In the villa complex at the foot of Purple Mountain, Xu Chuan ran a few laps along the playground inside the community to do some daily exercise. He was just about to have breakfast when he saw an acquaintance walking towards him.
"Good morning, Academician Xu."
Standing at the door of the villa, Ren Zhengfei rushed over and said hello with a smile on his face.
Seeing the president of Warwick, Xu Chuan was stunned for a moment, then greeted with a smile: "Mr. Ren, you came here very quickly."
I only called yesterday afternoon, and Mr. Ren arrived at his door early this morning.
Ren Zhengfei smiled and said: "It's a very important matter, so I came here overnight."
Xu Chuan looked him over. This Warwick boss, who was born in the 1940s, was now in his early eighties, and his hair on his temples was already gray.
Running around all night and coming from other places did make this old man a little tired, but compared to his physical fatigue, the breakthrough in carbon-based chip technology made him look energetic.
Smiling, he said: "Mr. Ren probably hasn't had time to have breakfast yet. I happen to be going to have breakfast too. How about we chat while we eat?"
"No problem, let's chat while we eat."
Ren Zhengfei agreed with a smile. Although he ate a piece of bread in the car when he went out to deal with it, it would be no problem to have breakfast again.
Xu Chuan nodded and took him to the breakfast shop inside the community. He ordered a bowl of rice noodles first and then looked at the president of Warwick with a smile.
“There are quite a lot of breakfast options in this shop, including flour, bread, soy milk, fried dough sticks, porridge and so on.”
“There are quite a lot of breakfast options in this shop, including flour, bread, soy milk, fried dough sticks, porridge and so on.”
Ren Zhengfei smiled and nodded, looked at the waiter and said, "Bring me some rice noodles too."
"Two portions of rice noodles, okay, please wait."
While the store was preparing breakfast, the two found a seat and sat down.
Although it was breakfast time, there were no diners in the restaurant.
This is normal. After all, those who can live in this community usually have aunties at home to help them, and they usually rarely go out to have breakfast.
Only a few elderly people like to stop by for breakfast or a change of taste after taking a walk in the morning.
As for whether the owner of this store will suffer losses, I can only say that those who can open a store in this community will not consider this issue at all.
After finding a seat and sitting down, Ren Zhengfei couldn't wait to ask: "Academician Xu, how is the current situation regarding the carbon-based chip project?"
After thinking for a while, Xu Chuan said: "Mr. Ren, you should know about the research direction of the carbon-based chip core's 'Xiongxin' series of products."
Hearing this, Mr. Ren nodded. Although he could only understand the latest detailed research through periodic report documents, he still knew this.
Xu Chuan: "To put it simply, we have already made the finished product of Xiongxin chip, which has a complete architectural design. However, due to current R&D and technical limitations, the performance of Xiongxin No. 05 experimental chip is not considered
It’s very high, but the commercial value is not very great.”
Ren Zhengfei didn't have many doubts in his mind, and he didn't pay much attention to Xu Chuan's statement that the chip performance was not very high.
After all, this is a carbon-based chip, a brand new track that almost no country has officially entered before.
In addition, the current research time is not long. It has only been about a year since Xinghai Research Institute joined forces with Huawei HiSilicon and SMIC to officially invest in research.
The results that can be achieved in such a short period of time are already very impressive.
As for performance, once the finished product is released, it can be quickly improved in the future.
After all, the path forward for silicon-based chips is here. Although the two paths are different, carbon-based chips can still learn from each other in the early stages of development.
According to his considerations, following the path of silicon-based chips, carbon-based chips developed in about two to three years should be able to achieve about half the performance of chips currently on the market.
That is to say, it has a mid-range silicon-based chip, such as the Snapdragon 660 or Kirin 960 chip.
If you want to improve quickly in the future, it may take a little longer.
As for catching up with the performance of high-end silicon-based chips, it may take about five years.
He would be satisfied if he could advance carbon-based chips at this development rate.
Within five years, Warwick was able to completely replace silicon-based chips in all its products. Using carbon-based chips no longer has to worry about being stuck by Western countries.
Being able to see this majestic work completed with your own eyes is truly a dream come true.
With thoughts floating in his mind, Ren Zhengfei took a deep breath and asked: "Academician Xu, can you introduce to me in detail this completed Xiongxin product of yours?"
"certainly."
Xu Chuan nodded and briefly introduced Xiongxin No. 05 product.
"Xiongxin No. 05, which is the code name of the finished chip prepared this time, uses 28 nanometer multiple exposure technology to integrate 10 million carbon-based transistors per square millimeter, with a four-core design and a main frequency of 5.8
Hz, the thermal design power consumption TDP is 30W...."
Before he finished speaking, Ren Zhengfei, who was sitting across from him, asked with a face full of astonishment: "Wait... you just said that Xiongxin No. 05 chip... uses the 28nm process.
Achieved the integration of 10 million transistors per square millimeter?”
Xu Chuan glanced at him and replied with a smile: "Well, what's wrong? Is there any problem?"
When he came back to his senses, Ren Zhengfei was filled with shock. He felt his throat was dry and his face was full of shock.
At first, he thought that the commercial value was not very great, referring to the fact that the number of transistors of this Xiongxin 05 chip may only be tens of thousands, which is a mature low-end chip with hundreds of thousands of transistors.
Chips that integrate tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of transistors are low-end and are indeed of little value in the current chip market.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! After all, there is no shortage of low-end chip markets in either Huawei or China.
For chips of this level, they have a mature manufacturing system.
It doesn’t take much thinking to know that the production cost of newly released carbon-based chips will definitely not catch up with mature silicon-based chips.
So the value is relatively small.
but.....
28nm multiple exposure technology integrates 10 million transistors per square millimeter!
This is something he never thought about before coming here!
If this data is true, then this latest Xiongxin No. 05 carbon-based chip integrates at least 1 billion transistors.
Compared with silicon-based chips, this data is almost the same as Apple’s self-developed A8 or Qualcomm Snapdragon 660.
Of course, this refers to the mobile processor series products, which were almost the high-end chips in the mobile phone field 8-10 years ago.
Even though they are chips from ten years ago, now, whether it is A8 or Snapdragon 660, they have still not withdrawn from the market, occupying the mainstream of mid-to-low-end products, and they can still compete.
Not to mention other things, there are still a large number of people in use in the low-end mobile phone market.
For example, Huawei's Changxiang MAX, Honor 8X MAX, OPPO's R11, Xiaomi's Mi 6, Redmi Note7 Pro, etc.
Although a large number of these low-end mobile phones have withdrawn from the domestic market, for companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi, they are still exported to foreign countries such as Southeast Asia, Africa and other regions to earn foreign exchange, and the market is still broad.
A chip of this level is not worth much?
Perhaps in this person's eyes, the value may indeed be small. But for China, the commercial value of carbon-based chips in the 28-nanometer process is measured in hundreds of millions!
After coming back from his thoughts, Ren Zhengfei showed a dumbfounded expression on his face. He couldn't help but complained: "Academician Xu, what you said is of little value... This is too messy...
..”
Xu Chuan: "????"
Taking a deep breath, Ren Zhengfei asked with some confirmed thoughts: "I would like to ask, according to the indicator you mentioned, to what extent can the performance of this Xiongxin No. 05 chip be comparable to that of silicon-based chips?
?”
Xu Chuan replied without thinking: "The R&D team said they can compare it to the Intel Xeon series single-channel processor series E5-1600, or the sixth or seventh generation of the Core I series."
"really!"
After hearing this answer, Ren Zhengfei showed an expression on his face that said, "I know it." This was not much different from the target he speculated would be compared with mobile phone chips.
Taking a deep breath, he explained: "Although chips of this level are considered mid- to low-end chips in the current market, the market is actually very broad."
"Whether it is mid-to-low-end electronic products such as mobile phones, computers and tablets, or home appliances, home appliance control, industrial automation equipment control and other fields, the demand for low-end chips is quite large."
"And with the rapid development of the mobile Internet and the Internet of Things, the demand for the popularization of various smart devices continues to increase, and the demand for low-end chips is growing extremely rapidly."
"The ability to prepare carbon-based chips with a 28-nanometer process and one billion transistors is completely sufficient to cope with these markets."
After hearing this, Xu Chuan thought for a while and asked: "But the cost of carbon-based chips is currently far less than that of mature silicon-based chips, and the related supporting industrial chain has not been established, and the competitiveness is far from enough.
I’m afraid it will be difficult to capture market share.”
Upon hearing this, Ren Zhengfei smiled and said, "This is not a problem at all."
After a pause, he looked at Xu Chuan and then said with a smile: "Indeed, if it is free market competition, the current industrial chain is not complete and the production cost of carbon-based chips with higher costs is difficult to compare with silicon-based chips."
"But for our country, this is not a problem of market competition!"
"Not to mention carbon-based chips that have matured to 28 nanometers and have one billion transistors. They are chips with only a few million. As long as we can see the hope of overtaking in the semiconductor field, I believe the government will fully support and promote it!"
"Market and competition, these are not problems at all!"
In Ren Zhengfei's view, Xu Chuan's worries about insufficient market and competitiveness are completely unnecessary.
Not to mention that the preparation cost of carbon-based chips is different from that of silicon-based chips, but the performance is far behind. As long as it can achieve overtaking in the chip field, the country will invest vigorous support.
As long as you have a mature carbon-based chip product, even the lowest-end one, such as a simple circuit control chip, industrial control chip, etc., as long as the product matures, the support will be unimaginable.
Not to mention other things, just throwing money directly, such as commercial subsidies, is enough for it to occupy a place in the market!
Moreover, as carbon-based chips mature, I am afraid that the first ones to change their appearance will be those state-owned enterprises and government enterprises!
This market is enough for carbon-based chips!
The market is not enough? Competitiveness is not strong?
The market is vast and the competitiveness is unique!