Giant of the times

Soon, three more people came to the office.

After a brief greeting, Li Zetian asked: "Do you still remember Game-Watch?"

Everyone nodded, thoughtfully.

"Of course I remember, it was a game product designed by you, Mr. Li, and it was once popular all over the world!"

Li Zetian nodded and said: "This time I redesigned a product based on Game-Watch. As we all know, Game-Watch can only play one game per machine, which has great defects. However, the new product has made Improve!"

After finishing speaking, he turned to look at Dongfang Yuqin and motioned for her to bring out the product design information.

Dongfang Yuqin took out the document from her bag, then walked to the printer nearby and copied it for a few minutes, and finally sent a copy of the information to everyone.

"Gameboy?" Nolan Bushnell said.

Li Zetian smiled. Yes, it was the Gameboy, the core product that Nintendo relied on in its previous life. Once this product came out, it made the whole world go crazy! In the previous life, this product was developed by Gunpei Yokoi. However, Gunpei Yokoi later admitted that due to objective conditions and market demand, Gameboy lowered its requirements in many places and was not his ideal work.

Li Zetian looked at Yokoi Gunpei calmly and thought, I will let you develop this time and see what kind of perfect work you can develop!

After 10 minutes, Li Zetian asked: "Everyone seems to be running out of products, is there any problem?"

Everyone shook their heads, shocked by Li Zetian's design. There was nothing wrong with it.

Nolan Bushnell said: "Mr. Li, the design of Gameboy is great, especially the design of replaceable game cards, which is definitely loved by players!"

"Yes, the game card can be replaced, which means that one game console can play a variety of games! The Game-Watch can only play one game, and players will find it uneconomical."

"It's just that in Mr. Li's design, Gameboy is very thin and light. This is probably a huge problem we will face during the development process!"

"..."

Everyone analyzed.

Li Zetian smiled and nodded, saying: "That's right, but to realize the game function, the game console itself must be beautiful and easy to carry. The lighter and thinner the machine is, the more popular it will be!"

With that said, Li Zetian looked at Gunpei Yokoi, "You will be responsible for the Gameboy hardware development project, Gunpei Yokoi..."

"Okay, Mr. Li."

Yokoi Gunpei was excited and quickly agreed.

Li Zetian smiled at him. Gunpei Yokoi has always been the main person in charge of the hardware department of the Flamingo Company. The first and second generations of Flamingo were developed under his leadership. Although he is an RB person, But who says RB people can't be used for their own purposes?

Yokoi Gunpei has now applied for American citizenship and became a Japanese American.

…

…

Christmas is coming in a blink of an eye, and the company has begun its annual vacation. Many people are preparing to travel abroad during the Christmas period, and Li Zetian's family is no exception.

Li Zetian plans to return to China. He has not been back for many years.

In addition, the investment link in mainland China has been greatly improved, and Chinese real estate has already entered the mainland Chinese market with great results.

Li Zetian and Yu Jingqiu first came to Hong Kong with their two children, met their parents and Zhou Qiqi, and then headed to mainland China together.

After arriving in Hong Kong, Li Zetian took time to visit the Science and Technology Park, and also chatted with Zhang Zhongmou about Intel's "wafer foundry" factory.

The current wafer fab is a 4-inch wafer fab with a process of 0.55 micron, which is already considered a very advanced wafer fab.

The semiconductor industry often hears people talking about the number of inches of wafer fabs and the number of manufacturing processes. These are actually two concepts.

As we all know, wafers are silicon, and the material is usually sand. Turning sand into silicon requires a two-stage purification process. The first step is metallurgical grade purification to obtain the high-purity polysilicon required for semiconductor manufacturing, with a purity of 99.999%. . The second step is to pull the crystal. First, the high-purity polycrystalline silicon obtained previously is melted to form liquid silicon. Then, the single crystal silicon seed is brought into contact with the liquid surface and slowly pulled up while rotating. Finally, neatly arranged single crystal circular silicon columns are formed. That's why the wafer factory is called a wafer factory.

4 inches is the diameter of a single crystal silicon pillar. The larger the size, the higher the speed and temperature requirements for crystal pulling. It is difficult to make wafers larger than 4 inches with current technology. Of course, it's not that 5-inch and 6-inch devices can't be made, but it's just that the cost is too high and not cost-effective. 4-inch devices are currently relatively mature and can be commercialized.

A wafer can be cut into multiple chips. Therefore, the larger the size, the larger the wafer area, and the more chips can be produced per unit time. The wafer area of ​​an 8-inch wafer factory is the same as that of a 4-inch wafer factory. Four times the wafer area can greatly reduce production costs. Therefore, larger wafer fabs can completely crush smaller wafer fabs in terms of price.

As for the "process", it has a lot to do with the photolithography machine. To put it simply, a lithography machine draws integrated circuits on a chip. The smaller the process, the more things can be drawn on a chip of the same area, and the stronger the performance of the chip. This is also the basis of Moore's Law.

Li Zetian is involved in the semiconductor industry, so he naturally knows a little about these.

The size and process of the fab are closely related to the production equipment, and Applied Materials and Asmore are responsible for solving these problems.

With Zhang Zhongmou in the wafer fab, Li Zetian was not worried about any problems.

On the morning of December 26, the family set off for mainland China.

As luck would have it, not long after Li Zetian and his family got off the plane, it started snowing in Hangzhou. The flying snow soon covered the entire Hangzhou with a layer of white clothes. Hangzhou was like a painting, so beautiful. People are intoxicated.

This is the second time Li Zetian has come to mainland China after traveling through time.

The reason why so few people come is mainly due to political issues.

Li Zetian's identity is too sensitive and he often comes to China, which has a bad influence and can easily misunderstand the United States and the Western world. In addition, in the past few years, the reform in mainland China had just begun, and many people had low political awareness and were hostile to Li Zetian, a big capital. Now it is almost 1985. China's economy is taking off. People have great confidence in reform and opening up. Their rejection of capitalists has also been reduced. They have even begun to worship foreign countries... Not only ordinary civilians, but also officials are like this. Look When I go to foreigners, I feel that I am three points shorter, and I still have to please them.

Li Zetian felt these things deeply in this life. The leaders in Hangzhou even wanted to have him surrendered. This time they learned that he was coming to Hangzhou to visit relatives. The airport was full of leaders, making it look like he was coming to greet a foreign president. Like, extra grand.