Reborn since 1993

Chapter 536 Polishing
On the experimental table, there was a chip lying quietly. Everyone who entered the laboratory wearing dust-proof suits focused their eyes on the chip.

When Wu Xinyi saw the Tianji chip, he was filled with emotion. Only those who have joined the Tianji chip project will know how much Doxin Semiconductor paid for this chip!
Last year, Doxin Semiconductor's revenue was close to more than 300 million US dollars, which sounds like a lot, but in the end it turned out to be a loss, and it had to be subsidized by Dongling Hi-Tech headquarters!
If Dongxin had not developed computer chips, lithography machines and other projects, it would probably have been profitable since its first year.

Relying on supplying cow dung chips for electronic pet machines, chips, motherboards and other components for products such as Shenzhou digital cordless phones, Feiyan mini radios, and Xiaolingtong, Dongxin is living a very comfortable life, with a staggering profit of 40%, which is second only to Intel and Toshiba in the chip industry.

But maintaining a computer chip R&D team is not as simple as just hiring a few engineers. The R&D teams of Ni Guangnan and Huang Lingyi now have nearly four to five hundred R&D personnel. The minimum monthly salary of these R&D personnel is more than two thousand yuan, and the basic salary of senior engineers is over ten thousand yuan.

Just the salary payment for the Tianji chip R&D personnel within Dongxin Company is over several million per month. Dongxin Semiconductor has supported this team for more than two years, almost three years.

Of course, it is also possible to recruit low-paid chip engineers, but those junior engineers who have just graduated can only do miscellaneous work. It will take several years to train them, and they cannot be relied upon in the short term.

In addition, there are also R&D teams cooperating with Doxin, including the Han-Xi Joint Laboratory, Han-Xi Jiaotong University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Yenching University, and more than 20 electronic research institutes and semiconductor research institutes, which are providing technical support for the Tianji chip project. These partners also have to be maintained by money.

This is just the salary investment. In fact, it is not even the bulk of the chip investment. The rest includes experimental equipment and materials that are created from scratch. It is impossible to create them out of thin air. It requires purchasing and making research and development equipment at home and abroad.

There are also technical data purchased from abroad, etc., which all cost money. Nominally, the R&D expenses invested by Doxin Semiconductor in the Tianji chip are only 300 million yuan, but this is only the R&D expenses. If all the expenses are counted, the funding for this Tianji chip has almost quadrupled or five times.

"The Tianji chip is a 120MHz processor that uses the MIPS architecture and a 600-nanometer chip process. The core consists of 320 million transistors and has floating-point computing capabilities. The operating voltage is 3.3V and it supports computer voice, sound, images, pictures, handwriting and other functions!"

As the chief engineer of Tianji chip, Ni Guangnan introduced the process and performance of Tianji chip. He was already familiar with these data.

"How does it compare to Intel's chips?"

Wu Yaoguo, Li Weimin, Zhou Shuyang and other laymen have no specific idea about the Tianji chip data mentioned by Ni Guangnan, but what they care most about is how its performance compares with Tel's chip.

After all, most domestic computers now use Intel chips, especially high-end computer models, which use chips from brands such as AMD, Toshiba, Hitachi, and NEC, which can only be regarded as "inferior" processors.

Of course, even if it is a generic processor, China cannot develop it. Although it is better to buy than to make, just like Dongxin, which has spent such a huge cost to develop it, it is much more expensive than buying chips, but there are no domestic computer chips!

"This……"

Ni Guangnan looked somewhat embarrassed. Although he was reluctant to admit it, he knew how big the gap was between the Tianji chip and Intel's latest chip based on the current paper data. It was almost a generation gap.

"If the performance of the Tianji chip can meet the standards, it should be similar to the first generation of Pentium chips released by Intel three years ago, or even better!"

At this time, a voice came from the crowd and said, Lin Qijian looked carefully at the Tianji chip in front of him. As a veteran in the industry, he knew the performance of this chip after hearing the paper data of Tianji.

Of course, data on paper is just data on paper. It is estimated that the performance will be reduced when running on a computer. Otherwise, there would not be the classic saying that one core is in trouble, and eight cores are waiting to see it. Ordinary non-professional users probably cannot push the chip to its limit and experience the difference.

When Intel released the first generation of Pentium 586 chips, it encountered many problems and even had to recall a batch of processors.

As a latecomer, three years after the first generation of Pentium, Tianji's performance is theoretically better than the first generation of Pentium. "It's only equivalent to the performance of Intel chips three years ago?"

When they heard about the performance of the Tianji chip, Zhou Shuyang and other provincial government office staff were obviously disappointed.

Li Weimin was not disappointed, as he knew some intricacies of the chip industry. “But chip manufacturers like Intel will never supply the latest chip models to China!

Most computers in China are still equipped with 386 chips. The 486 chip only entered the country last year. The first generation of Pentium 586 processors is now exclusively supplied by Intel to Lenovo's high-end computer models in China.

As for Intel's latest Pentium 2nd generation processor, it will not be supplied to China at all. If Tianji can be sold, it will become the most advanced computer chip in China!"

Hearing Li Weimin's words, Zhou Shuyang, Wu Yaoguo and others couldn't help but show joy on their faces. In today's China, the Tianji chip is actually considered an advanced processor.

But afterwards, several people couldn't help but curse Intel, saying it was a piece of shit. It actually used products from three years ago to fool domestic computer users and used expired junk to cheat domestic users.

But this is the current situation in the technology industry. Foreign technology companies treat China as a dumping ground, selling low-quality products at high prices, just like the big brothers and mobile phones before. Foreign countries will ship two or three years of inventory to China and sell it at high prices. Not only to clear the inventory, but the selling prices are even higher than those abroad.

The domestic mobile phone industry changed only after Dongling Hi-Tech launched the Xiaolingtong. Before that, mobile phone manufacturers such as Nokia and Motorola were unwilling to develop even Chinese operating interfaces, forcing Chinese people to use English interfaces. This shows the attitude of foreign technology companies towards domestic users.

After the emergence of Xiaolingtong, the prices of the domestic mobile phone industry were lowered, and the Chinese operating interface was also introduced first. Now mobile phone manufacturers such as Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson no longer dare to clear their inventories at high prices in China. If they continue to do so, their mobile phone sales in China will collapse.

The same routine applies to the computer industry. Whether it is the major computer brands or component suppliers such as Intel, none of them take domestic users too seriously. They basically sell products from one or two years ago in the domestic market, which is equivalent to clearing inventory. The latest models of products are not sold in the domestic market at all.

However, if Tianji is really put on sale, chip manufacturers such as Intel, AMD, and Toshiba will probably change their attitudes immediately and start selling the latest models of chips in the domestic market overnight, and will not give Dongxin a chance to develop!

Li Dongling glanced at Lin Qijian, who stepped forward, picked up the Tianji chip wearing gloves, and observed it carefully for a while. Based on his experience, he was sure that this chip was not a chip bought from Intel or something like that, and then he installed it into the motherboard and put it into the case.

As a veteran in the industry, if he failed in the chip business and was fooled by someone using fake chips, Lin Qijian would really have no place to put his face.

Seeing this, Li Dongling's last trace of worry also disappeared. He was not doubting the Tianji R&D team, but he had to confirm it first. In the past life, there were many examples of domestic chips capsizing in the gutter. Li Dongling did not want Dongxin to be the capsized ship. The loss of funds was one aspect, and the key was that Dongxin would never be able to hold its head up in this life!

Nowadays, there is no chip benchmarking software, so you can only rely on your own experience, which mainly depends on experience and length of use. Only after a long period of testing can you know where the problem is and then perform maintenance and upgrades.

"The chip is quite well-made and its performance should be better than the first generation Pentium processor, but it still needs to be polished!"

After using it for a while, Lin Qijian gave his answer. Coming from the mouth of a veteran in the industry, one can basically see the quality of Tianji.

(End of this chapter)