4004 is considered to be the origin of commercial processors. Before 4004, Intel was just a single memory manufacturer, no different from Toshiba and NEC. After 4004, Intel transformed from a memory manufacturer to teaming up with Microsoft to dominate the entire PC era. Hardware manufacturers.
The advertisement for 4004 said that it was an epoch-making product, and in the end it was proved that it indeed lived up to the expectations of the advertisement.
Professors at Berkeley can compare Mphone with 4004 in class. Although Mphone actually kicked off the mobile Internet era seven years in advance, and it is not an exaggeration to compare it with Intel 4004, it is still very difficult to see this now. .
Nokia chose to make semi-smart phones like the iPhone because it covets the mobile phone market worth more than $500, but it does not mean that they truly believe that mobile Internet must be the future development direction of mobile phones.
However, Galvin, the president of Motorola at this time, was vaguely aware of the importance of smartphones. As the founder of the RAZR project and Blade v3, Galvin has an undoubted sense of smell in the field of mobile phones. He smelled uneasiness from the rapid growth of Mphone.
For Motorola, the main rival is still Nokia. Since 1991, Nokia has devoted 90% of its funds and manpower to the research and development of mobile communications and multimedia technologies, cutting off all industries in more than ten other fields. In seven years, it surpassed Motorola and became the largest mobile phone manufacturer in terms of market share in the world.
By 2002, one out of every three mobile phones in the world was made by Nokia.
Galvin felt from the rapid growth of Mphone that a new "Nokia" was about to be born.
What's more important is that the operator behind Mphone is Zhou Xin. No mobile phone manufacturer dares to underestimate Zhou Xin after experiencing the past year.
Keyboard manufacturers who previously underestimated Zhou Xin and thought they didn't understand the hardware industry have experienced extremely painful times. Cherry, which has a long history and a large number of fans, felt it the most. Their revenue dropped by nearly 50% in just three years.
Zhou Xin has just entered the mobile phone industry, and veterans in the mobile phone industry will express their disapproval in the media, believing that mobile phones are much more sophisticated than keyboards.
After the price of the Mphone came out, Nokia executives even stated in the media that no consumer would want to buy such an expensive phone, which was just equipped with some Internet applications.
When the sales of Mphone exceeded 1 million, these voices disappeared. When the sales exceeded 5 million, mobile phone manufacturers had only one idea, and that was to learn.
Just installing a few apps can increase the price of mobile phones, so why not?
Although better chips and larger memory are needed to support more complex applications, the increase in cost is far less than the increase in profit.
When Zhou Xin revealed all Intel's chip models, Li Jingyi looked like she suddenly realized: "I almost forgot that you still have a PhD in integrated circuits.
No wonder it can be associated with Intel and 4004. "
Not only did Li Jingyi not remember that Zhou Xin was a Ph.D. in integrated circuits, but the outside world hardly mentioned Zhou Xin's identity.
Except for the management of Berkeley, which values outstanding alumni and students who are proud to have such famous classmates in the school, no one else cares about Zhou Xin's status.
Even when he attends IEEE every year, although his title is "PhD candidate", others will regard him as a big boss in the Internet field and an entrepreneur in the integrated circuit field.
In the global chip industry, after the launch of Mphone's A1E chip, Xinxin Technology is still relatively well-known in the industry. Because at the moment, A1E is a chip that can be described as excellent.
Intel, Texas Instruments and even Samsung have expressed their desire to acquire Xinxin Semiconductor to Guan Jianying through their offices in China.
Among them, Samsung is even willing to pay a high price of US$500 million to acquire Xinxin Semiconductor. You must know that Intel's mobile chip line XScale, the entire unit was sold for only 600 million US dollars.
Intel has invested nearly $10 billion in XScale.
These manufacturers hope to acquire Xinxin Semiconductor purely for the A1E chip.
In addition to those who want to acquire Xinxin Semiconductor, there are also many who want to use A1E chips in their handheld computers. Because of A1E's excellent architecture, excellent performance and relatively low power consumption, handheld computer manufacturers are very excited. Sony, HP, Compaq, etc. have all proposed cooperation.
Not to mention domestic manufacturers like Lenovo. Lenovo launched its first handheld computer Dimensity 5000 last year, claiming to be the first self-developed handheld computer in China.
The chip uses Intel's SA1110, with a frequency of only 206MHz. The operating system is an operating system developed by Microsoft specifically for handheld computers. As for the independent research and development part, it should be Lenovo backup, multimedia, contacts and other applications on the desktop.
(You can tell me if you have used it)
When chatting with Xinxin Technology, a representative from Lenovo said that we are all Chinese companies, and we can definitely build a Huaguoxin handheld computer. If we use this as a selling point to market, there will definitely be a large audience.
Because Matrix and Xinxin Technology signed an exclusive licensing agreement around the A1E chip, Zhou Xin did not want to give up his advantage so quickly. The benefits of not opening A1E to the outside world were far greater than opening it up to the outside world, so the A1E chip was not licensed to other manufacturers.
Zhou Xin said: "I know Intel not because my major is integrated circuits, but because I think Intel is a direct competitor of Xinxin Technology, and we are all trying in the field of mobile chips."
In fact, Zhou Xin is not worried about Nokia and Motorola, or even Apple, because the smartphone market is so huge that it can eventually support five to six players.
With memories from later generations, whether it is touch screen, full screen, notch screen, or under-screen fingerprint, he knows almost every smartphone form that will be popular with users, and he can get a ticket no matter what.
Zhou Xin's only worry is Intel and Microsoft. He has already ushered in the mobile Internet era ahead of schedule. If Intel and Microsoft don't go the wrong way when they join forces, the pressure will be extraordinary if they face the competition between them.
Zhou Xin didn't stay in Yanjing for long before going to San Francisco, because the main senior management team of Xinxin Technology were all enjoying the Christmas vacation with their families in the Bay Area.
"Professor, long time no see. I read your concept of integrated chips and your idea of Xinxin Technology's involvement in the chip manufacturing field.
I think there is no problem. This time I returned to China and talked with the Chinese senior officials. It is expected that the cooperation between Xinxin Technology and Huahong Semiconductor will be completed in the first quarter of this year. "
Hu Zhengming said: "Yes, I plan to recruit Liang Mengsong, but Liang Mengsong is now very valued in TSMC and belongs to the core technical backbone.
Moreover, the current situation of Xinxin Technology is much behind that of TSMC, so it is difficult to persuade him to come.
Liang Mengsong must be the best candidate. If he can't come, I will activate the candidates on the reserve list. "
Zhou Xin and Liang Mengsong are very familiar with each other. Without Liang Mengsong, it would have been difficult to attract investment for the establishment of New Core Technology. And Liang Mengsong gave him a lot of help during the establishment and operation of the company.
Zhou Xin naturally hopes that Liang Mengsong will help him, not only because he trusts the other party's character and ability, but also out of considerations of weakening TSMC.
But he knows Liang Mengsong very well. Liang Mengsong is now very valued in TSMC, and it was not because the relationship between the two parties broke down later.
It is difficult to poach Liang Mengsong not because of the treatment, but because Xinxin Technology is naturally restricted and cannot obtain the most advanced equipment and cannot manufacture the most advanced chips.
Liang Mengsong is an engineer. What he hopes is to pursue the ultimate manufacturing process. Without lifting the restrictions of the Wassenaar Agreement, China will not be able to pursue the most advanced manufacturing processes for a long time.
This goes against Liang Mengsong’s ideal.
Zhou Xin said: "When we attended IEEE in San Francisco in 1999, Professor Liang, you took me to meet him once. He is very experienced in the field of chip manufacturing and has almost mastery of cutting-edge technologies in the industry.
I believe in your vision, professor. You can try, and we can increase the dividend incentives. "
Xinxin Technology currently adopts Huawei's model, but it has also modified it.
The basic salary has been increased, and in terms of dividends, only current employees can enjoy equity dividends.
Huawei's profit distribution model was no problem in the early stages when the market continued to grow at a rapid pace and revenue and profits continued to grow. But when it reaches a bottleneck, the pressure on the entire financial situation will be very great.
This is why Huawei is having such a difficult time after its mobile phone business suffered a major blow.
Moreover, Huawei's mechanism is not conducive to new employees. The people in front of them have eaten up their bonuses, and they can even continue to receive them after they leave.
In order to avoid this problem, Xinxin Technology borrowed as much as possible from the wage systems of TSMC, Texas Instruments and Intel.
It just so happened that Hu Zhengming had many acquaintances in these three companies and could directly refer to their salary system design.
Zhou Xin said: “The other solution is the mobile phone integrated chip solution, which I think is very good.
This is a path that is in line with China’s current situation and can fully stimulate China’s economic situation. It is also in line with our current situation.
But one thing is that it is not difficult to develop such an integrated chip. According to your progress plan, it is expected to be developed by the middle of this year.
Then I predict that Xinxin Technology will have a dividend period of at least two to three years with the help of such mobile phone integrated chips.
During the bonus period of two to three years, it is too easy to make money, so we cannot relax our sense of urgency or relax our investment in research and development. "
Later, why did MediaTek pull its hips in the mobile Internet era and make a joke about one core having trouble with nine cores? To a large extent, this is because MediaTek's so-called "turnkey" model makes money so quickly that they have greatly relaxed their sense of urgency in the field of research and development.
Zhou Xin said: “After the Mphone was launched, I gave one to everyone, and everyone had a deep experience with the Mphone.
If you have compared Mphone with other mobile phones, you will find that Mphone is the future development direction.
Therefore, after we launch mobile phone integrated chips, we must start the research and development of mobile phone chips with extremely high cost performance.
After the dividend period for mobile phone integrated chips has passed, we launched Internet mobile phone chips that focus on cost performance.
This five-year period is enough to mature each sector of Xinxin Technology, and it can also cultivate a number of supporting companies in Zhangjiang. "
“I think we must have a sense of urgency at all times. We cannot obtain advanced processes, so we need to make use of existing conditions and reach the limits of existing production lines as much as possible.
In addition, breakthroughs in chip manufacturing processes need to be achieved. "
Hu Zhengming said: "Mobile phone chips are one aspect, and computer chips will be another aspect.
I have been in contact with Intel. We hope that Intel will design a chip for China and then hand over the foundry of this chip to us.
Because so far, the cooperation between Xinxin and Huahong has not been finalized, and we cannot even produce a single chip, so I am only at the preliminary stage of contacting about cooperation with Intel.
After traveling around China, I thought we could cooperate with the vast number of small and medium-sized Internet cafes in China to understand their most commonly used applications, and then design a chip to meet their needs and provide it to them. "
Hu Zhengming’s research in China is still effective. He even mastered the secrets of the so-called Internet cafes in China between 2000 and 2010.
Zhou Xin said: "I think it's okay. I invested in Shanda. They have good relations with Internet cafes everywhere. Professor, you can ask the business development team to talk to them after you go back.
In addition, Tencent also has a certain influence in the domestic Internet cafe industry, and you can also chat with them.
I think our strategic vision for Xinxin Technology is very clear. What we have to do now is to implement it one by one, and then continue to invest in research and development. "
After Zhou Xin finished speaking, Lin Benjian said: “I think we can cooperate appropriately with TSMC.
Xinxin Lithography Machine shipped ten lithography machines last year, and the purchasers were TSMC, Huahong and Toshiba.
Our price is 20% lower than the same model of Nikon photolithography machine. According to the information our engineers helped TSMC debug and install the machine, as well as test the news obtained from TSMC’s bending tube mouth, TSMC is facing a lot of problems. A lot of pressure. "
TSMC's life is not easy at this time. The chip technology led by Intel and IBM has achieved breakthroughs. They achieved a breakthrough in the 180nm to 130nm process by switching from "aluminum dielectric" to "copper dielectric".
IBM is trying to use the 130nm process of copper dielectric as a bargaining chip to dominate the chip manufacturing process. Among the two foundry giants TSMC and UMC in the Wanwan area, only UMC agreed to cooperate and achieved mass production of the 130nm process.
As for TSMC, they chose to refuse. With the arrival of Hu Zhengming, TSMC successfully selected low-dielectric insulation technology and directly skipped 150nm and entered the 130nm process, achieving independence and mass production of the 130nm process.
But now that Hu Zhengming has come to Xinxin Technology instead of TSMC, TSMC is stuck at 180nm without breakthrough progress, and many orders for advanced processes have been cut off.
Including A1E, Zhou Xin actually thought about asking TSMC to do it, but their current technology does not meet the requirements.
(End of chapter)
