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Chapter 119: Diamond Semiconductor
Chapter 119: Diamond Semiconductor
Young people live on hope for the future, while old people live on memories of the past.
When Yu Ji-ha brought up the situation of the Korean semiconductor industry in the 2020s, Chairman Shin had a lot to say.
“The US was not happy with us leaning towards China. They wanted to take over the foundry business by force.”
“They must have been anxious. They had to bring back the manufacturing jobs to their country.”
The attendees nodded at Yu Ji-ha’s remark.
It was a well-known fact that the US had started to care about their domestic jobs.
They began with the car manufacturing industry, and then moved on to the semiconductor sector, which had been traditionally handled by their allies.
The US also looked at Korea with unease, as it relied heavily on China.
If Korea switched sides completely, the semiconductor belt in East Asia could be shaken.
Chairman Shin clenched his eyes as if he remembered that time.
“I and other chairmen were summoned to the US as a group and faced all kinds of pressure. That was the first time I heard them say they would take away the foundry industry from us.”
“They said that openly?”
The old man shook his head bitterly.
“Who could stop them when they said they would do it... Anyway, I think it was not only because of the lack of processes that we lost our orders. It’s true that TSMC was half a step ahead of us, but we could have caught up.”
He still had some pride left, even though his company had gone bankrupt long ago.
Yu Ji-ha asked casually.
“Did the US government pressure their domestic companies? To reduce their orders?”
“There’s no evidence, but everyone knows it. We were also a bit disadvantageous in terms of price.”
TSMC was so busy that they couldn’t handle all the orders, so some Korean companies, including Hansung Foundation, took advantage of that gap.
But one by one, their orders started to decrease, and a few months later, most of their orders were cut off, except for the old processes.
“Next was memory. The US didn’t like us holding onto memory either, so they started to push their domestic and Japanese companies. That’s Micron and Elpida.”
“But you held on pretty well with the chicken game.”
“It was all temporary. What could we do when the US openly supported them? They even offered incentives if they built semiconductor fabs in their country... I remember running around the US to get equipment. I sent my son there, but he came back empty-handed, so I went there myself, but they said the same thing.”
“Most of the equipment was already allocated?”
“That’s right... The US government pressured them to give most of the equipment to their own and Japan.”
It must have been frustrating, but there was nothing a single company could do when the US government intervened.
It was also hard to ask for help from China, because they were more nationalist than the US.
The Korean companies that got in between had to watch out for China and try their best to get out of the US pressure.
“Despite all our efforts, we eventually gave up on foundry. Our memory market share also dropped below 10%... I’m ashamed to say this with my own mouth, but Hansung was the leader of Korean semiconductors. And that leader collapsed.”
One of the reasons why the Korean economy was gloomy at that time was the semiconductor slump.
It accounted for up to 18% of exports in its heyday, but it dropped to 3.5% in 2025.
Anyway, Korea’s semiconductor industry went downhill and now it barely maintained its presence in the memory field.
But if they had this...
Chairman Shin knew about diamond semiconductors because he had received a report on them.
Normally, diamond is an insulator, but it can be turned into a conductor by mixing various impurities such as nitrogen or boron.
Diamond semiconductors made this way can operate at temperatures above 600 degrees and have very fast electron speed, making them suitable for high-speed computation.
There was also an alternative to break the structure and insert particles to use them as operators for quantum computers.
Of course, all this never went beyond the laboratory level and was abandoned due to high costs and various difficulties involved in production.
The US and Japan also continued to publish papers on it, but they did not show any significant results.
But if the president suddenly mentioned it...
“May I ask where you developed it?”
“It’s Lucia’s research result. Lucia is constantly computing and analyzing data from various fields. Diamond semiconductors are one of them.”
“It must be like Antron. We don’t understand the principle...”
“Lucia’s computing power has already surpassed us. It’s the singularity. I don’t even know what she’s researching.”
He thought it was a good excuse.
But Lucia’s status as an artificial superintelligence had already been verified by many scholars.
Even now, some laboratories around the world were asking questions to Lucia with the permission of the Chairman Shin Group.
Chairman Shin decided to pass the ball to the experts at this point.
“Let’s put aside your curiosity for now and tell me if you can make it.”
The experts looked around and finally one of them took the lead and answered.
“If we can use the existing equipment as it is, there should be no problem, but it will take a considerable amount of time to restart the fab.”
“So, how long will it take?”
“Considering the processing of raw materials, at least five years or more...”
Chairman Shin glanced at Yu Ji-ha and he opened his mouth.
“We will handle the processing of raw materials, so you only need to produce.”
You have no experience in semiconductors and you want to make it up to the wafer?
You have money, but you don’t have any know-how. How can you handle that?
He wanted to ask that, but no one actually did.
Because it was Yu Ji-ha who said that.
The only problem was the cost.
It was inevitable that the price would be high to make seeds with artificial diamonds.
If they made wafers with that, it would be several times more expensive than silicon.
No matter how great Lucia’s computing power was, it was impossible from the source.
Yu Ji-ha offered a solution.
“The price is a problem, but Russia Alrosa agreed to supply us cheaply.”
Of course, it was a lie.
It was true that Russia had a global diamond company, but they couldn’t match the quantity and price for making seeds.
It was a state-owned company, so it might be possible if Putin approved it, but there was a high chance that the supply would be unstable.
They would use the Aether fusion reactor of Settler here.
When the fusion reactor output exceeded a certain level, the internal pressure and temperature rose tremendously, almost comparable to Jupiter’s interior.
That meant they could make superconducting and artificial diamonds inside the spaceship.
In the long run, they would have to bring in production equipment to Korea, but for now, it was enough to shock the market.
“Arma will officially inform you of the roadmap later. You just need to prepare for production accordingly. Any questions?”
Then one of the experts fiddled with his glasses, feeling the eyes of others.
—Even though Bryant, the candidate, died, the Democratic Party’s policy won’t change.
That secret pressure began to affect various parts of the Korean economy.
The items were mainly semiconductors, and Korea didn’t have the power to overcome this.
Hansung Electronics had lost its leadership long ago, and Silla Group had no foundation in that area.
But having no foundation didn’t mean having no technology.
Arma established another corporation within the group and secured a factory site.
“This corporation will be in charge of Silla Group’s semiconductors. From material processing to wafer production, memory and foundry business, and even computing chipsets, we will pursue a total package.”
The name was Quantum Solution.
It was a name that openly aimed for quantum technology, which made many people tilt their heads.
—Does Yu Ji-ha have any quantum technology? I don’t remember him having any.
—Maybe he developed something with his artificial intelligence. We don’t know what kind of research is going on in the metaverse server room.
—Even with artificial intelligence, you need basic infrastructure to do semiconductor business.
—Doesn’t Hansung Group have it? They must have a lot of old equipment left.
—What can you produce with those old equipment? It’s the era of 1nm now.
They were mistaken about one thing.
The new diamond semiconductor design was enough with the old process.
It used 2D patterning instead of 3D patterning commonly used by the United Human Federation, so the photo process was simple.
Some of the materials used here were produced in Korea under Yu Ji-ha’s instructions, so there was no big problem.
Korea had been supplying most of the raw materials like this since it broke off relations with Japan, and some Japanese companies even set up separate companies overseas to supply to Korea.
Yu Ji-ha appreciated their efforts.
However, there were many other processes to go through before shipping semiconductors, and a lot of know-how was needed, so it was not an easy field to enter.
But the designer in charge was Arma, the artificial intelligence of the United Human Federation.
She finished the design in no time and adjusted the roadmap as well.
Originally, he planned to attack Manchuria in 2030, but there was no need to bother if China’s position was like that.
Yu Ji-ha looked at the roadmap and asked.
“Will there be any problem with building a megacity in Manchuria?”
“It’s only a year anyway. The overall roadmap hasn’t changed.”
“Then that’s fine. Let’s focus on building our foundation until early next year.”
That foundation building meant rebuilding the semiconductor industry from scratch all over the world.
Of course, even if diamond semiconductors appeared, not all companies could adopt them.
There were many fields where existing semiconductors were enough.
But in advanced industries, such as astronomy, medicine, chemistry, supercomputing, cloud systems, etc., computing power was more important than anything else.
The difference in computing power was more than 10 times even with the old process. It would be stupid not to choose this side.
Anyway, the smart factory for Quantum Solution finished all administrative procedures in no time and started construction.
The construction involved a tremendous know-how of shortening construction time that the United Human Federation had developed to counter Plague.
They didn’t know when Plague would launch an air raid, so they couldn’t afford to build factories leisurely.
So the United Human Federation developed a system that mimicked Plague’s internal structure to decompose and combine Black Metal.
That system was used to build megacities and settlers for space ships.
There was no need to hide it anymore, so smart factories were built in an instant.
Other companies would have just started forming committees for site selection at this point, but this side was already installing equipment.
It was literally insane speed.
However, the intelligence agencies and leaders of various countries were not surprised by this progress because they had already experienced megacities and such.
—It’s not that I’m used to seeing it a lot, but this speed is definitely not normal.
—If you shorten construction time like that, there will be side effects galore, but there seems to be none of that either.
—However, Hansung Electronics, which is supposed to cooperate with them, is no different from other companies. It seems like it will take years to restart production equipment.
Hansung Electronics was normal because they were so used to Yu Ji-ha.
Silla Group seemed dissatisfied with that speed and sent androids directly to adjust the equipment.
And the US, who watched all this, concluded that Yu Ji-ha had something to turn the situation around.
“He flew to Russia himself recently... It seems like Alrosa.”
“What does he have to do with diamond companies? Don’t tell me semiconductors?”
“That’s impossible. Diamond semiconductors are theoretically possible, but growing seeds is a bottleneck. You have to apply high pressure and high temperature and grow them slowly, but the cost doesn’t match because it’s hard to make pressure vessels.”
“Wait, can’t you make pressure vessels easily with Black Metal?”
Black Metal was used as a variety of tools at this point.
Black Metal itself was a trademark filed by Silla Group, and it was used in various tools where wear resistance was important.
Now, Black Metal-made screwdrivers, drills, etc. were treated as the best luxury items in the market.
It also had a significant market share in the pressure vessel market, but there was no alternative for laboratories that needed high pressure and high temperature.
If they used those pressure vessels to grow diamond seeds?
The electricity that goes into it is a problem, but isn’t Korea already operating a nuclear fusion plant?
Several plants were under construction now, and the existing nuclear power plants were changing their uses.
According to the IAEA’s audit report, Korea planned to supply all electricity with nuclear fusion within five years at most.
In that case, the price of electricity would be extremely cheap.
It was the optimal condition for making diamond semiconductors.
When a report containing this content was published in the US, Democratic senators wanted to visit Korea to find out the situation.
But Yu Ji-ha refused.
“Supply semiconductors properly first. Don’t tell me you didn’t pressure us.”
The Democratic Party in the US didn’t have much reaction to this blunt remark.
It was evidence of tacit admission.
And Arma’s design was finished.
“The process uses 130nm and the TDP, thermal design power, is 25W. It has a variable clock that can go up to 7.6GHz and the core can be divided into up to 16. The IPC is 11 times higher than the existing high-end personal processors.”
Performance being 11 times doesn’t mean actual speed is also 11 times.
There are various devices that affect computation besides processors in hardware.
It would be convenient if he could cram everything into one chip like Arma’s computing unit, but he couldn’t show such technology now.
He had to take steps, right?
Yu Ji-ha nodded his head as he watched the processor’s operation simulation.
“Not bad for the first release. Prepare for sample production.”