Chapter 44 Massive Development

Scientific research and development is an immensely resource-consuming endeavor. Only because Li Qingsong currently possesses a sufficiently massive productive force and an abundant supply of resources was he capable of building a dedicated research and development institution at this moment, throwing in tens of thousands of clones to focus wholeheartedly on technological research while setting aside everything else.

Consequently, at this stage, this scientific research and development base has become the "apex" of all production chains.

All production activities have the ultimate goal of supplying the consumption of the R&D base. In turn, the output of the R&D base elevates the productivity of the entire base network. While expanding its own scale, it simultaneously acquires the capability to supply more materials to the R&D base, allowing the R&D base to initiate the next phase of research requiring even greater resource consumption. Through such repeated cycles, continuous technological progress and productivity enhancement can be achieved.

In this process, the scale of the base will grow larger and the population will increase, thereby allowing a greater number of completely non-producing clones to be dedicated to research, enabling Li Qingsong to wield even more mental processing power.

Because of this single R&D base, the entire cluster of bases has coalesced into an integrated, organic whole.

The planet Luoshen is brimming with vitality, with everything developing rapidly.

In the blink of an eye, another half a year passed, and a new batch of 50,000 clones was born. Thus, Li Qingsong was finally barely able to achieve a state where "110,000 clones are online at any given moment," eliminating the need to leave his conscious connection quota vacant and wasted when clones required rest.

Under these circumstances, the first major scientific breakthrough following the completion of the R&D base emerged.

Modern chip manufacturing technology was finally successfully researched!

In a certain laboratory within the computing building, a highly purified cylindrical silicon ingot was carefully guided by machine control into the cutting workshop.

Here, it was sliced into a thin silicon wafer.

The silicon wafer was then sent to the oxidation workshop, where a thin layer of silicon dioxide was formed on its surface.

This silicon dioxide layer can function as an insulator or serve as a mask required for subsequent processes.

Next in the production pipeline, a layer of photosensitive material was coated onto it, followed by ultraviolet irradiation, immersion in chemicals, and subsequent etching, which caused intricate microscopic circuit patterns to appear on the silicon wafer.

Following that, through a series of processes including doping, deposition, multi-level interconnection, dicing, testing, and packaging, a larger silicon wafer was divided into multiple smaller, individual chips.

Clearly, the circuits fabricated on the silicon wafer through this method could be made much smaller than the circuits and transistors previously populated using manual soldering.

Consequently, the number of transistors that can be integrated per unit area becomes greater. With a greater number of transistors, the performance of the chip becomes stronger, processing speeds increase, and more complex data can be handled.

At this moment, the first generation of modern chips produced by Li Qingsong could integrate 10,000 transistors on each tiny chip with an area of merely 10 square centimeters!

In contrast, the chips previously manufactured via manual soldering methods could only integrate 1,000 transistors on an area reaching 200 square centimeters.

Its area had shrunk to one-twentieth of the original, yet its performance had increased tenfold!

Not only that, but power consumption, heat generation, and reliability had also experienced tremendous improvements.

Looking at this chip produced by his own hands, with a manufacturing process that could be considered to have reached the micrometer scale—although still extremely primitive compared to the peak era of humanity—Li Qingsong still smiled with profound satisfaction.

The foundation has been laid, and subsequent steps will only require continuous iteration and optimization.

Following another series of process fine-tuning, the original chip factory that produced iron-cased chips eventually underwent a comprehensive upgrade and transformation.

All kinds of brand-new equipment were installed inside it, and production commenced accordingly.

By adopting industrialized and large-scale production, this chip factory could produce 10 million micrometer-scale manufacturing chips a year!

At the same time, the production process itself is a continuous endeavor of researching chip technology.

Numerous details of chip technology would be born from this, while new ideas, methods, and processes from the research institution would constantly be introduced into the chip factory for experimentation. Combining the two enables the continuous development of chip technology.

After the chip factory went into operation, a large quantity of newly produced chips completely transformed the original production landscape.

Numerous iron-cased chips were recycled and destroyed, while a brand-new generation of chips with vastly superior functions was put into use, further optimizing the production flow, elevating the degree of automation, and resulting in even higher production efficiency.

This was merely the technological advancement of chips.

Aside from chip technology, breakthroughs in many other technologies within the scientific research and development base were achieved through the hard work of dedicated research clones.

High-precision machine tools, high-strength steel, novel casting processes, brand-new internal combustion engine manufacturing technology, high-voltage power supply technology, higher-efficiency generator technology...

And so on and so forth. Almost every single day, new technological breakthroughs emerged. These new breakthroughs were applied at the fastest possible speed, tested by actual production, and then the relevant data was fed back into the R&D base for further optimization...

As new technologies continually emerged, the previously bulky and crude-looking Luoshen base cluster gradually evolved into a precise, exquisite, and efficient construction style.

Under such circumstances, the biotechnology that Li Qingsong had consistently valued also achieved continuous breakthroughs.

At this stage, he was finally able to actively adjust the nutrient solution formula, purify the strange bird's bodily fluids with higher precision, remove harmful impurities while retaining beneficial components, and manufacture higher-precision cultivation devices that allowed clones to develop even better.

Consequently, Li Qingsong's conscious connection capacity achieved another breakthrough.

As of now, he was already capable of simultaneously connecting with 500,000 clones!

Through years of continuous production, the total number of clones under Li Qingsong's command also crossed the one-million mark for the first time, reaching 1.2 million!

Furthermore, the newly upgraded and transformed clone cultivation factory was still continuously producing clones at an average rate of 200,000 per year.

At this moment, the number of bases under Li Qingsong's command had surged to 535. If viewed as a cluster, the area covered by this cluster had expanded to over 5 million square kilometers.

Meanwhile, the total surface area of the entire planet Luoshen is only about 15 million square kilometers.

The total length of the railways connecting these bases had reached the scale of millions of kilometers, with a massive volume of trains speeding along them at all times, transporting astronomical quantities of supplies.

At this moment, Li Qingsong's gaze finally turned toward the boundless expanse of space.

"Me, right now, I finally have the qualifications to develop aerospace technology..."