Chapter 41: Internet Access
These larger chip specifications varied, with the number of internal transistors also differing.
Aside from some general-purpose chips, Tom also manufactured gigantic chips that could be called "supercomputers."
These chips were so enormous that a single room couldn’t contain them; a specialized hall needed to be built just to house them!
Their power consumption was so terrifying that a dedicated, extremely thick power line was required to supply electricity.
It stood three meters tall, was about ten meters long, and five meters wide, with a total internal volume reaching 150 cubic meters!
But despite its immense size, its internal manufacturing mode was actually the same, still consisting of individual circuit boards, individual resistors and capacitors, and numerous flying wires.
It was simply that the quantity was terrifyingly large.
Such a supercomputer had over 90,000 circuit boards internally, and the number of transistors, capacitors, and resistors reached 80 million.
These 80 million transistors were individually hand-soldered onto the circuit boards by the Clones, then connected by hundreds of millions of flying wires.
This computer also adopted a redundant design; if an error occurred anywhere, a specially designed redundancy program could bypass it without affecting overall operation.
This unprecedented supercomputer was installed in the largest factory Tom currently owned, Steel Plant No. 1.
In addition to this supercomputer, over 200,000 chips of various sizes were installed throughout Steel Plant No. 1.
Feeding, screening, smelting, conveying, chemicals, and so on.
Ultimately, data from all chips would be transmitted via network cables to the supercomputer for final processing, then displayed to the Clones on various meters or screens.
Tom certainly couldn’t produce true screens at this moment, but primitive ones were no problem.
These screens had ten thousand pixels, with each pixel having two states: lit or unlit.
Therefore, manufacturing them was simple: just control the brightness of the corresponding pixel.
These screens could only display simple black and white text or numbers and nothing else. But it didn’t matter; it was enough.
Thus, from this moment on, the production model of the upgraded Steel Plant No. 1 underwent a revolutionary change.
Many front-line Clone positions were directly eliminated, and among the remaining Clones, a considerable portion could now sit in the central control room or various sub-control rooms, directly observing the dashboards and screens, then pressing the corresponding buttons or flipping the corresponding switches according to the data. Not only was the workload greatly reduced, but the level of fatigue was also significantly lowered.
After completing the informatization of Steel Plant No. 1, Tom did not stop; he immediately began the transformation of every factory.
Hundreds of millions of encapsulated iron-cased chips, like spring rain, integrated into every factory, every railway line, every collective dormitory, every breeding farm, and every planting base.
With the integration of these chips, the entire base cluster’s production model underwent a revolutionary change.
Temperature control in the planting bases no longer required manual intervention by Clones but was automatically handled by chips;
Power grid dispatching no longer required Clones to manually reroute cables; chips could complete this task.
In the power plants, the output of generators no longer required Clones to meticulously calculate grid data to make decisions but was entirely autonomously controlled by chips;
Even oxygenation in aquaculture ponds, train dispatching on railway lines, conveyor belts in steel mills, machining in foundries...
In addition to the various factories, iron-cased chips were also widely introduced into various vehicles.
Adjustment of oxygen and methane usage, automatic gear shifting and gear coordination, pressure adjustment, steering systems...
After introducing chips, the difficulty of driving vehicles was directly reduced to less than 30% of its original level.
Throughout the entire base cluster, an unknown amount of arduous work was handed over to chips, and an unknown number of Clones were thus "idle."
For this informatization transformation, Tom even specifically built a network cable factory, spreading network cables like a power grid, directly covering the Main Base and all sub-bases.
Looking at the automatically dispatched trains, the greatly simplified driving of vehicles, the autonomously operating conveyor belts, and those crisscrossing network cables, Tom smiled with relief.
"Loshen Star is finally online..."
According to Tom’s preliminary estimates, the introduction of chips and networks increased the overall production efficiency of the entire base cluster by at least five times.
In other words, although Tom currently only had 60,000 Clones, the industrial capacity he unleashed was equivalent to at least 300,000 Clones before the informatization transformation!
At this moment, although the large-scale Clone cultivation factory had not yet been built, Tom had already achieved a massive increase in productivity ahead of schedule.
What’s more, what he was currently manufacturing were only the most basic chips.
The new generation of planar integrated circuit chips was already under research and development.
So-called planar refers to modern technology, where silicon rods are first created, then silicon wafers are cut, and then various methods like photolithography, etching, and various chemicals are used to directly manufacture transistors on the silicon wafers.
Undoubtedly, this allows for the integration of more transistors, and its efficiency is far beyond what can be achieved by manually soldering transistors onto circuit boards.
As chip technology improves, the work capacity that a single Clone can exert will further skyrocket.
"Then... it’s time to begin the construction of the Clone cultivation factory cluster."
At this moment, Tom, possessing the productivity equivalent to 300,000 Clones combined, finally had the confidence to launch an assault on this super-gigantic factory with a total area of tens of millions of square meters and an annual output of 100,000 Clones, as well as the factory cluster of numerous supporting factories.
After getting his new body, Tom estimated that he could now control at least 90,000 Clones simultaneously.
Even if it was 90,000, multiplying by five would be 450,000.
Once enough Clones were produced, he would immediately possess the productivity equivalent to when he had 450,000 Clones previously!
And, with only 21,000 Clones, he was able to assemble a vast mechanized force and annihilate a million Monster Birds in one fell swoop.
When he possessed the productivity equivalent to 450,000 Clones, to what extent would this production and industrial capacity skyrocket?
Tom looked up at the boundless Deep Space.
By then, I should have the ability to manufacture various aircraft and truly enter space...
Withdrawing his gaze, Tom looked at the vast construction site, which covered tens of millions of square meters.
Tens of thousands of Clones had already arrived there, operating various machinery and transporting various materials.