Reborn Tokyo Golden Age.

Chapter 207 The Future of Chips

The SIC building has twelve floors in total, and the top two floors are reserved for high-level offices.

The offices of Shimasa Toshi and Matsumura Masaki are located here, but there are still many independent offices that are vacant for the time being.

This is for other high-end talents in the future. The current total number of people in SIC is only a hundred or so including the laboratory assistants at Tokyo Institute of Technology.

The place is big enough.Not only that, but Bai Chuanfeng also has his own office here.

After all, SIC is under Baichuan Holdings and holds 100% of the shares.

Then it's not too much for him, the chairman, to have his own office here.

The top floor, cough~ the top president's office.

The area is tens of square meters in size, and the luxury is unbelievable.

Shirakawa Kaede, Shimasatoshi, Matsumura Masaki, and Yamazaki Teru sat down one by one in the spacious sofa lounge area.

The office building has been officially opened, and tea and coffee are all available.

After waiting for the assistant Xiaosong who followed, he brought them each a cup of steaming coffee.

Several people began to discuss the design plan of the first product, the chip, which SIC invested heavily in research and development.

"I heard that the reason Bai Chuan-san planned to design the chip at first was to support a certain future music player for decoding?"

Shimasato took a sip of coffee to warm up his body before speaking.

"That's right." Bai Chuanfeng nodded while holding a cup of hot coffee, "Because considering the cost, the purchase price of 16-bit chips is too expensive, so I plan to do my own research."

A 16-bit microprocessor chip is directly quoted at $360!

To be honest, this price directly frightened Bai Chuanfeng, and the cost of the chip alone would cost 9 yen.

You must know that what he is going to make is a CD player, a consumer electronic product.

The chip costs 9 yen, and the whole machine costs at least 10,000+ yen.

This is also likely to be the cost price. If you want to make a profit, you should price it at least 20 yuan!

As a consumer electronics product, who is this price selling to?

The product has not yet been produced, and the cost accounting alone is difficult for Bai Chuanfeng.

He is very clear that if he wants to make money from consumers, price will always be the first factor.

So in order to reduce costs, Bai Chuanfeng simply decided to do it himself.

In the early 80s, is chip design difficult?

It's hard to say, it's hard to say it's not hard.The key is to see if you can find the boss.

Bai Chuanfeng looked at Shimasatoshi and Matsumura Masaki in front of him, waiting for their reply.

"Bai Chuan-san, I think it's too wasteful to design a 16-bit chip just for decoding."

After pondering for a while, Shimasato decided to tell the truth.

"Oh~" Bai Chuanfeng raised his eyes in surprise, "Maybe Shimao might as well talk about it in detail."

He himself is a complete layman in the field of chips, so he is happy to listen to the views of technology leaders.

Seeing that Bai Chuanfeng was not displeased by his questioning, Shimasatoshi also heaved a sigh of relief.

It seemed that his new boss was indeed an open-minded person. Thinking of this, Shimasato felt relieved and elaborated his views carefully.

"If you design a 16-bit chip specifically for decoding, that's called application-specific chip design in the industry.

Because the goal is clear and the function is determined.Therefore, the chip design cycle is shorter, and the volume and power consumption are also smaller.

But there are advantages and disadvantages, and specially customized chips are often expensive to design.

Due to limited shipments in the future, the production cost of chips will also be very high.

Shirakawa-san, in the semiconductor field, the higher the chip shipments, the lower the production cost.

This also dilutes the design cost of the chip virtually, but the specially customized chip is destined not to be used on a large scale.

Therefore, the shipment volume has been virtually limited, so the cost will be relatively high. "

For things like chips, as long as the process is the same, it doesn't matter how many or what models you produce.

The mask cost is fixed at the beginning of manufacturing, so the higher the quantity, the lower the cost per chip.

Otherwise, the cost will increase dramatically.

Bai Chuanfeng understands that, if considering the future market of CD players, the shipment volume may indeed not be comparable to that of processor-level chips.

"Shima-san, I understand what you mean. From your point of view, what suggestions do you have for the current situation of SIC?"

"Do architecture design, do platform design!" Without hesitation, Shimasatoshi gave his own opinion.

"Platform design?" Bai Chuanfeng thought about it.

"That's right." Shimasatoshi nodded, "First make a universal platform design, and then do special logic optimization for DAC decoding."

Shimasa Toshi's thinking is very clear, years of experience in chip design allows him to make the most suitable choice in the shortest possible time.

Hearing his explanation, Bai Chuanfeng's eyes lit up, "Shima-san, please explain in detail about the platform design."

"Shirakawa-san, my suggestion is to directly design a 16-bit processor chip.

Then, on the basis of the completed design, logic optimization is re-optimized for digital signal decoding, and then a decoding chip is derived.

In this way, the original 16-bit processor can be processed as a family.According to different application scenarios, different application chips are derived. "

The more he listened, the brighter Bai Chuanfeng's eyes became. This... seems to be okay.

The same design cost and solution can be used for multi-platform applications.

It is equivalent to one core with multiple functions. As for the refined derivative development, the cost and cycle will definitely be greatly reduced compared with the initial design.

Considering that the launch of CD players will have to wait until at least 82, it is completely possible to develop a 16-bit processor first, and then derive the corresponding DAC decoding chip.

There is something wrong, Bai Chuanfeng pondered secretly.

"In addition, Shirakawa-san, Matsumura-san and I have checked the current chip development progress together.

Most of the front-end design, including system definition, register transfer level design, and design verification has been completed by Matsumura-san.

Matsumura-san and I will be responsible for the remaining logic synthesis, equivalence check, timing analysis, etc.

It is expected to complete all the front-end design in February next year. As for the physical design of the back-end, I will follow up the whole process.

However, because it is necessary to enter the floorplanning, layout, and wiring stages.

And constraint information in terms of delay, power consumption, area, etc.

Reasonably set the parameters of the physical design tool, and then continuously debug to find the physical position of the component on the wafer.

This part of the work requires the semiconductor manufacturing company to provide process information before it can be carried out.

Therefore, before doing so, Bai Chuan-san must determine the processing method of the future chip. "

After the chip design enters the back-end physical design, it needs to slowly connect with semiconductor manufacturers.

After all, design and manufacturing cannot be completely independent, and the two are inseparable.

But regarding the semiconductor manufacturer, Bai Chuanfeng already had some concerns in his heart.

He thought of the First Persuasion Bank consortium that he had just cooperated with, but this is something for later, at least not until the next year to talk about it in detail.

"Please rest assured Shima-san and Matsumura-san, I probably have some ideas for the chip manufacturer.

It will definitely be confirmed before February. "

Bai Chuanfeng was also unambiguous, he was too professional to understand design matters.

But as long as I can do it, feel free to mention it.

Both Shimasatoshi and Matsumura Masaki nodded with relaxed faces, so the chip will soon enter the tape-out stage, and it is not far from the actual finished product.

"Bai Chuan-san, I have another suggestion."

Just when Bai Chuanfeng felt that the chip matter was almost the same, Shimasa Toshi spoke again.

"If you have any suggestions, Shima-san, please don't hesitate."

Having seen the level of this boss, Bai Chuanfeng also attaches great importance to his suggestions.

"In fact, if SIC wants to quickly realize profitability, the first thing to promote is not 16-bit chips."

Shimamasa gave another one, which surprised Bai Chuanfeng to answer the case.

"Hey, please tell Shimasang clearly." Bai Chuanfeng put down the coffee in his hand and sat upright.

"Currently in industrial and consumer electronics, 8-bit chips are still widely used.

The main reason is that the technology is mature, the cost is low, and it can meet the computing needs of most products. "

Although 16-bit processors have been born, 8-bit processors are still the mainstream in the market.

Without him, there is one reason, cheap.

"So...Shima-san means to develop an 8-bit chip first?" Bai Chuanfeng asked tentatively.

"No." Shimasatoshi shook his head, "We still develop 16-bit chips, but we can slim them down."

"Slimming treatment?" Bai Chuanfeng was a little confused.

"That's right, to put it simply, it is to simplify the 16-bit processor into an 8-bit processor.

But its performance will be stronger than ordinary 8-bit processors, between 8-bit and 16-bit.

The advantage is that the cost is significantly lower than that of the 16-bit processor, and the price is only slightly higher than that of the 8-bit processor, but the performance is much better than the latter.

Overall, the price/performance ratio is very high.Well suited to be marketed as the first product from SIC. "

Bai Chuanfeng understood, this is Lao Huang's traditional knife technique.

Or to use the analogy of a toothpaste factory, to be more precise.

The performance is not enough at one time, but differentiated for different grades of products.

In fact, Intel is already working on this set. The 8086 is a 16-bit processor, and the 8088 is a simplified version of it.

Tsk, it is indeed from a toothpaste factory, and the traditional skills are already handy.

Bai Chuanfeng looked at Shimamasa with the eyes of picking up a treasure, what a talent.

Not to mention the design ability, the key is to have a talent for doing business.

Squeeze toothpaste, hey, I still have to watch my SIC!

"That's it! Shima-san, the design of the chip is as you said.

First develop a 16-bit full body version, and then launch a simplified version of it with a single cut.

When the market matures, a 16-bit professional version will be launched.Finally, on this basis, special application chips such as DAC decoding are derived.

Oh, by the way, the DAC decoding chip can also do 8-bit and 16-bit, right? "

Shirakawa Feng looked at Shimasatoshi eagerly.

The latter nodded without hesitation, "Of course, the higher the number of digits, the smaller the output distortion and the clearer the analyzed sound."

"Then it's settled." Bai Chuanfeng clapped his hands happily.

You see, isn't the mid-range and low-end models of CD players just fine?

"Shima-san, Matsumura-san, I leave the SIC here to you.

Don't hesitate to ask any requests, and hopefully we'll be able to launch our own chip next year. "

Bai Chuanfeng got up, and all the employees of SIC will move in from tomorrow.

He also understood what he needed to know, and he was ready to leave.

For professional design of chips, let professional people do it.

"There is one thing that needs to be resolved by Shirakawa-san." Shimasatoshi and Matsumura Masaki said in unison.

"Hey..." Bai Chuanfeng was taken aback for a moment, "Seniors, please tell me."

Shimasatoshi and Matsumura Masaki smiled at each other, "Please ask Shirakawa-san to find a president for SIC, we are not good at these things."

"Uh..." Bai Chuanfeng didn't expect that they were making such a request, which really stumped him a bit.

In a highly professional club like SIC, the president can't be a technical idiot, otherwise he won't be able to connect with the job at all.

"If it really doesn't work, we have no objection to Bai Chuan-san temporarily serving as the president."

Shimasato and the others smiled and gave a suggestion.

"Okay." Bai Chuanfeng nodded with a wry smile, "Two seniors, please rest assured that the juniors will definitely find a competent president Sang for SIC."

Alas, Bai Chuanfeng, who was already busy, took on another important task.

It seems that talent needs to continue to be dug.Little hoe, keep waving.

(End of this chapter)