136: Chapter 137 The Physical Deadlock That Burned 100 Million, A Nationwide Re-examination of Nanoscale Shock Absorption

Late May, a corner of Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai.

The brutal roar of crawler excavators and heavy pile drivers made the soil underfoot slightly numb.

Shen Du wore a white hard hat stained with a little dust.

He stood at the edge of a massive foundation pit over twenty meters deep.

The dry wind of early summer rolled cement dust toward his face.

He just narrowed his eyes slightly and raised his hand to tug at his shirt collar, which had become sticky from sweat.

Ever since he handed over the authority to manage the one billion US dollars in overseas operations to Hong Yun.

And completely dumped the daily operations of Jiyuan Technology onto General Manager Chen Shengqiang, Shen Du had practically lived on this construction site for the better part of a month.

He lowered his head, his gaze fixed intently on the foundation structural diagram in his hands, which rattled in the wind.

Although he didn't need to suffer the indignities of Western extreme ultraviolet Lithography Machines.

But for the "Magnetic Confinement Cold Carving" equipment to truly operate.

The vibration isolation requirements for the physical environment also reached a suffocatingly strict nanoscale level.

The machine itself came with magnetic levitation vibration reduction modules, but that was far from enough.

The fatal weakness of this technology lay in the purified water used as the etching medium.

Even the low-frequency sound wave impact caused by a heavy engineering truck driving by several hundred meters away.

Once it penetrated the wall and conducted into the cleanroom, stirring up a microscopic ripple on the water surface that was completely invisible to the naked eye.

It would instantly interfere with and disrupt the magnetic waveforms during operation.

In the microscopic world of the nanoscale.

This kind of weak waveform disorder was equivalent to a devastating earthquake, which would cause the entire batch of expensive wafers to be scrapped on the spot.

To completely eliminate these "ghost-like" weak vibrations.

Shen Du could only demand that the construction team dig deep regardless of the cost.

Attempting to use thick, multi-layered composite vibration isolation structures to forcibly block the conduction of seismic waves from the earth.

"Boom—"

Another prefabricated vibration damping block weighing several tons was lowered into the bottom of the pit by a heavy crane, emitting a dull thud.

Shen Du frowned, staring intently at the jumping waveforms on the high-sensitivity laser vibration meter on the table nearby.

Watching the subtle red line on the instrument that had not yet completely calmed down, he rolled the structural diagram in his hand into a tube.

"The vibration absorption coefficient still isn't up to standard!"

Shen Du turned his head, pointed at the newly laid reinforced concrete base plate at the bottom of the foundation pit, and shouted in a deep voice at the construction team leader beside him:

"Rip up this entire base plate for me, send four excavators down, and keep digging deeper!"

Hearing this seemingly casual instruction from Shen Du to start over again.

The construction team leader standing nearby felt his legs tremble uncontrollably.

In the span of a full month.

This was already the fifth super-large deep vibration isolation plan they had declared scrapped on this plot of land.

The leader took off his yellow hard hat and wiped the cold sweat constantly seeping from his forehead with his calloused palms.

Looking at those things in the foundation pit, poured with the highest grade cement and special steel.

Which now had to be treated as construction waste and dug out, his hard work.

He just felt a sharp pang of pain.

"Mr. Shen..."

The construction team leader swallowed a mouthful of dry saliva, braced himself under immense psychological pressure, and stepped forward, his voice a bit shaky:

"What's buried at the bottom of this pit is real money.

Just in this one month of repeatedly digging, pouring, and starting over.

Rough calculations show that we've already burned over one hundred million in funds in this mud pit for nothing."

The leader glanced at the expressionless Shen Du and cautiously reminded him:

"If we keep burning money like water without any bottom line.

I'm afraid that even if the factory is built, the company's reserve funds will be tight..."

"That is not a problem for you to worry about."

Before the leader could finish speaking, Shen Du raised his hand and coldly interrupted his worries.

For Shen Du, who held ten billion US dollars in his hands and had the national will backing him.

This mere one hundred million RMB loss didn't even count as a fraction of the trial-and-error cost.

He turned his head, his gaze locked onto the damping block at the bottom of the pit, his tone revealing an unquestionable obsession:

"I will resolve the money issue.

What I want is absolute physical zero vibration.

If you can't find a suitable plan, keep testing this plot of land for the rest of the year.

There is enough funding; even if you have to turn this plot of land upside down, you must get the indicators down for me."

Faced with this young boss's near-crazy obsession and terrifying financial suppression.

The construction team leader swallowed the rest of his words.

He put his hard hat back on and turned around.

Gritting his teeth, he waved his hand violently toward the bottom of the foundation pit and roared with a hoarse voice:

"Number two machine, start!"

"Rumble—"

Accompanied by a dull, irritable roar of diesel engines.

The heavy excavator's massive steel hydraulic bucket was raised high.

Then, carrying immense force, it smashed fiercely into the anti-vibration base plate at the bottom of the pit that had only solidified for less than two days.

Accompanied by the snapping sound of special steel bars, large chunks of concrete instantly shattered and collapsed in the dust.

The noise of Shen Du fighting to the end beside this huge foundation pit.

As well as the crazy act of burning over one hundred million in funds within that month, did not escape the eyes of the authorities at all.

These situations appeared on Secretary Shen Hai's desk punctually every day, like clockwork.

Secretary Shen Hai knew well.

The country was currently in 2012.

Although the domestic infrastructure level had made rapid progress in road paving, bridge building, and constructing commercial housing.

But if it involved this kind of precision laboratory base that required the physical environment to reach a perverted nanoscale standard.

The gap in technology and experience was very serious.

Counting on this bunch of local construction teams who usually rolled around in mud pits.

To rely solely on constant trial and error and throwing money.

To be able to hammer out a base in the soft geology of Zhangjiang that met the vibration isolation requirements of a Lithography Machine was no different from daydreaming.

The ten-billion-dollar national investment must not be slowed down by geological problems.

Just two days later.

Accompanied by several black commercial vehicles with special license plates, slowly driving into this noisy construction site at Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park.

A multinational team was directly air-dropped in.

This surveying team consisted of seven foreign personnel.

It was forcibly borrowed from overseas by Secretary Shen Hai using his authority.

It included not only German heavy industry infrastructure experts who had presided over the construction of European high-energy physics laboratories for years.

But also Japanese super-high-rise structural professors who were proficient in deep seismic-resistant architecture.

As soon as the car door opened, the leading German expert even skipped the most basic pleasantries.

Carrying a heavy silver briefcase, he strode to the edge of the foundation pit.

He directly commanded the team and took over the surveying authority of the entire construction site.

After this group of foreign experts entered, there was absolutely no unnecessary politeness or small talk.

Several Japanese engineers wearing work clothes with reflective strips immediately directed the accompanying special exploration vehicles to drill deep exploration pipes.

They began to extract rock core and soft clay samples from different depths in sections.

They stuffed them into portable instruments on the spot to conduct compressive strength and resonant frequency analysis.

And those few German experts quickly set up at the four physical diagonals around the foundation pit.

They set up laser microwave rangefinders and high-sensitivity seismic wave pickup equipment that gleamed with cold light.

A scholar nearby even opened a heavy military-grade laptop.

Starting to retrieve data on wind shear and groundwater precipitation around the Zhangjiang plot for the past ten years.

The complicated and boring physical surveying lasted for a full four hours.

Until the last set of low-frequency conduction data on the seismic wave pickup equipment was confirmed.

The leading German chief engineer with short gray hair finally closed his recording folder.

He turned and walked toward Shen Du, who was standing at the edge of the foundation pit, and cut straight to the core in fluent English with a rigorous Germanic accent:

"Mr. Shen, I have seen your previous discarded casting plans."

"You have been trying to use mass damping to counter seismic waves regardless of the cost."

"I need to know clearly, where is your bottom-line requirement for the physical vibration isolation of this base?"

Shen Du looked at him, not bothering to mention any semiconductor terminology.

Instead, he gave a straightforward and crude physical benchmark:

"I want a glass tank filled with purified water to be placed in the most core cleanroom after the infrastructure of this plot is built."

"Even if heavy vehicle fleets pass by outside."

"The water surface in the tank must absolutely not produce even the slightest weak ripple."

Hearing this perverted indicator, the German chief engineer's habitually tense eye corner twitched imperceptibly.

He didn't even spend a second deducing it, and directly shook his head in front of Shen Du:

"Mr. Shen."

"If this is your bottom line."

"Then this plot of land has already been sentenced to death on a basic physical level."

He turned around, pointed with his thick knuckles at the city main road in the distance where a roar could be faintly heard, his tone cold and firm:

"Zhangjiang belongs to soft alluvial geology."

"The surrounding road traffic network is so dense, and there are heavy engineering vehicles coming and going all year round."

"The low-frequency seismic waves they produce will conduct infinitely in the soft soil layer like a tsunami."

"This is a physical deadlock that simply cannot be completely isolated by just throwing money at it or digging dozens of meters underground."

"To achieve the absolute still-water state you mentioned."

The German chief engineer reached out and took a freshly printed geological frequency band survey map from his assistant nearby.

Pointing at the dense red peaks on it:

"This is already completely benchmarking the perverted environmental requirements of the highest-specification extreme ultraviolet Lithography Machine base."

"You must find a piece of land with hard surface bedrock and an absolutely stable geological structure."

"And a remote area within a radius of dozens of kilometers without any heavy traffic networks or dense population."

"At the same time."

"The local climate must also be moderate, without year-round high-intensity wind shear and extreme precipitation."

The German expert looked at Shen Du, his tone revealing an unquestionable physical rigor:

"Continuing to throw money and dig holes in soft alluvial plains like Zhangjiang."

"Has no meaning other than wasting your money for nothing."

Faced with this "death sentence" based on objective data.

Shen Du did not show any stubborn annoyance.

Nor did he waste his breath explaining that what he was building was not a Lithography Machine.

In front of underlying physical logic.

Any stubbornness that ignores objective laws is a brain-dead, stupid act.

"I understand."

Shen Du's gaze swept over the geological frequency survey map, and he decisively gave up on this plot of land where one hundred million in trial-and-error funds had already been poured.

He raised his head without any hesitation and asked straightforwardly:

"Then can I ask you to assist me?"

"To find a hidden plot of land nationwide that fully meets these harsh conditions?"

Hearing that Shen Du did not fly into an impotent rage like some stubborn industrial bosses.

But instead readily complied with physical reality and was willing to change locations.

The leading German expert obviously breathed a long sigh of relief.

His back, which had been tense because of resisting the blind command of a layman, also relaxed.

"Of course, Mr. Shen."

"Our team flew across half the globe to get here, and the purpose was to solve this problem."

He turned around and spread a blank national topographic geological sketch on the hood of the special exploration vehicle nearby.

"Let the construction team turn off those noisy excavators."

The German expert reached out, pulled a fountain pen from his breast pocket, and uncapped it.

The nib rested on a dark-colored block in the inland area of the map:

"Our first step is to start by screening the hard bedrock layers of the inland plates."