130: Chapter 131 Abandoning EUV Lasers and Masks! Breaking the Limits of Photolithography: "Cold Plasma" Engraving

Passing through that absurd yet extravagantly luxurious "paradise" on the outskirts of the factory area.

The tipsy scent of alcohol from the bar and the rich aroma of top-tier Wagyu beef were completely blocked behind a heavy alloy isolation door.

Under the personal guidance of Xu Hao.

Shen Che and that group of national treasure-level scientists, who had long been unable to suppress the excitement in their hearts.

Finally stepped into the deepest part of this wild factory building.

It was also the core experimental area where the security level had reached a shocking degree.

"Leaders, experts, ahead is the core cleanroom."

Xu Hao stopped in front of a row of iris recognition gates flashing with red light.

This usually devil-may-care security chief now had a solemn expression.

He turned around in a business-like manner, his tone carrying an uncompromising firmness:

"No matter what rank you hold outside.

As long as you step through this door, you must strictly abide by the laboratory's physical isolation rules."

Even if Shen Che was the head of the Central Bank who controlled the nation's financial lifeline.

Even if these leading authorities behind him were national treasures whose mere foot-stamping could cause an earthquake in the domestic academic world.

In the face of absolute cutting-edge science, they could only obediently comply.

Guided by Xu Hao and several staff members, the group was led into the changing area.

The entire protection process was cumbersome and rigorous.

Everyone took off their coats and began the difficult task of putting on the special cleanroom suits.

From anti-static undergarments and one-piece cleanroom coveralls, to full-coverage hoods, goggles, and then anti-static gloves and special cleanroom boots...

Layer upon layer.

This group of usually high-and-mighty bigwigs was wrapped up tightly, to the point where even breathing became muffled.

Subsequently, the dozen or so people walked into the high-pressure air shower room in batches.

"Whoosh—"

Accompanied by a piercing mechanical whirring sound, high-speed sterile airflow shot out from all directions.

Like knives, it scraped across every fold of their protective suits, violently stripping away the last trace of dust they might be carrying.

When the countdown for the air shower room finally hit zero.

The heavy, airtight inner door slowly slid open to both sides, accompanied by the "hissing" sound of hydraulic bearings releasing air.

A top-tier cleanroom, covering an area of over one hundred square meters and illuminated by cold white light sources without any blind spots, revealing every tiny detail.

Suddenly appeared before the eyes of the national team experts.

And in the center of this workshop, which was enough to represent the current pinnacle of human industrial crystallization, stood a foreign technical genius with a high nose and deep-set eyes.

He was also wearing a tight cleanroom suit.

Through his goggles, those azure blue eyes revealed an absolute arrogance and fanaticism that belonged only to a technical madman.

"Gentlemen, welcome to the new era of physics."

The top geek responsible for the underlying principle architecture: Victor Zima.

Speaking in stiff Chinese, he took over the guidance from Xu Hao.

He turned around and spread his arms.

Like a mad artist about to unveil a world-famous painting.

He made an exaggerated gesture toward the behemoth behind him.

Following Victor Zima's gesture.

All the experts' gazes instantly passed over him and were nailed firmly onto the behemoth in the center of the cleanroom, that steel giant.

It was a machine that had not undergone any exterior beautification and had no industrial design aesthetics to speak of.

Densely packed superconducting cables, rugged liquid nitrogen cooling pipes.

And giant exposed metal coils intertwined together.

Like some kind of crazy doomsday device in a sci-fi movie, it exuded a suffocating, pure "industrial violent aesthetic."

"This Magnetic Resonance Interference Maskless Lithography Machine is a physical monster assembled by Watanabe Toru from our team."

Victor Zima walked to the machine and patted its heavy metal outer wall.

He began to impart all its core mysteries to this group of the country's top scholars:

"Leading authorities, for now, please forget about ASML, and forget about those power-hungry and delicate EUV light sources.

That is a dead end destined to hit the limits of physics."

He pointed to a transparent sealed chamber in the belly of the machine, which was shimmering with a faint, ghostly blue light:

"In this machine, we have completely abandoned traditional high-energy lasers.

We use an ultra-high voltage electric field to directly strip argon-fluorine mixed gas into a low-energy state 'cold plasma'."

"You can imagine it as a pool of ghostly blue water in a state of absolute calm."

In Victor's azure eyes, flashed the pride of a technical madman:

"The best part is, the energy consumption to maintain this 'plasma pool' is only one-tenth of Western traditional EUV light sources!"

Hearing the data "one-tenth".

Several leading authorities in the team specializing in lithography energy consumption felt their breathing suddenly hitch, and a trace of shock flashed in their eyes.

But Victor's bombshell had only just begun to be dropped. He pointed to the core engraving area of the machine:

"Additionally, there is not a single piece of expensive optical glass lens in this machine that is easily choked by the West.

Instead, there are thousands of miniature superconducting electromagnets densely packed around the reaction chamber."

"When these electromagnets are energized according to our rewritten underlying architecture, they form complex magnetic resonance waves."

As Victor spoke, he used his hands to make a rippling, overlapping motion in mid-air, as if demonstrating some kind of creator's magic:

"These invisible magnetic waves instantly cut into that 'cold plasma pool,' causing precise interference phenomena!"

Just like two stones thrown into a calm water surface simultaneously, the resulting ripples collide and overlap.

Finally, at the microscopic level, forming nanometer-scale peaks and valleys."

"And these microscopic peaks and valleys, jointly constructed by magnetic fields and plasma, are invisible nano-engraving knives!"

Victor's voice trembled slightly with excitement:

"They do not need any physical photomasks.

They can directly and precisely cut complex microscopic circuits onto the pure wafer below!"

Over the next three whole days,

This "onion-peeling" style observation and high-pressure continuous testing took place day and night in the cleanroom.

Victor Zima, like a fanatical, unreserved preacher,

broke down this magic-modified underlying theory, chewed it over, and imparted all of it to this group of top scientists from China.

However, as the testing and explanations deepened.

What truly made these national treasure-level experts feel incredible, and even caused a huge cognitive dissonance.

Was no longer just the miraculous magnetic field interference.

But the "user-friendly," ultra-low threshold requirements this machine had for the production environment!

As everyone knows, Western traditional "thermal lithography technology."

Especially immersion lithography, has requirements for the production environment that are simply perverted to an outrageous degree.

It not only requires a vacuum.

During the lithography process, it also needs to consume massive amounts of "ultrapure water" without the slightest impurity as an optical refraction medium.

The interference of a single speck of dust could lead to the scrapping of an entire expensive wafer.

But the physical monster in front of them, emitting a faint, ghostly blue light, completely broke this law of "delicacy."