Chapter 71: 45 Nanometers
As this was an experimental batch, not too many of the new-generation Clones were created—only 1,000 in total.
After switching bodies again, testing the quality of each Clone, and finding the one with the highest quality, Li Qingsong’s maximum consciousness count saw another small increase, reaching 5,002,264.
Li Qingsong was filled with delight.
’This is just an experiment. There will be more refined optimizations and improvements later. Once the technology is fully mature, I expect my maximum consciousness connection count can increase even more, probably to around 5.1 million.’
’For now, this is enough!’
At that moment, the Clones that had been produced in advance—some of whom had been sitting idle for a month, others for as long as three or four years—finally had a purpose.
Numerous new bases and factories popped up like mushrooms all over Ceres. From the poles and the equator to canyons, mountains, and plains—wherever there was value to be found on Ceres, Clones were sure to appear.
With a maximum consciousness connection count of 5 million, and accounting for rest, sickness, and daily attrition, the total number of Clones in use reached 10 million.
Ten million Clones were more than enough to begin the full-scale, planet-wide development of Ceres.
With a more abundant supply of resources and manpower, Li Qingsong launched even larger-scale technological research and development projects.
Li Qingsong left no stone unturned, assigning Clones to research every single aspect of modern industrial and scientific systems, from theoretical principles to practical applications.
Furthermore, thanks to his unique ability, the research from every field and every sub-discipline was integrated into a unified whole.
A small advance in an obscure branch of topology within mathematics might lead to a breakthrough in insulator research in the seemingly unrelated field of chemistry.
Or a minor breakthrough in material science could result in a huge leap forward in optical physics.
Disciplinary silos? Knowledge barriers? They simply didn’t exist.
As a result, Li Qingsong’s overall technological progress once again advanced by leaps and bounds.
After several years of this, Li Qingsong gradually became aware of a problem.
The resources on Ceres were starting to run low.
Thousands of the initial mines had already been abandoned due to resource depletion. To extract more, newly constructed mines had to dig deeper underground, sometimes drilling wells thousands of meters deep just to get at a meager amount of resources.
Even the surface of Ceres was no longer the dark red it once was; it had faded to a pale red.
This was because Li Qingsong had scraped away so much of the Tolin, stripping the surface clean.
But even so, the resource supply was beginning to tighten.
It was, after all, only a dwarf planet, with a surface area just a fraction of Earth’s and a mass only 1/600th of Earth’s.
Li Qingsong had always been relatively frugal with his resource consumption.
After all, the Clones had no need for entertainment; as long as they were fed, they were fine.
But even for scientific research alone, the required energy and resources were immense.
Often, just to verify the reliability and efficiency of a single process, Li Qingsong would construct a massive factory and run it, consuming billions of kilowatt-hours of electricity and vast quantities of water and chemical raw materials.
To develop a new type of material for the Thrust Devices, he frequently conducted large-scale propulsion tests, burning through untold amounts of methane and oxygen.
Not to mention that when he needed to make a breakthrough on a key technology, Li Qingsong would spare no expense, directly dedicating hundreds or even thousands of factories and assigning tens or hundreds of thousands of Clones to the task. The resources consumed were staggering.
’The pace of technological R&D can’t stop, and it can’t slow down. In fact, it needs to accelerate even more in the future.’
’That being the case, developing Enemy God Star is inevitable.’
’However, large-scale development of Enemy God Star requires a few prerequisite technologies.’
’First, more efficient propulsion technology. Second, more advanced AI and chip technology. And third, rudimentary electromagnetic launch technology.’
’Alright then, the priority will be to achieve breakthroughs in these three technologies!’
Li Qingsong made his decision. And so, as the push to develop these three technologies began, the rate of resource consumption on Ceres didn’t just fail to slow down—it actually increased.
In a chip factory built by Li Qingsong, Clones used the already-mastered near-ultraviolet lithography technology. After a series of procedures, they finally placed a wafer into the lithography machine for the exposure process.
The light source it used had a wavelength of approximately 400 nanometers. With this technology, Li Qingsong could mass-produce chips on an 800-nanometer process.
While an 800-nanometer chip was still far too primitive compared to those from the human era, it was a genuine nano-scale chip and a massive improvement over what came before.
Chips made with this process played a crucial role in Li Qingsong’s technological development. They not only improved the automation levels of all his factories but also enabled the construction of supercomputers, which were instrumental in scientific computation.
But now, 800-nanometer chips were no longer sufficient for Li Qingsong’s needs.
Developing Enemy God Star would require a certain level of AI technology and much greater computing power.
To this end, Li Qingsong constructed a new, larger, and more technologically advanced base in addition to the existing chip research facility, launching an all-out effort to develop next-generation lithography machines and chip technology.
After two long years of research, the next-generation lithography machine was finally completed. With a sense of excitement, Li Qingsong began the trial production of the new generation of chips.
A highly purified silicon wafer was fed into the lithography machine. After being coated with photoresist, the machine, now using a higher-frequency deep ultraviolet (DUV) light source, exposed it to ultraviolet light with a wavelength of approximately 200 nanometers.
Following the previously finalized chip design, countless microscopic circuits were imprinted onto the tiny chip.
After undergoing the subsequent processes of doping, cleaning, etching, and packaging, a tiny chip was finally presented to Li Qingsong.
This new chip was exactly the same size as the ones produced with the old process.
But Li Qingsong knew that this chip integrated one billion transistors. In contrast, the previous chips made with the 800-nanometer process had only about 3.2 million transistors.
That was an increase of more than 300-fold!
Although an increase in transistor count doesn’t directly equate to a proportional increase in performance, a rough estimate suggested the performance boost was at least a hundredfold!
Not only that, but its reliability, power consumption, and heat generation had also improved dramatically.
Gazing at the tiny chip, Li Qingsong was filled with delight.
’A 45-nanometer process chip isn’t exactly cutting-edge, but at least I’ve finally reached the threshold of AI. I can start developing AI technology on this foundation!’