Military Industry of Great Powers: Build the Strongest Flanker

Good news came one after another. Sinocom International received a big order, and AMD Advanced Microelectronics came to discuss cooperation, hoping that SMIC could help them manufacture 586 processors.

When Liu Chaoqing, general manager of Sinocom International, reported this matter to Zhao Guoqing, Mr. Zhao still didn't believe it.

It's messy, it's messy...

In this era, whether Intel, AMD, IBM or Texas Instruments, they all manufacture their own chips.

Unexpectedly, AMD embarked on the foundry path more than ten years in advance.

But after thinking about it, I understand.

AMD is having a hard time now! Due to patent disputes with Intel, AMD has either been in litigation or on the road to litigation in recent years. Not to mention the heavy legal fees, the most terrible thing is that Intel has frequently applied to the court to ban the sale of AMD products.

Fortunately, the California court ruled in favor of AMD the year before last, holding that technology obtained through reverse engineering does not constitute patent infringement.

Good guy, this verdict directly opens the door to a new world. Reverse engineering is much simpler than R\u0026D.

However, because of this, AMD's development of advanced chip manufacturing processes has been delayed. Now it has the design of a new CPU, but no way to manufacture it...

SMIC gave them another option.

When CEO Stephen Endlich reported the company's decision to the board of directors, the directors still had doubts. They believed that SMIC's 500-nanometer process had lagged behind Intel's 350-nanometer process.

However, technical director Emerson Avila believed that SMIC’s 500-nanometer process was not lagging behind. He convinced the board of directors by presenting facts and reasoning.

It's an option.

AMD's stock price has fallen to the bottom, and its total market value has dropped from its peak of nearly one billion U.S. dollars to less than 20 million U.S. dollars now.

And the stock price keeps falling.

There are too many negative factors. These shareholders have completely lost, and it doesn't matter how hard they try.

"Both AMD and Intel have joined the American Semiconductor Alliance, but Intel abandoned us because they are unwilling to open up their 350nm process..."

It is an embarrassing fact that the United States hopes that Intel, AMD, Texas Instruments, IBM... these companies can cooperate in chip manufacturing processes and share technology.

But in fact, this alliance is very fragile because of the relationship between interests.

For example, for a technology, Intel invests 500 million, IBM invests 1 billion, and Texas Instruments invests 300 million. AMD has not invested, but you want to obtain the technology. This is a bit beautiful.

Although the alliance has various terms and conditions, Intel directly said that there is no problem in sharing the results, but it must share the research and development costs equally and directly bill AMD for US$200 million.

AMD's board of directors looked at the bills, then looked at AMD's market value, and thought that with 200 million US dollars, they might as well divide the luggage and let everyone break up together.

Steve told Zhao Guoqing these things when he met with Zhao Guoqing. He added: "Mr. Zhao, AMD can cooperate with SMIC because of our hard work. In fact, this decision was made half a year ago. …”

"..."

After Steve said this, Mr. Zhao learned that AMD was also included in the U.S. technology blockade catalog.

"Congress believes that AMD's finding a foundry with SMIC may leak x86-related technology, and they will not allow AMD to find a way out on its own!"

Teacher Xiao Zhao asked: "What about now?"

"That's not the case now," Stephen said. "The technology alliance specifically evaluates AMD's technology."

Stephen was unwilling to say more, but Zhao Guoqing believed that technology that was not afraid of leaks did not seem to be too advanced.

"No, no... no" Stephen shook his head and said, "Mr. Zhao, don't get me wrong, AMD's technology is still very advanced, but it's just because we found someone to lobby in Congress..."

Well, if you hit someone, don’t slap someone in the face, and if you expose someone, don’t expose your shortcomings!

Teacher Xiao Zhao suddenly had an idea. He said: "Since AMD is not on the list, can it be bought and sold freely?"

Stephen smiled and said: "The board of directors also hopes that someone will take over. Fifty million US dollars is enough, but there is no company in the United States to take over. As for China... it is still on the restricted list..."

With the ARM platform, Zhao Guoqing does not have so many demands for x86. If it can be sold, it doesn't matter if he buys it. Even if he buys it, he will not continue to develop on x86, but there will be one less potential opponent.

It is understandable that the United States restricts the sale of AMD. Just like the Ukrainian aero-engine company, even if it falls behind and dies in its hands, the United States does not want to sell it to a Chinese company.

Stephen told Zhao Guoqing: "AMD's new processor will support the PCI bus, support the DDR memory standard, and support the new PCI graphics card interface..."

Teacher Xiao Zhao’s eyes lit up, and Stephen said everything in his heart. He shook hands with Stephen and said, “AMD will definitely feel lucky for today’s decision!”

Because CITIC is the parent company of SMIC, and AMD also hopes to reach cooperation with CITIC on the NAND flash memory project.

The negotiation only took seven days. On December 17, Sinocom International and AMD reached a strategic cooperation.

The main contents of cooperation include:

1. SMIC, a subsidiary of Sinocom Technology, provides chip foundry services to AMD. AMD has the right to request the most advanced process foundry services.

2. AMD needs Zhongxun Technology to provide open patent standard content and conduct paid cooperation in this technology field.

Of course, for AMD, there is a third point that is very important, that is, CITIC Technology needs to grant AMD the most favored company treatment. The FOB price must not be higher than that of any other local or international company, and CITIC Technology can take any measures against other companies. Discount, also applies to AMD!

The most-favored company treatment is similar to the tariff most-favored-nation treatment in international relations, which means that the price of chips produced by AMD must be the cheapest price.

This condition is very reasonable.

In fact, chip foundry companies give most favored company treatment to all cooperating companies, which means that international competition will not cause unfair competition at the chip processing level. The conditions were very reasonable, and Zhongxun Technology agreed to them all.

The supplementary clauses are what Teacher Xiao Zhao is more concerned about.

AMD officially joined the DDR Standards Association, PCI Standards Association, SATA Interface Standards Association...

Let Zhongxun Technology open a gap in the chain blocked by foreign standards.

After the contract was signed, AMD K5 project technical personnel officially settled in SMIC. There are still many things waiting for them.

The adaptation of EDA software and the adjustment of the semiconductor structure require the use of Xintu EDA software to re-engrave all the transistors of the AMD K5 processor.

The timetable given by Stephen is three months, which includes chip diagrams, tape-out, and testing.

time is tight.

On Christmas Eve of 1993, VIA Technology completed the public version tape-out of the ARMv5+ Athlon processor, and the secondary design of the entire tape-out was almost zero.

"We just increased the L2 cache from 64kb to 128kb!"

VIA Technology signed a contract with SMIC to produce 500,000 pieces.