Chapter 277: Hand-Crafting the First Integrated Circuit

Everyone stayed behind; despite being exhausted, their eyes sparkled with excitement.

Li Mingyuan walked to the window, gazing at the fish-belly white light emerging in the east, his heart filled with mixed emotions.

As a transmigrator, he knew deeply the significance of the Integrated Circuit to a nation's industrialization—it was not only the cornerstone of the electronics industry but also the core of the entire modern industrial system.

In his era, Long Country had paid a painful price for its backwardness in the field of chips.

But now, he had the opportunity to change all of this.

Another five days passed, and everyone in the laboratory was haggard, but no one complained. Li Mingyuan had barely closed his eyes, supervising every process step at any moment.

Doping, oxidation, metallization, Lead Bonding Technology... one process after another was overcome under extremely rudimentary conditions.

Li Mingyuan displayed astonishing creativity, using the most primitive equipment to achieve processes that should have required advanced instruments. He used a homemade evaporation chamber for metallization, used precision robotic arms to complete lead connections, and even used a modified medical microscope for quality inspection.

Finally, on the morning of the tenth day, the first Integrated Circuit chip in the history of Long Country was born.

"This is our 'Longxin No. 1'," Li Mingyuan said, carefully placing the chip on a specially made base, his voice hoarse from days of exhaustion, "an Integrated Circuit containing four basic logic gates and a simple adder."

Factory Director Sun frowned, staring at the inconspicuous little gadget: "Just this? Ten days of working day and night, just to come up with this little thing?"

Li Mingyuan smiled slightly: "It looks inconspicuous, but it integrates the functions equivalent to more than twenty Vacuum Tubes, while its volume is only one-tenth of a matchbox."

"Really?" Sun was half-believing, "Where can this thing be used?"

Li Mingyuan did not answer directly, but turned to the team: "Prepare the test platform; we are going to see the actual performance of this chip."

The technical staff moved quickly, installing the chip onto a temporarily built test platform. This platform looked like a jumble of wires and instruments, with a small socket in the middle for placing the chip.

"How is this connected?" Lao Liu asked curiously, "Such a small thing, how are the wires connected to it?"

"Lead Bonding Technology," Li Mingyuan explained, "We use extremely fine gold wires to connect the internal circuits of the chip to the external pins. The diameter of each gold wire is only one-tenth of a human hair."

As the test platform was completed, more and more people gathered in the laboratory. Engineers, technicians, and even some ordinary workers who had heard there was "something new" crowded together, curiously gazing at the small device.

Rumors within the factory had already spread—Li Mingyuan and his team were making some kind of "mysterious electronic device" that could replace a whole room of Vacuum Tubes. Most people scoffed, but curiosity still drove them to come and see for themselves.

"Are you ready?" Li Mingyuan looked around at everyone, and after receiving a chorus of affirmative responses, he took a deep breath, "Then, begin the test."

He carefully placed the chip into the socket and connected the power and signal lines. A simple control panel was placed in front, with several buttons and indicator lights on it.

The whole room was silent, with only the faint hum emitted by the test equipment.

Li Mingyuan's fingers trembled slightly—not because of exhaustion, but because of excitement. At this moment, he felt as if he had returned to the moment his first program succeeded in his college days; that joy of creation was incomparable.

"Power on," he said softly.

The assistant flipped the power switch, and the indicator light on the chip lit up, a faint but steady green light.

"The chip is powered normally, no short circuit," the assistant reported.

Li Mingyuan nodded and began to input test signals: "Logic gate test, signal A high level, signal B low level."

The assistant pressed the corresponding buttons, sending preset pulse signals to the chip.

Everyone held their breath, staring intently at the indicator lights on the panel.

In an instant, the indicator lights turned on and off in accordance with the expected logic—AND gate, OR gate, NOT gate, XOR gate; every logic gate responded perfectly to the input signals.

"Success!" Li Mingyuan couldn't help but clench his fists, but he immediately controlled his emotions, "Continue, adder test. Binary 1 plus 1."

The assistant operated again, inputting two binary signals into the chip.

In less than a second, the result indicator light turned on, showing the binary "10"—decimal "2".

"Addition test successful!" the assistant's voice changed pitch with excitement, "Response time is less than 100 milliseconds!"

A burst of exclamation erupted in the laboratory.

Electronics expert Xiao Wang rushed to the front, looking at the test results in disbelief: "This... this reaction speed is more than ten times faster than our Transistor Computer!"

Last year, under Li Mingyuan's guidance, the factory built a Transistor Computer, replacing the bulky Vacuum Tube computer. At that time, it was already an epoch-making advancement that made everyone marvel.

But now, this tiny chip had actually crushed that behemoth that occupied an entire room!

"I don't believe it!" Laboratory Director Lao Yang squeezed to the front, "This needs to be measured in detail. Xiao Wang, go get the timer, let's do a comparative experiment."

Xiao Wang flew out and soon returned with a precision stopwatch and a stack of test data.

These data recorded the time the Transistor Computer took to process various operations.

"Come, test addition, binary 101 plus 110," Lao Yang began to challenge.

Li Mingyuan was confident and directed the assistant to input the data.

The chip's indicator lights flickered a few times, and the result was immediately displayed: "1011"—decimal "11".

"Only 67 milliseconds!" the timekeeper exclaimed, "The Transistor Computer takes 800 milliseconds to calculate it!"

Lao Yang was still not convinced: "Again, multiplication, binary 11 times 10!"

The chip flickered again and quickly gave the result: "110"—decimal "6".

"89 milliseconds! 9 times faster than the Transistor Computer!"

The atmosphere in the laboratory began to heat up, more and more challenges were thrown out, and "Longxin No. 1" proved its astonishing performance time and time again.

"Chief Engineer Li," Lao Liu said, his face flushed with excitement, "can this little gadget really replace a room full of Vacuum Tubes?"

Li Mingyuan smiled: "More than that. This is just the beginning; future chips will be smaller, faster, and more powerful. Imagine, if we could integrate hundreds or thousands of such circuits onto a smaller silicon wafer, what kind of concept would that be?"

"Then... what kind of monster would that be?" Lao Liu widened his eyes, "Could it replace hundreds of computers?"