167: Chapter 168 The Peerless Sword That Tears Through the Iron Curtain of Western Technology

Admittedly.

A mere monthly profit of ten million, if placed on the balance sheet of any top multinational conglomerate, might not even cover the cost of afternoon tea for executives during a meeting.

If compared to Jiyuan Entertainment, which was like a money-printing machine raking in cash daily, or Xinghuo Meituan's terrifying cash flow of hundreds of millions every day in the sinking market, this amount of money couldn't even compare to a fraction of a fraction.

However, when Shen Du's deep eyes, which had witnessed the prosperity and vicissitudes of two lifetimes, stared fixedly at this insignificant string of financial figures on the screen, a flash of undisguised fanaticism appeared on his face—a face that was usually as cold as ice and remained unmoved even if Mount Tai collapsed before him.

Because he knew better than anyone else in this era that behind this ten million in net profit, what was being carried was not just a few flimsy banknotes, but the future of the entire domestic technological breakthrough!

It was the invincible cradle for Jiyuan Technology to nurture the next great era!

With the rumbling operation of this massive chip foundry base in the foothills of Tianmu Mountain, the curtain of the next turbulent era, which would completely reshape the global capital landscape, had already been quietly pulled back by Shen Du in the silent darkness.

Most epoch-making of all, the successful commissioning of these three production lines marked that the domestic semiconductor industry had finally, from a desolate ruin, completely broken free from the deadly impasse of being strangled by Western tech giants and being "completely unable to produce independently"!

Even if what the machines were spitting out now were only mid-to-low-end chips for small businesses and home appliances, it meant that the domestic technological chariot had truly caught up with the pace of the global era, letting out the first roar of an engine that tore through the night sky!

Undeniably, Great Xia currently still had a huge technological generation gap with century-old Western conglomerates in the overall semiconductor ecosystem, such as Lithography Machine equipment and cutting-edge photoresist materials.

If one were to catch up by following the old Western path, it might take fifty years to even catch a glimpse of their backs.

But Shen Du was not panicked in the slightest.

Because in this deep mountain base, Jiyuan Technology was not following behind Western capital, eating its exhaust fumes.

Instead, it had taken a unique path, lighting up a brand-new technology tree capable of overturning the entire Western semiconductor throne: Magnetic Confinement Cold Etching Technology!

This core barrier, listed as Jiyuan Technology's top secret, demonstrated terrifying potential for improvement.

Under this brand-new theoretical system, domestic semiconductor manufacturing no longer needed to struggle against the extreme ultraviolet light source barrier that the West guarded so strictly.

As long as the base continued to operate and practical data continued to accumulate, and they continued to climb and improve the physical precision of magnetic field confinement, then one day in the future, whether it was the mature process of more than ten nanometers or the extreme physical process of a few single-digit nanometers, it could be perfectly realized on the wafer through this domineering and precise "cold etching"!

This was the sharpest, peerless sword that Shen Du had left for the magnificent era of global technological hegemony in the future!

The latter part of the top-secret report detailed an ultimate showdown capable of overturning the history of the human semiconductor industry: a comprehensive, hardcore comparison between "Magnetic Confinement Cold Etching Technology" and the mainstream Western "hot etching" technology.

Shen Du scrolled the mouse wheel, the screen's eerie blue light reflecting in his deep pupils.

This report was not only Jiyuan Technology's core secret, but also a declaration of war for the country to tear through the technological iron curtain.

In this top-secret report, the most core advantage—a dimensionality-reduction strike that made Western tech giants feel the most fear—was written in bold red font with four large characters: "Maskless."

As everyone knows, for traditional Western Lithography Machine represented by ASML, the underlying logic remains "optical projection."

This means that no matter how the light source is upgraded, it can never escape the expensive and tightly monopolized "mask" and the complex optical lens system that is infuriatingly complicated.

But Jiyuan Technology's unique Magnetic Confinement Cold Etching Technology, with a nearly savage physical posture, completely abandoned this bloated century-old optical system.

It did not need light, nor did it need a mask.

Its essence was to use an extremely powerful magnetic field to bind microscopic particles into an invisible "chisel."

On the microscopic physical level, the Lorentz force exerted on charged particles in a magnetic field determined their trajectory.

To improve the precision of the carving, one only needed to continuously raise the physical precision and intensity of the magnetic field confinement starting point according to the cyclotron radius formula, and this "chisel" could be polished to be infinitely sharp!

Technical report note: A pure, non-corrosive process. Traditional hot etching processes, such as plasma etching, inevitably produce violent thermal effects and thermal corrosion when bombarding silicon wafers.

This causes irreversible thermal damage and edge effects to extreme ultraviolet photoresist and the underlying wafer.

However, the "directional frozen carving" technology adopted by cold etching perfectly avoids the fatal defect of thermal corrosion.

Under absolute low temperature and magnetic field confinement, even if the particle beam goes off-course during the early stages of research and development due to insufficient magnetic field precision, it will absolutely not cause any irreversible damage to the expensive wafer substrate, and the fault tolerance rate increases exponentially.

Looking at this rigorous scientific exposition, Shen Du's breathing became slightly heavy.

This meant that as long as this system worked, Great Xia's semiconductor manufacturing would not only be able to bypass patent barriers, but would even completely crush the Western camp in terms of yield and fault tolerance.

Of course, Shen Du's brain remained coldly sober.

On the road of scientific advancement, there has never been a shortcut with heaven-sent troops.

This report also did not avoid the terrifying difficulty this technology faced.

The difficulty of improving precision in magnetic confinement at the microscopic level was by no means inferior to the iteration of extreme ultraviolet light sources and the polishing of lenses in Western hot etching processes.

To precisely control particle beams on an atomic-level orbit using a magnetic field in a microscopic world of a few nanometers, not only required massive power support, but also required feeding data through tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of extreme physical experiments.

It could be said that this was also a brutal, hardcore technological breakthrough challenge that needed to be filled with massive funds and the hair of countless genius scientists!

After reading this heavy, top-secret technical report that carried the fate of the nation, Shen Du slowly leaned back into the wide leather chair and let out a long breath.

Facing this phased result that was still far from mature, as a reincarnator who had lived two lives, Shen Du displayed a strategic determination that was rare, and even unbelievable, in the capital market.

He knew better than anyone else that the money-burning war in the internet sinking market could be forcibly ripened and harvested within a few short months by dumping tens of billions of dollars.

But climbing the ladder of hardcore underlying technology required following the strictest physical laws, and there must not be any premature efforts to force growth.

The domestic field of cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing equipment was originally a desolate blank slate.

Dreaming of achieving success overnight was no different from a fool's errand.

Therefore, Shen Du forcefully suppressed the capital's innate instinct for profit-seeking and impatience.

He did not urge the head of R&D, Li Jianfeng, at all.

Since Li Jianfeng dared to make a tragic military pledge in front of him, promising that he only needed three years, then Shen Du would give him three solid years!

If he needed money, he could freely withdraw from Jiyuan Technology's massive capital pool.

Even if they burned through hundreds of millions in R&D funds every month without hearing a single sound, he would never frown.

If he needed people, he could poach top scholars and physicists from all over the world, with salary packages set directly at twice that of Wall Street.

The only thing Shen Du had to do was to stand in front of the Tianmu Mountain base like an unshakable guardian deity, cutting off all pressure from the capital market and external interference.

He would firmly avoid the military taboo of "laymen directing experts," allowing this group of true scientific backbones to forge a peerless sword in this deep mountain forest without any distractions.

"Three years... Jiyuan can afford to wait." Shen Du muttered to himself, absolute confidence flashing in his deep eyes.

He reached out and typed a complex command on the keyboard.

With a slight electronic "click" of a lock, the folder was completely physically disconnected and locked.

The eerie blue light on the screen subsequently extinguished.

The large CEO office once again fell into that silence where a falling needle could be heard.

Shen Du stood up and straightened his collar.

He prepared to end the day's toil and enjoy the beautiful sunset outside the floor-to-ceiling windows in Shanghai.

However— "Ring—! Ring—!"