giants of the era

Chapter 279 Gameboy
Soon, three more people came to the office.

After a brief greeting, Li Zetian asked, "Do you still remember Game-Watch?"

Everyone nodded thoughtfully.

"Of course I remember, it was a game product designed by you, Mr. Li, which was once popular all over the world!"

Li Zetian nodded and said: "This time I redesigned a product based on the Game-Watch. Everyone knows that a Game-Watch can only play one game, which has a lot of defects. The new product has made a lot of mistakes. Improve!"

After finishing speaking, he turned his head to look at Dongfang Yuqin, motioning for her to take out the product design materials.

Dongfang Yuqin took out the documents from her bag, then went to the printer beside her and made a few copies, and finally sent a copy of the documents to everyone.

"Gameboy?" Nolan Bushnell said.

Li Zetian smiled, that's right, it was Gameboy, the core product that Nintendo relied on in its previous life. Once this product came out, it made the whole world crazy about it!In his previous life, Gunpei Yokoi led the development of this product, but Gunpei Yokoi later admitted that due to objective conditions and market demand, Gameboy lowered the requirements in many places, which was not his ideal work.

Li Zetian looked at Junping Yokoi calmly, thinking, let you develop this time, let's see what kind of perfect work you can develop!
After 10 minutes, Li Zetian asked: "Everyone is not watching much, is there any problem?"

Everyone shook their heads, they were all shocked by Li Zetian's design, there was no problem there.

Nolan Bushnell said: "Mr. Li, the design of Gameboy is very good, especially the design of replaceable game cards, which is absolutely loved by players!"

"Yes, the game card can be replaced, which means that one game console can play multiple games! Game-Watch can only play one game, and players will feel that it is not worthwhile."

"It's just that in Mr. Li's design, the Gameboy is very thin and light. This is probably a huge problem we will face in the development process!"

"..."

Everyone analyzed.

Li Zetian nodded with a smile, and said, "That's right, but in order to realize the game function, the game console itself must be beautiful and easy to carry. The lighter and thinner the machine, the more popular it will be!"

With that said, Li Zetian looked at Junpei Yokoi, "Gameboy hardware development project will be handed over to Junpei Yokoi..."

"Okay, Mr. Li."

Junpei Yokoi was excited, and quickly agreed.

Li Zetian smiled at him. Junping Yokoi has always been the main person in charge of the hardware department of Flamingo Company. The first and second generation of Flamingo were developed under his leadership. Although he is an RB person, But who said that RB people can't take it for their own use?
Yokoi Gunpei has now applied for American citizenship and has become a Japanese-American.

……

……

Christmas is coming in a blink of an eye, and the company has also started to have annual holidays. Many people are planning to travel abroad during Christmas, and Li Zetian's family is no exception.

Li Zetian plans to go back to China, he has not been back for many years.

In addition, the investment link in mainland China has been greatly improved, and Huaren Real Estate has already entered the mainland China market with fruitful results.

Li Zetian and Yu Jingqiu first came to Hong Kong with their two children, met their parents and Zhou Qiqi, and then went to mainland China together.

After arriving in Hong Kong, Li Zetian took the time to visit the Science and Technology Park, and also chatted with Zhang Zhongmou about Intel's "wafer foundry" factory.

Currently, this fab belongs to a 4-inch fab with a process of 0.55 microns, which is already considered a very advanced fab.

The semiconductor industry often hears people talking about how many inches a fab is and how many processes it has. These are actually two concepts.

As we all know, the wafer is silicon, and the material is usually sand. It takes a two-stage purification process to turn sand into silicon. The first step is metallurgical-level purification to obtain high-purity polysilicon required for semiconductor manufacturing processes, with a purity of 99.999%. .The second step is to pull the crystal.First, the high-purity polysilicon obtained above is melted to form liquid silicon, and then the single crystal silicon seed contacts the surface of the liquid, and is slowly pulled up while rotating, finally forming neatly arranged single crystal circular silicon pillars. That is why the fab is called the fab.

4 inches is the diameter of a monocrystalline silicon column. The larger the size, the higher the speed and temperature requirements for crystal pulling. It is difficult to make wafers larger than 4 inches with current technology.Of course, 5-inch and 6-inch are not impossible, but the cost is too high and not cost-effective, while 4-inch is currently relatively mature and can be commercialized.

A wafer can be cut into multiple chips. Therefore, the larger the size, the larger the area of ​​the wafer, and the more chips produced per unit time. The wafer area of ​​an 8-inch fab is the same as that of a 4-inch fab. Four times the area of ​​the wafer can greatly reduce the production cost, so the fab with the larger size can completely crush the fab with the lower size in terms of price.

As for the "process", it has a lot to do with the lithography machine.To put it simply, a lithography machine draws integrated circuits on a chip. The smaller the manufacturing process, the more things can be depicted on the same chip on the same area, and the stronger the performance of the chip, this is also the basis of Moore's Law.

Li Zetian's involvement in the semiconductor industry naturally has a little understanding of these.

The size and process of the fab are closely related to the production equipment, and Applied Materials and Asmol are responsible for solving these problems.

With Zhang Zhongmou in the fab, Li Zetian was not worried about any problems.

On the morning of December 12, the whole family set off for mainland China.

By coincidence, not long after Li Zetian's family got off the plane, it began to snow in Hangzhou, and the flying snow soon covered the whole of Hangzhou with a layer of white clothes. Hangzhou was like a painting, so beautiful. People are fascinated.

This is Li Zetian's second visit to mainland China after traveling.

The reason why there are so few people is mainly a political issue.

Li Zetian's identity is too sensitive, and he often comes to China, which has a bad influence and is easy to be misunderstood by the United States and the Western world.In addition, in the past few years, the reform in mainland China has just begun, and many people have low political awareness and are hostile to Li Zetian, a big capital.Now it is almost 1985, China's economy is booming, people have great confidence in reform and opening up, and their rejection attitude towards capitalists has also decreased, and even began to worship foreigners...not only ordinary people, but even officials are like this, see When it comes to foreigners, I feel that I am three points short, and I have to please them.

Li Zetian felt deeply about these things in this life, and the leaders in Hangzhou even wanted to confess him. This time when they learned that he was going to visit relatives in Hangzhou, the airport was full of leaders, as if they were here to welcome foreign presidents It seems that it is extraordinarily grand.

(End of this chapter)