Reborn in 2010, the AI ​​in my mind is too powerful.

At the routine meeting on Friday afternoon, Chen Yiran organized a meeting to discuss the arrangements for next week's exhibition and to see who would be needed to help out on-site.

However, on the first item of the meeting, a very simple issue, everyone couldn't reach a consensus, and Chen Yiran was also a bit conflicted, so the meeting stalled.

That's a naming issue; the company's internal logs have always referred to this project as FlowA.

But this is just a code name; this is its first appearance, so it needs an official name.

Han Yu was the first to raise his hand: "I propose DeepPlace. We'll call our framework DeepFlow and the placement tool DeepPlace, and we'll maintain a unified brand."

Zhang Minghui shook his head: "DeepPlace is too much like a plugin for DeepFlow. This is an independent product, okay? Calling it all 'deep' is too much like a bundled product model, which is very annoying."

Raj leaned back in his chair and said, "How about FlowPlace? Flow from FlowEDA, Placement from Placement, and it's related to the company, so it's perfect."

Gao Dewei retorted directly: "No, no, the two words together are hard to pronounce, and they don't flow smoothly at all."

"How's Meridian?"

"No, no, this name sounds like Cadence. People who don't know us will think we're a subsidiary of theirs."

"CoreFlow: Core Plus Flow, Simple and Clear"

"It's alright, but not special enough, too tasteless. How about something more unique, like NO.1Place?"

"No, no, this is too ridiculous."

The company started buzzing with discussion, and Amit remained loyal: "A name should be easy for people to understand at a glance. I suggest we just go with whatever the boss says."

Everyone started saying their favorite names and began debating with each other.

Catherine, who lacked technical knowledge and couldn't participate, cleverly offered the most constructive suggestion: "Let's draw lots!"

Chen Yiran made the decision: "Then let's draw lots!"

Everyone took a piece of paper and started writing their names. Chen Yiran thought for a long time and finally wrote "Century Egg" on the paper.

He doesn't think it's necessary to choose a technical name. As long as the technology is good, even if it's a name like ZZZ, others will still use it.

Everyone put the slips of paper into a small cardboard box. Chen Yiran shook it for a moment and pulled out a slip of paper amidst everyone's expectant gazes.

"Grey won! Who came up with the name? Can you explain to me why my company makes you feel so gloomy?"

Catherine raised her hand a little embarrassedly and said, "Um, should we draw again? I don't understand the technical names you're talking about. The one I wrote down is my cat's name."

Wang Xue, the second prettiest woman in the company next door, asked, "From this, it seems your cat is gray."

"Uh, no. I found a kitten when I was in medical school. When I got home that night, I was watching TV and naming him. You know Grey, right? So I named him Grey."

Although it was a bit absurd, and it was a pity that the name "Pidan" wasn't chosen, Chen Yiran thought it was quite interesting, with a bit of the entrepreneurial spirit of Yilin.

He immediately decided, "No need to change it, let's keep this name. From now on, our products will be called Grey. Everyone, applause!"

On Monday morning, Chen Yiran took Gao Dewei, Raj, Lin Zhiwei, and Amit to San Francisco.

In addition to staying at the office, other staff members also need to be available by phone at any time to receive notifications and come to help if needed.

The conference was held at the Moscone Exhibition Center, which is divided into north and south halls.

The South Hall mainly focuses on the application of materials.

Equipment manufacturers like Lam Research and KLA-Tex will bring vacuum chambers and robotic arms directly to the site, and the air will be filled with the smell of industrial lubricating oil.

The North Wing is the domain of design tools and software, and its visitor traffic is only about a quarter of that of the South Wing.

FlowEDA's booth was located in a corner of the North Hall, measuring three meters by three meters. It consisted of a table, two chairs, and a backdrop with the name they had just drawn: Grey—AI-Powered Placement Engine. Next to it was a laptop that played a loop of data from four ISPD 2006 test cases. The best publicly available score was 1.12, while Grey achieved 1.05.

Chen Yiran had initially thought he would be relegated to the sidelines for the first two days of the exhibition, given the low foot traffic in the North Hall. They were also a small, unknown startup, and even their name sounded somewhat odd. However, the actual situation far exceeded his expectations.

The booth had only been set up for less than ten minutes when the first person arrived.

It wasn't a student grabbing freebies; it was a middle-aged white man wearing a baseball cap, with Synopsys on his name tag, already carrying a bunch of bags filled with technical brochures from various booths.

Chen Yiran glanced at the logo and made eye contact with Gao Dewei. Gao Dewei mouthed two words in Chinese: "Spy."

This is normal; large companies will send people specifically to gather intelligence on smaller companies.

The man stood in front of the booth for ten minutes, scrutinizing the data from the four test cases repeatedly. He also asked numerous questions, each focusing on key details of the algorithm. Gao Dewei gave him a white paper, and the man politely thanked him before leaving.

Chen Yiran asked Gao Dewei, "Are the big companies this cautious? There are so many small companies at the exhibition, do they all have to send people to look at each one?"

"Definitely. The earlier a company enters the market, the more afraid it is of being surpassed. What's more, they actually eliminated other companies to rise to the top. Moreover, we are considered a super promising stock among small companies. Our arXiv paper has already made us famous. And our speed is too exaggerated. It's only been a month and a half, and we've already been exhibited at a trade show. To be honest, I never dared to imagine this before. The more I work on it, the more I feel that the framework you wrote is too advanced."

Before we'd exchanged more than a few words, someone else came to inquire. It was a white man in his forties, wearing an unbranded jacket, no name tag, and who didn't say which company he worked for.

However, he asked two questions that only someone doing placement would ask: the accuracy decay curve of the incremental computation graph under different process nodes, and the allocation strategy of DIFF files when multiple GPUs are running in parallel.

After the man left, Gao Dewei concluded: "He's either from Cadence or Mentor Graphics; in any case, he's either a client or a spy."

"How can you tell if someone is a spy or a client? He doesn't have much information on him."

"Customers won't ask so many details. They only care about your actual results and price. Only spies will care about the specific algorithms you use. Not having a brochure proves that this is a high-level spy."

We hadn't exchanged more than a few words when another person came over, and then the flow of people never stopped.

After 10 a.m., the flow of people even started to get out of control. Chen Yiran originally thought that five people would be enough, but three groups of people came at the same time, asking all sorts of questions.

A Broadcom engineer wanted to compare data, an Applied Materials project manager asked about PDK integration, and two Stanford professors said Andrew Ng recommended they come and take a look.

Amit was handling Broadcom and Stanford students by himself, Raj was explaining GPU architecture to people from Applied Materials, and Lin Zhiwei moved a chair and sat in front of his laptop to demonstrate test cases to the people who gathered around.

Chen Yiran felt that she couldn't relax anymore, and another group of people came and took Gao Dewei away as well.

He quickly took out his phone and called the company, asking everyone to come over. Since he'd be waiting for news from here anyway at the company, he figured he might as well have everyone come help, and they could even check out the exhibition in their spare time.

Catherine was assigned logistical tasks; due to an underestimation of the flow of people, there were clearly not enough white papers to distribute. Catherine had to contact people to print them quickly; the efficiency of the American company was questionable, and if she didn't follow up, it was uncertain when she would receive them.

After that, everyone at the booth was working at full capacity, and Chen Yiran also joined the reception team.

At noon, the company's main force arrived, bringing with them IN-N-OUT burgers they had bought on the way.

In the afternoon, there was another round of intense technical exchanges, turning this area into a hotspot in the northern district.

Around 3 p.m., Zhang Wenbin from HiSilicon arrived. He glanced at the crowd surrounding the booth, stood outside the crowd for about five minutes, and then squeezed in.

Chen Yiran noticed that Zhou, an engineer from SMIC, was standing next to him. The two met in front of the booth. Zhou, rather cunningly, hid behind the tall and strong Zhang Wenbin and passed through the crowd.

Zhang Wenbin watched for about ten minutes. After he finished, he rubbed his head, pointed at the numbers on the screen, and said something to Chen Yiran.

"You told me you had some results at DAC last time, and I thought the results would be 1.08 to 1.06. But now you've just put 1.05 on your booth and played it publicly. Do you know that the people from Broadcom called their company right after they saw it? I was right behind them listening. You've really made a name for yourself this time."

"Putting aside others, are you interested? I also need your help to verify things."

Zhou, standing nearby, spoke first: "It's simple for me. I'll agree to the PDK certification issue right now and prioritize it when I get back. Send me the format, and I'll have Zhao Yuanzheng process it first."

Zhang Wenbin said, "I have no problem with that either. Could you give us a 30-day free trial of the placement assessment from Balongji? If so, please have your lawyer draft a standard agreement and send it to our legal department."

Chen Yiran agreed, saying, "Okay, I'll probably be very busy at the exhibition these next few days. How about we have dinner together tonight? We can talk in more detail?"

Engineer Zhou smiled and said, "Okay, then you choose the location?"

Zhang Wenbin agreed, saying, "You're from Silicon Valley, so the Bay Area is practically your home turf. We won't be picky; you can find a restaurant here."

"Okay, I'll call you back later."