What does it mean to build an EUV lithography machine on your own? It means that the seeds of the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" are planted.
In the history of mankind, there have been three industrial revolutions, each of which has brought about the rapid progress of the entire human society, including economy, science and technology, culture, productivity and so on.
But careful netizens also found some problems, that is: the wealth generated by the industrial revolution is explosive, but the difficulty of the industrial revolution is growing exponentially, and the wealth effect brought by the industrial revolution is only a few decades.
Once the wealth is depleted, the world becomes the law of jungle survival. Now that the wealth effects of the Third Industrial Revolution have been exhausted, we are seeing a resurgence of war around the world under the guidance of the United States.
In less than a year, more than 30 countries around the world have been involved in wars and conflicts.
At this time, there are only two ways for the world to go: the first and fourth industrial revolutions, in which mankind will share the dividends of development, and the second and third world wars, in which mankind will once again enter the depths of misery.
So will the Fourth Industrial Revolution break out, and who will lead the Fourth Industrial Revolution?
Let's start with the first three industrial revolutions.
The first industrial revolution was marked by the widespread use of the steam engine.
In fact, the steam engine was not invented by Watt, but Watt was the first person to improve the steam engine and apply it to industrial production, but soon Watt took measures to ensure that the overall invention of the steam engine belonged to him and prevented others from intervening.
In 1765 and 1774, the British government banned the export of advanced steam engines and drawings twice.
In 1789, Prussian officials visited Watt and stole important information and some drawings from him under the pretext of purchasing a steam engine.
With this information, the steam engine was imitated. As for the key parts, they are easily available from local factories in the UK, and skilled mechanics can be found.
Soon, the whole of Europe, and even the United States, learned to imitate the steam engine, and an industrial chain was formed. Russia also sent hundreds of workers to England secretly to acquire steam engine technology.
In the end, even the Qing Dynasty, which was closed off from the country, relied on its own strength and a few drawings to imitate the steam engine.
The British blockade of equipment and technology became meaningless, and the first industrial revolution swept the world on the basis of experience and drawings.
The Second Industrial Revolution ushered humanity into the electric age
The R&D and application of electricity require scientists, engineers, and research institutes, and craftsmen who can't read big words can't get the core technology at all.
Faraday discovered the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction, Siemens made the generator, Edison invented the incandescent lamp, Bell invented the telephone,
Faraday was a British physicist, chemist, and famous self-taught scientist; Siemens was a German inventor, physicist, and electrical engineer; Edison was a famous American inventor and physicist; and Bell was an acoustic physicist and professor of oratory at Boston University.
The second industrial revolution no longer simply relied on experience, but began to advocate science, and the R&D base was moved from the "attic" to the "laboratory", which needed scientists and laboratories.
Without the accumulation of knowledge and technology, the second industrial revolution cannot be produced.
Therefore, when the second industrial revolution broke out in Europe and the United States, our late Qing government was still discussing whether to engage in the Westernization movement.
The Third Industrial Revolution ushered humanity into the information age
The third industrial revolution, computers, atomic bombs, artificial earth satellites were born one after another, mankind has entered the high-tech era, the third industrial revolution can even be called the "scientific and technological revolution".
In this revolution, new scientific theories, new academic and new trends of scientific and technological thought were born, and at the same time, a pluralistic and large system was presented.
Any sophisticated device, even a small component, must be closely integrated with the natural sciences, it requires a complete research system, and it also needs a continuous education system to train scientists and engineers.
At this time, a country with a population of 10 million can no longer complete a huge industrial system, it needs at least a few hundred million.
Therefore, we can see that China has played a variety of roles in the third industrial revolution, from the initial catch-up, to the later parallel running, and then to the current leader in some fields.
Today, the Chinese population has reached the level of one billion and is fully capable of leading the fourth industrial revolution.
Let's take EUV lithography machine as an example, which is known as a "precision equipment" that no country in the world can complete independently, with 100,000 precision parts, more than 3,000 precision bearings, 4,000 cables, and 2 kilometers of pipelines. Any part taken out alone is the essence of human technology.
At present, only the Dutch ASML can manufacture EUV lithography machines, but it relies on more than 3,000 suppliers around the world to provide parts for it, and it can only be responsible for 10% of the core technology, which is more like a powerful assembly factory.
Therefore, ASML engineers have ridiculed more than once that even if the drawings are made public, they (China) will not be able to make them.
Because they know that the core EUV light source is developed by the EUV LLC consortium in the United States, which brings together Intel, Motorola, IBM, AMD, and the three major national laboratories in the United States.
The alliance gathered hundreds of top scientists, published hundreds of papers in 6 years, and the top scientists in the industry were responsible for tackling every problem, and finally successfully verified the feasibility of the EUV lithography machine, and then announced the dissolution of the alliance.
Dutch engineers believe that without these top scientists, China would not have been able to develop an EUV light source, let alone a huge, complex and sophisticated EUV lithography machine.
The birth of EUV lithography machine has made the chip performance have been exponentially improved, and more importantly, it has given us a glimpse of the code for the outbreak of the next industrial revolution.
That is: to integrate the industry's top talents and resources, with the support of national forces, to overcome technical problems in an organized and planned manner.
We are a "billion-level" industrial country with a population of 1.4 billion, with tens of millions of university graduates, a large number of scientists, professors, countless engineers, technicians, plus a GDP of 100 billion yuan, 9.6 million square kilometers of land.
These are the seeds of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
On the other hand, the United States, too obsessed with its own hegemony, not only dissolved the EUV alliance, but also ignited wars all over the world, and European countries checked and balanced each other, and they were no longer able to set off the fourth industrial revolution.
Nowadays, the mainland is integrating forces to independently develop EUV lithography machines, EUV light sources, optical lenses, double workbenches and other core technologies are making rapid breakthroughs, when the domestic EUV lithography machine was born, it is not only a leapfrog development of chip technology for China.
It is also a seed planted for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which will take root, sprout, and thrive at any time.
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