Great Country Academician

The next day, early morning.

In the villa complex at the foot of Purple Mountain, Xu Chuan ran a few laps along the playground inside the community to do some daily exercise. He was just about to have breakfast when he saw an acquaintance walking towards him.

"Good morning, Academician Xu."

Standing at the door of the villa, Ren Zhengfei rushed over and said hello with a smile on his face.

Seeing the president of Warwick, Xu Chuan was stunned for a moment, then greeted with a smile: "Mr. Ren, you came here very quickly."

I only called yesterday afternoon, and Mr. Ren arrived at his door early this morning.

Ren Zhengfei smiled and said: "It's a very important matter, so I came here overnight."

Xu Chuan looked him up and down. This Warwick boss, who was born in the 1940s, was now in his early eighties, and his hair on his temples was already gray.

Running around all night and coming from other places did make the old man a little tired, but compared to his physical fatigue, the breakthrough in carbon-based chip technology made him look energetic.

Smiling, he said: "Mr. Ren probably hasn't had time to have breakfast yet. I happen to be going to have breakfast too. How about we chat while we eat?"

"No problem, let's chat while we eat."

Ren Zhengfei agreed with a smile. Although he had some bread in the car when he went out, it would be no problem to have breakfast again.

Xu Chuan nodded and took him to the breakfast shop inside the community. He ordered a bowl of rice noodles first and then looked at the president of Warwick with a smile.

"There are quite a lot of breakfast options in this shop, including flour, bread, soy milk, fried dough sticks, porridge and so on."

"There are quite a lot of breakfast options in this shop, including flour, bread, soy milk, fried dough sticks, porridge and so on."

Ren Zhengfei smiled and nodded, looked at the waiter and said, "Bring me some rice noodles too."

"Two portions of rice noodles, okay, please wait."

While the store was preparing breakfast, the two found a seat and sat down.

Although it was breakfast time, there were no diners in the store.

This is normal. After all, those who can live in this community usually have aunties to help them at home, and they usually rarely go out for breakfast.

There are only a few old people who like to stop by for breakfast or a change of taste after taking a walk in the morning.

As for whether the owner of this store will lose money or something, I can only say that those who can open a store in this community will not consider this issue at all.

After finding a seat and sitting down, Ren Zhengfei couldn't wait to ask: "Academician Xu, how is the current situation regarding the carbon-based chip project?"

After thinking for a while, Xu Chuan said: "Mr. Ren, you should know about the research direction of the 'Xiongxin' series of carbon-based chip cores."

Hearing this, Mr. Ren nodded. Although he could only understand the latest detailed research through periodic report documents, he still knew this.

Xu Chuan: "To put it simply, we have already made the finished product of Xiongxin chip, which has a complete architectural design. However, due to current R\u0026D and technical limitations, the performance of Xiongxin No. 05 experimental chip is not considered Very high, but the commercial value is not very high.”

Ren Zhengfei didn't have many doubts in his mind, and he didn't pay much attention to Xu Chuan's statement that the chip performance was not very high.

After all, this is a carbon-based chip, a brand new track that almost no country has officially entered before.

In addition, the current research time is not long. It has only been about a year since Xinghai Research Institute, Huawei HiSilicon, SMIC and other companies officially invested in research.

To be able to produce results in such a short period of time is already very impressive.

As for performance, once the finished product is released, it can be quickly improved in the future.

After all, the path forward for silicon-based chips is here. Although the two paths are different, carbon-based chips can still learn from each other in the early stages of development.

According to his considerations, following the path of silicon-based chips, carbon-based chips developed in about two to three years should be able to achieve about half the performance of chips currently on the market.

That is to say, it has a mid-range silicon-based chip, such as the Snapdragon 660 or Kirin 960 chip.

If you want to improve quickly in the future, it may take a little longer.

As for catching up with high-end silicon-based chip performance, it may take about five years.

He would be satisfied if he could advance carbon-based chips at this rate of development.

Within five years, Warwick was able to completely replace silicon-based chips in all its products. Using carbon-based chips no longer has to worry about being stuck by Western countries.

To be able to see this majestic work completed before my own eyes would be a dream come true.

With thoughts floating in his mind, Ren Zhengfei took a deep breath and asked: "Academician Xu, can you introduce to me in detail this completed Xiongxin product of yours?"

"certainly."

Xu Chuan nodded and briefly introduced Xiongxin No. 05 product.

"Xiongxin No. 05, which is the code name of the finished chip prepared this time, uses 28nm multiple exposure technology to integrate 10 million carbon-based transistors per square millimeter, with a four-core design and a main frequency of 5.8 Hz, the thermal design power consumption TDP is 30W”

Before he finished speaking, Ren Zhengfei, who was sitting opposite, asked with a face full of astonishment: "Wait a minute. You just said that the Xiongxin No. 05 chip uses a 28-nanometer process and achieves an integration of 10 million chips per square millimeter. A transistor?”

Xu Chuan glanced at him and smiled and replied: "Well, what's wrong, is there any problem?"

Recovering from his trance, Ren Zhengfei's heart was filled with shock, and he felt his throat dry and his face was full of shock.

At first, he thought that the commercial value was not very great, referring to the number of transistors in this Xiongxin 05 chip, which might be only tens of thousands, and at most a mature low-end chip with hundreds of thousands of transistors.

Chips that integrate tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of transistors are low-end among low-end chips, and are indeed not valuable for the current chip market.

After all, there is no shortage of low-end chip market, whether it is Huawei or China.

They have a mature manufacturing system for chips of this level.

It goes without saying that the newly-released carbon-based chips will definitely not catch up with mature silicon-based chips in terms of preparation costs.

So relatively speaking, the value is indeed not great.

But.

The 28-nanometer multiple exposure technology integrates 10 million transistors per square millimeter!

This is something he had never thought of before coming here!

If this data is true, then this latest Xiongxin 05 carbon-based chip integrates at least 1 billion transistors.

This data, compared with silicon-based chips, is almost the same as Apple's self-developed A8 or Qualcomm Snapdragon 660.

Of course, this refers to the mobile processor series products, which are almost high-end chips in the mobile phone field 8-10 years ago.

Although it is a chip from ten years ago, but now, whether it is A8 or Snapdragon 660, it has not withdrawn from the market, occupying the mainstream of mid-to-low-end products, and it is still able to compete.

Apart from other things, there are still a lot of them in use in the low-end mobile phone market.

For example, Huawei's Enjoy MAX, Honor 8X·MAX, OPPO's R11, Xiaomi's Xiaomi 7 Pro, etc.

Although these low-end mobile phones have withdrawn from the domestic market in large numbers, for Huawei, Xiaomi and other companies, they are still exported to foreign countries such as Southeast Asia, Africa and other regions to earn foreign exchange, and the market is still broad.

Is this level of chip not valuable?

Perhaps in this person's eyes, it may not be valuable. But for China, the commercial value of 28-nanometer carbon-based chips is in billions!

After coming back to his senses, Ren Zhengfei showed a helpless expression on his face, and couldn't help complaining: "Academician Xu, what you said is not very valuable. This is too much nonsense."

Xu Chuan: "????"

Take a deep breath, Ren Zhengfei asked with some confirmation: "I want to ask, according to the indicator you mentioned, how much performance of this Xiongxin 05 chip can be compared with silicon-based chips?"

Xu Chuan replied without hesitation: "The R\u0026D department said that it can be compared with Intel Xeon series single-channel processor series E5-1600, or the sixth or seventh generation of the Core I series."

"Sure enough!"

Hearing this answer, Ren Zhengfei showed an expression of knowing it on his face, which was not much different from the comparison object of the mobile phone chip he speculated.

Taking a deep breath, he explained: "Although this level of chip is considered a low-end chip in the current market, the market is actually very broad."

"Whether it is low-end mobile phones, computers, tablets and other electronic products, or home appliances, home appliance control, industrial automation equipment control and other fields, the demand for low-end chips is quite large."

"And with the rapid development of mobile Internet and the Internet of Things, the demand for the popularization of various smart devices is increasing, and the demand for low-end chips is growing extremely rapidly."

"The ability to produce a 28-nanometer process and a billion-transistor carbon-based chip is fully sufficient to cope with these markets."

Hearing this, Xu Chuan thought for a while and asked: "But the cost of carbon-based chips is currently far less than that of mature silicon-based chips, and the related supporting industrial chain has not been established. "It's hard to get a market share because the competitiveness is far from enough. "

Hearing this, Ren Zhengfei smiled and said, "This is not a problem at all."

After a pause, he looked at Xu Chuan and then smiled, "Indeed, if it is a free market competition, the current industrial chain is not perfect and the carbon-based chips with higher production costs are difficult to be compared with silicon-based chips. "

"But for our country, this is not a problem of market competition!"

"Don't say that the carbon-based chips have matured to 28 nanometers and have billions of transistors. Even if there are only a few million chips, as long as there is hope of overtaking in the semiconductor field, I believe the government will fully support and promote them!"

"Market and competition, these are not problems at all!"

In Ren Zhengfei's view, Xu Chuan's worry about the lack of market and competitiveness is completely unnecessary.

Don't say that the production cost of carbon-based chips is different from that of silicon-based chips, even if the performance is far behind, as long as the chip field can achieve overtaking, the country will invest heavily in support.

As long as you have a mature carbon-based chip product, even if it is the lowest-end, such as simple circuit control chips, industrial control chips, etc., as long as the product is mature, the support is unimaginable.

Let alone other things, just directly throwing money, such as commercial subsidies, is enough for it to occupy a place in the market!

Moreover, when carbon-based chips are mature, I am afraid that the first to change equipment will be those state-owned enterprises and government enterprises!

This market is enough for carbon-based chips to be full!

Not enough market? Not competitive?

The market is vast, and the competitiveness should be unique!