Reborn Tokyo Golden Age

"Your company's SIC8081 is even better than Intel8086 in terms of performance. I have to say Shirakawa-san, you once again surprised me."

Mazuka Moriyoshi looked at the blueprint in his hand, showing interest.

In addition to the DRAM field, is Neon's chip also catching up with the United States in the processor field?

This is exciting news, at least in Matsuka's view.

Isn't the reason why Japan gathered national power to invest in the memory chip industry a few years ago to reduce its dependence on the United States?

From raw materials to equipment, to technology to catch up and even surpass.

Now that the victory of DRAM is in sight, there has also been a breakthrough in the unexpected processor application field.

Although the processor-level chip market is not big at the moment, it can be regarded as a part of the short board to some extent.

For Mazuka Mori, who has a strong sense of collective honor, this is indeed something to be happy about.

"It's easier to know than to do. It's only after doing it that I realized that chip development is far more complicated than I thought."

The reason why SIC's first chip was able to complete the blueprint design so quickly also cost Bai Chuanfeng a lot of hard work.

There are as many as 50 or 60 people in the East University of Technology, including professors and doctoral-level trainees.

These are highly educated talents, not ordinary employees.

And it is no exaggeration to say that Tokyo Institute of Technology is definitely the top university of science and technology in Japan.

With so much manpower and material resources invested, the front-end design of the chip was finally pushed forward.

Later, Shimasa Toshi, who has rich product experience, joined, and the chip development of SIC officially entered the fast lane.

Otherwise, Bai Chuanfeng optimistically estimates that if he can complete the research and development of the first chip next year, it will be regarded as a good efficiency.

"What Shirakawa-san said is that the research and development of integrated circuits is really costly.

It is really rare for your company to achieve this step. "

For Bai Chuanfeng's emotion, Mazuka Mori felt the same way.

This reminded him of those passionate years, when everyone gathered together and worked hard in one direction.

The sense of honor of achieving success in the end is definitely not comparable to the product's big sales.

I have to say that in the field of chips in the 1970s, the courage to concentrate on doing big things is really impressive.

"Bai Chuan-san can rest assured that Fujitsu can accept SIC as an OEM if there is no problem with the technical drawing review.

However, IMHO, the current market size of processor chips is relatively lacking.

Especially 16-bit processors, for cost reasons. The price is too high, and the market reaction may not be so optimistic. "

As an industry insider, Mazuka Doyoshi naturally knows the general market price of processor chips at this time.

If Bai Chuanfeng bets on 16-bit processor chips, then SIC is likely to end up with huge losses.

After all, it's one thing to have something good, but another to be able to sell it.

Moreover, the foundry processing of chips is not cheap, especially the mask fee for the first tape-out, which is astonishingly high.

Faced with Mazuka's kind reminder, Bai Chuanfeng did not show any disappointment.

"Mazuka-san, this time only SIC8081 tape-outs will not be mass-produced." This question was answered by Shimasa Toshi.

"What?!" Mazuka Daoyi thought he heard it wrong.

This... all the money is used to burn it for fun?

You must know that the cost of each tape-out of a chip can be as high as millions or even millions of dollars.

This conversion costs at least two to three billion yen.

Smaller companies may even go bankrupt after a tape-out failure.

Does this Bai Chuan-san really know what he is doing? Mazuka Moriyoshi felt that he had overestimated him before.

"Mazuka-san, this time the SIC8081 is only for functional verification after the design is completed.

In the future, we will simplify the design based on the existing architecture.

Then it launched a logic-optimized version with processors between 8 and 16 bits.

This is the main model we want to introduce to the market this year. "

In fact, this part of the work, Shimasa Toshi is already doing preliminary planning, and he is quite confident in his design.

After hearing Shimasa Toshi's explanation, Mazuka Moriyoshi was not only not relieved, but even more surprised.

Spending more than 200 million yen just for tape-out verification is really inhumane.

But if this is the basic logic version, it's not impossible to do so.

It's just too expensive, because every time a version is developed in the future, it needs to be taped out, so how much will it cost.

Moriyoshi Mazuka marveled at SIC's wealth and power, while at the same time surprised at its ambition.

If you dare to do this, you must have confidence in your own chips and confidence in the future market, so you will have such a choice.

"I understand what you mean, and Fujitsu will fully cooperate here."

Anyway, if you give money, Mazuka Daoyi has nothing to say.

Moreover, Arishima Masatoshi should not give up halfway, and he also wants to see how the SIC chip performs.

In addition to his hope that Neon’s local chip field will go further, don’t forget that Fujitsu is also one of the companies that make consumer electronics products.

If successful, there may be possibilities for cooperation in the future.

"So I'll leave it to Mazuka-san, and Shima-san will be responsible for the specific release date later."

Bai Chuanfeng came here today to pay homage to the top of the mountain. After having a cooperation experience, Shimasatoshi will be in charge of the rest.

"In addition, I would like to remind Bai Chuan-san that it is best to determine the output of this type of chip as soon as possible after the tape-out begins.

There is a direct relationship between the cost of each chip and the shipment volume, and Shima-san must be aware of the specific differences. "

Following Mazuka Moriyoshi's reminder, Shimasa Toshi also nodded, this is exactly what he had reminded Shirakawa Feng before.

Judging from the current progress, perhaps the promotion in the early stage can already start.

If the design cost of chip R\u0026D is ignored, the hardware cost after it is officially put into production is not a small number.

The hardware cost of the chip generally includes chip cost, mask cost, test cost and packaging cost.

Among them, the test cost is negligible, and the packaging cost roughly accounts for about 5%-20% of the hardware cost.

The so-called packaging is to stack the substrate, core, and heat sink together, and finally form the CPU we see in our daily life.

In today's era, because the process is not as complicated as later generations, the packaging cost is almost fixed, and the proportion is not too exaggerated.

In the hardware cost of the chip, the real bulk is actually the first two, the chip cost and the mask cost.

And there is a special proportional relationship between the two and chip production.

When the chip output is small, the mask cost will be the absolute bulk of the chip hardware cost.

For example, the mask cost of 1 million US dollars, the final output is only 10,000 pieces.

Then the mask cost allocated to each chip head is as high as $100.

This is only the consumption of masks. If other expenses are included, the final chip cost will be a jaw-dropping figure.

And when the chip output is hundreds of millions, the mask cost will be diluted to 0.01 US dollars, which is basically negligible.

At that time, the chip will occupy the bulk of the hardware cost. After all, the utilization rate of the chip is not 100%.

The area of ​​a wafer is fixed, and because of the yield rate, the number of chips that can be finally made into chips is also fixed.

And sometimes the cost of a wafer is as high as thousands of dollars, and evenly distributed, the cost of a chip will also be a few dollars.

For some special chips, the chip cost is even as high as tens of dollars.

Of course, this is related to the complexity of the chip processing process. The simpler the process, the higher the yield, and the lower the chip cost.

The stakes involved, Shimasa Toshi once introduced in detail to Bai Chuanfeng.

So basically, Bai Chuanfeng understood why these two people reminded himself about the issue of determining the shipments of chips.

However, regarding the follow-up promotion, we still need to wait for the chip to be taped out to see how it actually performs before we can make specific plans.

"Thanks to Mazuka-san for reminding me, I will consider this issue as soon as possible." The matter of the foundry has just begun to take shape, and Bai Chuanfeng is also about to say goodbye and leave.

"By the way, people from Intel visited Fujitsu today.

They are in the DRAM business as well as the microprocessor chip business.

Does Bai Chuan-san need them to meet? Maybe we are colleagues and have good communication in the field of processors. "

Just when Bai Chuanfeng and others were about to leave, Mazuka Daoyi revealed a surprising news.

Intel? Bai Chuanfeng frowned, they came here?

Shimasatoshi also looked surprised, this was his old club.

"Thank you Mazuka-san for your kindness, but SIC is too weak.

And the current project is still in the confidential stage, it is better not to disturb them for the time being. "

Regarding Bai Chuanfeng's refusal, Mazuka Moriji understood in seconds. The other party does not want people from Intel to know the existence of SIC.

From Matsuka's point of view, this is Shirakawa Kaede's lack of self-confidence, or SIC has no commendable products.

So he didn't force it, he just raised his mouth, and then let it go.

Nonsense, of course Bai Chuanfeng doesn't want Intel to know about the existence of SIC, at least for now.

What kind of friendly communication among peers, isn't this a competitor?

Although the current SIC is not worth mentioning, there are no practical products.

But if Intel pays too much attention to SIC, it's definitely not a good thing.

Bai Chuanfeng hopes that SIC will try to keep a low profile until it has a certain self-protection strength.

Even if SIC's products are launched in the future, Bai Chuanfeng intends to develop insignificantly.

Enter the village quietly, don't shoot.

So Bai Chuanfeng didn't have time to hide when he met someone from Intel, so why would he rush to post it.

As for Shimasatoshi, even though he was his former boss, he doesn't want to meet with Intel people at the moment.

Because when he was preparing to return to China, Bai Chuanfeng had just left.

People from Intel have contacted him, hoping that he will work at Intel Japan Research Institute.

However, after comparing the conditions offered by the two parties, Shimasato decisively rejected Intel's invitation.

Just a high salary plus a little equity incentive can no longer attract Shimasatoshi's interest.

At that time, he turned down the invitation on the grounds of starting his own business.

Wouldn't it be too embarrassing if we met at this time?

So Shimasatoshi, like Bai Chuanfeng, was eager to leave here immediately.

But as they left, Mazuka Daoyi shook his head and smiled.

Neon wants to stand on top of the world and show its scientific and technological strength to the international community. How can it do it without brightening its muscles.

In Mazuka Moroyoshi's view, this is a good time to show off his own strength.

So just after finishing his work here, he was going to receive people from Intel.

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