Super Copy of Great Power Technology

"In the past, each company was small in scale and had few affairs, and I could still handle it. Now, several companies in the Ruida department have reached a scale of at least ten thousand people, and all the matters are complicated, and they are all handed over to me for unified handling. It's a bit inappropriate. Especially since I still hold the position of general manager of Ruida Technology Company, I already have a lot of things to deal with. It's really time for corporate restructuring. Qingqing, please prepare a company restructuring proposal and get it next time. Let’s discuss it at the regular meeting.”

The canteen of Reda Technology Company is located on the 12th floor of the building. The entire floor is equipped with thousands of dining tables and hundreds of dining windows, which are enough to meet the dining needs of all employees of the company. In the display window, there are Chinese and Western food, eight major cuisines, a variety of hot dishes, cold dishes, and staple food. No matter you are a southerner, northerner, Chinese or foreigner, you can find food that suits your taste in these windows.

In order to keep everyone well fed, the company canteen is not contracted out, but is directly operated by the company's logistics department. Ingredients are purchased in bulk, quality is given priority, and the chefs hired are all real chefs with chef certificates. The food they cook is not only comparable to that of a star-rated hotel, but is at least much better than ordinary roadside food stalls. Qiao Ruida, Du Qingqing, and other company executives also often dine in the canteen and eat the same meals as the employees. This also ensures that canteen employees do not dare to cheat on their meals and enrich themselves.

Qiao Ruida and Du Qingqing took stainless steel dinner plates at the entrance of the kitchen. At the Shandong cuisine window, they each chose two of their favorite dishes, a bowl of seaweed and egg drop soup and some steamed buns. Then they scanned the code with their employee cards and deducted the money. Meal expenses. Two hot dishes, one meat and one vegetarian, a bowl of seaweed and egg drop soup, plus three steamed buns, the charge is only five yuan, which is extremely cheap. You will never eat such cheap and affordable meals in restaurants outside. .

After preparing the meal, Qiao Ruida and Du Qingqing chose a seat by the window, sat down facing each other, and ate leisurely. Du Qingqing swallowed a shrimp dumpling and asked with some confusion: "The food in our company cafeteria is much cheaper than the school cafeteria. If we continue to operate like this, we won't lose money, right?"

As we all know, the school provides some price subsidies for the food in the university cafeteria, so it is extremely cheap. Even some well-connected people will get school meal cards and eat in the school cafeteria. Since the company moved to Ruida Building, Du Qingqing ate several times in the canteen of her company and found that the food here was cheaper and more delicious than the food in the Peking University canteen. This completely overturned her belief. You know, that’s why I asked this question.

"Of course you won't lose money. In fact, most vegetables, meat, eggs, rice and noodles are very cheap when purchased in bulk. All the windows in our canteen are self-operated by the company, and we don't charge extra rent. Even the chefs and waiters, The wages of the helpers are borne by the company and will not be added to the price of the meals. Our company opened this canteen just to facilitate employees to eat, not to make a profit. The original operation strategy was to maintain capital. It makes sense that the food in our company cafeteria is so cheap." Qiao Ruida took a sip of seaweed and egg drop soup, nodded with satisfaction, and then said.

"So, are there many employees in our company eating in the canteen? It seems that half of the seats in the canteen are not full." Du Qingqing looked at the situation around him and continued to ask.

"There are still a lot of people eating in the canteen. After all, the food is cheap and the taste is good. I have seen relevant statistics from the logistics department, which says that company employees eat lunch in the canteen, accounting for about 80% of the total, and those who eat dinner in the canteen , and more than 50% only have breakfast, which is relatively small, and less than 20% eat in the canteen. There are also some employees who buy meals for multiple people in the canteen and take them home to share with their families. How popular the canteen is. As for the seats not being full, it is because the management is afraid that people will be too concentrated during dining time, causing overcrowding and insufficient seats, so they have reasonably allocated dining time periods to various departments in advance. " Qiao Ruida casually threw out a lot of statistical data, which fully demonstrated how the company's canteen was popular among the people. He had just read the statistical report submitted by the Logistics Department in the morning, and his memory of the figures above was particularly fresh, so he said it casually.

At this time, Xiao Jingsheng, the manager of the R&D department, came over with a dinner plate and several dishes and sat at the table next to Qiao Ruida.

"Mr. Qiao, Manager Du, are you having dinner?" After Xiao Jamsheng put down the dinner plate, he immediately greeted Qiao Ruida and Du Qingqing.

"Yeah, I've been eating for a while and I'm full immediately. Manager Xiao, you just came to the cafeteria to eat. I remember that your R&D department was not the first group to eat according to the arrangement. Why did you delay coming to eat until now? ?" Qiao Ruida asked with some confusion.

"This is not the case a few years ago, Mr. Qiao, you provided a batch of brand-new technical information to our R&D department. Among them is an open source RISC-V architecture with a streamlined instruction set, which aroused the interest of the chip design team. They are based on the RISC-V architecture , designed a brand new processor, intended to be used in smart speakers, TV set-top boxes, and car systems. Before the annual meeting, the integrated circuit team completed the chip design and simulation testing and handed it over to Rockchip Wafer Fab. , for tape-out testing. Just this morning, the tape-out test was successful, and hundreds of finished chips were rushed to the company's R&D department. After receiving the chips, members of the chip design team and I tested them. The chip was tested in all aspects. I was so focused that I forgot the time until ten minutes ago, when all the project tests were completed, I relaxed, and then my stomach made a rumbling sound. I remembered that I hadn't eaten lunch yet, so I hurried to the cafeteria." Xiao Jingsheng swallowed the two fried buns in a few mouthfuls, relieved his hunger, and then began to answer Qiao Ruida unhurriedly. The problem. Several processor products currently developed by Reda Technology, including mobile phone processors, notebook processors, and car processors, are all designed based on the ARM architecture. Even if there are innovations in computing cores and architecture, they are still within the scope of the ARM instruction set. The ARM architecture and ARM instruction set are developed by foreign ARM companies. All processors developed based on the ARM architecture need to purchase a license from the ARM company before they can be developed, produced, and sold. Even though Reda Technology has spent huge sums of money to purchase permanent licenses for the ARM architecture and several IP cores, there is no guarantee that problems will not arise. It would be very troublesome if ARM unilaterally tears up the licensing agreement or stops licensing new cores to Reda Technology. Some people may say that Western companies pay attention to the spirit of contract and will not break the agreement. Those who say this are really naive. When Qiao Ruida was in her last life, ARM had stopped licensing new cores to a certain Chinese telecommunications giant; a certain Chinese chip foundry had not yet delivered the EUV lithography machine it ordered from ASML after paying for it for many years.

In order to avoid similar things happening to Reda Technology, Qiao Reda decided to open up a new route, which is to develop RISC-V architecture processors. RISC-V is different from ARM. It is a free open source architecture. As long as they comply with the most basic open source agreement, any company or individual can develop, produce and sell their own chips based on the RISC-V architecture and RISC-V instruction set. , without paying any fees. With an open source agreement, you don’t have to worry about some unscrupulous companies tearing up the agreement and withdrawing the authorization. The only disadvantage of the RISC-V architecture is that it is too young. The RISC-V project started at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2010, and it has just been three years since today. Although many experts, professors and technical experts have participated in the development and improvement of RISC-V architecture processors, the time is too short after all. The performance of today's RISC-V architecture processors is still very limited, and various The software and hardware interfaces and supporting functional modules are not perfect and can only be used in some fields that do not have high performance requirements but have very strict power consumption restrictions.

But all this is not a problem for Qiao Ruida, a cheater. The browser included with Goldfinger can query Internet content ten or twenty years from now. At that time, after years of research and development and promotion, the RISC-V architecture had grown into the third largest processor architecture after the X86 architecture and the ARM architecture. There are many world-renowned chip giants, technology companies, and even Internet companies that develop and produce their own processors based on the RISC-V architecture. There are not only embedded chips and communication chips with single functions, but also powerful general-purpose processor chips, AI chips, and computing chips. Even at the time point of 2033, a company called Matrix Labs developed RISC-V architecture mobile phone chips and supercomputing chips. They have powerful performance, advanced functions, but low power consumption, and have won the market. generally recognized. As for the R&D results of all the above companies for more than ten or twenty years, as long as Qiao Ruida is willing, she can copy them all with just a move of her fingers.

Before the New Year, Qiao Ruida had compiled some technical information and application examples of the RISC-V architecture and handed it over to the chip R&D team for learning and imitation. At that time, Goldfinger had not yet been upgraded, and the browser could only query Internet content ten years later. The knowledge related to the RISC-V architecture that could be obtained was much more comprehensive and advanced than the existing knowledge. But ten years are ultimately limited, and the processors developed are still difficult to catch up with mature architecture processors such as ARM or X86. They can only make wearable device chips, AI chips, and smart devices.

The chip that Jamel Xiao is talking about now is a RISC-V architecture chip developed by the chip research and development team based on the information provided by Qiao Ruida. Even if there are ready-made modules that can be called and successful chip designs that can be imitated, it is very impressive that the people in the chip R&D team can come up with a chip that can pass the tape-out test within a month. .

"Oh, the finished chip has passed the tape-out test so quickly. The work efficiency of your R&D department is really high. How about the actual test results of the chip? Can it meet the mass production standards?" Qiao Ruida ate the last piece of steamed bun, He asked.

"The situation is not ideal. The chip can run, but it consumes a lot of power and generates alarming heat. It must be used with an active radiator. It is not suitable for use in environments such as smart speakers and TV set-top boxes. There is also a problem with the external communication interface of the chip. , The feedback information is often missing, and some basic functions cannot be realized." Xiao Jingsheng smiled bitterly and shook his head, obviously satisfied with the final chip.

"After all, RISC-V is a brand-new architecture, and it is your first time to come into contact with it. A lot of knowledge needs to be relearned, and many operating mechanisms need to be remastered. This requires a step-by-step process, and it is impossible to eat everything in one go. RISC-V and Although ARM is both a reduced instruction set, the difference is still very big. It is unrealistic to require researchers to master two chip architectures and two instruction sets at the same time. Let's select a few from the chip R&D team to compare the new architectures. Interested and flexible researchers will be recruited as the backbone. Some newly graduated undergraduates and graduate students will be recruited from the outside to form a new chip R&D team, specializing in the research and development of RISC-V architecture chips. Continue to study ARM architecture processors." Qiao Ruida thought for a while and gave a solution.

"This is a good idea. When I go back, I will transfer researchers, recruit talents, and form a new chip R&D team. Mr. Qiao, how many members will be recruited for the new team? The experimental location, experimental equipment, and R&D funds will be shared with the original chip R&D team. Or go independent and do another job?" Xiao Jingsheng continued to ask.

"The RISC-V architecture has a great future. It will be no worse than ARM architecture processors when it is ready. For subsequent development, it is better to open a separate laboratory. Experimental equipment, office computers, and other purchases will be made according to the original chip laboratory. R&D funds will be allocated separately, with an initial investment of 5000 million to see the results." In just one paragraph, it was decided to establish a R&D team with several hundred people and spend hundreds of millions on equipment. Only Qiao Ruida, the founder and absolute controlling shareholder of the company, could make this decision without greeting other company executives.

"Okay, Mr. Qiao, those researchers who are extremely dedicated to RISC-V processors must be very happy to hear this news. Those empty laboratories finally have a use. Mr. Qiao, what do you think? What do you think about the future of RISC-V architecture? Can this open source architecture really develop to the level of commercial architecture like ARM or I am very happy. After all, as the manager of the R&D department, he manages more people. But he is a little unsure about the future of RISC-V, a new processor architecture. (End of chapter)