Chapter 87: 70% Combat Power
Two dimensions are a plane; three dimensions are a solid.
Originally, transistors were "etched" onto silicon wafers using photolithography. Switching to three dimensions would be like "building" the transistors on top of the chip.
The technical difficulty would obviously increase many times over.
’The multiple-exposure technique I developed before seems perfect for the photolithography of three-dimensional transistors. I’ll try it first.’
No complicated approval processes, no communication or coordination, no resource gathering. The instant Li Qingsong conceived of the possibility, he made the decision.
And so, the many Clones who had been attempting other solutions immediately dropped their work and all joined in the attempt to explore this new possibility.
The resources required for this attempt were made available instantly, without the slightest delay. The entire process was efficient to the extreme.
After the initial design was complete, an experimental multiple-exposure device immediately began etching a silicon wafer in the laboratory. This was followed by a series of testing procedures.
When the final results were presented to Li Qingsong, his eyes widened with delight.
’It actually worked!’
After changing the transistors from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, the short-channel effect had indeed vanished! The transistor’s performance and the current’s stability had once again improved!
’This is it!’
Less than half a month had passed since the idea first emerged, yet based on the current experimental data, Li Qingsong made a momentous decision that would change the direction of the entire industry.
Three-dimensional transistors undoubtedly offered higher performance, but they also came with a problem.
Namely, the technical difficulty was significantly higher, and as a result, the manufacturing process would be greatly extended.
From silicon wafer purification to final chip packaging, the entire process involved over 1,700 steps!
Suppose that for these 1,700 steps, the yield rate of each step was 99%—which sounds quite high. In reality, after 1,700 steps, the final product’s yield rate would be a mere 3.8 in 100 million, rendering it completely unusable.
Only by increasing the yield rate of each step to about 99.99% could the final yield rate be raised to around 80%, at which point it would be considered practical.
But a 99.99% yield rate for every single step... how incredibly difficult.
But difficult or not, there was no other way. Li Qingsong could only follow the most stringent design and construction requirements to build this brand-new chip factory.
Li Qingsong ultimately chose a site for the factory in a basin far from any base or railway line, ensuring that even the slightest vibrations would not reach it.
The massive factory building was constructed with the strictest anti-radiation measures, shielding the production line from interstellar radiation.
Every Clone entering the production workshop had to wear the most airtight anti-static suit to prevent bringing in any dust, and so on and so forth.
The construction of this massive factory, along with the subsequent installation and calibration of equipment, took Li Qingsong a full year in total.
A year might not seem long, but for the highly efficient Li Qingsong, it was an unusually lengthy period.
The chip factory was finally complete, and it could now mass-produce advanced chips with a 20-nanometer process.
However, he had only just mastered the technology. For now, the factory’s yield rate was stuck at a mere 3%.
Its total production capacity was ten million chips per year. But of these, only 300,000 chips met the specifications. The remaining 9.7 million chips all had various issues that resulted in reduced overall performance.
Throw these chips away? Melt them down and start over?
What a joke!
Whichever part of the chip was defective could simply be disabled through algorithms and programs. Couldn’t the remaining parts still be used?
Although the overall performance would be lower, even with the reduction, their composite performance was still higher than even the most advanced 45-nanometer chips from before. They were still good products.
Thus, Li Qingsong took all 300,000 of the highest-quality chips from the year’s output to build a new supercomputer. The remaining 9.7 million chips flowed into factories, bases, and various spaceships and vehicles.
Amidst this continuous production and constant optimization, the overall yield rate slowly increased. He was confident that it wouldn’t be long before it exceeded 90%.
Now, with a supply of more advanced chips, Li Qingsong was finally able to build the new-model supercomputer he had long dreamed of.
Compared to the previous-generation supercomputer, this one used far more chips—a total of 160,000!
Its computing power reached 13 quadrillion floating-point operations per second, a full 30 times more than the previous supercomputer!
After it was built and calibrated, Li Qingsong eagerly moved the combat AI, whose performance had been severely limited before, onto this new supercomputer and began another combat simulation.
This time, Li Qingsong adopted a different combat method than the last.
His main body also came to the training ground, controlling Fleet A with almost no delay. At the same time, he deliberately delayed his control over Fleet B, giving it a 100-second lag.
However, Fleet B had a Supercomputer Spaceship, allowing it to receive real-time assistance from the combat AI.
And so, with one side having no combat AI but no delay, and the other having a combat AI but also a delay, the two fleets engaged in a fierce firefight in space, using blanks and simulated weapons.
With the new supercomputer in use, Fleet B’s flexibility, reaction speed, coordination, teamwork, and more all showed a huge, visible improvement.
Forward assaults, formation maneuvers, volleys, covering fire, suppression—all kinds of tactics were deployed one after another. At the same time, torrents of bullets, Cannons, Interstellar Missiles, electromagnetic bombs, and other weapons were used in turn.
In the end, Fleet A, under Li Qingsong’s direct control, still won the battle.
But it was not an easy victory.
Based on a comprehensive assessment, with a 100-second delay, his delayed control combined with the combat AI’s assistance allowed Fleet B to achieve about ninety percent of Fleet A’s combat effectiveness.
Li Qingsong didn’t stop; he began another test.
This time, he increased Fleet B’s delay to 500 seconds.
In the subsequent battle, Fleet B showed a significant decline in combat power. The final assessment was that its overall effectiveness was only about seventy percent of Fleet A’s.
But without the combat AI’s assistance, if he had to rely solely on his own control with a 500-second delay, the fleet’s combat effectiveness would have plummeted to only about thirty percent.
The combat AI was responsible for a forty percent boost in combat effectiveness!
’A 500-second combat delay corresponds to an operational radius of about 75 million kilometers.
From now on, with the combat AI’s help, I can command a fleet 75 million kilometers away and still wield 70% of its peak combat power!
That’s enough!’