Countercurrent 1982

Chapter 1547 Western Digital
Compared with other high-tech companies in the United States, Western Digital, founded in 1970, is still a little-known ordinary technology company in the United States.

Western Digital is headquartered in California and currently has 3700 employees. In the early years, Western Digital was engaged in the computer chip business, and in the early 80s it began to be involved in the hard disk controller business, but it did not produce and sell hard disks.

It was not until 1988 that Western Digital officially joined the ranks of hard disk production after it acquired the hard disk business of hard disk manufacturer Tandon.

Western Digital developed and produced the first Wd1 mechanical hard disk and achieved some success. However, due to the relatively loud noise and low storage capacity, the sales volume was very limited and it did not achieve great commercial success. However, as the company's main business One, Western Digital is also trying to gain a larger market share.

Although last year, the world's first solid-state hard drive appeared in the true sense, but this kind of solid-state hard drive is extremely low in cost performance and is only suitable for use in some equipment in the military, aviation and medical fields. product.

However, for Western Digital, they are not very competitive in mechanical hard drives, but relying on business customers accumulated since the early 80s, they want to find another way and focus on the development of solid-state drives.

In fact, if the solid-state drive business can be developed now, the profits will also be quite large. Although solid-state drives are far less powerful than mechanical hard drives and cost-effective, they are used in the military, aviation and medical fields, although the sales volume will not be too much. , but the profits should also be substantial.

Especially in the field of military aviation, many high-tech electronic weapons actually do not have high performance requirements. Taking the most advanced F15 fighter jet in the United States as an example, its operating system is only a dozen megabytes in size, and it is not as complicated as a home computer. The man-machine exchange multimedia function, so the system chip used in high-precision equipment such as fighter jets is much simpler to produce. The most important thing for this product is stability and radiation resistance.

The stability of solid-state hard drives is definitely much stronger than that of mechanical hard drives, and the volume is also very small. Without considering the commercial competition in the market, military aircraft will definitely give priority to such devices as solid-state hard drives.

The same is true for aviation and medical equipment. Safety is always the first priority. In addition, the read and write speed of solid-state drives is very fast, so even if the price/performance ratio is poor, it is still the first choice for electronic products in these fields.

A week later, Western Digital executive John Cohen flew to Shenzhen.

Compared with multinational giants like IBM, Western Digital can only be regarded as a second-rate high-tech company in the United States, but Duan Yun knows that in later generations, Western Digital can definitely be called the leader in the hard disk industry.

Duan Yun also wants to produce its own hard drives, but in the short term, this is unrealistic. There have been no breakthroughs in technology, and it will take at least one or two years to complete the plant and equipment. In addition, the most important thing is that Duan Yun does not have solid-state drives. Hard disk sales channels.

Since Americans are interested in this technology, Duan Yun certainly cannot let go of this opportunity to make money. He can use Western Digital to open up the US market. When the time is right, he can also transform into a hard disk manufacturer.

"Mr. John, welcome to China." At the pick-up gate of the airport, when he saw a tall blond man walking out of the exit, Duan Yun immediately greeted him with a smile on his face.

"Are you Manager Duan of Tianyin Group?" John Cohen recognized Duan Yun immediately after seeing Duan Yun, and greeted him with a smile on his face.

Before coming to China, Western Digital had actually conducted a thorough investigation of Tianyin Group.

For any American, it seems incredible that a Chinese company can develop the world's top storage chips, because in their eyes, hunger, poverty, and backwardness are the labels of China.

But this is not the first time Tianyin Group has caused a sensation in the American technology circles. Last time when they developed the world's first NAND flash memory chip, it attracted the attention of many American technology companies. A large number of American technology company delegations came to visit China, and Duan Yun was also invited to the R&D centers of major American companies in Silicon Valley.

However, at that time, Western Digital did not pay much attention to Tianyin Group, because their main business item was mechanical hard disks at that time, and the company was very small, and there was no place where storage chips could be used.

However, with the birth of the world's first solid-state drive at the end of last year, Western Digital's focus began to change.

According to the internal experts of Western Digital, although the solid-state drive technology is currently very immature and the cost performance is extremely low, due to some characteristics of the solid-state drive, it can replace the traditional mechanical hard drive in some fields. I want to see if Tianyin Group's chips can meet the technical requirements for making solid-state drives.

It has to be said that the experts from Western Digital are still very discerning. If a small company wants to grow bigger, sometimes it must take a slant. For some emerging technologies, we should not use traditional eyes to examine them, but should dig out their strengths. Unique commercial value.

"That's right, I am Duan Yun." Duan Yun responded, and then asked John Cohen to get into the car.

John Ke is the technical supervisor at Western Digital. He has a high level of attainment in microelectronics and hard disk technology. It is precisely because of this that he came to China this time alone and did not bring other technicians.

After more than 20 hours of continuous flight, John Ke seemed very tired, so Duan Yu did not arrange for him to visit the factory that day, but arranged for him to stay in the guest house of the group company first, and let him rest for a night first.

In the early morning of the second day, Duan Yun and John Cohen met again. After a night's rest, John Cohen seemed very energetic. At his request, the two visited Tianyin Group's chip factory together.

"Mr. Duan Yun is a very remarkable Chinese entrepreneur. I heard some rumors about you when I was in the United States. Your company's NAND flash chip is indeed an impressive product. Chinese companies can develop , I was really surprised to produce such a good product..." John Cohen said to Duan Yun on the way to the factory.

"In fact, China has always been a very intelligent nation. Although the country is a little poor now, it has made rapid progress in the past ten years of reform and opening up." Duan Yun paused, and then said: "I heard that your company mainly They produce mechanical hard drives, why are you so interested in our company's chip products this time?"

(End of this chapter)