appropriately, just to make this matter seem more normal.

Even if some people want to track it down, they can't track it down for a while.

After so many years in the Pentagon, John's power is not so easy to ignore.

He is not worried that this matter will eventually cause any big trouble.

Of course, even if there is a trouble, he has the confidence to deal with it.

This is the advantage of having a background.

...

There is no such thing as an absolute secret in the world. Some things that happened during the US exercise in the southern waters of China have been gradually known by some well-informed people.

For example, the Polar Bear is considering a response plan for this matter at this time.

"Graba, the relevant departments are now considering importing electronic reconnaissance ships from China. I think this may be a waste of time."

"On the one hand, China is unlikely to sell us the most advanced electronic reconnaissance ships now."

"On the other hand, even if they sell them, the price must be very expensive. I feel that the relevant departments do not have such a high budget to buy them."

As the technical director of the Polar Bear Import and Export Company, Prius's daily work is very busy.

For example, he doesn't want to do some work that is obviously meaningless and is just exploratory.

Because for them, whether it is exploratory work or formal negotiations, the workload is actually the same.

The relevant departments of the Polar Bear want to toss around, and Prius is obviously a little unhappy.

"I heard that China's 915 electronic reconnaissance ship paralyzed all the American electronic reconnaissance ships."

"Just now, the United States also announced a new piece of information, and several personnel responsible for intelligence collection and electronic reconnaissance were punished."

"This shows that those rumors are likely to be true."

Graba did not directly answer Prius's question, but mentioned other information.

He naturally knew that the relevant departments would most likely not import expensive electronic reconnaissance ships from China.

But he also knew that the relevant departments wanted to take this opportunity to get a feel for the development of China's electronic reconnaissance ship technology.

Although everyone has a good relationship, the feeling of "fearing that brothers are poor and afraid that brothers drive Land Rover" has always been there.

With this background, the Polar Bear Import and Export Corporation must cooperate with the work.

Otherwise, the relevant departments may complain about them.

"I know that China's electronic technology has developed very rapidly in recent years, especially semiconductor-related technology, which has already stood at the forefront of the world."

"Nanshan Semiconductor can become the world's first manufacturer to mass-produce 14-nanometer chips, which is very telling."

"The semiconductor components such as gallium nitride power components we imported from Nanshan Semiconductor before are also evidence."

"However, in the face of this change, we can only passively accept what we can do."

"Even if we find out the relevant intelligence, we can't produce the same type of electronic reconnaissance ships or semiconductor components."

These are all internal discussions of the company. Prius said it very straightforwardly without beating around the bush.

Otherwise, if Graba arranges a lot of work for him to do, it will be difficult to refuse.

"China and the United States have both proven the importance of electronic reconnaissance ships. We also have similar ships, but their performance has been a bit behind the times."

"As long as we understand the situation in China, even if we don't import electronic reconnaissance ships directly, we can buy some related equipment to upgrade our existing reconnaissance ships."

"This work is still quite feasible."

Graba has said so, so Prius naturally can't object.

Anyway, they are just a middleman, and the final decision is not in their hands.

...

"Mr. Cao, the yield rate of our 14-nanometer chips has reached the requirements, and now we can enter mass production."

Zhang Jing has been busy with this matter for some time. Now that there is finally a result, he will come to report to Cao Yang as soon as possible.

Because of the 915 electronic reconnaissance ship, Nanshan Semiconductor has been quite popular recently.

However, Zhang Jing was not blinded by the honor.

The technology iteration in the chip industry is very fast. Nanshan Semiconductor was the first to master the technology of 14-nanometer process, and the technology of other manufacturers is not much behind.

According to the information he got, Intel and Samsung's 14nm process factories can also be built this year.

They have rich experience in improving yield rate, and it is possible that they can directly enter mass production by the end of this year.

So Zhang Jing's sense of crisis is still quite strong.

Before there is a thorough technological advantage, all pride is not desirable.

If you waste a year or two, you will fall behind.

"So, Honor Technology can hold a new product launch conference in June normally?"

Although the 14nm process chip was initially used in the future S9's smart cockpit chip NS8155.

However, due to the fact that the yield rate is not particularly high, there was not much production capacity left for Honor Technology before.

Now that the yield rate has increased, Honor Technology's new mobile phones, new computers, and new PADs can consider using the latest chips.

This is also very important for the development of Honor Technology.

After all, the consumer electronics market pays the most attention to changes in chip technology.

Why do many computers have Intel labels on the upper right corner of the keyboard? It is because Intel's computer chip technology is ahead of the industry.

If Honor Technology's products can use the industry's most advanced chip technology in the future, it will be very meaningful to stimulate more consumers to spend money to buy new products.

Even at that time, it is possible to consider putting the Nanshan Semiconductor label in a prominent position on the computer.

"Yes, we are now starting to increase production. After the Honor Technology new product launch conference is held, the first batch of various products should be able to be quickly distributed to various specialty stores."

"At the same time, we are also speeding up the construction of the Chang'an factory, and it is expected to start production next year."

As the latest technology for mass production of Nanshan Semiconductor at this stage, Zhang Jing certainly hopes that there will be more production capacity to produce the most advanced chips.

This way, more profits can be obtained.

At the same time, it can also better expand its influence.

"How is the research progress of our 7-nanometer chip process technology?"

"Although it is important to expand the chip factory of 14-nanometer process, the technical research of 7-nanometer process cannot lag behind."

Cao Yang is worried that Zhang Jing will put too much energy on 14-nanometer, which will affect the research of new technologies.

According to what he has learned, companies such as Intel, Samsung and TSMC have actually started research on 7-nanometer process technology simultaneously.

If they are overtaken by others again, this is definitely not the situation Cao Yang wants to see.

To be ahead, it is best to be able to stay ahead, so that the influence of Nanshan Semiconductor can be maximized.

"We have been promoting research and development in this area, and the current progress is still good."

"It is expected that it will be basically determined next year or the year after, and then put into production in the new factory."

The iteration technology of chips is very fast.

Normally, chip technology has been upgraded within one to one and a half years.

However, now that we have entered the 14-nanometer process, it is much more difficult to continue to improve rapidly.

So Zhang Jing did not dare to say it all at once.

Otherwise, it would be embarrassing if you boasted but failed to do it in the end.

After all, the 7-nanometer process chip means that the size of the transistors on the chip is much smaller than that of 14 nanometers.

More transistors can be accommodated per unit area, thereby improving the computing performance and energy efficiency of the chip.

This change will also bring lower power consumption and higher integration, thus providing the possibility for high-performance, low-power chip design.

However, it is not so easy to achieve these goals.

On the one hand, this process has higher requirements for lithography machines, and the corresponding lithography machines need to be redesigned.

On the other hand, the improvement of this process also increases the requirements for related materials, which requires the cooperation of various companies in the industrial chain.

In addition, the 7-nanometer process needs to solve various problems such as quantum tunneling effect.

Because when the size of the transistor is reduced to a certain extent, the quantum tunneling effect will become very obvious.

This will lead to increased leakage current, affecting the performance and reliability of the chip.

To solve these problems, innovative structural design and selection of suitable materials are necessary to suppress the quantum tunneling effect.

Cao Yang was quite clear about these problems, so he didn't think that Nanshan Semiconductor was still not solved and was angry.

"If there are any problems with the cooperation between Nanshan Equipment and Nanshan Chemical, you can tell me directly."

"You can determine the overall schedule, and then use this schedule to work out when each link needs to be completed."

"For example, whether Nanshan Equipment's lithography machine will be produced within this year, and when Nanshan Chemical's new photoresist and other materials will be developed, list them all."

"The 7-nanometer chip technology is very important, not a simple technological breakthrough."

"In the future, I think the 7-nanometer chip technology will become the mainstream technology used in most chips."

"Or the 7-nanometer chip technology can already meet 90% of the market demand."

"We will build at least four new 7-nanometer factories by then."

After Cao Yang said this, Zhang Jing raised the importance of the research on the 7-nanometer chip technology to a higher level.

I originally thought it was just a routine technological upgrade, but I didn't expect Cao Yang to think so.

If this is true, it is equivalent to the 7-nanometer process technology, which will be widely used in Nanshan Semiconductor's main products in the future.

It is indeed worth investing more manpower and material resources.

Thinking of this, Zhang Jing said: "Mr. Cao, I will go back and make arrangements in person, and strive to develop 7-nanometer chip technology within next year."

It is meaningless to explain the difficulties now.

Zhang Jing knew that Cao Yang wanted to see the final result.

As long as the result is good, everything is fine.

On the contrary, if the result is not good, no matter how much you explain, it is just a cover-up.

...

Yingang Trading is an important partner of Nanshan Semiconductor.

All their current businesses are closely related to Nanshan-related companies.

Now many chips and other semiconductor components have been sold to Polar Bear, Southeast Asia and other places.

Although gallium nitride power components are relatively special, Yingang Trading is also involved.

"Cousin, our performance this month is going to explode. We just received a super large order of more than 30 million US dollars yesterday."

Hu Yingang came to Yangcheng Huaqiang Group with great interest to find Guo Shuyin to report the situation of Yingang Trading.

In the past year, due to the sharp decline in the scale of the Huaqiangbei Shanzhai mobile phone market, Yingang Trading's business in China has declined.

So Hu Yingang put more energy into the foreign market, and the effect is good so far.

"I remember that the monthly turnover was generally no more than 10 million US dollars before?"

"Isn't it a bit strange that such a large order suddenly came?"

Although it is worth celebrating to have a large order, Guo Shuyin is still quite sensitive when it comes to overseas markets.

Who knows what pits are waiting for him to jump into.

Similar things have happened to many Chinese companies in recent years.

If the components are delivered but the payment is not received, then the whole year will be in vain.

"It's a bit strange to say it's strange, but there is no need to worry about the other party cheating."

"Because when the contract was signed, the other party's down payment had already been deposited into our account, and there was no problem with the subsequent payment rhythm."

Hu Yingang thought about it and didn't think there was anything wrong with this large order.

However, Guo Shuyin still asked a few more questions, "What is the strange part you just mentioned? Tell me more about it."

For this kind of pie in the sky, Guo Shuyin felt that it was not too cautious.

Otherwise, he would suffer a big loss, but there would be no regrets.

"The purchasing manufacturer of these orders is an American company. Although it is just a trader and probably not the final user, it is still relatively rare for American companies to buy our products."

"After all, everyone in the industry knows that the components we Yingang Trading operates are almost all produced by Nanshan Semiconductor."

"And the United States does not allow related companies to have any business dealings with Nanshan Semiconductor."

After Hu Yingang said this, Guo Shuyin immediately became more cautious and said, "The other party clearly knew that this might violate the regulations of the relevant departments of the United States, but still came to us to buy components. What components did they buy?"

For ordinary chips, Guo Shuyin felt that American companies did not need to go around in circles to find Nanshan Semiconductor to buy.

Even for chips of the level of NS8155, there is actually no need to be so troublesome.

But they chose the troublesome way of going around in circles, which is a bit strange.

"Gallium nitride power components, all they purchased are this thing."

Hu Yingang said here, and realized that something was wrong, "This thing is a component used in active phased array radar, and it can also be used in many other places."

"Is the United States going to use these components to produce radars?"

"That's not right. In fact, there are companies in the United States that can produce gallium nitride power components. It's just that the cost is a little higher and the yield rate is a little lower."

"There is a solution for military use."

"They don't need to take some special risks to buy from us."

Hu Yingang, who was a little confused about the situation, couldn't help but talk to himself.

The logic before and after this matter seems a bit unreasonable.

"Since this thing can be used in military industry, it is still quite sensitive."

"I think on the one hand, we can investigate who these customers buy it for, and on the other hand, we should report to Nanshan Semiconductor to see if they have any ideas."

Guo Shuyin's approach is relatively mature and steady.

If the confirmation work is not done well in advance, and if good intentions are used to do bad things, and a huge threat is brought to the relevant parties for tens of millions of dollars in turnover, it will be completely worth the loss.

It may affect the cooperative relationship between Yingang Trade and Nanshan Semiconductor.

"Well, then I will communicate with Nanshan Semiconductor later."

Hu Yingang thought about it and felt that Guo Shuyin's reminder was still reasonable.

There was no need for him to take risks in this matter.

Even if the profit is very lucrative, you have to make sure there are no risks that you have thought of.

Otherwise, there are many things in the Criminal Law that are very lucrative.

But Hu Yingang will not do any of them.