Chapter 232: Professor Xu, we bought your lithography machine!

Qinghua Daxue, Jidi, Jingmi Yiji Shiyanshi.

It was already winter, snowflakes began to drift outside, but the temperature inside the lab had always been kept at 20 degrees Celsius, not even allowed to exceed plus or minus 0.1 degrees Celsius, and the air was extremely clean, with a dust‑proof standard of class 100, meaning that in one cubic meter of air the number of floating dust particles could not exceed 100!

The time had already reached six in the afternoon, the middle‑aged man in a white coat was still working in the lab, in front of him was a computer, beside the computer sat a large piece of equipment, and on the aluminum nameplate in its lower‑right corner was engraved a line of small text.

Automatic alignment step‑and‑repeat projection lithography machine.

Exactly, this is the lithography machine that later would constantly choke the East at the West's behest, but in the 1980s the East's lithography technology was not inferior to the West's!

Ring ring……

"Hello." The middle‑aged man picked up the phone: "What? Okay, got it, I'm heading out now."

He carefully shut down the machine, passed through the strong‑wind‑duct filter passage, and the middle‑aged man arrived at the outside office, where an old cadre was already waiting.

"Professor Xu, this time… sigh!"

Xu Duan Yi, after graduating from Guiyang Yizhong in 1955 with excellent grades entered Qinghua Daxue, and after graduating from the Precision Instrument Department of Qinghua Daxue in 1961 he stayed on to teach.

In that special era he went to a farm at Poyang Hu to undergo labor reform, originally thinking he would spend his life as a migrant worker, until one night he received a telegram from the Capital, hurried back to the Capital, and then learned that the nation's semiconductor and defense industries urgently needed lithography machines!

Thus, as a teaching assistant at the time, he took on this arduous task.

Qinghua Daxue gave full support; after the Precision Instrument Department building was completed, its first floor was renovated into a precision optical instrument processing workshop, that is the Jidi experimental base, Department Head Shen Zhao also serving as Factory Director, the school's engineering and technical teams all came under his command, and a research team of several hundred was thus established!

Lithography machines are complex to make and very difficult; the Western Bloc listed them as high‑end products and imposed a technology blockade on the East. Cut off from the world, Professor Xu led his team, starting from helium‑neon lasers, then precision guideways, leadscrews, ball bearings, stepper motors, computers for digital control, optical systems, large‑aperture projection lenses, and so on……

After effort, the East's first automatic lithography machine was born!

Afterward, Professor Xu pressed on, continuing to develop a more advanced step‑and‑repeat projection lithography machine; simply put, it divides the die into pieces and exposes only a part each time, and as processing precision continually improves this becomes inevitable.

In 1980 this lithography machine was successfully developed, achieving a minimum line width of 0.8 micrometers in processing; it can be said that the successful development of this lithography machine solved the East's biggest problem in die manufacturing, and it would be usable for ten or more years without issue!

You should know that the 486 processor of the late 1980s used no more than a 1‑micrometer process!

But……

Now promoted to Vice President, Shen Zhao wore a complex expression: "We went ourselves to Modu's radio factory; they had originally said they would buy our lithography machines, but……

"They would rather take a foreign product with worse performance than accept our advanced lithography machine from Qinghua Daxue?" Professor Xu's tone was heavy.

"Yeah, they had said it fine, but I never expected… sigh, if only we hadn't gone to the Paris International Industrial Exhibition… but… that was a political mission, we……

Speaking of this matter, President Shen felt even more guilty.

The Paris International Industrial Exhibition, a grand gathering of the entire Western world; after the borders opened, the East also rushed to show its strength, senior leaders looked at their own resources, finding few things they could bring out, and the lithography machine happened to be one of them!

Thus, with a wave of the hand, they took the lithography machine to the Paris exhibition!

Professor Xu did not want to send the lithography machine away, for after all this precision instrument would suffer wear in transport, and even a slight jolt could be fatal, but there was no choice—it was a political task that had to be carried out fully!

Watching his lithography machine being loaded onto a truck, Professor Xu felt heart‑broken, and a few days later he received a distress telegram.

The old cadres brought the lithography machine to the exhibition, full of enthusiasm; at the venue, countless Western lithography engineers gathered around this machine, asking this and that, and these old cadres had no idea! They had gone abroad merely to see the outside world, never expecting to be stumped.

The exhibition organizers grew angry, thinking the Easterners were bragging; now they could only urgently seek help, Professor Xu personally went over to answer technical questions, and under the urging of the old cadres he spoke without reservation, telling all he knew.

The Westerners were satisfied, they all gave thumbs‑up, praising the East's lithography machine as advanced, then turned around and lifted the Western Bloc's restriction.

What the East lacked, they restricted, denying the East any chance to progress; what the East had, they dumped, crushing the East's own related industries!

The lithography machine industry was just experiencing such a bloody scene.

Modu Component Factory Five, Component Factory Twenty‑Three… many long‑standing semiconductor factories had originally ordered lithography machines from Qinghua Daxue, but they never expected that when foreigners came to pitch, these factories would all defect, especially when the foreigners paid for the factories' leaders to go abroad for inspection, they became even more determined to buy foreign products!

After pouring huge funds into developing an advanced step‑and‑repeat projection lithography machine, not a single order was placed—how could further R&D proceed?

President Shen personally led a team to tour various domestic units, and the answer was the same everywhere: we must import from abroad, we cannot risk using our own immature equipment!

Professor Xu had still looked forward to President Shen's trip, but he never expected to receive such a result!

"Now the only unit with any purchasing intent is Factory 109, but they won't buy in bulk either; they also want to purchase externally, merely planning to symbolically buy one unit for a test……

Factory 109, likewise located in the Capital as the starter plant of the East's semiconductor industry! Even this factory is unwilling to buy Qinghua Daxue's lithography machines in large quantities!

"Sigh!" Professor Xu let out a sigh: "These people's vision is truly shallow; they can buy foreign goods only because we ourselves can make them, yet no one supports us, so we can only abandon this industry—afterward… they still want to buy even more advanced stuff? No way!

"Exactly, you're right, they're just a bunch of short‑sighted, xenophobic idiots!" At that moment a voice sounded at the door: "Professor Xu, your lithography machine, we at Ha Gong Da Microelectronics Company have bought it!"

Ha Gong Da Microelectronics Company? Wait, that speaking voice is…… Qin Miao?

"Comrade Qin Miao, welcome welcome!" Before President Shen could finish his words, Professor Xu had already run to the door.