Riding the wind of rebirth

Market demand is an essential factor for the development of the chip industry. It is a money-burning industry; without substantial revenue, no amount of money will be enough to sustain the investment.

However, once a virtuous cycle is established, the revenue is astonishing, and the company can quickly gain strong capabilities to drive greater investment in new research projects.

Of course, the investment direction must be correct. Fortunately, with Zhou Zhi at the helm, it would be difficult for Hua Hong and Clover to make the wrong investment.

After Huahong absorbed Samsung's complete process equipment and software for chip design, tape-out, packaging, and production, Clover quickly developed its own EDC (Electronic Data Center) based on it, which signifies that China has caught up with international standards in chip design software.

Subsequently, Fujio Gegang and Guangnan Li were respectively responsible for the two directions of next-generation memory chips and nonlinear computing power cards. Relying on the underlying architecture accumulated by Clover and the new algorithm of Xiaomiao, they provided underlying chips for the huge computing power and storage matrix.

The powerful functions of the computing power matrix and storage matrix have attracted the interest of major research institutions, scientific research institutes and large financial institutions. With the launch of the graphical intelligent terminal system, it has become the first choice for various domestic systems using the COSTS architecture.

Today, Shanghai's Silicon Valley is thriving, with countless funds and technologies flowing through it every minute. The large-scale profitability has attracted a flood of capital, technology, and talent, forming an electronics industry base that is even more rapidly developing and larger than the Lujiazui Financial Center.

The Jinan Group and the Clover Five-Axis Linkage Machine Tool R&D Center are located here.

The reason for setting up the base here is part of Jinan Group's talent strategy. Jinan Group's Shenzhen base has basically gathered all the relevant talents in the southern security door lock industry. With Jinan Group's vigorous development of the domestic market, expansion into the north has become an issue, especially with the current development of biometric door locks and attendance systems, which are in greater demand by various large enterprises and institutions in the north.

There is an even bigger reason for placing the five-axis linkage machine tool center here: it seems that the five-axis linkage machining center itself is not a system mainly based on mechanical systems, but rather the key lies in the design software and control software.

Because China is currently pursuing a nonlinear surface workpiece design system, the design complexity of this system far exceeds that of all existing CAD systems. It requires the use of nonlinear CAD design on a nonlinear computing framework. Only in this way can the workpiece model "manufactured" by Xiaozhi through the nonlinear engineering fitting system be transferred to the CAD of the machining center to form a process model. Then, it is handed over to the linear simulation software to automatically generate a five-axis machining process file and a control flow instruction file, which is then input into the five-axis CNC machine tool, and the program completes the workpiece machining.

This process is very abstract. Taking the propeller of the ship research institute as an example, firstly, an initial model is designed, then a cavitation algorithm simulation is performed, and then the cavitation algorithm simulation is superimposed on the initial model to calculate the output parameters such as damage and noise caused by cavitation. After that, the instructions are given to the system so that Xiaozhi can optimize the parameters. Only the purpose is told to Xiaozhi, which is to have a three-dimensional model with the minimum cavitation and the lowest noise within a certain range of speed, load, thrust and other requirements. The rest is left to Xiaozhi to perform "engineering fitting". Through the nonlinear computing matrix, it can automatically select and optimize the optimal solution.

The final result may be a bizarre model beyond human imagination, something that cannot be manufactured using current human engineering capabilities.

At this point, the CAD work is complete. The next step is the engineering problem: how to manufacture the workpiece as accurately as possible using existing human processing capabilities. Even if it cannot be 100% identical, it can be fitted as closely as possible through linear decomposition.

As long as the fitting accuracy meets the precision requirements of the finished workpiece, from an engineering perspective, the workpiece can be considered to have been successfully machined. This design concept is a "dimensional reduction attack" on all current machine tools, allowing for the production of all sorts of incredible and extremely difficult-to-machine workpieces. However, the prerequisite is that the matching computing power equipment is a very large machine.

"Elbow, long time no see." Xu Anran was standing in front of a two-story white building in the research center, wearing a light blue shirt under a white lab coat, and now wearing black-rimmed glasses, looking every bit the refined manager of a research center: "You seem to have gotten quite a bit stronger!"

"I can't compare to you." Zhou Zhi took the opportunity of hugging his cousin to secretly pinch his arm and found that it was still as thick and strong as ever: "Your kung fu hasn't fallen behind at all."

Anran's cousin is a fitness enthusiast. Zhou Zhi once called him a "masochist," and it seems he still retains this habit.

Now that Jinan Group has a modern corporate management team, Anran's cousin is able to free up time to pursue his lifelong passion for research and invention.

However, current research and inventions have moved beyond the small-scale tinkering of anti-theft keys. Five-axis CNC machine tools, the true crown jewel of industry, have been reached and touched by a young worker who was still a dreamer five years ago.

"Xiao Miao!" After hugging Zhou Zhi, Cousin Anran hugged Mai Xiaomiao, his strong arms lifting the petite Mai Xiaomiao up and even spinning her around twice: "You're amazing! How did you even grow such a clever little head! You're amazing!"

"Hey! What are you doing?!" Spinning my cousin's wife around in circles—is that even appropriate?!
After putting Mai Xiaomiao down, Anran's cousin pushed Mai Xiaomiao's shoulder and examined her closely: "If you were walking down the street, you would never guess that such a delicate little girl like Xiaomiao would be the chief scientist of the Clover Group!"

Invention is mental work, requiring extensive professional knowledge, rich experience, and, most importantly, exceptional imagination.

Anran's cousin has an imagination that is among the best of inventors. Although his theoretical level is not very high, his excellent imagination makes up for this deficiency.

Once he had a professional team, he delegated the theoretical research to his subordinates and focused more on "functional" inventions that required a higher level of imagination, as well as team management.

After receiving the national mission, An Ran's cousin led his team directly from headquarters to Shanghai to begin research and development work on the mechanical components of a small five-axis CNC machine tool. (End of Chapter)