Siheyuan: The Era of Core Generation

Chapter 86
Did Zhao Ye think of imitating the keyboards of later generations?But there is no such thing yet, I can play with this as I like.

But soon he compromised, and still had to design according to the keyboard of later generations.It can be slightly adjusted, but the position of the alphabet keyboard cannot be moved.

Why?

Because he is used to it!You can't design a keyboard, it's awkward to use it yourself!As for whether others are awkward or not, that has nothing to do with him.Anyway, they have never seen it, let alone used it, so there is no such awkward problem.

While thinking about it, Zhao Ye's hand didn't stop until he finished marking the letter keys, number keys and some basic function keys. Then he stopped.Then he said: "That's about all I can think of now, and I will modify it with the application in the future."

"This, how to use this?" Professor Zhang looked at this graphic, feeling so weird.

"Of course it's for input. Don't worry about it. What you need to care about is encoding English letters, Chinese characters, Chinese and English symbols, and mathematical symbols. This is the key part of your work."

"coding?"

"Yes, coding! Let me tell you, our calculator is used for calculations, and it has its own display device. Naturally, we have to convert the binary numbers in the calculator circuit and memory into Numbers, symbols, or Chinese characters, letters, etc. that can be used to show people."

"Tell me about it in detail." As Professor Zhang said, he pulled out his pen and prepared to record.

"First of all, this code is divided into outer code, inner code, and font code.

Let’s talk about the external code first. As the name suggests, it is a keyboard symbol that we use to input Chinese characters, numbers, symbols, and letters into the calculator. For example, we can’t make every Chinese character a button, right?This requires us to use special methods to achieve our needs.I have some ideas about this, let's talk about it later, I want to implement it in a way of splitting Chinese characters.

The second is the internal code. All Chinese characters, numbers, letters, and symbols are, after all, just a pattern. If we want to realize this pattern, we use dot matrix display technology.How to say it is to draw a graph with points one by one in an area, then each graph must correspond to a fixed binary array.When we are displaying, as long as we tell the control circuit of this array, it can draw the corresponding dot matrix according to this array.This array is the inner code.

The last is the font code, just like what I just said, we told the display an array, and he wants to draw a graphic, so how to draw this graphic?This requires us to write a font code in advance, that is, in a ten by ten area, which point should be lit and which point should not be lit, so that the corresponding character can be displayed. "

"This, can this work? Not to mention letters and symbols, there are numbers of them after all, but we have [-] Chinese characters. Do we want to encode each one? How many storage units are enough for this?"

"Now we are just starting to do this, we don't need to do that. Now in our design, one unit has expanded to eight storage units. I named each unit a byte, and a byte is an eight-bit binary number, such as We use up to two bytes to store a Chinese character or symbol. In this way, we can have 65536 codes available, which is enough.”

Of course, this is enough, and later generations have been using it like this, and it is not enough.

"Of course, you don't need to do so much at the beginning, just get the commonly used characters in first, for example, start with three or two thousand characters, but the letters and symbols should be more comprehensive." Zhao Ye added later.

"Is this similar to Morse code?" Professor Zhang asked.

"Huh? Don't say it, it's true. You can study it and see if you can use it."

"Okay, I'll start working on this as soon as possible, and I can ask some experts in writing."

"That's right, that's right, it's all about brainstorming and teamwork, just do the connecting work yourself."

Of course Zhao Ye knew that it was impossible for Professor Zhang to handle it all by himself.Coding is actually very simple, and now they are the first to do this, they are the standard!

Correspondingly, the glyph code is the difficulty, and it is very annoying to design one by one!

After dismissing this person, Zhao Ye hurried into his lounge, for fear of encountering Professor Ci and the others.Although their work is the core, Zhao Ye has no plans to start giving them "remedial lessons" right now.At present, their work belongs to the category of IC design in later generations.But what they consider now is much more complicated than those architects of later generations.

After all, the industrial chain has not yet formed at this time, and they need to pay attention and design from design to processing.

How can this be eaten in one bite?
Zhao Ye has already "leaved homework" for them, so let's talk about his previous designs first.This is not something that can be done in a day or two.

But this is also the basis. If you can't even "look at the picture and talk", then how can you design it yourself?
Zhao Ye slipped away, not because he wanted to sleep, but because he had to go to the space and think about the register.

In the entire processor, this thing is the most important thing.Zhao Ye feels that it is also the most complicated existence among the integrated circuits of the processor.

In his design, the processor is an eight-bit operation. Simply put, the operation circuit reads and processes eight-bit binary data at a time.

Then the corresponding registers are at least eight bits, and in order to store the data during operation, there are necessary instruction sets, as well as addresses, pointers, etc. Zhao Ye thinks that at least 12 registers are enough.

These 12 registers can only solve the most basic operating needs. If you want to improve the function and level of the processor, the registers must be increased accordingly.

The biggest problem Zhao Ye faced was not in the logical design, but in the physical manufacturing.

The storage unit of a register, that is, one bit, requires at least one transistor, one capacitor, a substance that stores charges, a shielding layer, and corresponding circuits and control elements.

For an eight-bit register, there must be eight sets of such systems, and 12 sets must be multiplied by 12 on this basis, that is, 96 sets.

In the previous calculators, the processing circuit did not have design registers at all, and it used external storage, which is equivalent to the memory of today's computers.Another one, he did not use the instruction set last time, it was all directly planned circuits to do the four arithmetic operations.

Now the complexity of the calculation is greatly increased, and using the previous technology will undoubtedly slow down the speed, and there are many inconveniences in the design of the processor.For example, the instruction set is difficult to play a big role.

But his last lithography machine had a process accuracy of more than ten microns, close to twenty microns.In conversion, it is between 0.01 and 0.02 millimeters. With such a precision as a register, Zhao Ye feels that a memory unit must be the size of a grain of rice!
One is that big, and the 96 are about 220 square millimeters.This is still a theoretical footprint, but in reality it must be at least twice as large, because you can't let every register be next to each other!Still have to leave room for the circuit.

Not to mention, there are transistors!Eight-bit computing circuits can't be less, and Zhao Ye estimates that there will be about 1.Even a re-optimized mathematical design model can never be less than this number.

Calculated in this way, Zhao Ye's processor is at least as big as a pocket book!
Still have to shrink!History has proved that shrinking is the kingly way!

After Zhao Ye thought about his coping strategy, he found an office and started writing.He is going to "retreat" again, and before entering, he has to make clear arrangements for the work here.So writing a job description is essential.

He wrote all the work instructions for each system, saying that the instructions were not accurate, and this should be called work guidance.

He clarified the direction that everyone needs to conquer, and some even roughly explained the experimental ideas and methods.

These people are basically used by him as assistants.Still the same sentence, there is no way, there is no time to give them a little bit of growth!What they need to do is to cooperate with themselves, to complete this work first, and to save time for learning and progress in future work.

After writing the job description, Zhao Ye called a few people from the project coordination team to express his thoughts.

Professor Ci, Professor Zhang, and Professor Li looked at the job description written by Zhao Ye.The more they watched, the more pressure they felt.

It's not that it is stressful to experiment according to this, on the contrary, they feel that if they do it according to this, the chance of success is still very high.

Their pressure comes from the gap with Zhao Ye!

Look at these things, many of them don't even have an idea, they already have a specific plan here!Is there really such a big gap between people?

However, Professor Ci thought about it, and said to Zhao Ye, "Yezi, take this out, should you think about it again? Our time is not too tight. I think for the sake of the growth of the team, should we let them work hard on their own first?" Working hard, there is really no solution and you are using this as a reference?"

"Professor Ci, I understand what you mean. But I don't think it is necessary at the moment." Zhao Ye waved his hand and said, seeing that Professor Li on the side also wanted to speak, Zhao Ye hurriedly said: "Teachers, your ideas are correct , but our time does not allow it. I promised my superiors that the finished product will be produced within half a year. My method is to use it directly for experimentation and then to industrial production. Half a year is already very tight.”

"Half a year! How is this possible!"

The three professors spoke in unison!
(End of this chapter)