Author: Quiet Thought

The SIC building has a total of twelve floors, and the top two floors are specially reserved for offices on the upper floors.

Shimamasaki and Masaki Masaki's offices are located here, but there are still many independent offices empty for the time being.

This is for other high-end talents in the future. The total number of SICs now includes only a hundred or so laboratory assistants at Dongtech University.

The place is very big and sufficient. Not only that, Shirakawa Kaede also has his own office here.

After all, SIC is under Shirakawa Holdings and holds 100% of the shares.

Then it is not an exaggeration for him, as the president, to have his own office here.

Top floor, cough ~ top president's office.

The area that is several dozen square meters wide is so luxurious that it is beyond words.

Shirakawa Kaede and Shimasaki Masaki, Masaki Masaki Masaki and Yamazaki Sei sat down one by one in the spacious sofa leisure area.

The office building has been officially opened, and all kinds of tea, water and coffee are available.

After waiting for the assistant Komatsu who came with him, he gave them a cup of steaming coffee.

Several talents began to discuss the first product that SIC invested heavily in research and development, the design and planning of the chip.

"I heard that the reason why Shirakawa Sang initially planned to design a chip was to use it for decoding and using it in the future?"

Shimamasari took a sip of coffee to warm up his body before starting to speak.

"That's right" Shirakawa Kaede nodded in holding the hot coffee, "Because the cost is too expensive to purchase chips of 16-bit, I have the plan to develop my own business."

A 16-bit microprocessor chip, direct quote of $360!

To be honest, this price directly scared Shirakawa Kaede. The chip cost alone costs 90,000 yen.

You should know that what he is going to make is a CD machine and a consumer electronic product.

The chip costs 90,000 yen, so the whole machine costs at least 100,000 yen.

This is also likely to be the cost price, if you want to make a profit, you will be priced at least 200,000 yuan!

As a consumer electronics product, who is this price sold to?

The product has not been made yet, and the cost calculation alone cannot be overcome by Shirakawa Kaede.

He knew very well that if you want to make money from consumers, price will always be the first factor.

So in order to reduce costs, Shirakawa Kaede simply decided to do it himself.

Now that we are just entering the early 1980s, is chip design difficult?

It is difficult to say, and it is not difficult to say. The key is to see if you can find a boss.

Shirakawa Kaede looked at Shimamasato and Masaki Matsumura in front of him, waiting for their reply.

"San Shirakawa, I think it's a bit too wasteful to design a 16-bit chip for decoding alone."

After pondering for a while, Shimamasaki decided to tell the truth.

"Oh~" Shirakawa Kaede raised his gaze in surprise, "Shisan Shima might as well say in detail."

He is completely a layman in the chip field, so he is happy to listen to the views of the technical tycoons.

Seeing that Shirakawa Kaede was not displeased by his doubts, Shimasato breathed a sigh of relief.

It seems that his new boss is indeed an enlightened person. When Masato Shima was relieved and explained his views carefully.

"If a 16-bit chip is designed specifically for decoding, then this practice is called special application chip design in the industry.

Because the goals are clear and the functions are determined, the chip design cycle is short and the volume and power consumption are smaller.

But there are advantages and disadvantages. Specially customized chips are often expensive to design.

In the future, due to shipments, the production cost of chips will also be very high.

Shirakawa Sang, in the semiconductor field, the higher the chip shipment volume, the lower the production cost.

This also invisibly dilutes the chip design cost, but specially customized chips are destined to not be used on a large scale.

Therefore, shipments are invisibly limited, so the cost is relatively high."

As long as the process is the same, no matter how many or what model you produce.

The cost of masks at the beginning of manufacturing is fixed, so the larger the number, the lower the cost per chip.

On the contrary, the cost will increase dramatically.

Shirakawa Kaede understood that if you consider the future CD phone market, the shipment volume may not be compared with that of chips at the processor level.

"Shisan Shima, I understand what you mean. So, based on your opinion, what suggestions are there for the current situation of SIC?"

"Do architecture design, platform design!" Without hesitation, Shimamasaki gave his own opinion.

"Platform design?" Shirakawa Kaede thoughtful.

"That's right" Shimashita nodded, "First do a general platform design, and then do special logic optimization for DAC decoding."

Shimashita Masato has a very clear idea. His years of experience in chip design allows him to make the most suitable choice in the shortest time.

Hearing his explanation, Shirakawa Kaede's eyes lit up, "Shisan Shima, please tell me in detail about platform design."

"San Shirakawa, my suggestion is to design a 16-bit processor chip directly.

Then, on the completed design, the digital signal decoding is re-purposed and the decoding chip is derived.

In this way, the original 16-bit processor can be processed in a family manner. Different application chips are derived according to different application scenarios."

The more I heard Shirakawa Kaede's eyes became brighter, and this... seems to be OK.

The same design costs and solutions can be used on multiple platforms.

It is equivalent to multi-use one core. As for refined derivative development, the cost and cycle will definitely be greatly reduced than the initial design.

Think about it, it will take at least 82 years to launch a CD machine. It is possible to develop a 16-bit processor first and then derive the corresponding DAC decoding chip.

There is something wrong with it, Shirakawa Kaede thought secretly.

"In addition, Shirakawa Sang, Matsumura Sang and I have checked the current chip development progress together.

Most of the front-end design, including system definition, register transmission-level design, and design verification have been completed by Matsumura Sang.

The remaining logical synthesis, equivalence inspection, timing analysis, etc. will be handled by Matsumura Sang together.

It is expected that all front-end design will be completed in February next year. As for the physical design of the back-end, I will follow up on the whole process.

However, because we have to enter the layout planning, layout and wiring stages.

And constraint information based on delay, power consumption, area, etc.

Rationally set the parameters of the physical design tool, and then continuously debug to find the physical location of the components on the wafer.

This part of the work requires semiconductor manufacturing companies to provide process information first before it can be carried out.

So before this, please make sure to determine the future chip processing method.”

After the chip design enters the back-end physical design, it is necessary to slowly connect with semiconductor manufacturers.

After all, design and manufacturing cannot be completely independent, and the two are inseparable.

However, about semiconductor manufacturers, Shirakawa Kaede has already had some concerns.

He thought of the First Persuasion Bank Consortium he had just worked with, but this is a later story. At least it will not be discussed in detail after the New Year.

"Please rest assured that Shimasan and Matsumura Sang, the chip manufacturer I probably already have some ideas.

It will definitely be confirmed before February.”

Shirakawa Kaede is not vague either. He is too professional in design and doesn't understand it.

But as long as I can do it, just mention it.

Shimamasaki and Masaki Matsumura both nodded relaxedly, so the chip will soon enter the die-casting stage and are not far from the actual finished product.

"Shankawa, I have another suggestion."

Just when Shirakawa Kaede felt that the chip was almost the same, Masato Shima spoke again.

"If Shimasan has any suggestions, please be sure not to be polite."

Having seen the level of this big guy, Shirakawa Kaede also attaches great importance to his suggestions.

"In fact, if SIC wants to achieve profitability quickly, the first thing to promote is not 16-bit chips."

Shimasato gave another reply, which surprised Shirakawa Kaede.

"Hey, please ask Shimasan Mingyan." Shirakawa Kaede put down the coffee in his hand and sat upright.

"At present, in industrial and consumer electronics, 8-bit chips are still used in a large number of applications.

The main reason is that the technology is mature and the cost is low, which can meet the computing needs of most products."

Although 16-bit processors have been born, the 8-bit processors are still the mainstream on the market.

There is no other reason, it’s cheap.
To be continued...