Rebirth 2002: Nano Life

One week after the National Day, Xia Meng Electronics welcomed a distinguished guest.

The CEO of Zhongxing Microelectronics Group, 37-year-old Deng Zhonghan and three senior design engineers of Zhongxing Microelectronics came to Xiameng Group's company located in the Science and Technology Park.

Deng Zhonghan was born in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province in 1968. After graduating from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1992, Deng Zhonghan went to the University of California, Berkeley to study; he graduated in 1997 with a doctorate in electrical engineering, a master's degree in economics and management, and a master's degree in physics. The school is the first scholar who spans the three disciplines of science, engineering and business in 130 years.

Deng Zhonghan, the commander-in-chief of the "Starlight China Core Project", has been received many times by state leaders. Xia Meng Electronics did not dare to neglect them. Chen Yizhe and Yang Zhihao personally received them both.

First, I led them to visit the microelectronics laboratory, especially explaining the design ideas and creation process of "Planet 0" and "Planet 1".

Deng Zhonghan and others stayed in the laboratory for a long time, and the employees of Xia Meng Company did not shy away from them, and the laboratory still proceeded according to the daily program plan.

After visiting Xiameng Electronics, Chen Yizhe and Yang Zhihao and other leaders of Xiameng hosted Deng Zhonghan and others at the Marriott Hotel Clubhouse.

At the wine table, Deng Zhonghan, who has been admiring Chen Yizhe all the time today, still couldn't help but praise:

"Mr. Chen, the appearance of 'Xingxing 0' and 'Xingxing No. 1' is like pulling a thunderbolt out of dry land, and the people all over the country are shocked. But after visiting Xia Meng's laboratory today, it opened our eyes. Xia Meng's achievements are unexpected, but reasonable. No one would have imagined that Xia Meng's electronics research laboratory would have so many advanced instruments and equipment, even compared to top foreign laboratories. It's difficult. Imagine that such an enterprise has only taken two or three years from its establishment to the present, and that such a short period of time has gone farther than other enterprises that have been established for more than ten years or even decades. It is even more unimaginable that it is The founder of this company is so young and handsome!"

After listening to Deng Zhonghan's words, Chen Yizhe said with a smile, "Mr. Deng, I am ashamed of your compliment. Xia Meng has come step by step to achieve such great success, as long as it depends on the country's economic policy environment. Only when the country is strong can companies become bigger and stronger. Otherwise, no matter how strong the company is, it will be just a castle in the air, and it will collapse at the touch of a button. With the size of the country, China will definitely become the world's largest economy in the future. , China must be like the United States now, occupying the upper reaches of various industries. Maybe without me, there will definitely be another Xia Meng in the future, but its founders may be Cai Yizhe, Huang Yizhe..."

Last year, China's GDP ranked sixth, ahead of France, Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States. At the moment, Chinese netizens are still dreaming of catching up with Japan, but if they say that they will surpass the United States one day, many people will answer that they are idiots.

For example, Chen Yizhe was bored reading posts on Tianya a few days ago, and suddenly saw this post:

"Hehe, I dreamed last night that fifteen years later, the standard configuration of our Chinese fleet, don't laugh.

One nuclear powered aircraft carrier, carrying various combat aircraft, 60

Two domestic upgrades, Kirov-class nuclear-powered cruisers, two

Three domestic versions of Hyundai II-class destroyers, four

Four upgraded version 052C anti-aircraft ships, four

Five upgraded 052B anti-submarine ships, four

Six nuclear powered attack submarines, four

Seven all-electric jammers, one

Eight large integrated supply ships, two"

When Chen Yizhe saw the replies, eight out of ten replies meant that the landlord was dreaming, but Chen Yizhe simply replied: Your dream will be far exceeded.

According to the previous life, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier only heard the sound and did not see its trace until Chen Yizhe crossed back, but in this life, with Chen Yizhe there, it is difficult to say. Never look at China with the economic development of other countries, because China's size determines that once it accelerates, it will be a vicissitudes of life in a few years.

Deng Zhonghan looked at Chen Yizhe in surprise, then shook his head with a smile, "You are the most confident domestic entrepreneur I have ever seen in China's development, no one. To be honest, although I am more optimistic about the domestic economy, in fact There is also a bit of pessimism in my heart! Although China is now known as the world's processing factory, it also means that China is actually a downstream of the global economy, and the economic added value generated is relatively low. And high-end technology abroad will always be Domestic blockade, unless there is a breakthrough in this field in China. For example, Zhongxing Microelectronics, the experimental equipment that has been wanted for a few years has been restricted from entering the country, and domestic high-end industries, if you want to make breakthroughs, you can only rely on yourself... Alas !"

Deng Zhonghan sighed deeply.

"Mr. Deng, this is what I admire about you. Even if you still have doubts about the domestic economy, you still recklessly return to China to invest in the chip industry, which is basically a blank domestic industry."

In 1998, Deng Zhonghan founded an integrated circuit company in Silicon Valley, leading the development of high-end digital imaging semiconductor sensors. At this time, relevant leaders of China Association for Science and Technology approached Deng Zhonghan and asked about the innovation path of China's semiconductor industry.

Under several invitations from the Chinese government, he resolutely gave up his successful career and affluent life in the United States, and started the process of returning to China to innovate and start a business. With the support of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (formerly the Ministry of Information Industry), the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Beijing Municipal Government , founded Zhongxing Microelectronics in Zhongguancun, Beijing, and undertaken the national "Starlight China Core Project".

Deng Zhonghan said with a smile, "After the reform and opening up, to study abroad and succeed in starting a business in Silicon Valley, patriotism is a common emotion of many of us studying abroad, and returning to China to do things is actually a basic and simple pursuit of many overseas students."

"I still clearly remember that on the National Day of 1999, I was invited by the State Council to return to China to participate in the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. At that time, when I attended the ceremony, I saw the strength of the motherland and felt very I am proud, and at the same time, a strong sense of responsibility to make a little contribution to the country in the chip field stirs in my heart. In the afternoon, when I visited the Great Wall with my entrepreneurial partners, I made an oath that it is bound to build China's "chip" Great Wall. With this sense of responsibility, of course, I also returned to China to start a business under the stimulus of the huge wealth generated by Silicon Valley entrepreneurship and China's expanding market. I finally made up my mind to return to China to start a business. Fortunately, in Beijing With the support of the government, Zhongxing Micro can only grow step by step."

In March 2001, "Xingguang China Chip Project" successfully launched the first domestic super large-scale digital multimedia chip "Xingguang No. 1" with independent intellectual property rights and one million doors. By 2002, the cameras of 1 million laptops around the world were equipped with the "Starlight 1" chip.

This year, Deng Zhonghan led the development and design of the "Xingguang" series of digital multimedia chips, achieved eight core technological breakthroughs, applied for more than 2,000 domestic and foreign technology patents in this field, and achieved a series of important breakthroughs in core technology and large-scale industrialization. As a result, this is the first time that an integrated circuit chip with China's independent intellectual property rights has achieved a leading position in the global market in an important application field.

"Hehe, hard work pays off, our Chinese 'core' seems to be a good thing this year. You Zhongxingwei launched the 'Xingguang' series of digital multimedia chips. Not long after the launch, our Xiameng's 'Planet' series of cpu chips also appeared. A 'starlight' and a 'planet', no wonder some media say that the two are brothers 'core'." Chen Yizhe laughed.

This time, Xia Meng purchased Zhongxingwei's "planet" chip as yer's digital media chip. The price is much cheaper than that of foreign chips of the same quality. However, under Chen Yizhe's training, the sound quality effect is surprisingly good. Even Zhongxingwei's work The staff were also very surprised.

Afterwards, the "Planet" series of CPUs with new instruction sets and new architectures allowed the Chinese people to see the dawn of hope. The emergence of "Starlight" and "Planet" completely ended the history of China's "coreless".

Compared with the "Starlight" series, the appearance of "Planet" has attracted the attention of relevant foreign media, and even some European and American media are fanning the flames, asking the government to investigate Xia Meng's business practices and whether there is any act of commercial espionage. Otherwise, China How can a company that has been established for less than two or three years throw out so many heavyweight technologies one after another. It was said before that it was guided by the Chinese government, but now it is almost as if Xia Meng stole technology from Europe and the United States. Anyway, in the eyes of some high-ranking white people, the top technology must come from Europe and the United States and other countries.

"Actually, what the media said is not unreasonable. If you think about it carefully, the complementarity between Xia Meng and Zhongxing Micro in the chip field is greater than the competition. There is a huge space for cooperation between the two Chinese companies, Zhongxing Micro and Xia Meng. The reason why you came. Zhongxingwei hopes to obtain the authorization of Xia Meng risc-c!" Deng Zhonghan said very directly.

Chen Yizhe is not surprised by Deng Zhonghan's words, because in Deng Zhonghan's positioning, Zhongxingwei is a technology-oriented company, which is a technical cleanliness that most of the Silicon Valley elites have. With such a streamlined and effective instruction set of risc-c, Deng Zhonghan must have seen it in his eyes and itched in his heart.

In the PC era, Zhongxingwei has become the representative of China's "core", but Chen Yizhe knows that technology-oriented companies are not so easy to do. Technological exploration requires a lot of trial and error and has a high degree of uncertainty. If the same money could be earned in a less risky way, then capital would obviously not refuse. Often only when low-level repetition is no longer an option, mainstream capital will begin to invest in technological innovation.

And for Chinese companies, the technology-based path is not necessarily a good path. On the other hand, Chinese talents cannot support Chinese enterprises to switch to the technological path very early.

In the era of mobile Internet in the past life, Zhongxing Micro has indeed encountered troubles. Zhongxing Micro, which insists on multi-chip research and development, with the increasingly powerful computing power of baseband chips and the trend of integration, Qualcomm, TI and other international manufacturers have also begun to launch inheritance multimedia. The solution is to use a single-chip baseband chip to integrate multimedia capabilities, thereby eliminating the need for a separate multimedia chip.

The cruel reality is that once one part of the chip industry falls behind, it will be difficult. In the last life, in 2015, Zhongxingwei was delisted from the Nasdaq. After the delisting, Zhongxingwei entered the field of security and artificial intelligence chips, but it is no longer the same as the Starlight China core period.

Chen Yizhe pondered for a while, and then replied, "Actually, before this, many chip design manufacturers at home and abroad came to seek the authorization and cooperation of risc, but only SMIC, Spreadtrum and other companies in China were authorized by Xia Meng, and more Many domestic manufacturers have found that they do not have much design strength after Xia Meng's research."

"Mr. Deng, Dean of the School of Microelectronics of Shanghai Jiaotong University, Chen Jin, the head of Hanxin Technology, do you know him?" Chen Yizhe suddenly changed the subject and asked.

"I had a few conversations on a certain occasion!" Deng Zhonghan said lightly.

Chen Jin, the same age as Deng Zhonghan, is also a returnee and a young scholar. He used to be a chip design manager and a senior chief engineer at the Motorola Semiconductor headquarters.

It is precisely because of such a splendid resume that he served as the chief designer of "Hanxin" as soon as he returned to China. And he lived up to his expectations. It only took 16 months. In 2003, he officially announced that "Hanxin No. 1" was successfully developed. An important milestone in the history of chip development."

"Hehe, I talked with him for a while and found that he still has certain skills and abilities in the semiconductor field. I asked him about the specific information of Hanxin, which was released two years ago and has not yet achieved mass production today. , he also answered in a clear and coherent manner, but when I asked to see the real thing, the words kept flickering, which made me wonder whether the existence of "Hanxin No. 1" is real." Chen Yizhe shook his head helplessly.

"Hanxin Incident", this is a famous event in the history of "China Core" in the past life~www.wuxiahere.com~ and even caused a global uproar. Of course, this uproar is because the country's hundreds of millions of research funds have been defrauded. Chen Jin of Hanxin Technology originally stole the source code of a Motorola chip, and made "Hanxin No. 1" based on this code. Then, at the press conference, he asked a company that had renovated his office to polish off the Motorola logo of the 56800 chip he bought with sandpaper, and finally stamped the words "Hanxin" and the logo. In this way, a great "Hanxin No. 1" was born.

The amazing thing is that such a pin does not match the source code, and even the "Hanxin" chip with different sizes has passed the authoritative technical appraisal of the appraisal expert group composed of several academicians at the conference. Of course, there are even more miraculous things. In the end, things were exposed, and no one was held accountable.

Thinking about it carefully, Chen Yizhe felt ridiculous at the same time, and felt terrible at the same time.

Some people can only talk about it, such as Chen Jin, while some people can communicate with each other, such as Deng Zhonghan. After talking with him for a while, Chen Yizhe had a good impression of him.

Moreover, Chen Yizhe has a development attitude towards the risc-c instruction set architecture. As long as the strength of the other company meets Chen Yizhe's requirements, he will never block it.

Therefore, at this banquet, Xia Meng and Zhongxingwei soon reached a preliminary verbal agreement for cooperation, and Xia Meng authorized the core level of the CPU architecture to Zhongxingwei. In addition, Zhongxing Microelectronics will cooperate with Xia Meng to provide single-chip solutions for mobile consumer products. In the future, the music chip will be implanted into the main chip, instead of using a separate music chip, which also requires several multimedia chips. The cost will be further greatly reduced.