Rebirth of Northland Technology - 634 Chapter 616 CMOS Image Sensor

Chapter 11

Cheng Yongxing first went downstairs to get the car.

Since Andong’s trip back to Bing City, he has moved to Qiu Lin neighborhood.

After all, the rooms here are larger, the layout is more reasonable, and the living and business conditions are better.

The enclosed and managed community also increases the safety factor, especially when Xuan Liu is alone in the ice city.

Chapter 8

The event was hosted by Manager Lin Tianpeng. He has been running all the way to the front and back.

The original Secretary Lin is now a secretary.

He and his secretary, one man and one bus, took everyone to the Hat’s Mountain ski resort.

The excursion was paid for by the Talent Fund, which hosted out-of-town teachers who came to Ice City for training.

Cheng Yongxing did not get on the bus, but drove along.

His car was also full.

In the passenger seat is Liu Xuan, and in the back of the car is Li Lina, Zhang Xingchen and his girlfriend Hu Jing, which is the only remaining team from his hometown.

Behind Cheng Yongxing’s car were four cars, Feng Yan, Li Dan, Hao Yunli, and Yang Si Shan, who followed in turn, with their families or friends behind them.

Yang Si Shan took his wife, Wei Suhua, to the back of the hall.

Wisuwa had already been diagnosed with a pregnancy, so he drove cautiously to the end of the line.

This time home, the two of them were going to have a make-up wedding, and it would be too late for the wedding to happen.

After the wedding, the two of them will go to Sichuan to take up their positions. He will take up the position of General Manager of the Mianyang base there.

The main reason why Full Color is setting up a new large base in Mianyang is because Changhong, the largest home appliance company in China, is there. In this era, Changhong’s size, in the color TV industry is like a giant.

Cheng Yongxing talks to him about his work at Lin Wafer. After weighing the pros and cons of his girlfriend, he decided to stay at Full Color.

He was accompanied by several other students who stayed in Full Color. These people were generally promoted to the next level by surprise.

——–

Yunli Hao’s car, the second last in the fleet.

In the car are a few of her cadres. She’s now a team player, too.

Chapter 8

She decided to stay and start her own business, and then work for someone else, no matter what university she was at, it didn’t interest her anymore.

Her venture is a semiconductor sensor.

After years of twists and turns, things are back to square one.

Semiconductor sensors are a large field, and naturally there are choices to be made, and the first subproject selected was CMOS image sensors.

The idea to start the project came from ideas involved in a conversation among students about biochips two years ago.

Image sensors, have been around for more than two decades.

The current technology is CCD, but its process is very complex, only a few manufacturers have mastered, and the cost is high.

Due to the high cost of CCD image sensor, the main application market in the military, aviation, aerospace and other fields.

For example, IU and Bing Fei cooperation with unmanned camera, it is equipped with a rudimentary CCD camera, the image sent back to the control center in real time.

This camera, the accuracy of less than one megapixel, do real-time monitoring is more suitable, but as the camera does not make any sense.

Higher-pixel CCD image sensors, there are, but the market simply can not see.

They can only be seen occasionally in the news, such as spy planes and spy satellites.

——–

CCD and CMOS technology, in principle, the same area, the same process, CCD has a higher pixel density, not to mention CCD technology has been quite mature.

But the special process, resulting in its inability to enjoy the dividends of the progress of the wafer chip process.

Civilian level CCD sensor pixels, 1986 reached 1.4 million pixels, to 94 years has been more than eight years, actually can not inch forward.

Eight, nine years ago, even the CCD production line is the most advanced process, now also a full 4 to 5 generations behind the mainstream process.

The reason for this, no one can say.

Perhaps there are technical barriers, but more likely, or cost reasons.

Today’s image sensors are low resolution, but not cheap, and the memory chips are expensive, which makes it impossible to open the market quickly.

There are some so-called digital cameras on the market, but they are more of a gimmick than anything else. None of the mainstream camera manufacturers are involved in this field.

CCD manufacturers need time to recoup their investment costs, so they lose the incentive to continue upgrading their production processes.

This is not the case with CMOS technology. The manufacturing technology for CMOS sensors is not fundamentally different from that of ordinary chips. Ordinary wafer fabs can transition directly to production.

Once the CMOS image sensor can be commercialized, there will be two dimensions from the image accuracy and price, CCD technology to bring crushing advantage.

Two years ago, Hao Yunli did not choose CMOS as the main research direction, because it is more of a process innovation, is water grinding work. As a research project, not very meaningful.

But now, as an entrepreneurial project is more appropriate.

Of course, there is no choice of CCD technology, but also out of necessity.

Japanese manufacturers have established absolute dominance in the field of CCD. Any new players can not bypass the layers of patent barriers laid down by them.

Especially at the civilian level, even the U.S. KODAK are unable to break into this field, the latter had to cooperate with the Japanese manufacturer Olympus to solve the problem of patent barriers.

——–

For this venture, Yunli Hao poured out $2 million of her own money. She sold all her stocks and put up a little bit of savings. As the founder, she holds 60% of the shares.

Prof. Wang Liguo, and an American private equity fund, each contributed $5 million, each with 10% of the shares. The remaining 20% was taken by the Testing Institute, who became the second largest shareholder with technical support and 50 million RMB in equity.

The total investment in the project, not to mention the technology, amounted to 150 million yuan in cash, which is considered a relatively large investment in Ice City. This, coupled with the fame of the prospective Nobel Laureate, has been highly valued at the provincial and municipal levels.

Hao Yunli’s name, after years of publicity, is very recognizable, so her company is called Liyun Technology.

She has enjoyed many advantages this time back in China.

The first point, needless to say, is financial support.

Business financing, technology and projects are often the second priority, while people and trust are the first.

Hao Yunli, as a student from IIT, has a very high degree of recognition, especially from the testing school and Professor Wang Liguo, we are very familiar with each other, and we don’t even talk about it, we just go straight to the board.

The second one is the industrial environment.

Time flies, and Bingcheng has developed into a major semiconductor town.

The benefits of LED and LCD industries began to spill over, cheap lithography machines and other semiconductor equipment flooded the market, the construction of low-cost semiconductor chip factory, is not a difficult task.

In addition to the colorful, full-color several semiconductor regular army, relying on the semiconductor college, testing college, electronics college, precision instrument college, set up a number of small wafer fabs of varying scale and precision. They produce and process low-cost chips for civilian and toy use.

These large and small foundries provide a good business environment for entrepreneurs.

Talent, technology, equipment, and capital have a clustering effect in Ice City.

Third, resource borrowing.

Hao Yunli’s venture has received invisible support from many parties. Many resources can be borrowed.

For example, the MEMS lab.

The MEMS lab is not what it used to be. It occupies three floors and is no different from a small wafer fab.

This experimental wafer fab is dedicated to Li Yun Technology. This alone will save her one to one and a half years of construction cycle.

There are many similar things.

Hao Yunli’s name still has a lot of appeal, and with the full support of the Testing Institute, a young and dynamic R&D team has taken shape.

——–

The more support we get, the more hope we hide behind, and the more responsibility we take on.

Hao Yunli put her whole body, mind, and soul into her work, as she did in the IBM project.

With the support of many parties, Liyun Technology has continuously made major breakthroughs in technology. During this period of time, we applied for more than one hundred patents alone.

If all goes well, before the Spring Festival in 1995, the first CMOS camera samples will be available.

Of course, compared with the mature CCD technology, CMOS technology still has a long way to go, such as CMOS cameras have high noise, low light environment is not sensitive to lighting and other issues.

But Hao Yunli full of confidence, because she has a clear technology roadmap. The gains of the past few months continue to prove the validity and value of this roadmap.

In the choice of route and direction, Liyun Technology has never deviated greatly from the roadmap.

Just like the original MEMS and biochips.

Of course, the time to enter the CMOS field is more mature now than two years ago.

Two years ago, there was no such good semiconductor environment in Ice City.

If we had done the research then, it is more likely that the inventions and patents would have been made for others.

——–

After more than an hour’s drive, the caravan was soon in the ski resort.

Today’s Mt. Hood ski resort is not yet the kind of ski resort that would become a full-fledged accessory facility. There is no place to spend the money on the welfare of light and power, and this semi-natural ski resort is the result of spending money recklessly.

After everyone got their own equipment, they started their free activities.

Skiing, even to Cheng Yongxing, was a new thing. In his previous life, before he went abroad, he didn’t have the conditions; after he went abroad, he didn’t have the opportunity.

So today, like Liu Xuan, we were all very excited.

Since it’s not a formal ski resort, there are no so-called coaches in the venue. The only fun for everyone was to make a fool of themselves, or to watch others make a fool of themselves.

The whole morning, everyone had a great time until almost two o’clock, when they were too hungry to leave the ski resort.

The place to eat was a farmhouse, which is also the dining spot of the Department of Photonics.

The main specialty of the farming village is farmhouse cuisine. White meat and blood sausage, bones in sauce, chicken in a large pot and other stewed dishes were quickly served up.

The food is very farmhouse style, but it is also available in the city, which is not too unusual.

The tofu here is not the same as in the city, it is brine point out, the flavor is particularly full. Even the flavor of tofu with green onions is different.

——–

After eating for a while, the conversation slowly tilted toward parents.

Many of the students sitting here have partners and are facing the problem of marriage. In Ice City, at the age of 24, 5, it is already the age to talk about marriage, especially the girls.

The fastest ones here are Yang Sishan and Wei Suhua, who are considered to be married with children.

Among the others, Li Dan and Feng Yan’s relationships with their partners are stable. The relationship between two of them and their boyfriends is at least 5 or 6 years old.

At the table, there were two lonely people, one was Hao Yunli and the other was Li Lina.

Both of them have no intention of looking for something else in the near future, one is starting a business and the other is not only starting a business, but also studying. Basically, they had very little time.

Ma Yue left the army of construction workers and also turned to Liu Xuan’s table.

“Cheng Yongxing, when are you going to get married?”

Ma Yue was very close to Liu Xuan, and with multiple relationships, he got acquainted with her.

“It depends on her.”

Cheng Yongxing tilted his head.

“Depends on me?”

Liu Xuan was surprised by this answer. No one had ever talked to her, and besides, how could she be in charge?

Not only her, but also others at the table were thinking the same thing.

Ma Yue didn’t continue the conversation; she felt that Cheng Yongxing just didn’t want to make a direct commitment and was looking for a lame excuse.

The conversation soon turned to the weather and the upcoming activities.

——–

Cheng Yongxing also did not continue this topic.

In their previous lives, the two of them used to fight over small things until they got married.

Arguing about whether to go abroad and how to go abroad. In addition, along with participating in various overseas interviews, the frustration after failure also brought negative emotions to the relationship between the two people.

There were also other things, a lot of messy little things, Cheng Yongxing can’t even remember why and what they were arguing about.

Both of them were strong personalities who wanted to save face, and many times, they quarreled directly under the streetlight.

Liu Xuan was with her father, living in the family area of the design institute, and many of her colleagues saw the scene from the window. As a result, he was introduced to someone else until they got married.

The final catalyst for their marriage was the house.

The design house was to be divided every two years. Due to rumors at the time, the ’96 split was the last one.

Cheng Yongxing’s mother, Xi Fenghua, personally did the work for Liu Xuan, and only then did she get the marriage certificate first.

Strangely enough, after the marriage license was issued, the quarrels between the two decreased rapidly, much to the surprise of those around them.