Development of productivity started in 1981

Chapter 173: Collaborative Advancement and Superconducting Brain-Computer Chips

"Kun Le, are you sure you want to prepare to make a new type of lighter and cooperate with the army?" Grandpa asked Wang Jiankun after hearing what his uncle said.

"Yes, Grandpa, you see how much the price of copper and iron has increased. Our profits have been decreasing. And from what Du Weiqiao and Zhang Xiong said, the price of these materials will continue to rise, and the supply may even decrease, so we have to make plans early."

"Dad, Jiankun is right. The price of materials has been rising in the past few months, and the supply is not as sufficient as before. We haven't bought the planned quantity several times. Our inventory is gradually decreasing, so I support switching to new lighters." said the mother.

"Is it difficult to make? Can we make it here?"

"Of course we can. The technology is more advanced, but my uncle has already got the full set of technology and equipment. When the time comes, we will build a new factory and then transport the equipment here to install it. The production process will not be much more difficult than it is now." Wang Jiankun explained.

The main components of this new type of lighter are the plastic gas storage shell, piezoelectric ceramics and a nozzle for adjusting the flame size. These three components are not too difficult for Wang Jiankun. He asked Zhizi to help design the corresponding manufacturing equipment. He used his superpowers to manufacture a batch and handed it over to the team. Of course, the cooperation method is still the same as before. The team is responsible for production and earns processing fees.

Moreover, according to Wang Jiankun's calculations, the manufacturing speed of this new lighter will be several times faster than the old model, and the materials will be much cheaper, so he plans to maintain the wholesale price of the old model in the early stage, and use part of the excess profits to distribute to the troops. Later, when the production is mature, he will lower the selling price to expand the consumer market for lighters.

Now the prices of various materials in the country are rising, and wages have also increased a bit. Maintaining the original selling price of lighters is actually also a consideration for expanding the sales market.

"That's good. Later you can figure out how big the factory building should be and how to build it. Then you can draw up a plan and the team can discuss it and start construction."

"Okay, Grandpa. Once the production of the new lighters is stable, we will gradually reduce the production of the old lighters and focus on the overseas market. The domestic market will focus on this new lighter."

The price of old-style lighters abroad is higher than that in China, so while the profits are still good, we will still retain some production capacity of old-style lighters.

The next day, the team held a meeting to discuss building a new factory to prepare for the production of new lighters. Under the leadership of my grandfather, it was of course successfully passed. Although the unit price of processing has not yet been negotiated, Wang Jiankun will definitely not treat the villagers unfairly, and they will definitely earn more than they do now.

My uncle went to Qinghua Town and made a phone call to report on the cooperative production of lighters. The army chief was of course very happy after hearing my uncle's report, because according to what Wang Jiankun said, if the cooperation is achieved, after the production increases, it is safe to make about 50 yuan in profit per month, and if sales are high, the monthly profit will be more than 50 yuan.

After hearing this, the army chief asked my uncle to take people to Hongdu to discuss specific cooperation matters. If my uncle hadn't said that the manufacturer's representative was still in Hong Kong, the chief would have wanted to come in person.

"Jiankun, our leader has agreed. I hope that Chen Xingdong you mentioned will go to Hongdu as soon as possible to finalize the cooperation, so that production and sales can start sooner."

"So it's going well? Then I'll ask Chen Xingdong to go to Hongdu in five days. You should come with us, little uncle. Remember to show your ability and don't let the chief forget you."

"That will definitely go smoothly. A profit share of 50 per month is equivalent to our military district's monthly appropriation. With this money, we can solve many major problems. The barracks in the military district can be repaired, equipment can be obtained earlier with additional money, and more field combat training can be carried out."

"Your military district only has 50 yuan allocated per month. Isn't that too little?"

"Yes! It was barely enough before, but we had less training, so we didn't want to waste gas and ammunition. But it was enough for food and clothing. Now prices have risen, so food and clothing are both a problem. Fortunately, the base is large, so we grow a lot of vegetables and raise some pigs, so the food is barely up to standard. But there's nothing we can do about the training uniforms. Many people patch up the torn ones and wear them again."

Wang Jiankun was very surprised when his uncle talked about some of the difficulties the army is facing now. He did not expect that the country's finances have become so difficult in order to develop the economy. No wonder the market control has been relaxed a lot this year. It should be because they found that if the control is too strict, there will be problems with taxation. The price increase of raw materials may also be due to the fact that state-owned factories and mines have received administrative orders and are trying to recover some funds in this way.

For the next two days, the uncle couldn't stay at home, so he took Wang Jiankun and his siblings and a few puppies out, because as soon as he was at home, grandma would talk about marriage, urging him to find one quickly and asking someone to help introduce someone to her at home.

My uncle was also tight-lipped and said that the army did not allow him to get married now and he had to wait two years.

In fact, Wang Jiankun guessed that his uncle must have met his other half in the army, but he didn't know the reason now and it was hard to say.

After staying at home for a few days, the uncle met up with Chen Xingdong in the county and took a car from Xingyuan Power Company to Hongdu to discuss cooperation in the production of lighters.

Wang Jiankun also returned to the county town. In the underground base, he settled the four cloned dogs he brought back and began the production and debugging of new lighter manufacturing equipment.

The first is the manufacturing equipment for the gas storage shell, which is a high-speed injection molding machine, and the corresponding mold was also made by Wang Jiankun.

After most of the day's debugging, the production speed of this injection molding machine was tested. It can produce 1500 lighter gas storage shells per hour. Assuming 20 hours of production a day and 4 hours of overhaul and maintenance time, this injection molding machine can produce 3 shells a day.

Of course, the high production speed consumes a lot of electricity. According to the power supply situation of the production team, without reducing the production capacity of old lighters, it should be able to support the production of 4 such injection molding machines.

Next is the manufacture of piezoelectric ceramics, a material that has been used for a very short time. In 1947, after obtaining American technology, the Japanese began to conduct application research on BaTiO3 piezoelectric ceramics to make various piezoelectric devices. In 1955, B. Jaffe and others in the United States discovered PZT piezoelectric ceramics with superior piezoelectricity than BaTiO3, which greatly advanced the application research of piezoelectric devices.

Wang Jiankun found that the Japanese had not yet applied piezoelectric ceramics to lighters, so he had asked a Hong Kong company to register a patent and set up a piezoelectric ceramic production plant for lighters. In the future, piezoelectric ceramics will be produced in Hong Kong first and then transported to the production team for assembly. Because piezoelectric ceramics are small in size, low in weight, simple to transport, and have relatively low costs, but the price can be set higher, so that part of the profit can be reasonably transferred to Hong Kong, and it is also a means of restricting partners. At present, the technology of manufacturing small piezoelectric ceramics should not be mastered in China, so it is very appropriate to master piezoelectric ceramics as key components in Wang Jiankun's hands.

In the underground base in Wuyuan, Wang Jiankun began to manufacture piezoelectric ceramic production equipment based on the data, and then began to manufacture the first batch of piezoelectric ceramics according to the production process organized by Zhizi.

First, he mixed the main raw materials such as lead oxide and zirconium oxide, as well as a certain proportion of flux and stabilizer, according to a certain formula ratio; then he crushed the raw materials and mixed them thoroughly to improve the uniformity and stability of subsequent molding;
Then put the mixed ceramic powder into the mold and apply a certain pressure to shape it; remove the organic matter added during the molding process in the molding machine; put the ceramic without organic matter into a high-temperature furnace, and the ceramic powder particles combine with each other at high temperature to form a dense ceramic body;

After obtaining the ceramic body, Wang Jiankun took out the small ceramics and processed them after sintering to make their size and surface quality meet the requirements. Then he coated the electrode material on the surface of the ceramic and processed the electrode to make it better bonded with the ceramic.
Finally, the ceramic with electrodes is placed in a polarization device, a sufficiently high DC electric field is applied, and a certain temperature and time are maintained to force the electric domain of the ceramic to turn, so that its spontaneous polarization is oriented and arranged, thus showing piezoelectricity.
After completing this step, Wang Jiankun took out the polarized piezoelectric ceramics and tested their performance. He found that the pass rate was 90%. Wang Jiankun was very happy to have such a high pass rate for the first time of manufacturing. However, in order to reduce costs, he asked Zhizi to continue to optimize the equipment and production processes. Then he carried out several more trial productions and stopped only when the pass rate reached 99%.

Then comes the manufacture of adjustable nozzles. Currently, Japanese lighter manufacturers do not have this technology. The lighters they produce have a very limited range for adjusting the flame size, with only two levels. Based on multidisciplinary knowledge such as aerodynamics and fluid mechanics, Wang Jiankun asked Zhizi to assist in designing a nozzle that can freely adjust the flame size.

Although research and development requires a lot of advanced knowledge, manufacturing is relatively simple, mainly involving small precision machine tools and punching machines.

Wang Jiankun stayed in the underground base for three days, manufactured and tested a complete set of lighter manufacturing equipment, then made some precision parts and sent them to Hong Kong, asking the company there to manufacture some parts according to Wang Jiankun's drawings, and then assemble them into a complete set of equipment together with the parts sent by Wang Jiankun and send them back.

Doing so has many advantages. It conceals Wang Jiankun's superpowers, and at the same time makes it difficult for the outside world to obtain the corresponding equipment, making it even more difficult for counterfeiters to reverse engineer.

As for the negotiations with the troops, Wang Jiankun told Chen Xingdong his plan to leave as much profit as possible for the troops while ensuring basic interests.

Although there is a possibility that the plan will fail, or even that the cooperation will be terminated due to interest issues, Wang Jiankun still plans to give it his all. If this cooperation goes well, then the cooperation can be gradually expanded in the future, and the research and development and testing of some weapons and equipment can also be carried out domestically.

Judging from the difficult situation in the army, other departments should also be very difficult. So through step-by-step cooperation, it is entirely possible to connect with higher-level leaders or chiefs in the future. At that time, Wang Jiankun can conduct more in-depth cooperative research with the domestic party through overseas companies and his uncle.

In the next few days, Wang Jiankun paid close attention to the cooperation negotiations between Chen Xingdong and the Hongdu Military Region while conducting research on brain-computer chips.

After receiving Wang Jiankun's request, Zhizi began to use most of its computing power to design the first generation of brain-computer chips.

In terms of material selection, in order to reduce the difficulty of research and development, Wang Jiankun decided to use superconducting materials for the first brain-computer chip, instead of researching more advanced optical chips, biological chips and quantum chips.

At this time, many scientists are already conducting cutting-edge exploratory research on the latter three, and the relevant theoretical knowledge has long been published publicly. However, theory is theory, and practice is very difficult. Currently, there is no information showing that the latter three have produced even a basic circuit.

So even though the performance of the last three chips will be incredible, in order to see results quickly, Wang Jiankun decided to first develop a relatively easy superconducting chip.

The easy here is relative to Wang Jiankun's super manufacturing ability. If we use conventional means, we still don't have the ability to manufacture it.

As for why conventional silicon materials are not used to manufacture chips at the nanometer level, it is of course because of power consumption issues.

The computing speed of the chip used for brain control must be very high. Conventional silicon chips will generate very high temperatures when computing at high speeds. This means that if they are to be installed in the brain, a radiator with incredible heat dissipation capabilities must be added, which in turn greatly increases the size.

If superconducting materials are used, power consumption can be extremely low, and there is almost no need to consider heat dissipation issues. Moreover, under the same process, superconducting chips will be much faster than silicon chips.

There are other benefits to using superconducting materials to make chips, such as higher integration and reliability.

Traditional chips use metal wires to connect circuits and components, which are restricted by the size and resistance of the wires, limiting the integration and reliability. The use of superconducting materials can achieve ultra-low resistance connections, making circuit design more flexible and component layout more compact, thereby increasing the integration and reliability of the chip.

Of course, the superconducting material mentioned here must be room-temperature superconductor. If it is low-temperature superconductor, a cooling device will be needed.

After several days of research and trial production, a chip slightly smaller than a little fingernail and less than 1 mm thick was produced. It was surrounded by numerous connecting wires, all of which were neural-like wires that could connect to brain cells.

Wang Jiankun caught a relatively quiet little yellow dog, injected him with anesthetic, and then performed a chip implantation surgery on the puppy on a simple operating table.

Before the puppy Su woke up, he quickly used his superpowers to suture the wound, then installed a signal converter under the skin of his brain, and then used his superpowers to create new skin to cover it.

After the puppy woke up, Wang Jiankun began to conduct corresponding tests on the puppy that had been installed with the first brain-computer chip to see how effective this chip, which was developed with great difficulty, was.

(End of this chapter)