From Beidou Satellite to Mobile Phone Chip, More Precious Material Than Rare Earth – Tungsten

In 2018, this is an unusual year. In this year, let's not say anything else. In terms of navigation satellites, China has completed ten Beidou satellite launch missions! Moreover, not only did the intensive launch mission of the “Ten to Beidou” be completed, but the scientific and technological workers in China shortened the total process time by nearly 1/3 by optimizing the process. Of course, this unprecedented speed has a reason. According to experts, these three reasons ensure the speed of the network launch - satellite (Beidou No. 3) force, rocket (Long March 3rd A series rocket) to force, Chinese astronauts (Beidou) to force!

The author also wants to add a reason - material to force! As you may know, since the 1970s, there has been such a saying that information, energy and materials are "the three pillars of modern civilization"! For this statement, most people agree! In addition, there is a more professional rhetoric, that is, the level of materials determines the overall level of development in a field and even a country. In other words, not only is there a technical bottleneck, but materials also constrain the development of aviation and aerospace industry, because high-tech fields such as aerospace require high materials. For example, related materials used in satellites, rocket materials used to launch satellites, etc.

Satellites require extremely high performance on their materials, requiring materials to be highly reliable and capable of withstanding harsh environments such as vibration, shock, high vacuum, radiation and temperature. It is also necessary to consider the existence of space debris, cosmic rays and ionosphere. Therefore, the structural components of satellites need to use this material that is more precious than rare earths - tungsten! The structural components of an artificial satellite require a certain ultra-high temperature alloy made of tungsten and titanium, niobium, chromium or cobalt mixed in a certain ratio.

For rocket materials used to launch satellites, it must also be able to withstand ultra-high temperature materials because the surface temperature of the rocket nozzles exceeds 2000 °C. Therefore, the nozzle of the rocket engine needs to use a tungsten-copper composite material with excellent electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and high temperature resistance. Why is it a tungsten-copper composite instead of something else? Because the tungsten-copper composite material utilizes the sweating and cooling effect of copper volatilization at a high temperature, the surface temperature of the tungsten copper can be lowered, and the use can be ensured under extreme temperature conditions. The main applications of tungsten-copper composites in aerospace applications include gas rudders, air rudders and nose cones for rocket engines.

Nowadays, everyone must know that Beidou is what? Navigation System! Can it be used to dry up? Positioning! navigation! Where is it useful? The mobile phone you are staring at at the moment may have the existence of the Beidou navigation system! It is reported that most mobile phones of Qualcomm, Xiaolong and MediaTek support the reception of Beidou signals. If you are using an apple, the amount, then the wood has our Beidou system. It is said that Apple has pushed off the olive branch thrown by Beidou Navigation and will embed the Japanese version of the quasi-zenith navigation system in the next generation of new iPhone. In this regard, the author wants to say that when the Beidou system covers the whole world, you wait.

At this time, I have to talk about the chip of the mobile phone. Why do you want to talk about the chip? This mobile phone does not have the existence of a chip, it is not a piece of scrap iron, where to talk about Beidou navigation! So, what do you say? It is reported that MediaTek uses green materials from product design, manufacturing to packaging. It also investigates the sources of all materials, such as gold, tantalum, tungsten and tin. Therefore, there should be a small amount of tungsten in the chip. It must also be mentioned that the key component of the chip production line - high purity tungsten target! In the past, many domestic chip production lines were imported, and high-purity tungsten targets were basically imported.

So why is a high-purity tungsten target a key component in chip production? This has to talk about the role played by high-purity tungsten targets in chip production - the integrated circuit for writing chips! According to experts, it is not an easy task to produce high-purity, high-performance tungsten targets. Fortunately, good news came. The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology released a message at the end of October 2018 that its aerospace materials and technology research institute has successfully developed high-purity tungsten targets, which can replace imports. This not only fills the blank of the domestic hot isostatic metal tungsten target, but also helps the domestic production of the chip in China!

Why do we want to study high purity tungsten targets? According to the researchers, the higher the purity of the tungsten target, the higher the level of the chip, and the amount of data processing will of course be large. Of course, this is only a technical point of view. The significance of China's independent research and development is not limited to this! As we all know, the chip is not the world's most advanced manufacturing technology. Therefore, for China, chip technology can not be monopolized by foreign countries. We must reduce chip imports and vigorously develop chip technology. The soldiers and horses have not moved, the grain and grass first! We must always have a sense of urgency to avoid the risk of foreign technology "breaking grain" for us! The ZTE incident is a precedent. We can only make it the last example if we have successfully developed it ourselves!

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