Technology: Start by selling mobile phones

"Formal introduction, Zheng Qian, majoring in microelectronics, focusing on 3D NAND flash memory technology."

Mo Ran suddenly shouted out 100 million in three years. It was really great and people stayed.

However, after waking up, he also realized that the price was too high, and the entire financial system would be under greater salary pressure, especially the salary system of "Yellow River Storage" would face great damage.

However, it’s so damn hard to recover.

When he shouted out "100 million in three years", Zheng Qian did not hesitate to refund the ticket. He changed his indifferent attitude and walked out of the airport with him to find a coffee shop to talk in detail.

"Why."

Mo Ran sighed inwardly. Now that things have come to this, he can only hope that with Zheng Qianqian, he can quickly promote the "flash memory particle" project.

As long as we can quickly produce results and produce "flash particles" (chips), everything will be worth it.

at the same time,

As long as "3D-NAND" technology can be mass-produced and patents implemented, "Yellow River Storage" will become one of the few storage companies in the world that can own "3D-NAND technology".

Zheng Qian's ability will be reflected, and the impact of the maximum salary will be greatly mitigated.

certainly,

Even if he found ten thousand reasons to comfort himself, Mo Ran still felt pain in his flesh and the coffee he drank in his mouth was extremely bitter.

After a few seconds, he forced himself to show a faint smile.

"Welcome to join us."

The two of them clasped their hands together, and Mo Ran's expression gradually became serious.

"But you know, Mr. Zheng, we need to see results quickly."

“So you must mass-produce ‘3D-NAND’ technology as quickly as possible and launch our ‘3D-NAND flash memory particles’ from ‘Yellow River Memory’!”

"This is natural, and this request is not too much."

Zheng Qian did not hesitate at all and was very confident.

"I have been studying '3D-NAND' technology in recent years and have achieved many substantial results."

"Combined with the patent given by Mr. Mo, I believe that 32-layer '3D-NAND' TLC flash memory particles will be completed soon."

Mo Ran has been immersed in "3D-nand flash memory particle technology" these days, and he can understand what Zheng Qian said about 32 layers.

The biggest difference between "2D-NAND" and "3D-NAND" technologies is that 2D-NAND is similar to a small bungalow. Only so many transistors can be placed in the limited area of ​​the chip, making it difficult to expand the storage capacity.

"3D-NAND technology" is similar to a building. It can be built with 15 floors or 30 floors. Skyscrapers even have hundreds of floors.

The 32 layers Zheng Qian mentioned are actually the number of layers of transistors built in "3D-NAND technology".

certainly,

The higher the number of floors, the greater the capacity, but the greater the requirements for overall stability and structure. This is not something that ordinary "construction companies" can build.

And this is also the core technology of "3D-NAND" technology.

The "3D-NAND" that Mo Ran got from the system - CJiang's patented architecture can be said to be a "high-rise building construction guide", but it is still very difficult to actually implement the product, design and produce it, and it is not an ordinary technology. People can do it.

Only people like Zheng Qian who have researched "3D-NAND technology" can use patents to transform them into design drawings faster.

Start designing from the 32nd floor, and then develop it step by step to the 200th, 300th or even 500th floor.

"That's good!"

Mo Ran nodded, not worried about Zheng Qian's abilities.

After a moment, he continued:

"However, there is one more thing you have to take responsibility for."

"Well, you tell me."

"To be honest, you are the only one in the entire 'memory chip' team of our 'Yellow River Storage'. I will continue to recruit some assistants for you, but..."

"I tend to recruit young people later, including some fresh graduates."

Upon hearing this, Zheng Qian was stunned for a moment, then understood instantly.

"So...you want me to lead a new team and lead them, right?"

"That's right!"

Mo Ran didn't feel embarrassed about the proviso. All the money was spent, so naturally he had to use it like a donkey.

"sure, no problem!"

"Although it's a bit hard, it's not a big problem. Don't worry, I'm a principled person. I will definitely do things after I get paid."

Zheng Qian's cooperative attitude finally made Mo Ran feel better. If Zheng Qian could be allowed to cultivate a qualified team, it would be a bit of a return.

Thinking of this, Mo Ran stopped talking and stood up and stretched out his right hand again.

“It’s a pleasure to cooperate and welcome to join ‘Yellow River Storage’!”

"Thanks!"

…

After settling Zheng Qian's matter verbally, Mo Ran returned to Rongcheng.

A few days later, Zheng Qian also came to "Yellow River Storage" to report as scheduled.

Seeing Zheng Qian appear in front of him, Wang Wei, the leader of the technical team, was more surprised than anyone else. He never expected that Mr. Mo Ranmo would actually invite his junior brother here!

Good guy, how much is the salary for this? !

Of course, Mo Ran would not take the initiative to announce Zheng Qian's salary to the outside world. After instructing Li Zhi to arrange Zheng Qian's office, he took the opportunity to work with Li Zhi to divide the various departments of "Yellow River Storage" in more detail.

In the Moran Project, "Yellow River Storage" is a large-scale chip manufacturer that integrates design, manufacturing, and packaging.

The design field is divided into "logic chips" and "memory chips".

CPUs, main control chips, and NPU chips provided by Moran are all logic chips;

Flash memory particles based on "3D-NAND technology" are flash memory chips, also called storage chips.

Since then, Zheng Qian has been responsible for the design and development of the “memory chip”.

The "main control chip" and NPU chip were handed over to Wang Wei, the head of the main control chip team from the original "Runfa Electronics Factory".

The remaining team members are dedicated to manufacturing processes such as photolithography machine production and packaging processes, and are in charge of an engineer named Xu Xin.

So far.

In the "Yellow River Storage" chip business, the three major department teams were officially divided, and each team began to be responsible for professional matters independently.

"Yellow River Storage" finally has some scale.

but.

After doing all this, Mo Ran didn't feel much relieved.

He actually controls three companies.

Among them, Wanglong Electrical Appliance Factory is the most inconspicuous, and its net profit is not high, but it is stable and the risk is not high.

The Nietzsche brand is a "cash cow", and its continuous profit creation nourishes the other two enterprises.

Only "Yellow River Storage" is a pure money burner.

Although Zheng Qian's arrival brought strong R\u0026D strength to "Yellow River Storage", from this moment on, Yellow River Storage has also become the "heaviest asset", "most investment", "most expenditure" and "largest R\u0026D" under Mo Ran's name. "An asset-heavy enterprise.

And it is foreseeable that the money burning will continue for a long time.

…

Fortunately, after the heavy investment, I finally saw some hope.

On August 18, the second day after Zheng Qian came to "Yellow River Storage", after several days of tape-out, the "U3 main control chip" and "U1 main control chip" were successfully tape-out.

And judging from the tape-out results, the 48-nanometer and 56-nanometer main control chips manufactured by "Yellow River Memory" are of good quality and fully meet the chip design standard performance.

Although the results were expected, after all, the U3 main control and U1 main control processes are not high and they are mature products, but the news of success quickly spread throughout the "Yellow River Storage" R\u0026D center.

The next step is to improve the yield rate, reduce chip costs, and then officially sell them.

Why should we improve the yield rate?

As we all know, whether it is a logic chip (CPU) or a memory chip (flash memory particles), the circuit diagram is laser-marked on the wafer using equipment such as a photolithography machine and becomes a piece of chip.

If 1,000 chips can be made on one wafer, and TSMC can achieve a yield rate of 90%, it means that 900 qualified chips can be obtained.

If another company, such as "Yellow River Storage", only has a 50% yield rate, it can only get 500 chips.

In this way, everyone knows that the cost of a chip with a 50% yield rate will be significantly higher than that of a 90% yield rate.

At this time, if "TSMC" encounters price cuts and suppression, "Yellow River Memory" with a yield rate of 50% will even cause a situation where it will lose money producing a single chip.

This is one of the important reasons why it is difficult for domestic chip manufacturers to develop under marketization.

The yield rate cannot go up, profits cannot go up, and even if you encounter competition from peers, you will still lose money!

Who wants to play? !

same,

This is why TF memory card main control chips such as "U3 and U1" are not technically difficult in theory, but almost all markets are dominated by American and Taiwanese companies.

The reason is that after long-term technology accumulation, chip companies in Taiwan and North America not only have good performance, but also have a yield rate close to 95%. Domestic emerging chip companies cannot compete at all at the beginning!

There is only a steady stream of subsidies, subsidies and subsidies!

And if you want to improve the yield rate...

It's hard!

Simply put, making one probably involves hundreds of process steps.

From wafer coating to photoresist application,

Then go to the photolithography machine to lithography, repeat lithography and repeat exposure.

Then to dissolving the photoresist, etching until the final plating, polishing, testing, slicing, packaging and so on.

Assuming that the yield rate of each step can reach 99.9%,

After ten processes, you will find that the yield rate drops to "99%".

After one hundred processes, the yield rate has dropped to 90.5%!

This is still 99.9% of the time!

So generally speaking, if the yield rate of one process in the entire process flow is not improved, the yield rate of the entire chip will be greatly reduced, and this is also the biggest technical barrier for the "manufacturing team"!

Only after tape-out and after a period of mass production are problems found in the entire process, can the yield rate be gradually improved!

U3 and U1 main control chips began to enter the "yield rate" climbing stage. The next day, good news came from the 48nm NPU chip provided by Moran.

Because Moran provided a complete set of chip design drawings and parameters, the 48nm NPU chip was successfully taped out without any changes.

Although the yield rate is only about 25%, we finally got close to 100 test chips.

certainly.

There was no movement yet on the 32-layer "3D-NAND" flash memory particles that Zheng Qian was researching. Mo Ran also knew that the time was too short to achieve any results, so he immediately shifted his attention to Nietzsche's headquarters.

During this period, he put a lot of energy into the planning of "Yellow River Storage". At Nietzsche headquarters, the development and testing of the new "Nietzsche X1", also known as "Nietzsche X2", has actually entered a white-hot stage.

Mo Ran has high hopes for NPU chips.

According to the information he has, all manufacturers in the world, even Apple and Huawei, have not yet built NPU chips into mobile phones.

The NPU chip has a great impact on the performance of mobile phones. First, the camera processing capabilities and video analysis capabilities will be greatly improved.

In addition, NPU chips can also be used in functions that require computing power such as "speech recognition" and "game engine".

so……

After getting the NPU chip, Mo Ran immediately approached Hao Technology and asked him to apply the 48-nanometer NPU chip to the new "Nietzsche X2".

At the same time, he also gave this chip a nice name - "Little Horse Crossing the River NPU Chip".

Naturally, Hao Technology did not dare to refuse. After knowing that it was an NPU chip, he did not dare to ask any more questions. He immediately arranged for professional technicians to start testing the chip performance.

Now Nietzsche’s “Mobile Phone Business Department” can be said to be changing the cage for a bird, a shotgun for a cannon.

Of course, although it cannot be said to have strong R\u0026D capabilities, the most basic R\u0026D team is already sound, and testing the performance of a chip is not a problem.

Hao Keji also seized the opportunity and reported the latest progress to Mo Ran.

"Mr. Mo, the appearance of our 'Nietzsche X2' has finally been decided. The final plan is to optimize it based on the 'Nietzsche X1'. The overall style still continues the basic style of the X1."

Mo Ran received the design drawing from Hao Keke.

As we all know, the design source of "Nietzsche X1" actually comes from "Iphone X". The overall appearance of the revised "Nietzsche X2" has not changed much, but the material is slightly different.

Mo Ran didn't raise any objections. After all, in his previous life, it was as powerful as the iPhone and it had the same style for several years.

To put it nicely, it means continuing the family’s traditional design, but to say it worse,

Even if Mo Ran wants to change, there is no better design solution than Iphone X at this time.

Just optimize it!

Seeing that Mo Ran had no objection, Hao Keji introduced other changes.

"In terms of CPU, our 'Nietzsche X1' previously used the Snapdragon 825 processor. In December last year, Qualcomm released the new flagship Snapdragon 835. This chip has received good market response in the past six months, including the one used in Xiaomi's flagship Xiaomi Mi 6. This chip."

“So, our ‘Nietzsche X2’ also uses Snapdragon 835.

For other configurations, such as the previous 3GB+32GB configuration, we have upgraded it to 4GB+64GB, and the high-end configuration has been upgraded to 6GB+128GB. Of course, it is also equipped with the previous generation’s ‘TF memory card’ and ‘removable battery’ functions. "

Speaking of "removable battery", Mo Ran thought for two seconds and then said:

"The 'removable battery' feature has indeed received a lot of praise since the launch of our previous generation 'Nietzsche X1', but there are also some other voices."

"Moreover, technically we have thickened the phone by 3 mm for this purpose, and also increased the production cost for the waterproof effect."

"There are also a lot of voices on the Internet. Many customers don't really need 'removable batteries', so my idea is to simply make two versions, one with a removable battery and one with an integrated battery."

"In short, it gives consumers more choices, what do you think?"