Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 197 The Real Backup Plan

In the general manager's office of Zhiyun Microelectronics.

Xu Shenxue was sitting on the sofa, and sitting opposite him was Professor Wu Deyi, the chief technology officer of Zhiyun Microelectronics and also the chief engineer of advanced process technology.

Ding Chengjun, general manager of Zhiyun Microelectronics, was making tea nearby.

Xu Shenxue took a sip of tea, then put down the cup and said, "Now that we have developed this 45-nanometer process, we must make good use of it. We must speed up the expansion of production capacity and strive to meet the needs of the group next year!"

"More importantly, we need to develop the next generation of advanced manufacturing processes, 32 nanometers, which is a very critical process!"

"Zhiyun Semiconductor is developing the S300 series chips using this process. You should also speed up the development of microelectronics. You can't relax the research and development of the -nanometer process and the subsequent -nanometer process just because you have developed the -nanometer process!"

"I am also counting on our own S300 chip to be taped out in our own chip factory next year!"

At this time, Ding Chengjun poured more tea for Xu Shenxue and said, "Don't worry, President Xu. We have never stopped our R&D projects in microelectronics. While we were working on the 45-nanometer process, we also started the R&D of the 32-nanometer process, and we have achieved some results. Not only the 32-nanometer process, but we have also carried out preliminary R&D work on the 28-nanometer process."

"Now that the 45-nanometer process has been solved, the next step is to put all our efforts into the research and development of the 32-nanometer process. However, I don't understand the specific technical matters, so Professor Wu will have to explain this to you!"

Professor Wu Deyi continued: "The difficulty of the 32-nanometer process is still quite high. It is currently the most advanced process technology and requires the use of a series of new technologies."

"However, we have also accumulated a lot of technology and experience in the 45-nanometer process, and more importantly, we have trained our technical team. Therefore, although the 32-nanometer process is more difficult, I am still confident in it!"

Wu Deyi also smiled and said, "I feel that the state in recent months has been very good, and the R&D efficiency of the engineers in the core team below is also very high. I dare not say big words, but if we give our team a year, we will probably be able to come up with it. Of course, it's hard to say about the yield rate!"

"Because a lot of things have to be made and tested before we know if they work!"

Xu Shenxue said: "Do your best. The group will give priority to meeting your needs, whether it is funding or talent!"

"The current chip development speed is too fast, time is running out!"

Ding Chengjun at the side also sighed: "Yes, in recent years, the development of the field of mobile phone SOC chips is indeed too fast. In the past few years, the mainstream process was still 1 nanometers. The 7200A chip used in the C9 and the 8X50 chip used in the S mobile phone later are both nanometer processes."

"At that time, we were still thinking about solving the 65-nanometer process!"

"As a result, within a few months, the design of mobile phone SOC chips has been concentrated on the 45-nanometer area!"

"We are forced to start working on 45 nanometer technology again!"

Xu Shenxue, the helmsman of Zhiyun Technology, has a deep understanding of this. When the company first started making mobile phones, the 10-nanometer process was already considered an advanced process. However, within a year, when Zhiyun Technology was making the S3 and C mobile phones, it had already begun to fully adopt -nanometer process chips.

Typical examples include the Qualcomm MSM10X8 chip used in the S55 mobile phone and the OMAP36 series chips on Texas Instruments.

There is also the A4 chip used by Fruit 4.

There is also the S100 series single-core chip developed by Zhiyun Semiconductor used in the Little Blue, Little Blue M, and Little Blue T series under Weiku Electronics this year.

All of the above are single-core chips using a 45nm process.

Not only has the chip manufacturing process become more advanced, but it is also developing towards dual-core.

Starting this year, various manufacturers have launched and adopted dual-core chips using 45nm process.

智云科技旗下的C4所采用的德州仪器的OMAP4430，S11所采用的高通MSM8X60系列的专供升级版MSM9200，德州仪器的OMAP4460升级专供版OMAP4600。

此外还有智云科技在五月份刚流片成功，预计使用在A11手机上的S200芯片以及正在研发的后续S201/S202等一系列S200芯片。

In addition to these, there are also four-star self-developed chips, Apple has released the A5 chip installed on the second generation of iPad, and there are also some other manufacturers, such as Nvidia's mobile phone SOC
These chips are all 45-nanometer dual-core chips, representing the contemporary first-class chip design and manufacturing standards.

In this wave of rapid development of mobile phone SOC chips, Zhiyun Technology, as a latecomer, is actually having a hard time catching up.

It takes time to build a team in the field of chip design, and it also takes time to create the initial intelligent core architecture. By the time the team is built and the core architecture of the intelligent core is ready, an S100 is finally produced... However, when this chip entered the mass production stage, it was already at least two years behind the mainstream technology level.

So they continued to upgrade without stopping and came up with the S1 with a main frequency of 101GHZ... But it was still not enough and was still far behind, so it could only be used by Weiku Electronics in mid- and low-end mobile phones.

Then they continued to focus on research and development, and this spring they finally came up with the S1.5 with a main frequency of 103GHZ... To some extent, this thing has caught up with Qualcomm and Texas Instruments in the field of single-core chips... But the problem is that these two companies, and even Zhiyun itself, have already begun to turn to the development of dual-core chips.

Therefore, this powerful S013 single-core chip was born at the wrong time, and finally did not even qualify for the C series mobile phones under Shangzhiyun Technology, and could only be used in the Little Blue MAX3 under Weiku Electronics.

This is really exaggerated, because there is only a one-year gap between the performance of the Bluemax3, which costs just over two thousand yuan, and the single-core 10GHZ chip on the S1.5 phone that was released last year... If you put this in the eyes of an outsider, it is probably difficult to understand.

But in the mobile phone industry, this has become a normal thing.

Because this year, even for mid-range and high-end mobile phones like the C4, Zhiyun Technology is already preparing to use customized mid-range dual-core chips from Texas Instruments and Qualcomm.

The flagship S11 will be equipped with a dual-core 1.6GHZ top-level chip.

The next most advanced A11 is going to use the self-developed S200, a dual-core 1.2GHZ chip.

The above are all Zhiyun’s own products. At the same time, other mobile phone manufacturers will also intensively release various mid-to-high-end mobile phones equipped with dual-core chips this year.

This is just this year...by next year it will be even more exaggerated, with the technology heading for 32 nanometers.

At the same time, some SOC chip manufacturers are aiming for four CPU cores, such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.

However, Zhiyun has different ideas in this regard. Although the new flagship chip S300 series adopts a -nanometer process, it still uses a dual-core CPU.

This is because Zhiyun's Yun OS system is quite special. It does not consider the so-called multi-tasking attributes much, but pays more attention to the smoothness of the current page... Therefore, Yun OS's mechanism of forced killing of background processes directly avoids the so-called multi-tasking requirements.

Compared with the multi-core multitasking requirements, Zhiyun mobile phones need more powerful single-core performance and stronger graphics processing performance. Therefore, although the S300 series chips only have dual-core CPUs, in fact, the design specifications of this CPU are very high.

It also has a quad-core GPU that is rarely seen in other mobile phone chips...

These four GPU cores will bring unparalleled graphics processing capabilities to the S300 series chips. Coupled with the high-end screen that Zhiyun's flagship phones have always insisted on, its picture performance capabilities are expected to be directly raised to a level that other mobile phones cannot even look up to.

This kind of picture capability not only makes the phone more pleasing to the eye and more comfortable to watch videos in daily use, but it is also great for playing games...

Previously, Zhiyun’s S series of mobile phones were the ceiling for mobile phone gaming, and this tradition will continue next year, further widening the gap in gaming performance with other mobile phones.

Zhiyun attaches great importance to the S300 series chips that will be launched on the market next year, and even has high expectations for them.

Because this will be the first time that the company's flagship mobile phone will truly use its own flagship-level chip... In fact, the name of self-developed is not important. What is important is that this chip is developed entirely for its own mobile phone, integrating a large number of special function cores, which can better bring out the unique high performance of Zhiyun mobile phones.

The S300 series chips have two main frequency specifications: 1.5GHZ and 1.8GHZ. The 1.5GHZ version is expected to be used in the A series of mid-range mobile phones, while the 1.8GHZ version is expected to be used in the S series of high-end phones.

If nothing unexpected happens, 1.8GHZ will be the chip with the highest main frequency in mobile phone SOC...even if it is the worst, it will still be one of them.

Four high-performance GPU cores, plus a large number of functional cores, co-processing cores, etc.

Such a chip will perfectly bring out the high performance and some exclusive functions of Zhiyun mobile phone!

This first powerful mobile phone SOC chip has very high requirements for the manufacturing process and needs to be processed using a 32-nanometer process.

But as for the 32-nanometer process, currently only a few chip factories can achieve it.

Zhiyun Microelectronics is still a little bit behind. Although the 32-nanometer process is just an upgraded version of the 45-nanometer process and there are not too many technical barriers, it is still difficult to overcome it.

It is hard to say whether Zhiyun Microelectronics can complete the task successfully.

Therefore, while Xu Shenxue gave confidence to Wu Deyi's team, he would also ask Zhiyun Semiconductor to prepare a backup plan. This chip will still be manufactured by TSMC and UMC.

From a practical point of view, Zhiyun Microelectronics is actually the real backup solution!
----

After chatting with Ding Chengjun and Wu Deyi for a long time, Xu Shenxue left Zhiyun Microelectronics.

Before leaving Zhiyun Microelectronics, I specifically asked the finance department to arrange bonuses for the R&D team, which will be paid directly along with half a month's salary next month.

In this core R&D team of only dozens of people, even those who received smaller bonuses received hundreds of thousands, and some even received millions.

Although this bonus seems to be a lot, it is actually insignificant compared to Zhiyun Microelectronics' huge investment cost and subsequent profits.

In order to develop the 45-nanometer process, Zhiyun Microelectronics placed orders for a large number of equipment, built multiple wafer fabs, and acquired Jiangcheng Semiconductor, which has a 12-inch wafer fab.

These investments are often tens of billions or even hundreds of billions.

These days, an AMSL DUV immersion lithography machine costs tens of millions of dollars, and Zhiyun Microelectronics places orders for dozens of them.

Various advanced equipment in other types of chip production lines are also extremely expensive.

Zhiyun's 2+2 wafer factory project in Shenzhen is expected to have a total investment of several billion US dollars.

These huge investments in hardware mean costs... If the construction is delayed by one day, the loss of equipment costs will be hundreds of millions.

If we can complete the 45-nanometer process one day earlier and put these advanced top-level production lines into use, we can earn hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

This is also the reason why Zhiyun Microelectronics Company offers almost maximum compensation to its R&D personnel, especially those in the new process technology R&D team.

Not only is the regular salary double that of domestic peers in the market, but the various bonuses are also very large. Once a major project is completed, the bonuses can be very generous.

Because... even if so much bonus is given out, it is just a drop in the bucket compared to the huge hardware investment.

Zhiyun Microelectronics would rather pay out tens of millions in bonuses to get the 45-nanometer production line up a few months earlier!

Because once it starts running...it's a money printing machine!

Even though the 45-nanometer process production line these days is no longer the top 32-nanometer process, it is still a first-class advanced process and is very profitable.

It can be simply compared to the five-nanometer process of the next 24 years. Although there is a more advanced three-nanometer process, the five-nanometer process is still one of the top processes and is the main revenue-generating process for chip foundries.

This is even more true for Zhiyun Microelectronics. Not to mention external orders, there are already a lot of 100-nanometer chip orders within the group alone. The orders for the S200 series and S series are so large that Zhiyun Microelectronics cannot meet them at all.

So you can imagine how popular the current 45-nanometer process is.

-

After leaving Zhiyun Microelectronics, Xu Shenxue did not return to the company headquarters, but went to Beijing to attend a closed-door symposium on the development of 4G networks.

There were actually very few companies participating in the symposium, including the three major operators, Huawei and Zhongxing, which provide base station equipment... and Zhiyun Technology, a global leader in the mobile terminal field.

And this... is actually enough.

Although the promotion and development of 4G networks is a big deal, in fact, only a few core companies play a key role.

Zhiyun is also one of the core enterprises i!

(End of this chapter)