Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 287 -nanometer trial production
The successful recovery of a Type 5B rocket at sea has once again sparked widespread discussion around the world on reusable rockets, especially in the technology community, where not talking about reusable rockets seems like being out of date.

At the same time, after Nanmen Aerospace successfully implemented this technology, it also brought a new round of changes to commercial aerospace.

Because not long after, Nanmen Aerospace issued an announcement that it would make a new round of adjustments to the commercial launch quotation of the No. 5 rocket, and the price reduction is expected to reach more than 15%.

This shocked many people!
Nanmen Aerospace’s commercial launches already have a huge price advantage, and now the prices are continuing to drop... This cost control is simply incredible.

Of course, most people working in aerospace agencies are just shocked, but if you want them to change, especially to do the same crazy thing as those crazy people in Nanmen Aerospace, it is absolutely impossible.

Because the reusable rocket has been successful and the cost has been greatly reduced, the beneficiaries are the funding agencies, and it has nothing to do with these practitioners... and there will be no salary increase.

But if I fail...it will be related to them, and I will lose my job.

SO, although Nanmen Aerospace has developed reusable rockets for two years, apart from Musk's space exploration company and some commercial aerospace companies that are raising money, no serious aerospace agency has paid any attention to it.

Even if they do respond, they will just pretend to do it slowly as a reason to ask for more funding. As for when it will succeed...only God knows.

Anyway, don't expect them to do experiments like South Gate Aerospace or Space Exploration Corporation and then blow up a rocket at any time.

This is the huge difference between traditional space agencies and commercial space agencies.

Nanmen Aerospace did not care about the chaotic reactions from the outside world. After the successful recovery at sea, its marketing staff began to contact existing and potential customers to vigorously promote Nanmen Aerospace's new commercial launch model.

Price reduction, price reduction across the board!
There is no lowest price, only lower prices.

Order now and enjoy a 5% discount.

At the same time, a series of supporting satellite control facilities and services are provided, all at a 10% discount.

Even if the customer lacks the ability to develop satellite technology on their own, Nanmen Aerospace can find Zhiyun Satellite to design and build the satellite according to the customer's technical requirements.

Nanmen Aerospace and Zhiyun Satellite are companies with cross-shareholdings. Zhiyun Satellite also has several public satellite designs. As long as you don't mind, you can directly apply the public design and get your own exclusive satellite in a few months, and then launch it through a Nanmen Aerospace launch rocket.

If the whole process is completed quickly, it will only take about three months, and the main feature is the fast pace.

If you hesitate for a few more months, your competitor next door will have already put a satellite into the sky and it has been flying for a month.

My friend, time is money!

----

Nanmen Aerospace's marketing specialists are now looking for orders all over the world and urging customers to place orders.

The effect is quite significant. After careful comparison, many customers feel that it is very cost-effective and they would feel at a disadvantage if they do not place an order.

After this wave of price cuts, there is no need to worry that Nanmen Aerospace will not make money. On the contrary... although the quotation is slightly lower, the profit of a single rocket is higher.

Because Nanmen Aerospace’s launch costs are also lower.

Compared with the land recovery mode, the sea recovery mode is more expensive, and there are also some additional sea recovery costs, but the carrying capacity has been greatly improved. On average, the launch cost per kilogram has dropped a lot.

The launch quotation of Nanmen Aerospace has the traditional package rocket price, which means that the customer directly purchases a launch service. The payload of this rocket is yours, and you can arrange it however you like.

As long as you pay enough money, for example, 80 million US dollars, Nanmen Aerospace can arrange a first-hand rocket for you for one-time use, that is, a non-recycling model.

If the money is less, say 60 million U.S. dollars, you can be given a second-hand rocket for one-time use.

If it is recycling mode, it is even cheaper!
Of course, this price is just the published price, and it will not be different if the specific price is negotiated.

Then Nanmen Aerospace also provides a group-buying model, launching the satellites of customer A and customer B together, and then charging according to their respective weights.

Finally, there is a contracting model where the customer directly gives you a satellite and then pays you a certain launch fee.

As for how you, Nanmen Aerospace, get it into space, the customer doesn’t care.

Even if Nanmen Aerospace can come up with an offshore recovery model and also group orders, and finally send the satellite into space at a very low cost, the customers will still give you so much money.

Even if you foolishly use a disposable No. 5 rocket to send the satellite into space at a loss, it won't care.

In order to obtain orders, Nanmen Aerospace is actually quite flexible in its operating model, and it is up to the company to decide how much to spend or how little to spend.

But no matter what, it is cheaper than the launch services of a large number of traditional space agencies, and much cheaper.

The emergence of Nanmen Aerospace, which provides cheap launch services and supporting services for various types of satellites, all based on a commercial model, has had a huge impact on the market.

Satellite operators have found that their costs have dropped significantly and they can now expand on a larger scale.

Some large companies suddenly discovered that these high-end satellites were not so high-end after all, and they thought they could also build a satellite to play with.

----

While Nanmen Aerospace's marketing specialists were running around the world to solicit orders, Xu Shenxue had quietly left Qiongzhou Island and returned to Shenzhen with his wife and children.

For Xu Shenxue, Nanmen Aerospace is a layout for future technology and also a personal interest and hobby. However, it cannot be considered a big career at this stage.

After satisfying his personal interests and hobbies, Xu Shenxue returned to Shenzhen and began to focus on his core businesses.

On the third day after returning to Shenzhen, Xu Shenxue saw the prototype of the new generation S14 mobile phone and a small chip the size of a fingernail next to it in the laboratory: S503.

Fu Zhengyang from Zhiyun Semiconductor said: "Mr. Xu, this is the S503 chip that we just taped out successfully!"

"After Zhiyun Microelectronics' Plant 17 passed the 18-nanometer process technology certification some time ago, we began to cooperate with them in subsequent trial production tests and yield improvement."

"After all, the only chips in the company that are designed using the 500-nanometer process are our S series chips."

"The design cost of the current 500-nanometer process has increased significantly compared to the previous -nanometer process, and the manufacturing cost is also higher. For cost control reasons, Zhiyun Microelectronics' -nanometer process production capacity is limited. Currently, we only make S series chips for the group's flagship products."

"The W800 chip supplied to Weiku Electronics and other friendly companies is still under design and is expected to be put into mass production and launched on the market next year."

"It's not just us. Some of our competitors don't have any advanced process products at the moment. TSMC's 8-nanometer process chip is still only the Apple A chip, and Qualcomm's new generation of -nanometer process flagship chip is expected to go into mass production next year."

"We estimate that the mainstream chips this year and next year will still be made using the 28-nanometer process, and even the year after that some low-end and mid-range mobile phones will continue to use chips made using the 28-nanometer process."

"Our flagship chip S500 series currently has three versions, namely S503 for the S series flagship phones, and some inferior products are locked and finalized as S502 for the A series."

"Finally, there is another S504 that is expected to be supplied to tablets early next year and to other smart terminals in the future."

"Many of our smart terminal products require chips, but our S400 series and S300 series did not have versions without communication basebands. We could only use some defective chips with missing communication basebands. Sometimes, when there were not enough defective chips, we had to use intact chips with the communication baseband and other core functions blocked, which caused great waste and increased costs."

"Many smart terminal project teams in the group, especially the tablet computer department, have been calling for a baseband-free version of the chip. Therefore, in this year's new chip, we designed a version without a communication baseband. In addition to supplying tablet computers next year, it can also be used as a chip for smart TVs or other smart terminals in the next few years."

"Because the S504 does not have a wireless baseband, the 4G version of next year's tablet computer products will need to be equipped with our B41 baseband."

B41 communication baseband is an external full-network baseband that Zhiyun Semiconductor launched to the market this year. Originally, Zhiyun Group did not intend to develop an external baseband, but directly forced other mobile phone manufacturers to directly purchase their SOC.

It has also been accused of monopolistic behavior... Zhiyun never responds directly to accusations of monopoly.

After all, among the global manufacturers, only Zhiyun Group could provide full-network baseband, and because Zhiyun controlled a number of patents, other manufacturers had no way to bypass it.

Qualcomm lacks mobile 4G, while Huawei and MediaTek lack CDMA2000.

Moreover, except for a few domestic manufacturers that already have some mobile 4G patents and have obtained Zhiyun patent authorization through patent cross-licensing, Zhiyun refuses to authorize some of the key patents in its own mobile 4G communication baseband to other parties, leaving other communication baseband manufacturers completely helpless.

No matter how much money you offer, they won’t sell it to you!

Zhiyun also integrated its own communication baseband directly into the SOC, and does not even provide an external 4G full network baseband. It is very ugly...

This is also the reason why Zhiyun and Fruit have been stuck in a long-term deadlock in the negotiations on communication baseband.

It’s not that Apple doesn’t want it, or can’t afford the money, but Zhiyun doesn’t sell external basebands for the sake of market competition... unless Apple abandons its own A series chips and chooses Zhiyun’s W series chips.

Under such circumstances, Qualcomm also made great efforts and invested a lot of money in the research and development of mobile 4G. In the end, it managed to bypass some of Zhiyun's key patent layout in mobile 4G.

Finally, we were able to produce a baseband supply solution for all networks.

Seeing that Qualcomm next door had developed a full-network baseband, Zhiyun Group was no longer squeamish and directly launched the full-network single-hanging baseband B41, which had actually been secretly prepared a long time ago, for global customers, especially Apple and four-star.

But at this time, Fruit has lost all reason... Humph, I made you ignore me in the past, but today I will make you unable to reach me!

As for Four Star, they feel that the previous cooperation with Zhiyun was quite pleasant, and that Zhiyun's baseband is of good quality, so they plan to continue using it and purchase Zhiyun's single-hanging baseband to use with their self-developed chips.

In addition to the better quality of Zhiyun's communication baseband, it is also related to the fact that Qualcomm is too shady.

Qualcomm spent a huge amount of money to break through Zhiyun's patent blockade, and then developed its own 4G full network access. It must try its best to grab money from Apple and Samsung, otherwise how can it make a profit... The research and development of communication baseband is very expensive.

Apple is tough enough and does not want to give money to its biggest competitor, so it would rather continue to purchase Qualcomm's high-priced full-network baseband.

But it’s different for Four Star. Although they compete fiercely with Zhiyun, they are not like Apple, which is in almost all-round confrontation with Zhiyun in the field of smart terminals. In fact, Four Star has quite close cooperation with Zhiyun in many areas.

The most important thing is that the price of Qualcomm's new full-network communication baseband is enough to make the eldest son of the four-star Li family shamelessly turn around and find Xu Shenxue to continue to be his brother.

In the field of communication baseband, Zhiyun and Qualcomm are the big brothers, not to mention the second brothers, they are all black-hearted.

But you really have no choice but to contact them, because they are the only two companies that can provide full network access. The core reason is that the patents of CDMA2000 are in the hands of these two companies, and it is estimated that these two companies will never authorize them to any other party, which is disgusting.

The issue of communication baseband has been a big deal in the past two years and has often been in the news.

Now it has come to an end, and Xu Shenxue is very satisfied with it. Relying on the advantages in all-network communication baseband in the past two years, Zhiyun and Weiku’s mobile phones have not only captured a large domestic market share, but also driven the large-scale export of Zhiyun Semiconductor W series chips.

Including Weiku Electronics, a large number of domestic and even some international mobile phone manufacturers have adopted W series chips on a large scale, causing the annual shipments of Zhiyun W series chips to soar to more than 350 million units in an instant.

Quite exaggerated!

----

At this time, Fu Zhengyang continued: "Because we use a new generation of 500-nanometer process, the transistor density is higher and the power consumption is lower, so the number of transistors in our S series is very large."

"S503 does not include the communication baseband. The number of transistors has reached 2.1 billion. It integrates four CPU cores, two large and two small. The maximum main frequency of the large core is 80GHZ. It continues to use our mature dynamic main frequency technology and is equipped with ultra-high L650 and L caches. The GPU is equipped with four AP chips, and the maximum GPU frequency reaches GHZ."

"It is equipped with a co-processing core, a security core, a camera core and many other functional cores. It is the most integrated mobile phone SOC on the market."

"It is also equipped with our new generation 4G full network baseband B43 communication baseband, which is also our third generation 4G full network communication baseband. It supports two 4G, three 3G, and two 2G, a total of seven communication modes. It supports almost all communication modes and frequencies around the world, and has a good overall signal."

Xu Shenxue looked at the small chip in front of him. This chip was slightly larger than last year's S403, and even larger than the A7 of its competitor Apple.

Although the 503nm process is very good and has greatly improved transistor density and reduced power consumption compared to the nm process, the engineers at Zhiyun Semiconductor have been so crazy as to pile up even more transistors on the S chip!

Last year's S403, including the B42 communication baseband, had only 503 billion transistors, but this year's S, excluding the communication baseband, has billion transistors.

If the B43 communication baseband is included, the number of transistors in the entire S503 chip will reach billion.

This is a rather exaggerated number.

This is also the reason why Zhiyun Group's SOC chips are generally larger in appearance than fruit chips. The main reason is that Zhiyun Group's current mobile phone SOCs all have integrated communication basebands.

However, this year's S504, which does not have an integrated communication baseband, is much smaller. Because of its smaller size, the production cost is also lower.

The cost of a chip is highly correlated to its volume, because the area of ​​a wafer is fixed. At the same time, the foundry charges of the wafer factory are not calculated based on the chip, but based on the price of a wafer.

The smaller the area of ​​a single chip, the more chips can be manufactured on a wafer, so the single chip will naturally be cheaper.

There is a huge cost difference between being able to cut out 500 chips from a wafer and only being able to cut out 300 chips.

However, although the chip without a communication baseband is smaller in size and lower in cost, if you want to use it on a mobile phone, you still need an external communication baseband chip, which will not save costs but will increase costs.

It’s just that the fruits don’t have a communication baseband, so they can only do this.

But Zhiyun is different. It has its own communication baseband, which can be fully integrated into the SOC to reduce costs.

Xu Shenxue looked at the new chip and found it hard to imagine that such a small chip could contain 2.8 billion transistors. It was too exaggerated.

Fu Zhengyang continued, "Our S503 chips are limited by the fact that Zhiyun Microelectronics' 503-nanometer process production line is not yet mature. So far, we have only conducted two trial productions, mainly to test their own process level. At the same time, we also produced a batch of S chips for testing. Currently, this batch of chips is mainly used for our prototype development and subsequent testing."

"As for the specific time of mass production, it still depends on the progress of Zhiyun Microelectronics. According to optimistic estimates, small-scale mass production should begin at the end of May or the beginning of June. After a certain production capacity increase, regular mass production will be achieved in July to meet the needs of the group's products."

After Fu Zhengyang finished talking about the core component S503, Xie Jianyong on the side began to introduce the new generation S14 to Xu Shenxue.

Xu Shenxue looked at the S14 standard version prototype and the S14 Pro version prototype in his hand. The appearance on the front is not much different from the S13 versions.

The size of the phone is still 2.5 inches and inches, and the screen glass continues to use D, which means that the edges of the screen are curved.

From the front, there is almost no difference from the S13.

However, the back of this phone is different. It does not continue to use an integrated aluminum alloy body, but instead uses a glass cover.

This is different from the concept design of the S14 mobile phone that was scheduled during last year’s strategic meeting.

When the strategic meeting was held last year, it was announced that the standard and Pro versions of the S14 mobile phone scheduled to be launched this year would continue to use an integrated aluminum alloy body, and only the scheduled S14Max version would use a glass cover.

Because the pre-ordered S14 Max is going to use wireless charging and use a glass cover with the charging technology... If an aluminum alloy back cover is used, wireless charging technology cannot be used.

At this time, Xie Jianyong said: "Through the efforts of our wireless charging technology R&D department, we have perfected the wireless charging technology to the point where it can be commercialized. Originally, this technology was going to be installed on the S14 MAX, but because our 3D face recognition technology was difficult to produce, the S14 MAX plan has been cancelled this year."

"At the same time, market competition will be more intense this year. The gap between Apple's new mobile phones and ours is getting smaller and smaller. In order to gain a leading competitive advantage, we have transferred the wireless charging technology scheduled for the S14 MAX to the S14 Pro and standard version."

"So our S14 mobile phone this year uses a glass back cover!" Xu Shenxue felt strange holding the new mobile phone in his hand. It was somewhat similar to last year's A13 series, but not quite the same. The overall texture was better.

Xie Jianyong continued: "In addition to wireless charging technology and the matching glass back cover, we also use 14W fast charging technology on this year's S14 and A phones!"

“At the same time, the dual-camera solution used on the Pro version last year has also been applied to the S14 standard version and A14 mobile phones. The market department analyzed that the market’s acceptance and expectations for dual-camera mobile phones are very high, and this year is just the right time to fully popularize them.”

"Not only these two flagship phones use dual cameras, this year our C7 phones will also be equipped with dual cameras across the entire series. After all, adding a secondary camera doesn't cost much!"

Xu Shenxue looked at the S14Pro phone in his hand, then looked at the S14 standard version on the table, and the A14 phone which looked somewhat similar.

Then other questions were asked: "How is the development of our 3D facial recognition technology going? If it can't be used this year, what about next year?"

Xie Jianyong said: "The overall development of Wanjin Technology's 3D face recognition technology is actually going smoothly. We already have samples, but the stability is still a little lacking and it is not very mature. We have tried to install it and use it, but the results are not very good."

"Moreover, the current size is too large, requiring too much space at the top of the screen. In addition, our flexible screen technology is slightly inferior, and the process of producing the notch screen is not very perfect, the yield is low, and the cost is very high."

"If we use it reluctantly, it will not only be very costly, but it will also damage our reputation."

"Based on the progress of research and development, it may take until the end of the year for 3D face recognition technology to be perfected. As for specific applications, it should only be used next year."

Xu Shenxue said: "In that case, let's do it next year. Then we can make an S15 MAX."

"Do it well, and don't keep defaulting on your payments next year."

Xu Shenxue is somewhat helpless about the difficulty in developing 3D facial recognition technology. Technology research and development is not something that can be achieved by just investing money.

Especially when it comes to groundbreaking things like 3D facial recognition, many of the technologies didn’t exist before, and Zhiyun’s engineers needed to start from scratch.

However, if it can be successfully produced next year, it will be acceptable.

Xie Jianyong said: "It will definitely be possible next year!"

Xu Shenxue continued to look at the S14 phone. To be honest, this thing was quite far from his expectations.

He had been counting on touting 3D facial recognition at the press conference this year and setting off a wave of mobile phone innovation, but in the end he was unable to do so.

This S14 uses wireless charging technology, which is pretty good, but for Xu Shenxue it always feels like something is missing.

However, Ji Chenghe, who is in charge of marketing, is very satisfied with the S14 mobile phone.

"This is easier to promote than last year's S13 phone. Last year's S13 phone had little change and no innovation. At that time, in order to promote this phone, many of our colleagues in the marketing department were very worried."

"Now that the S14 phone has wireless charging technology, it will be easier to blow it up, which is enough to stimulate some users to change their phones!"

"To be honest, I was quite worried that you would bring out a refurbished version of S13..." Ji Chenghe said with a smile.

Xie Jianyong could only smile awkwardly after listening to this... You know what, they really planned to make a refurbished version of S13 before.

It was only after the breakthrough in wireless charging technology that they had the confidence to develop the S14 with a wireless charging plate.

The biggest changes in this year's S14 mobile phone are wireless charging technology and fast charging, as well as the use of dual cameras on the standard version. Other overall changes are not significant.

Of course, the internal chips are what have changed the most.

The S503 chip will be the most powerful mobile phone SOC chip ever. This huge change in performance is enough to bring performance advantages to the S14 mobile phone.

This year's S14 mobile phone will continue to outperform a number of competitors in terms of performance, including the Fruit 6 that is scheduled to be launched by Fruit this year.

The A14 phone, on the other hand, will not have any changes, except for an additional dual camera, and even the wireless charging technology will not be needed... On the one hand, this is to control costs, and on the other hand, it is to reflect the uniqueness of the S14.

Although Zhiyun A series phones are Zhiyun's flagship phones, both internally and externally, everyone with a discerning eye knows that Zhiyun S series phones are Zhiyun's true flagship phones.

In addition, there is a huge gap in sales between the two. The annual sales of the S series are close to 200 million units, while the annual sales of the A series are only 30 to 40 million units.

This directly determines that in order to maintain the sales of the S series, Zhiyun Group will inevitably restrict the A series to avoid internal friction and affect the sales of the S series.

This is why the A14 phone also uses a glass cover, but still does not have wireless charging.

Because this year's new generation of Zhiyun S14 needs a unique leading advantage to create topics and drive sales.

Wireless charging technology is the unique advantage that Zhiyun Group has prepared for the S14 mobile phone this year.

After looking at these two flagship phones, Xu Shenxue also took a look at the C7 phone. At first glance, this phone doesn’t seem to be anything special. It’s just a standard mid-range phone. It still uses a plastic body and has the same fingerprint recognition as last year’s C6.

It is worth mentioning that its chip uses the S406 chip, which is actually a new castrated version of last year's S400 series chips, between S402 and S401, with the main frequency increased, while the rest remains unchanged.

The main thing is that the S400 chip in last year's S401 chip is still very powerful this year, and it is enough to be used in a mid-range phone of about yuan. But it is not good to have no upgrade at all, so we just made a small upgraded version, slightly increased the main frequency, and got a new number.

The other changes are not big, just the addition of a dual camera.

After looking at the mobile phone project, Xu Shenxue said to Ji Chenghe: "This year's marketing task is still very heavy, you have to put more thought into it!"

"I'm not too worried about the S14, after all, it has wireless charging, but the A14 and C7 phones lack obvious selling points and major upgrades. When you make marketing plans, think of more ways to do it!"

Ji Chenghe said: "Don't worry, Mr. Xu, these things are my expertise. I will organize some brainstorming sessions and come up with some better marketing plans."

"The A series has a little more trouble, but I think the C7 should not have much of a problem. After all, our C7 users are not very sensitive to performance and big innovations. According to our market research, most C7 users are attracted by our Zhiyun brand and unique Zhiyun ecosystem, as well as the experience of fingerprint recognition technology at a relatively low price."

"Of course, this year, as Qianding Technology has finalized the press-type fingerprint recognition technology, four-star, Huawei and other mobile phone manufacturers have also begun to adopt fingerprint recognition. Our C7 series lacks some leading advantages in fingerprint recognition technology."

"But the problem won't be too big. After all, our C series phones never rely on cost-effectiveness or unique technology to lead, but rely on brand, quality control and ecological content. Moreover, this year's C7 phone also has dual cameras and W fast charging technology, which is enough."

Xu Shenxue nodded after hearing this, this was true.

Zhiyun's C series mobile phones have never been about cost-effectiveness, let alone top-level performance. It is just a mediocre mid-range phone.

Its advantages have always been its brand value and the same system and ecological content as the S series of mobile phones.

And then add quality!
Zhiyun Group is one of the world's top manufacturers and has very strict quality requirements for its products, even for mid-range products such as the C series.

Although the performance of the components it uses is slightly worse, the quality is definitely up to standard, and the OEM assembly process also strives for perfection.

This is different from some mobile phone manufacturers who choose to increase some performance parameters that are more conducive to publicity, such as using better SOC and larger running memory, but reduce some details, especially quality control.

The Zhiyun C series has always been a very conventional mid-range machine. It may look inconspicuous, but it is really easy to use.

Let me put it this way. In many public opinions, the Zhiyun C series has always been criticized for its low configuration and high price. It was only after it was used for fingerprint recognition last year that many technology enthusiasts began to have some good feelings about it.

However, this did not affect the Zhiyun C series' annual shipment volume of tens of millions of units.

Globally, the only single models that can surpass it in sales are Zhiyun’s own S series and the Apple phones next door.

In addition to the two mobile phones mentioned above, there are many other mobile phones that like to compare with the Zhiyun C series, and even belittle the C series, but one by one, none of them can sell better than the Zhiyun C series.

The typical type who never wins an argument but never loses a fight!
For example, on the Internet, the reputation of the Xiaolan MAX series actually far exceeds that of the Zhiyun C series. A group of people, especially technology enthusiasts, have a very good impression of the Xiaolan MAX.

Many people believe that the Xiaolan MAX series is one of the few mobile phones in the mobile phone industry that can balance performance and price very well. It is also fashionable and innovative enough and keeps up with the times: it copies whatever the Zhiyun S series Pro next door does!
However, the sales volume of Zhiyun C series is more than three times that of Xiaolan MAX.

The sales of both are not on the same level.

It is difficult for the Zhiyun C series to have a huge hit, but it is not a problem to maintain stability.

After inspecting the mobile phone smart terminal project, Xu Shenxue went to its subsidiary Weichi Technology, which is the subsidiary of Zhiyun Group responsible for the X86 business.

Here, Xu Shenxue finally saw the first domestically produced CPU chip with the X86 instruction set!
Strictly speaking, this is not the first domestically produced X86 CPU. In fact, before this, even in the 86s, domestic research and development institutions had successfully imitated X chips, but those were all forced copies through reverse engineering, and there was no corresponding patent authorization.

Moreover, the technological gap is huge. For example, the 8060 copied in the 78s was a product released by Intel in ...

At the same time, why didn't they imitate the X86 chip later?
Because the number of transistors in subsequent chips released by Intel has increased, and has doubled, it is no longer possible to rely on reverse engineering to imitate them.

When 8086 came along, it only had more than 80286 transistors, and it could be forcibly imitated. However, when 80386 came along, it had more than 80486 transistors; 80586 had more than transistors; and by the time came along, the number of transistors had soared to more than million; and the number of transistors in was further increased to more than million.

Not to mention the Pentium era that followed, which reached millions or even tens of millions.

This level of ultra-large-scale integrated circuits basically eliminates the possibility of forced imitation through reverse engineering.

The rapid development of semiconductors has proved that reverse engineering does not work in the semiconductor field... After learning this lesson, they began to give up direct imitation and embarked on the path of independent research.

However, due to patent restrictions, China has not been able to produce X86 chips.

There is no problem for research institutions and laboratories to work on X86 chips, and no patent can limit the research purpose.

But you can't use it for commercial purposes.

This situation did not change until 2010 when VIA and AMD won the patent lawsuit against Intel.

Prior to this, Intel prohibited all X86 licensed manufacturers from external cooperation and authorization.

After the lawsuit, Zhiyun Group and VIA reached a cooperation agreement. Zhiyun Group paid a considerable price and, through a series of operations that were nominally joint ventures but were actually acquisitions, it eventually took VIA's X86 business, including patent licensing, into its pocket.

As a result, Zhiyun Group replaced VIA and became the world's third X86 chip manufacturer.

After a year of preparation, Weizhi Technology Co., Ltd. finally came up with their first product.

It is not a high-performance desktop CPU chip that ordinary technology enthusiasts like, but a mobile X86 chip for notebooks: WZ4030U.

Zhao Wangge, CEO of Weichi Technology, excitedly introduced their company's core products to Xu Shenxue.

"Due to factors such as Intel's further reduction in chip supply and price increases, we have also put the research and development of mobile chips at the top priority!"

There are no desktop products in Zhiyun Group's PC business. The core products are notebook products, and there are also a small number of all-in-one computers and mini hosts.

Although the latter two use standard voltage CPUs, their production and sales volumes are relatively small, so their priority is not high.

Ever since Zhiyun Group acquired VIA's X86 business, Intel has begun to reduce chip supply and increase prices. This has made the newly established VIA Technology's priority task to develop an X86 low-voltage chip that can be used in its own ultra-thin business notebooks.

As for desktop chips and server chips, these can be put on the back burner.

Zhao Wangge said: "After the overtime efforts of our project team colleagues, we finally turned the WZ4000U series chip from a PPT project into a detailed design and carried out preliminary tape-out."

"We used Zhiyun Microelectronics' 18-nanometer process to conduct early tape-out testing to verify whether the overall chip design indicators met the standards."

The use of the company's extremely limited 4000-nanometer production capacity in the early stage to produce the subsequent WZU chip was approved by Xu Shenxue himself.

Otherwise, this chip would not be able to grab production capacity in the production of S500 series chips.

The initial 503-nanometer production capacity of Shenzhen Fab is relatively limited and extremely valuable, and needs to be prioritized to supply the company's flagship products, namely the S chips required for the S series mobile phones.

As for the S14 used in the A502 mobile phone, it is just a low-end castrated version of the S503, which has little impact, otherwise the A14 would not use the -nanometer process.

As for the baseband-free version S504, mass production is planned for early next year, and it will be adapted to the tablet products to be released next spring.

Even the very important AI chip AI4000 will not be put into mass production until next year. This year, we can only use the modified AI28 using the 3500NLP process.

Other graphics cards, W series chips, etc. can only use the 28NLP process this year, which is the low-power -nanometer process.

However, in addition to the S503 chip, the WZ4000U chip will also be available in early mass production.

The reason is very simple. Intel no longer supplies the most advanced mobile CPU products. It is not that they are not selling them, but they always say they are out of stock, which makes Zhiyun's X86 PC business very uncomfortable.

However, Zhiyun’s competitor, Fruit, is able to get the latest low-voltage version of Intel’s CPU products.

Zhiyun's ultra-thin business notebook competes with Apple's notebooks, so although it cannot surpass Apple's in processor performance, it should at least not lag behind by too much.

This year's notebooks from Apple use Intel's fourth-generation Core low-voltage CPU, such as the i5-4260U, which uses a 3nm D transistor process.

Zhiyun also sells laptops for seven or eight thousand or even tens of thousands of yuan. They can't just use junk stuff. They should at least have a CPU of the same level.

If you want to make a CPU of the same level, you can't fall behind in technology. 28 nanometers is definitely not enough. 18 nanometers is a must.
"In order to cooperate with the core of the group's PC business, that is, the YunBook series and compete with Apple's notebooks, we developed a low-voltage version of the CPU using the 18-nanometer process."

"So, we have this WZ4000U. This chip is a series, specifically meaning the WZ quad-core low-voltage version of the CPU."

"It will be further divided into three models: 4010, 4020 and 4030."

"In order to reduce costs, the same design is applied, but the main frequency and L2 cache are differentiated by reducing performance."

"This CPU adopts a quad-core design, and still uses our very mature dual-core dual-small core design and dynamic main frequency technology in the CPU field. The 4010 has a maximum main frequency of 2.3GHZ, and the 4020 has a maximum main frequency of 2.5GHZ. Both CPUs can be used in 4030-inch and 2.8-inch versions, and consumers can choose by price differentiation. The has a maximum main frequency of GHZ, which is more expensive and can be adapted to the -inch performance version of the notebook."

"Our WZ4000U series CPUs all integrate OP graphics cores, providing excellent graphics processing performance, especially optimized processing capabilities for office software."

"Our overall WZ4000U design focuses more on low power consumption. At the same time, our unique dynamic frequency control technology can effectively balance performance and power consumption, which will have a positive effect on the battery life and productivity of our notebooks."

Looking at the CPUs that had just been successfully taped out and were still in the testing phase, Xu Shenxue breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like the group's PC business would be able to remain stable this year.

There is no need to worry about the entire notebook business being strangled by Intel.

You know, because we couldn’t get enough of the latest Intel CPUs this year, Zhiyun’s new laptops were out of stock…

However, this bottleneck situation will change after this fall: by then, Zhiyun will no longer need Intel's CPU.

All these changes, including the mobile phone chip S503, are due to Zhiyun Microelectronics' technological breakthrough in the -nanometer process!
Semiconductors are the foundation of everything!
(End of this chapter)