Chapter 675: The Beginning of the PM Era
Translator: _Min_ Editor: Rundi
Future Group’s repet.i.tive appearances on the headlines made some media companies contemplate if they should seek advertis.e.m.e.nt fees from Future Group’s boss.
Just as Jiang Chen arrived on Papua Island, the world became unsettled because of another piece of news.
UA, New York Times: “Future Heavy Industries announced that there has been a major breakthrough in the field of semiconductor graphene materials research, the 5nm curse that silicon chips cannot break through is expected to be easily solved. Before 2020, the world’s electronics industry is expected to enter the PM Era! “(1nm = 1000pm)
UK, The Guardian: “Incredible research results! Professor of materials science at Cambridge University states that Future Group perhaps will change our future again with technology.”
France, Le Monde: “Under the Future Group Materials Research Lab, Lu Yuan and other three scientists will be nominated for the n.o.bel Prize in 2018.”
Xiangjiang, South China Morning Post: “Talents flouris.h.i.+ng from mainland; the exhausted Moore’s Law could be kept alive by this man!”
It is well known that conventional graphene has no bandgap, and its special corrugated valence band and conduction band are actually connected together, making it more like a metal than a semiconductor.
Future Heavy Industrial announced that their researchers found that the silicon carbide can be used as raw material through a heat treatment to break it down and form a layer of graphene. This could allow the buffer layer graphene to form a monolithic with greater than 1.10ev.
This is already very close to the 1.12ev silicon material, making graphene chips possible!
Future Heavy Industrial’s significant breakthrough in graphene caught all the renowned reputable CPU developers and manufactures unexpectedly. The NASDAQ plummeted red at opening, causing despairing woes to the investors.
As to the reason? It was obvious!
Once the graphene semiconductor comes out, it will mean that the silicon chip will come to a complete end and it will only be a matter of time before it can be eliminated by a smaller graphene transistor. Just like a steam engine could be no match to a fast-moving internal combustion engine. It is the same.
The investors are all cunning creatures. If other companies stated that they created global Wi-Fi, virtual reality, graphene semiconductor, they would scorn them, saying, “Do you think I’m a new investor? Don’t use those scams to make me buy your shares.”
However, it was different for Future Group. All the projects they announced became reality.
It was still undetermined if Intel and AMD will fall from grace like Kodak since Wall Street investors already dumped their shares.
The trend line of Kodak was still a refres.h.i.+ng memory to investors. From February 1997 with a market cap of 31 billion to 2.1 billion on September 2011, the rollercoaster ride was even more exciting than the Shanghai Stock Exchange across the Pacific! (The Shanghai Stock Exchange is notorious for its unreasonable fluctuations.)
With tech stocks bleeding red, what B City Consortium didn’t expect was that B City Technology’s stock price remained surprisingly strong. Future Group’s subsidiary was still in the process for IPO, so investors could only release their pa.s.sion on First B City Bank and B City Technology that formed a strategic partners.h.i.+p with Future Group. Although it was undetermined if they will work together in the graphene field, investing in itself is gambling right?
If they made the right bet, it would be the next Intel!
The unexpected joy caught Carson Loki off guard. Even John Lawson who opposed against working with Future Group in developing the North American market ended up being glad with the outcome of the result.
Just as the world was debating Future Heavy Industries’ major breakthrough in the field of graphene, Wall Street Journal dropped another heavy hitter.
A senior patent official who chose to remain anonymous stated that Future Heavy Industries submitted over 2000 patent applications! From graphene transistors to the preparation of graphene chips, Future Heavy Industries with lightning speed swept the entire patent market clean.
The Capital was joyous and shocked at the same time; joyous because Future Group finally agreed to submit their patents; shocked because they blocked any research potential for graphene semiconductors! DARPA’s investment into material science went straight down the drain.
They already put the results on the table and were now submitting for patent.
In twenty years, any company that wishes to produce graphene semiconductors must pay a high royalty to Future Group.
The decision to submit for patent was a well contemplated one by Jiang Chen.
Different from neural connection and mature artificial intelligence, graphene’s technological bridge was not as insurmountable; just like Future Heavy Industrial’s solid state lithium air battery. It won’t take more than a few years before the technology would come out of the labs.
Material Science Lab Doctor Lu Yuan agreed with Jiang Chen’s perspective.
He made optimistic judgments referencing to the papers published in international scholastic journals such as Nature and Science. Perhaps in 2020, graphene’s industrial production would see a dramatic breakthrough.
So, for the first time, the Future Group registered a total of 2,000 patents for graphene-related research through the International Patent Organization in a number of countries and set a patent barrier thicker than the Great Wall. They established the future of the monopoly of graphene chips.
Of course, the registered patent was only for the product and not the production process.
The difficulty in graphene research was precisely the production process and the manufacturing of the different types of graphene material’s equipment. Without the key production technology, acquiring a graphene semiconductor sample could at most provide a thought process for the experiment, but it would be impossible to reverse engineer the production process.
The production of the chip would be completed on Ange Island. Jiang Chen had no intention to build plants in other countries. Therefore, he didn’t need to disclose the process in exchange for the protection of this intellectual property.
Jiang Chen had two purposes during this visit to the special district.
First, over half of BHP’s 80 million tons of ores were consumed already. The construction of Penglai caused the price of iron and aluminum to climb. Luke was obviously not foolish and of course wouldn’t continue to sign the agreement with Future Group.
He was here to negotiate with BHP Group on the contract.
Second, Jiang Chen was preparing to audit the production status of the district.
The technological barrier of graphene chip was done being broken through; Future Group obviously won’t just sell the chip. They will continue to develop the downstream industries from phones, tablets, to PCs!
If Future Heavy Industries can’t do it, he will purchase subsidiaries to do it!