Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1391 Poor and useless

"Such a closed loop is of considerable benefit during the self-development stage, or when there is no need to consider the international environment." Zhou Zhi said: "For example, at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, we transferred a large number of people from the Northeast Machinery Manufacturing Base The technical force went to various cities across the country to support the local development of the 'five small industrial systems'. In this way, the establishment of the industrial system was achieved as quickly as possible."

"During this process, manpower and materials are all allocated by the state, and there is no concept of intellectual property rights at all. They can be used free of charge wherever needed."

"But Mr. Hu, we are engaged in national construction behind closed doors. It is easy to allocate resources no matter how we allocate resources. After all, the meat rots in the pot. But foreigners are different. The so-called "cannot afford to start early without profit" is why they cooperate with us. beneficial."

Zhou Zhi gave an example: "It seems that even now, some people are still advocating the so-called free assistance from island countries to us. I want to ask, is it really free? Just walk into any electrical appliance mall and see the island countries' brands everywhere. , from the 1980s to now, the Chinese electrical appliance market has been fully controlled by them for a full ten years, and it is estimated that there will be ten or twenty years in the future!"

"So they all come here for profit. In the international rules of the semiconductor market, IP core itself is an important means of profit and the original driving force for the vigorous development of the industry." Zhou Zhi said with some emotion: "Even a big manufacturer like Sony , when the MPEG-2 decoding chip is not dominant, we all know how to put down our bodies, what can we not let go of?"

"But have you considered the elbow?" Hu Changfeng is actually still a little worried: "If IP core is the core competitiveness of an enterprise, do we still have a chance to catch up in this industry?"

"It is indeed difficult, but we cannot say there is no chance." Zhou Zhi said: "This is why we deploy memory chips."

"At this stage, in terms of analog chips, memory chips, logic computing chips, and CPU chips, we actually see very few opportunities."

“Because analog chips cannot verify designs through simulation like digital chips, they can only obtain finished product test results through tape-out again and again, and then provide feedback for improvement.”

"Therefore, the R&D cycle of analog chips is long and the cost is high. Enterprises have accumulated experience and virtual operation and debugging of very important software. The R&D costs of high-end analog chips are also quite high. Those who do well are all old factories with decades of experience. "

"There are domestic peers with strong technical capabilities that are catching up. We don't have to worry about this one."

"As for logic computing chips, and CPU processor chips that integrate logic computing and storage functions, their production difficulties lie in breakthroughs in architectural IP, creation of ecosystems, and specific production and manufacturing. The concentration of each chip is very high. high."

"Architecture IP is now mainly X86 and CICS ARM, corresponding to Windows and Apple OS operating systems respectively. The only opportunities left for us are open source UNIX, further Linux, and the MiniCos we have now developed."

"The manufacturing of processors is the most advanced in semiconductor manufacturing, and the entry barrier is much higher than that of analog chips. Latecomers have a very obvious disadvantage."

"We are chasing, but we are still far from catching up. At present, we have only caught up to having our own basic instruction set. The application design at both the upstream and downstream ends, especially the CPU chips based on the basic instruction set, is far behind."

"I have talked about this matter with several ministry leaders and experts in related industry research." Hu Changfeng couldn't help but sigh with emotion when he said this: "Everyone is quite shocked and surprised that Clover Company dares to take this step. I admire it." "We are still far away." Zhou Zhi was dumbfounded: "In terms of architectural IP, ecosystem, design capabilities, and manufacturing capabilities, apart from the fact that we have just started in architectural IP, the rest are pretty poor."

"Ah, I can't say that completely. If we and SONY make a breakthrough in the MPEG2 decoding chip, our work of building an ecosystem based on MiniCos architecture IP will be a gratifying first step."

"No." Hu Changfeng asked: "Shouldn't the WinClover player and VCD be regarded as the first and second steps of the ecosystem?"

"I personally don't think so." Zhou Zhi didn't think so: "The so-called ecosystem is an environment that can attract various creatures to survive. WinClover players and VCDs are our own products. They can only be called livestock farming. It can’t be called creating an ecology.”

"That's not easy." Hu Changfeng also amused Zhou Zhi: "We oldies can't even imagine the courage and ability of young people!"

"Mr. Hu, let's chat by ourselves behind closed doors. Don't hold us back. How much do we know how much we weigh?" Zhou Zhi clearly realized his own shortcomings: "In short, for CPU chips, At present, except for the simplest smart IC chips, which we are capable of manufacturing, except for the IP core that has automatically expired, we have nothing ready for slightly more advanced ones."

"Don't underestimate yourself too much." Hu Changfeng didn't know whether to encourage Zhou Zhi or himself: "At least we have taken the most important step, and it is a step taken by the whole industry upstream and downstream together, which can create a closed loop of benefits. From this point of view, not only have we succeeded, but we have also made up for the losses in Project 809."

Having said this, Hu Changfeng patted Zhou Zhi on the shoulder with some emotion: "Many old comrades in the department are very grateful to you. You gave us new inspiration in terms of thinking, untied this button, and opened up a benign cycle."

"I really can't take this seriously," Zhou Zhi certainly didn't dare to exaggerate, and gave Hu Changfeng a thumbs up: "I'm just saying, anyone can do this, and those who can plan and implement are the real experts."

"Hahahaha..." Hu Changfeng smiled happily: "Reply you with the words you just said. Let's chat behind closed doors and stop complimenting each other."

"Continuing to talk about chips," Zhou Zhi continued the previous topic: "Even if we gain the ability to manufacture CPU chips, it will be very difficult to make a breakthrough in this field before we have developed a mature IP core. extremely difficult."

"But if we turn our attention to memory chips, we can magically find that those huge obstacles just now can be overcome."

"The first is the market, that is, the buyer's attitude. Judging from WinClover's sales data, we found that the built-in memory storage chip product is different from most consumer products. It actually has typical bulk commodity attributes, that is, differentiated competition. Small, the technical indicators of products produced by different companies are basically the same, and the degree of standardization is high, so the degree of branding is weak and user stickiness is extremely low."

"In other words, users generally only consider the technical parameters such as the capacity, response speed, and service life of the memory chip, and rarely consider whether it is produced by Hynix or Toshiba."

(End of this chapter)