Reborn Tokyo Golden Age

Why Bai Chuanfeng chose this time to talk to Toshiba and the others was because the proposal from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry had just been shelved.

After the strong opposition of several congressmen, they must have known that SIC is not without resistance.

Since there will be no results in the next few months, let's sit down and talk.

"Zobo-san, nice to meet you."

"Bai Chuan-san, I have admired your name for a long time."

Because Bai Chuanfeng came forward in person, Toshiba also sent the group's ninth-generation president Masaichi Saha here.

After the two parties sat down, there was no need to talk about greetings.

Everyone is a leader, even though they have confronted each other several times not long ago, they all behaved very humblely to each other.

In addition to Shirakawa Kaede, Heitaro Nakajima and Masatoshi Shima from SIC also attended the meeting.

Takeshi Yoshiyuki, director of Toshiba's ULSI Research Institute (ultra-large-scale integrated circuit) within its group, also serves as a technical consultant beside Sabo Masakazu.

How can things involving chips be done without the presence of professional technicians.

After exchanging pleasantries, Bai Chuanfeng straight to the point, "President Sabo, why don't we consider the cooperation of SIC processor chips from a different perspective?"

"Bai Chuan-san means...?" Zuo Bozheng had a strange look in his eyes, and he was surprised by Bai Chuan Feng's directness.

Sure enough, as rumored, the founder of the "New Chaebol" was as vigorous and resolute as ever.

Bai Chuanfeng didn't know what the other party was thinking, but even if he knew, he wouldn't care.

Given his current status, this is not reckless. This is a personal style of acting, and it can also be a display of personal charm.

Just like the things used by literati are called cultural relics, all the extraordinary comes from the gap in identity.

"SIC does not exclude cooperation with other partners in the field of research and development.

And in terms of openness, whether it is Baichuan Electric or SIC, they are considered to be second to none among neon companies. "

Sabo agrees with this point. The company under Shirakawa-san has the same distinctive characteristics as his people, that is, openness and tolerance.

In the survey of the company's working environment conducted by NHK TV, Shirakawa Electric's employees ranked first in Neon.

The 100 current or former members interviewed praised the free working atmosphere of Shirakawa Electric.

Of course too much freedom is not enough, HAL's Tanimura is a good example.

But now Shirakawa Holdings has been making adjustments, but compared with other traditional clubs, Shirakawa Electric still has a unique style.

So now Bai Chuanfeng said that SIC is open to research and development, and Sabo believes it.

"SIC is willing and active to cooperate with other clubs. Of course, this must be based on mutual respect and mutual benefit."

Inclusiveness and openness are fine, but reciprocity of interests is the premise.

Reciprocity? Sabo grasped the point in an instant, "If Shirakawa-san has any suggestions, you might as well say so."

"Mutual authorization!" Bai Chuanfeng didn't hesitate, and directly stated his proposal.

"Bai Chuan-san means mutual authorization on the chip? Is SIC also planning to enter the field of DRAM chips?"

Masaichi Sabo naturally thought of the DRAM chip business, which is currently the most profitable business of Toshiba's semiconductor division.

It is also in this field that Toshiba has its own chip technology patents, otherwise how can it authorize each other.

But if this is the case, then the opponent's ambition is not ordinary.

The current competition in the DRAM business is so fierce, and SIC dares to enter the market. Does this mean that it has full confidence in its own strength?

Unexpectedly, after hearing his question, Bai Chuanfeng shook his head, "SIC hopes to mutually authorize the flash memory business with Toshiba."

"Flash memory?" Sabo was bewildered, does Toshiba have such a business?

Different from his busyness, Wu Shi Xixing beside him suddenly changed his expression.

"May I ask, the flash memory Shirakawa-san mentioned is NOR-type flash memory with EPRTOM as the logic model?"

"Exactly." Bai Chuanfeng nodded, affirming his guess, "However, considering that flash memory is still in the theoretical stage, SIC can only make certain preferential promises in terms of chip architecture authorization."

Sabo's first reaction when he heard the conditions offered by Bai Chuanfeng was not to consider whether the conditions were suitable.

Instead, he turned around and asked Takeshi Xixing what happened to his own flash memory.

The latter quietly leaned over his head and began to answer in a low voice about the flash memory.

As Bai Chuanfeng said, this technology is still in the theoretical stage, and it was proposed and verified by an employee named Fujio Masuoka in the research institute.

NOR flash memory is different from DRAM memory. Flash memory is a semiconductor non-volatile memory in which stored data does not disappear even when the power is turned off.

This is somewhat similar to Intel's EEPRTOM (Erasable Programmable System Memory), although the latter has some obvious disadvantages.

For example, poor read and write performance, difficulty in improving integration, etc., and because of these shortcomings, it is difficult for EEPRTOM to become a large-capacity memory.

However, Fujio Masuoka put forward another idea, that is, "deliberately reduce performance".

In the original memory, erasing and writing data is carried out in units of bytes.

Then the flash memory packs the bytes into "small groups", that is, erases and writes in units of blocks.

In layman's terms, flash memory sacrifices fine-grained operations and changes to modular operations.

Although it seems that the performance is low, the working mode is simple and the storage capacity has also increased.

It's just embarrassing that although Fujio Masuoka's idea is good, Toshiba doesn't take it seriously at all.

Even after the evaluation of the semiconductor department, it never thought of investing money in flash memory.

Because of the general neglect of the leadership, Sabo Masaichi, the president, finally did not know the existence of flash memory.

In fact, the reason why Toshiba does not pay much attention to flash memory is not unrelated to the background of the times at this time.

Now it is the mid-80s, what is the most profitable business of Toshiba's semiconductor department? It's a DRAM chip!

At present, 64K memory chips Neon has occupied 58% of the global market share, and 256K chips have reached a terrifying 80%.

Among them, only Toshiba has won nearly one-third, and it is not an exaggeration to describe the profitability of DRAM with daily progress.

And this year's newly launched 1M DRAM, because the technology is a little ahead of Neon's counterparts.

In this part of the business, Toshiba dominates more than 60% of the global market.

According to internal statistics, currently only the DRAM storage business, Toshiba's daily profit is 200 million yen!

profit! every day! This is just the Semiconductor Division!

So with such a huge profit in hand, it is understandable that Toshiba does not pay attention to flash memory.

The same is true for Shoichi Sabo now. After listening to Takeishi Yoshiyuki explain the specific situation of flash memory, he also lacks interest in this new type of storage method.

A technology that is still in the theoretical stage, it is not known whether it is possible to realize it.

Instead of investing more R\u0026D funds to gamble on the future commercialization of flash memory, why not continue to make efforts on the track of DRAM?

After all, the profitability of DRAM has been proven, as long as it develops step by step, profits can be obtained almost by surprise.

As for storage, flash memory is somewhat redundant and full of uncertainty.

Saeki thought about it for a few seconds before answering, "Toshiba can negotiate with us about the flash memory, so the chip authorization fee for SIC...?"

"1%!" Bai Chuanfeng gave a very favorable licensing rate.

The authorization fee for normal chips ranges from 1% to 3%, and now he directly pays the lowest.

Even when Zobo opened his mouth to bargain, he unconsciously stopped halfway.

"Well, the authorization fee is still reasonable." Zuo Bo turned halfway and praised naturally.

"But SIC also has one condition." Before the other party nodded and agreed, Bai Chuanfeng also added naturally.

Is Bai Chuanfeng's advantage so easy to take advantage of? The reason for the low price is naturally the reason for the low price.

And hearing that there are still conditions, Sabo Masaichi was relieved for some reason.

Also, how can flash memory, a technology that currently has no commercial value, be exchanged for the architecture technology of processor chips.

Even if there are only discounts, the benefits are not equal. Fortunately, there are supplementary conditions, so there should be no traps in this transaction.

Tsk, if Bai Chuanfeng knew what Sabo was thinking. I will definitely sigh that Zopo Sander suffered from persecution paranoia is a bit serious, and it is time to take medicine.

"Please tell me what conditions Bai Chuan-san has." Saba Masakazu breathed a sigh of relief, and waited for Bai Chuanfeng to make another offer.

Since the other party said so, then Bai Chuanfeng is not polite.

"Because this technology is still at a theoretical basis, we need the support of SIC from Masuoka Fujio-san to perfect its verification."

This is not only wanting technology, but also wanting people.

"May I ask, which business does your company want to apply flash memory technology to?" Sabo Masaichi didn't answer first, but asked about the purpose of SIC's flash memory technology.

Bai Chuanfeng smiled at this, "It's not a secret, Bai Chuan Electric is currently developing a new game cartridge.

See if you can find a more effective storage method that supports game progress preservation. "

This is of course a cover, although DRAM does not support data storage after power failure. But the ROM is there, it's just a bit bigger.

But as long as there is a plausible reason, at least this is indeed a direction.

After hearing that Bai Chuanfeng wanted to use flash memory on the game cartridge, Sabo lost interest in an instant.

Compared with the global DRAM market, the shipment of game cartridges is not worth mentioning.

Since the market prospect is limited, the flash memory is not within Toshiba's consideration.

Besides, it is only authorized, and Toshiba still retains some of the original patents.

"In principle, Toshiba will not influence the personal choice of Fujio-san Masuoka, please understand by Shirakawa-san."

"Of course." Bai Chuanfeng nodded, knowing clearly.

This means that Toshiba will not prevent Fujio Masuoka from going or staying. As for whether he can poach people away, it depends on your ability.

To be honest, Fujio Masuoka is not popular at Toshiba, and many people even regard him as a burden.

He became a full-time employee of Toshiba after he completed a doctoral program in electronic engineering at the Engineering Department of Tohoku University in 1971.

After more than ten years, he first worked in the manufacturing department, and then was transferred to the marketing department.

But the sales performance was poor, and he was finally recalled to the R\u0026D department by Takeishi Xixing.

Takeishi Yoshiyuki is considered to be Fujio Masuoka's bole, but it's just a personal preference and can't influence the club's policies.

Fujio Masuoka's flash memory theory cost a lot of money, but achieved little.

After a few years, the leaders at the top have no objections, so that's strange.

At this time, when he heard that Bai Chuanfeng wanted to poach people, Takeshi Xixing, the director of the Semiconductor Research Institute, subconsciously objected.

But Sabo was waving his hands one by one, preventing him from speaking.

One is the promising processor chip, and the other is the unknown flash memory. Toshiba chose the former without hesitation.

Just like flash memory and DRAM, Toshiba chose the one with a bright future.