Chapter 44: Huge Development
Technological research and development is an extremely resource-intensive endeavor.
It was only because Li Qingsong’s current productivity was so immense and his resource supply so abundant that he could afford to build a dedicated R&D facility. He could then dedicate tens of thousands of Clones to it, having them ignore all other tasks to focus single-mindedly on technological research.
At this stage, the R&D base became the very pinnacle of all production chains.
All production was geared toward the ultimate goal of supplying the R&D base’s needs. The output from the R&D base, in turn, boosted the entire colony’s productivity. As the colony expanded, it could supply the R&D base with even more resources, allowing it to begin the next, more resource-intensive phase of research. This self-reinforcing cycle led to continuous advances in technology and productivity.
Throughout this process, the bases grew larger and the population increased. This meant more Clones could be dedicated exclusively to research, freed from production tasks, thus increasing the total brainpower Li Qingsong could command.
Thanks to this R&D base, the entire cluster of bases began to function as a single, integrated organism.
Ceres was thriving, with everything developing at a rapid pace.
Another six months passed in the blink of an eye, and a new batch of 50,000 Clones was born. At last, Li Qingsong could just barely manage to keep 110,000 Clones active at all times. He no longer had to let his consciousness links lie dormant and wasted while some Clones rested.
Under these conditions, the first major scientific breakthrough since the completion of the R&D base occurred.
They had finally succeeded in developing modern chip manufacturing technology!
In a laboratory in the Computation Building, a cylindrical silicon ingot, created using high-purification techniques, was carefully transported by machine to the dicing workshop.
There, it was sliced into a thin silicon wafer.
The wafer was then sent to the oxidation workshop, where a thin layer of silicon dioxide formed on its surface.
This silicon dioxide layer could serve as an insulator or as a mask for subsequent processes.
The next step in the production flow involved coating the wafer with a layer of photosensitive material. After being exposed to ultraviolet light, soaked in chemicals, and subsequently etched, minuscule circuit patterns appeared on the silicon wafer.
Following a series of processes—doping, deposition, multi-layer interconnecting, dicing, testing, and packaging—the large wafer was partitioned into numerous smaller, individual chips.
Clearly, the circuits fabricated on the silicon wafer using this method could be made much smaller than the previous circuits and transistors assembled by manual soldering.
This meant more transistors could be integrated per unit area. More transistors meant higher chip performance, faster processing speeds, and the ability to handle larger and more complex sets of data.
Each of the first-generation modern chips Li Qingsong was now producing—a tiny chip with an area of only 10 square centimeters—could integrate 10,000 transistors!
In contrast, the previous chips made by manual soldering measured 200 square centimeters each and could only integrate a mere 1,000 transistors.
The new chip’s area was one-twentieth the size of the old one, yet its performance was 10 times greater!
Moreover, there were also huge improvements in power consumption, heat generation, and reliability.
Looking at this chip he had personally produced, whose process technology could be considered micrometer-scale, Li Qingsong smiled with deep satisfaction, even though it was still extremely primitive compared to the technology of humanity’s golden age.
’The foundation is now laid. From here on, all we need is continuous iteration and optimization.’
After a subsequent series of fine-tuning adjustments to the process, the original factory that produced the old iron-shelled chips finally underwent a complete overhaul.
All sorts of brand-new equipment were installed, and production commenced.
With industrialized, mass production, the factory could now produce 10 million micrometer-scale chips per year!
At the same time, the production process itself was a continuous process of researching chip technology.
This yielded numerous new details about chip technology. Meanwhile, the research institute would constantly send new ideas, methods, and processes to the chip factory for testing. This combination of theory and practice enabled the continuous advancement of their chip technology.
Once the chip factory began mass production, the flood of new chips completely transformed the existing production landscape.
The old iron-shelled chips were recalled and destroyed. A new generation of more powerful chips was put into use, further optimizing production lines, increasing the degree of automation, and resulting in even higher efficiency.
And this was just the progress in a single field—chip technology.
Beyond chip technology, breakthroughs were being made in many other fields at the R&D base, thanks to the diligent work of the full-time research Clones.
High-precision machine tools, high-strength steel, new casting processes, new internal combustion engine manufacturing techniques, high-voltage power transmission, more efficient generator technology...
And the list went on. New technological breakthroughs emerged almost daily. They were implemented at lightning speed, tested in actual production, and the resulting data was fed back to the R&D base for further optimization...
The once crude, bulky, and inefficient style of the Ceres base cluster gradually gave way to one of precision, refinement, and efficiency as new technologies constantly emerged.
Amidst all this, the field of biotechnology, which Li Qingsong had always prioritized, was also seeing constant breakthroughs.
He could now proactively adjust the nutrient solution formula, purify the strange bird’s bodily fluids with greater precision—removing harmful impurities while retaining beneficial components—and manufacture higher-precision cultivation apparatuses that promoted better development in the Clones.
As a result, Li Qingsong’s consciousness link capacity broke through to a new level.
He could now connect to 500,000 Clones simultaneously!
After years of continuous production, the total number of Clones under Li Qingsong’s command surpassed the one million mark for the first time, reaching 1.2 million!
Furthermore, the newly upgraded Clone cultivation factories were still producing Clones at an average rate of 200,000 per year.
By now, the number of bases under Li Qingsong’s command had skyrocketed to 535. Viewed as a single cluster, they covered an area of over 5 million square kilometers.
The entire surface area of Ceres was only about 15 million square kilometers.
The total length of the railway network connecting these bases had reached the scale of millions of kilometers. At any given moment, countless trains sped along the tracks, transporting vast quantities of resources.
At last, Li Qingsong turned his gaze toward the vast expanse of space.
"Now... I’m finally qualified to develop space technology..."