Huang He attempted to approach the laboratory but was refused by Ni Guangnan.
Huang He tried to assert his authority as chairman, only to be thrown out by Ni Guangnan!
Huang He finally waited at the base for nine hours out of boredom. Ni Guangnan and Tong He emerged from the laboratory.
"Chairman, I was wrong. Punish me however you see fit!" Tong He knelt down as soon as he saw Huang He, tears streaming down his face.
With such an amenable attitude, Huang He didn't know how to scold him.
"You shouldn't kneel to me, but apologize to your colleagues who were severely injured due to your actions. Go to Beijing immediately and seek forgiveness from all your colleagues and their families!" Huang He said sternly. Tong He nodded vigorously and prepared to depart for his apology.
"You are not allowed to go!" To Huang He's surprise, Ni Guangnan called out to stop Tong He.
"Teacher Ni, you can't do this. If Tong He made a mistake, he should admit it. Those five people all fought their way back from the brink of death. Shouldn't he apologize?" Huang He frowned, thinking Ni Guangnan was being unreasonable.
"An apology is certainly in order, but he shouldn't go to Beijing to apologize. I think it would be better to let Tong He apologize to them after they return to the company!" Ni Guangnan stated.
"Why?" Huang He was taken aback. "By then, it will be too late."
"Because Tong He carries a tremendous secret. If he encounters danger while traveling, it would be a massive loss for China's entire chip industry!" Ni Guangnan explained.
"Teacher, can we please refrain from using such exaggerated rhetoric?" Huang He rolled his eyes.
"No, this is not exaggeration, it's the truth!" Ni Guangnan shook his head. "Tong He, show your chairman the results of your experiment."
"Yes!" Tong He nodded, then opened his tightly clenched palm to reveal a crystal, only the size of a fingernail, black and shiny like glass.
"What is this? Black glass?" After asking the question, Huang He felt incredibly foolish. Was there such black glass in existence that Ni Guangnan would regard it with such importance?
"We haven't decided on a name for this yet!" Tong He scratched his head. "Actually, this is the result of the previous explosion experiment."
"Thanks to over ten thousand units of high-intensity pressure, the materials that had been fused with difficulty have finally merged into this crystal in my hand. Since it doesn't have a name yet, I'm temporarily calling it Black Crystal."
"Black Crystal!" Huang He's expression turned curious. "Does this Black Crystal have any special properties?"
"Yes!" Tong He nodded. "Teacher and I have been immersed in the laboratory to study the properties of this Black Crystal. However, due to time constraints, we've only explored a portion of its characteristics, and more remain unknown. But based on the properties we've discovered so far, nearly all of them are identical to those of single-crystal silicon, except for one."
"Oh! Don't tell me you spent thirty million in losses and the price of five injured employees just to obtain something with properties identical to single-crystal silicon!"
"This thing requires over ten thousand units of high pressure to manufacture. The manufacturing cost is hundreds of thousands of times that of single-crystal silicon!" Huang He rolled his eyes.
"Hehe!" Tong He chuckled awkwardly. "Of course, it's not entirely the same. Black Crystal is a semiconductor at room temperature, but as the voltage increases, it becomes a semi-superconductor!"
"What!" Huang He nearly fell off his seat. He stared intently at Tong He and Ni Guangnan. "You're saying this thing is a semi-superconductor? What does that mean?"
Semi-superconductor is a term we, Teacher and I, specifically developed to describe the material's properties. As the name suggests, it's related to superconductors.
A superconductor is a material that, under certain conditions, completely eliminates resistance, allowing electrical energy to be transmitted without any loss.
A semi-superconductor, then, is a material that is nearly a superconductor but still possesses a tiny amount of resistance.
"So, isn't it still just a semiconductor?" Huang He yawned.
"It is!" Tong He nodded awkwardly. "However, once the Black Crystal reaches its activation voltage, its conductivity will take a qualitative leap. Its resistivity is one-thousandth of that of semiconductors made from single-crystal silicon under equivalent conditions!!"
"Holy hell..." Huang He almost fell off his chair again.
"A thousand times?" Huang He couldn't help but ask again.
"At least a thousand times!" Tong He nodded. "Our experiment was just a simple measurement; we don't have enough samples, so we can only tentatively draw this conclusion."
"You specifically told me earlier that the other properties of Black Crystal are almost identical to single-crystal silicon, with only this semi-superconducting property differing. So, are you trying to tell me that Black Crystal can replace single-crystal silicon and become a better material for chip manufacturing?" Huang He retorted.
"Precisely!" Ni Guangnan chimed in. "The primary reason single-crystal silicon is used as a material for chip manufacturing is its extreme stability and ease of industrial processing. While its inherent conductivity is also excellent, it's not actually the optimal choice."
"Black Crystal is completely different. Because its other properties are almost identical to single-crystal silicon, it can be directly processed on current chip production lines, requiring only minor modifications to some materials, and no changes to the equipment."
"However, its conductivity is more than a thousand times that of single-crystal silicon, which will lead to several significant improvements."
"Firstly, the power consumption and heat generation of chips will decrease dramatically. For two chips of the same capability made from different materials, when operating at full speed, if a chip made from single-crystal silicon requires 100W of power, one made from Black Crystal will only need about 10W. With later adjustments to the process, this figure could even be reduced to around 1W."
"This means CPU energy consumption will drop by more than tenfold!"
"Furthermore, while single-crystal silicon chips might reach temperatures around 70 degrees Celsius, when you touch a Black Crystal chip, you'll feel almost no change in temperature because it consumes only 10W of power."
"Therefore, with Black Crystal chips, personal computers can completely eliminate the need for heat sinks."
"This is just the smallest aspect. Another aspect is the significant increase in computing speed. Diodes fabricated on the surface of Black Crystal can operate at an astonishing 126GHz after power is applied, which is more than a hundred times faster than current silicon-based chips!"
"Besides these, there are also..."
"Wait... my brain isn't working well, and I don't understand your professional jargon!" Huang He interrupted Ni Guangnan's speech. "Teacher, just tell me, if we use Black Crystal to manufacture chips, how much of an overall performance improvement can we expect?" Huang He asked directly.
"Assuming the chip design, manufacturing, and packaging technologies are all equal, Black Crystal chips, in terms of computing power, power consumption, and other aspects, will surpass silicon-based chips by more than a hundred times!"
"Frankly speaking, once Black Crystal chips are released, all silicon-based chips will be relegated to the dustbin of history. It's like a soldier armed with an assault rifle facing a group of medieval warriors wielding swords and spears!" Ni Guangnan said proudly.
"Alas, although Teacher had told us in class before that, with technological advancements in chips, carbon-based chips would eventually replace silicon-based chips, and the entire computer industry would usher in a new era of development, this kind of development might take fifty or even a hundred years to see."
"I never imagined that less than a year later, the material for carbon-based chips would be born in my hands!" Tong He spoke with a dazed expression, but in such a boastful manner that Huang He felt like kicking him.
However, Huang He would never kick Tong He. This Tong He was an absolute rare treasure; he had to cherish him... Although the Black Crystal produced by this fellow was a synthetic material of graphene, Black Crystal itself could win another Nobel Prize... oh, no, the Huang He Prize.
Tong He was now a double Huang He Prize recipient.
[PS: The section regarding the properties of Black Crystal is entirely fabricated by the author and has no relation to real-world physics. If any experts know the actual situation, feel free to provide科普 here. I will modify the Black Crystal's property settings upon seeing it. Thank you!]
"It's not enough for the properties to be amazing; mass production is key!" Boss Huang calmed himself down and said, "Producing just a fingernail-sized piece of Black Crystal cost me thirty million and injured five employees. If this thing were to be mass-produced, the consumption would likely be enormous!" Huang He stated. xxs壹贰
"That is indeed the case!" Ni Guangnan nodded. "Currently, we can only produce Black Crystal in the laboratory. A completely new set of equipment capable of withstanding over 15,000 units of atmospheric pressure is required, otherwise, even the laboratory cannot maintain stability."
"And to achieve industrial production of Black Crystal to meet chip demands, two major hurdles must be overcome: one is the mass production of graphene, and the other is the industrial-grade equipment that can withstand 15,000 atmospheres of pressure. These are both extremely difficult challenges, but if completed, the cost of Black Crystal won't be too high."
"Because the rare earth elements used as emitters in Black Crystal production are only trace amounts; the rest are ordinary elements. The material cost per kilogram of Black Crystal is actually only 100 yuan. The key lies in the cost consumed by the production process. However, based on my estimates, once large-scale production technology takes shape, the actual production cost per kilogram of Black Crystal can be reduced to less than 10,000 yuan. And each kilogram of Black Crystal can produce at least 1,000 chips. Although it will still be more expensive than the cost of wafers, the cost itself is within an acceptable range."
"What production cost of only ten thousand yuan?" Huang He rolled his eyes. "Everyone remember, the production cost of our Black Crystal per kilogram is as high as one million US dollars, do you understand?"
"Yes... Understood..." everyone chuckled.