I Found A Planet

February 20, 20X2.

Xinghai Technology and Ziguang Spreadtrum released a brand new mobile CPU product.

SX-900!

This is a "mid-to-high-end" CPU with a 10nm process technology, a main frequency of 2.6GHZ, and a score of 325,000 on the StarTuTu benchmark software.

The performance is improved by 55% compared with the previous generation SX-800.

The performance in all aspects is better than the high-end flagship Snapdragon 845 released by Qualcomm more than three years ago, which is comparable to the mainstream mid-range U Snapdragon 765 currently on the market... But in terms of power consumption control and GPU performance, the SX-900 has 10% lead.

The most important thing is the price!

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 765 is priced at 385 for a single piece, which is close to 400.

At the press conference on the 25th, after the price of SX-900 was announced, everyone was surprised!

195!

Just half of the Snapdragon 765.

If the manufacturer purchases a large amount, the price can be discounted!

The people at the press conference buzzed and whispered to each other.

"Wocao, it's so cheap?"

"The price of cabbage, the price of cabbage!"

"It smells like domestic Chinese cabbage. It is conceivable that the price of mobile phones with mid-range configuration will be reduced in an all-round way."

"Mr. Amon, it's over, our company's mid-range market is about to end!"

Zheng Junming is the president of Qualcomm's country Z. He picked up his mobile phone in a panic and called Qualcomm's president Christian Amon, explaining the grim situation.

"what?"

The mobile phone in Christian Amon's hand almost fell to the ground, and he exclaimed, "195? Are those people from country Z crazy?!"

He finds it hard to believe that the biggest cost of chips is not manufacturing, and the production cost is not high. Even if a mid-to-high-end U is sold for 200 pieces, there is still a lot of hardware profit.

The biggest cost is actually research and development!

A good CPU requires engineers to spend a year or two and spend hundreds of millions of dollars.

Then find the foundry to do the test, and the cost of each test is more than 200 million soft sister coins.

After the whole process, the research and development cost of a high-performance CPU is as high as billions or tens of billions... This is doomed to keep the price of high-end U down.

Now Qualcomm is in a difficult situation. After a wave of "purely domestically produced" in mainland Z, the market doesn't like any mobile phone containing Qualcomm U. They are afraid that there will be a back door, and the sales volume has plummeted by more than 30%!

This can be described as a fatal blow to Qualcomm. We must know that the company's sales share in the country Z market accounts for more than 70% of its total revenue. Once it loses the country Z market, the consequences will be disastrous.

In order to save itself, Qualcomm announced that it moved its headquarters to country Z. More than half of the company's president, vice president, and many executives came to country Z, and made a promise that "our products have absolutely no back door. If there is, please call the police and arrest us." ——This trick is called the monk who can run but can't run away from the temple, so as to win the trust of consumers in country Z.

In addition, the license fee for the 5G baseband has been greatly reduced, and the price of the CPU has been lowered, which is even much lower than the price sold in Europe and the country M.

Qualcomm's various measures have won the title of "Z Emperor Conscience Pass" among the netizens of country Z.

even so.

In the face of strong competition from Xinghai Technology and Spreadtrum, Qualcomm is still miserable. The high-end USB market has been robbed of more than 30% by the SX-1000; the low-end USB market has been robbed by the SX-800 of more than 40%.

Unexpectedly, in terms of mid-range U, another SX-900 appeared, and the price was directly cut in half.

Christian Amon had no choice but to make a call to the marketing department: "Hurry up, announce the price reduction of our Snapdragon 7 series immediately, and the price will drop below 200. Yes, including the best Snapdragon 765, all of them cannot exceed 200!"

After speaking.

He clutched his heart, where blood was dripping.

...

22nd.

Zhongxin International.

The latest 10nm chip factory.

Chen Jin brought several executives to visit.

In the product testing room of the packaging and testing factory.

Chen Jin held an SX-900 in his hand, rubbed it lightly through his gloves for a while, and asked Zhang Weijing next to him: "Mr. Zhang, is this CPU made with Shangwei's super-resolution lithography machine? "

"Yes."

Zhang Weijing nodded: "It was made with the first super-resolution lithography machine assembled by Shangwei. They are assembling the second and third machines...they will arrive soon."

"How about the yield rate?" Chen Jin asked again.

"100%, no waste products have been produced so far, it can be regarded as 100%... This is the advantage of super-resolution lithography."

Yang Ming, the technical director behind him, leaned into his ear and said.

"What about the production capacity? Is the production capacity sufficient?"

"Mr. Chen, two words: Enough!"

Yang Ming raised his eyebrows, his expression danced, and he said excitedly: "Just this CPU production line is enough to meet the world's needs for mid-range U."

Because this chip production line uses a super-resolution lithography machine!

The first generation of this lithography machine integrated six lithography lenses.

Inside each lithography lens, there are 10,000 micro-lenses.

A total of 60,000 "pens" draw at the same time.

And that "canvas" is a piece of 24-inch wafer.

In addition, in the lithography process, due to the use of the most advanced intelligent control program, not only the lithography efficiency has been increased by 3 times, but even each "pen" can be finely controlled, and each "pen" is assigned a different work.

In the end, such a lithography machine is as efficient as five traditional immersion lithography machines.

It can process 1,000 pieces of 24-inch wafers per day and cut out 1.5 million chips.

Such a production line can indeed meet the needs of almost all users for mid-range CPUs.

It's just such a good U, but it only sells for 195 yuan each. Isn't it a bit too cabbage?

General manager Liang Mengnan said: "In fact, the material cost of this U is only 10 yuan per piece, and the foundry will charge another 10 yuan for the foundry fee, plus about 1 billion research and development costs. If it can sell 100 million pieces, it will The cost of each piece has been diluted to 30 yuan per piece, not to mention the price of 195 yuan, it is 180 pieces, and there is still a 500% profit margin.”

He shook his head: "Chip, as long as you occupy the market, it is definitely a profiteering industry."

The amount of running is large, and the price of cabbage is profitable!

"good."

Chen Jin nodded, this is very good.

Thinking of one thing, Chen Jin asked Zhang Weijing: "Mr. Zhang, have you completed the adjustment of your 28nm production line? The Xinghai first-generation computer will be released soon, and the performance of the 28nm CPU is far from enough. We are waiting for your mass production. 10nm 'Dragon Generation' CPU."

"The adjustment has been completed!"

Zhang Weijing nodded: "But we are waiting for the lithography machine from Shangwei. Their second super-resolution lithography machine will arrive on the 25th. After some debugging, we will strive to produce the first batch of 10 in mid-March. The 'Blue Dragon Generation' of nano-process."

"In other words, the 'Xinghai Generation' computer will have to wait until late March to be released?"

Chen Jin frowned and said, he intends to officially release the 'Xinghai Generation' computer on March 15th. Isn't it obvious that the ticket will be delayed by the end of the month?

"Mr. Chen, we will speed up as soon as possible, so as not to delay the release of Xinghai Computer."

Zhang Weijing promised.

"All right!"

...

End inspection.

However, it was March 10th.

Zhang Weijing suddenly made a phone call: "Mr. Chen, we underestimated the difficulty of manufacturing 10nm computer CPUs, and the surface area of ​​the 'Qinglong Generation' is too large, four times that of Intel CPUs, and twenty times that of SX-900. Due to the error rate caused by multiple exposures, so far, we have not successfully produced a 10nm CPU, and the reject rate is 100%.

He added: "It will be at least three months before we resolve the issue."

Chen Jin was taken aback: "What? The press conference will start in a few days, and you haven't produced the finished product yet. What are you doing?"

Zhang Weijing explained it many times, and proposed a compromise solution, which is to temporarily abandon multiple exposures and use a super-resolution lithography machine to produce a batch of 22nm CPUs as a temporary replacement.

The 22nm process is one generation more advanced than the 28nm process, which sounds much better.

The difficulty of manufacturing has also been reduced a lot, and the yield rate is 100%.

"Okay, let's replace it with 22 nanometers first. In short, the press conference cannot be skipped."

Chen Jin shook his head. Although his hands are full of hangs, the technical rules are there. It took Intel six or seven years to conquer the 10-nanometer process. Why did Zhongxin International only take ten days to conquer it? This is unlikely.

Time soon came to March 15th.

...

Fight for four updates today!