Siheyuan: I eat melons while doing scientific research

Chapter 1373 A Simple Path (4k)

"Director Gao, even with the vacuum-sealed hard drive we're currently researching, our positioning accuracy hasn't reached this level; it's still orders of magnitude behind," Director Gao reported on the hard drive's progress.

Mechanical servo systems cannot meet the precision requirements of high-density storage, and there was no urgent need for them before. This is why Gao Zhendong wasn't in a hurry to develop giant magnetoresistive materials. Even if something brings other marginal benefits, Gao Zhendong has no interest in things he can't use.

But now that there's a large demand, we can give it a try.

But it was just an attempt. Compared to other tasks, Gao Zhendong didn't intend to spend resources on this matter, because if all else failed, he could find a solution with the tapes, and there were many other more important things.

Gao Zhendong nodded to indicate that he understood. At this moment, a sudden idea struck him: "So this matter is actually very difficult for you. But I can find a way for you."

If the accuracy is this high, then a joint research group can be established, and we can also solve another problem along the way.

In the area of ​​precision mechanical motion, Factory 1201's capabilities are actually limited. Micrometer-level motion control is far beyond their current technological level. In fact, this is true not only for them, but for the whole world.

Therefore, it's not that Factory 1201 is afraid of difficulties or waiting for external assistance; rather, the actual situation has far exceeded their area of ​​expertise. If this were decades from now, it would be a matter for the supply chain to resolve, with the OEM only responsible for making the demands.

However, since there is no such excellent supply chain at present, the OEMs have no choice but to solve the problem themselves.

The peripherals research institute, which was completely baffled, had done its utmost, but still couldn't find a solution. Hearing Gao Zhendong say he could point them in the right direction filled them with joy.

This road may be difficult, but it's better than no road at all.

The Shu Road is difficult, more difficult than ascending to heaven, but the ancients still managed to make their way out of it.

Although Director Gao isn't permanently stationed at the external research institute, his role is irreplaceable. As for having him permanently stationed there, what a pipe dream!
"Director Gao, what technology will you use?"

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "Here's what we'll do. Go back to the ministry and tell them that you want to jointly develop this high-capacity driver with our Third Factory's Seventh Workshop. Once the formalities are completed, you can all come and find me together."

Workshop Seven has only one task—to produce lithography machines. It's also called the Lithography Machine Workshop, but to the outside world, only the name Workshop Seven is known.

"Workshop 7? Lithography machine? Oh, Chief Engineer Gao, are you planning to transfer the lithography machine technology to this laser storage drive?" Director Chi, as the director of the Computing Institute, knew the specific work of Workshop 7 and immediately felt that he was living a good life.

Gao Zhendong nodded and then shook his head: "Yes, but not exactly. It's not really a demotion. For both of you, this is actually a new challenge. It's more about integrating resources and achieving multiple benefits. However, they do have more experience in precision transmission and control than you, so they can play a good guiding role."

While current lithography machines can achieve automatic positioning, they actually do so by repeatedly adjusting the positioning marks on the mask and workpiece. This results in slightly lower positioning efficiency and less accurate positioning, and the process is currently stuck at around 3 micrometers with no significant progress.

Although this "lack of progress" is already very advanced compared to foreign countries, Gao Zhendong decided to further improve it, not just in terms of process linewidth.

After all, NMOS has emerged, so the door to CMOS technology is slowly opening. With CMOS, the current 3-micron process seems somewhat inadequate for this long-lived technology that has been used into the new century.

The supporting infrastructure needs upgrading! The process technology needs to be compressed to at least below 1 micrometer. Both CMOS technology and upgrading the lithography machine require time, but we need to start considering moving forward simultaneously.

Since optical drives need to achieve micron-level positioning accuracy and continuous positioning, why not combine the two approaches? If this technology can be realized, its performance parameters are sufficient for linewidth processes of this magnitude.

That's why he told Director Chi that it wasn't really a demotion, because even the lithography machine team needed to start from scratch. The experience in control could be used, but the technical principles were completely different, and at least the execution mechanism had changed entirely.

Gao Zhendong decided to use a small linear motor! That is, the original driving technology of the optical drive's laser head. It's definitely impossible to make a linear motor as small as the linear motors for future optical drives now, but it doesn't matter if it's a little bigger, as long as the disc isn't too big.

According to Gao Zhendong, the positioning accuracy of this technology can be developed to a limit of about 0.1 micrometers, but now it is not necessary to be that high, and it is estimated that it cannot be developed to that level.

Another reason Gao Zhendong decided to adopt this technology is that it doesn't require too many resources.

This doesn't mean the research is free, but rather that Gao Zhendong doesn't need to invest much in his own system.

He had come into contact with this technology when he was working under his mentor in his previous life, and even did some research on it in order to use it well. This research wasn't very in-depth, but it was enough to guide the technology to take root and flourish in China.

"Thank you so much, Chief Engineer Gao!" Director Chi said happily.

Chief Engineer Gao has even mobilized his most trusted troops to participate in this grand undertaking, demonstrating an immense level of support. This is how trusted troops should be used – their best resources should be used where they are most needed, rather than sending non-trusted troops to serve as cannon fodder every day.

Director Gao was overjoyed. It was like writing; Director Gao had solved the problem of the pen for reading and writing, but having a pen alone was not enough. One also needed to develop good calligraphy skills. Director Gao had also come up with a solution for this calligraphy problem and pointed out the way forward.

"Director Gao, we'll go back and submit a report to the ministry right away!"

Gao Zhendong nodded and smiled, "You can go first, but Director Chi has to stay. I happen to need to talk to him."

It's better to arrive at the right time than to arrive early. Since we're already here, we might as well get the supercomputer project sorted out, or at least get some of it done.

Director Chi looked up. Hmm? Another surprise?
See? You really need to move around more!
If it weren't for the high barrier to entry for Chief Engineer Gao, he wouldn't think making eight trips a day would be too much.

"Alright, alright! Director Gao, you go first, you go first." Director Chi started to shoo him away without saying a word, "This is none of your business, don't waste my time."

"Director Chi, you're really pragmatic." Director Gao didn't seem to mind, laughing as he packed his things and left.

After Director Gao led the 1201 team out, Director Chi turned around and asked, "Chief Engineer Gao, what good things are you going to do for me?"

At this moment, his eyes were burning with intensity, just like the two other colleagues from the computational institute beside him.

Gao Zhendong laughed and said, "A big job! A supercomputer!"

"A supercomputer?" Like the leaders of the National Defense Commission, the comrades at the Institute of Computing Technology thought this computer was probably superpowerful.

Gao Zhendong nodded, took out a portion of his prepared plan, mainly explaining the concepts and applications of supercomputers, and explained it to his colleagues. Director Chi and the entire Institute of Computing Technology were immediately filled with excitement!

We have to participate! We have to get involved in this kind of thing, no matter the cost! Putting aside any potential benefits, as a computer professional, you'd regret it for the rest of your life if you didn't participate in something this important!

It's often said that the Olympic pursuit is to be higher, faster, and stronger, and the same applies to other fields. On the contrary, the Olympics themselves, after the 20s, became less pure, mixed with many other inexplicable elements, or perhaps they were always mixed, but were more pronounced then.

"Chief Engineer Gao, just tell us, what can we do?! If you say go east, we'll never go west; if you say chase the dog, we'll never catch the chicken." Director Chi thumped his chest loudly!

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "Given the current situation, I'm planning to entrust the implementation of one of the routes to you. Are you interested?"

"Yes, absolutely! You're not joking, are you... wait..."

Director Chi was initially all smiles, then suddenly realized something. Wait, what did Chief Engineer Gao just say? One of the points?
Although one of them and the one by the roadside are both the same, they are vastly different!
"Chief Engineer Gao, what do you mean by 'one of the points'?" Although he had some guesses, Director Chi simply couldn't believe it.

You actually have more than one way to implement something this big, and you're even planning to put it into practice directly?
It's important to understand that being able to implement it directly is different from early theoretical research on pathways.

In the early stages, it's not surprising that there are many routes. This is a time when everyone's imaginations are running wild and all sorts of ideas are flourishing. They're still competing on feasibility. Let alone a few routes, you could easily come up with dozens if you're just bragging.

However, the fact that there are still many in the implementation stage indicates that the theory and basic technology have basically taken shape, and some have even come to fruition, which is quite amazing.

Before this, there had never been any rumors. Considering Chief Engineer Gao's past experience, there was only one possibility—that Chief Engineer Gao had already completed research on at least two supercomputer routes by himself, and was now simply recruiting talent.

This is inhuman!
Gao Zhendong was unaware of the many thoughts running through his mind, and simply nodded, saying, "Yes, we're preparing to take at least two paths. Your path is the easier one, but also the one that will yield results faster."

It’s true!!!!

Shocked, Director Chi was caught in a slight dilemma.

"Chief Engineer Gao, that difficult route, could you...?"

Quick results are certainly desirable, but something that's too easy seems a bit lacking, so he couldn't help but want to reach out a little further.

Gao Zhendong laughed heartily: "The difficult one also requires your help, but that requires many units to work together. I'll have to think about the specifics before we can discuss it further. As for the one I'm talking about now, you already have a foundation."

It's all for the sake of work, Director Chi's greed is not shameful at all.

Gao Zhendong's words made Director Chi very proud: "We are also a core unit!"
"Chief Engineer Gao, what should we do now?" Chief Engineer Gao said that as long as there were still steamed buns to eat, Director Chi, who was no longer dwelling on the matter, started to care about the steamed buns that he had already obtained.

Gao Zhendong laughed and said, "We'll build a cluster!"

Clustering is the first high-computing-power architecture that Gao Zhendong plans to implement.

Simply put, it involves connecting many high-performance computers with hardware and software, so that they can work together to achieve high-performance computing.

In essence, regardless of the path taken, the underlying principle remains the same, even for multi-core CPUs. The only differences lie in the level of connection and the technology used, leading to varying effects and external manifestations.

This approach places demands on the performance of the individual computers forming the cluster; otherwise, all that performance will be wasted on cluster overhead.

This explains why Gao Zhendong waited until the C6132N, a weakened version of the 80386, appeared before considering clusters. The core technology of clusters, distributed computing, originated in Gao Zhendong's previous life's timeline, roughly contemporaneous with the 80386, and there's a reason for that. Demand spurred development, technology provided the necessary support, and thus, clusters began to evolve.

Incidentally, the core of almost all the cutting-edge IT technologies of the new century can actually be found in the 20th century; the only difference is the name that was changed by the internet giants.

The most difficult part of clustering is the cluster software. As for hardware connections, the LAN card that Gao Zhendong developed, which is already being promoted and used, and which is being further developed by his colleagues, is no joke. It's perfectly suited for clusters these days.

With standalone computing power and communication networks in place, only one question remains for cluster technology.

— Cluster software.

Isn't that a coincidence? No, that's exactly what the Institute of Computing does.

What the institute lacks now is theory.

Even more coincidentally, distributed computing was Gao Zhendong's fundamental professional course in his previous life. As someone who could coast along with his supervisor during his undergraduate studies, he was incredibly adept at distributed computing.

With the system's enhancement, he was able to memorize the entire book almost perfectly.

Gao Zhendong gave Director Chi a general overview of cluster and distributed computing, which made Director Chi's eyes light up.

It has to be Chief Engineer Gao; his thinking is truly insightful.

"Chief Engineer Gao, you've brought the light of collectivism to computers! Brilliant, truly brilliant!" It has to be said that work really does hone a person's skills. After Chief Engineer Chi became Director Chi, his political theory level has been visibly enhanced.

This was a unique perspective, but it also revealed the essence of the matter, leaving Gao Zhendong momentarily at a loss for words.

After a moment's hesitation, Gao Zhendong laughed, "Director Chi's theoretical level is excellent!" It's all about mutual flattery; what are we waiting for? It's much better than hurting each other.

Don't underestimate mutual flattery; it's a crucial lubricant and adhesive in any team. However, it's best to have the ability to deserve such flattery.

Director Chi paused for a moment, then remembered the important matter: "Hey, Chief Engineer Gao, when it comes to theory, we are still relatively weak in this area and need to work harder."

(End of this chapter)