From the perspective of the development of computer chip technology, microprocessors (such as Intel's 8080) that appeared in the 1970s are still in the 8-bit era and mainly rely on assembly language to write programs, which is relatively simple and requires relatively little investment.
Gordon Moore, chairman of Intel Corporation, believes that the development of next-generation computer chips will be the lifeline of Intel. Therefore, he hired the top computer science Ph.D.s in the United States and convened a group of elites to conduct in-depth research on next-generation computer integrated circuit chips.
Within Intel, the most important computer architecture project is named; 8800.
This is the most ambitious development plan in the entire 1980s. It has bit-based addressing capabilities, object-oriented architecture, variable bit length instructions, and operating traditions written in the latest programming language ada.
Intel's ambitious plan calls for 52 weeks to develop the new "8800" design and build the chip.
Because the project development was not going well, Intel was forced to start an emergency replacement work in Santa Clara (Silicon Valley), striving to launch a temporary microprocessor replacement in 1979.
In view of the tight schedule, the firefighting team actually expanded the 8080's 8-bit registers and instruction set into bits. In the end, it only took 3 regular working weeks to complete the design of this isa. Now it seems unimaginable. Development
After completion, it is named "8086" chip.
It needs to be mentioned here that Dr. Gary Sinise, who presided over the development, is the leader of this ten-person team. He has been highly praised by the industry for his outstanding work and has risen to the altar in one fell swoop.
IBM used the 8086 version of the chip to launch a new desktop computer in August 1981. It originally planned to sell 10,000 computers by 1986 and serve as an emergency team member.
In fact, as of 1989, IBM had sold 100 million units of this computer around the world. The market was a great success, and the substitutes became the main players, paving the way for a very bright future for Intel chips.
Encouraged by its success, Intel expanded the 8086 chip. This important research work was still personally led by Dr. Gary Sinise, who expanded the chip register from bit to bit to meet the increasing needs of the market.
Amid the flowers and applause, discordant sounds appeared.
Due to differences in technical concepts, Intel's senior executives and Dr. Gary Sinise, the head of the R&D team, had conflicts and became increasingly irreconcilable.
These situations have occurred in many successful projects and require sufficient mediation skills and skills to prevent things from getting out of hand.
Unfortunately, due to his incompatible ideas and lack of emotional intelligence, Dr. Gary Sinise had a falling out with Medellin, his direct boss at Intel, and became incompatible.
This kind of workplace competition is not what Dr. Gary Sinise, who is obsessed with research, is good at.
The result proved this, the earth will rotate regardless of who is away from him, and he was kicked out in despair.
In 1989, Dr. Gary Sinis joined the University of California, Berkeley, and published the book "Computer Architecture: Quantitative Research Methods" during this period.
The themes of the book are:
Use measurement methods and benchmarks for quantitative evaluation, rather than relying on the architect's intuition and experience as before.
This is a must-have bible for high-tech researchers in Silicon Valley. It won the Turing Award in the second year, establishing Dr. Gary Sinise's lofty status in the industry.
The problem is that in this highly monopolized industry, Intel is silent, and Dr. Gary Sinise cannot find a suitable company to hire him to engage in cutting-edge research in the field of computer chips.
Even in the United States, apart from Intel, Texas Instruments is the leader in this industry with several well-established companies. In 1993, AMD was still in the technical stage of 386cpu, and 4865cpu had not yet been introduced to the market. It was two generations behind the two leading companies.
Many small and medium-sized enterprises are unable to get involved in cutting-edge research in the chip field, and most adopt a follow-up strategy.
The monopoly and oligopoly structure in the high-tech field left Dr. Gary Sinis with nowhere to display his talents. He was excluded from this narrow circle and could only engage in teaching and research at the University of California, Berkeley.
This pattern was still maintained subtly until Red Hat intervened.
The research on computer chips is highly professional and expensive, and is not a game that small and medium-sized companies can afford.
Because of Moore's Law, the design and production of semiconductor wafers is becoming more and more complex and expensive. A single company often cannot afford the high R&D and production costs.
The invention of the integrated circuit in the 1960s allowed many semiconductor components to be placed on one wafer at a time.
As semiconductors shrink, the number of transistors that can be accommodated on an IC will double approximately every two years, and performance will double every 18 months.
From less than 10 in the 1960s, it increased to 100,000 in the 1980s and to 10 million in the 1990s.
At the same time, research and development expenses have skyrocketed from millions of dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars, and the need for high-end research talents has also skyrocketed, which has further tested the scientific research organizational capabilities of leading companies.
This phenomenon was proposed by Moore, the honorary chairman of Intel, and is called "Moore's Law".
In the next ten years or so, the number of components on integrated circuits will continue to double at a rate of doubling every 18 months, growing to an incredible number of hundreds of millions to billions, and the difficulty will skyrocket.
Currently, the number of researchers specializing in cutting-edge VLSI chip architecture at Intel has exceeded 400. Adding in peripheral personnel, the number of research institute personnel can easily reach thousands.
Judging from the current situation, as long as you are willing to invest huge sums of money to catch up, there is still hope. If in another 10 or 20 years, latecomers join this field, the difficulty will definitely be hellish and make people despair.
In the chairman's office
When talking about professional issues, Dr. Gary Sinise was very excited and introduced...
a moment later
Wang Yaocheng smiled helplessly, excluding the obscure and difficult professional terminology of the doctor, his central idea was very simple;
Because of the advantage of being a latecomer, ultra-large-scale computer integrated circuit chip design adopts a brand-new architecture, with stronger performance and lower energy consumption. The development prospects are bright and the application prospects are broad. It can reach or even exceed the current world's advanced level in some performances.
There is another but behind this...
It is precisely because we have embarked on a completely different technological development path that we need more researchers, greater investment, and stronger support. According to the current smooth progress of various research groups, as long as the above support is realized, it is expected that within one and a half years
After that, you can come up with the latest research results;
A microprocessor that has reached the world's advanced level and has powerful performance.
In a nutshell, if you want to obtain these, you need to increase capital investment. The subsequent planned capital investment is as high as 200 million U.S. dollars, and there may be more.
After careful consideration, the distance to success is only 200 million U.S. dollars. This price is completely affordable.
Opportunities always come to those who are prepared.
With the development of an enterprise to this point, it is impossible to always rely on the unparalleled vision of rebirth. If you want to truly embark on the path of Samsung, you have no other choice but to invest heavily in research and development, master your core competitiveness, and immerse yourself in research.
Wang Yaocheng made up his mind to invest heavily;
"Doctor, your project is at the core strategic level of the enterprise. The company will fully support your research. The required experimental equipment, personnel and funds will be focused on it. This is related to the development of the entire company in the next few decades and is of great significance."
"ok, very good."
"Are you satisfied with your project team members?"
"Oh, they are great. Sun Zhongxiu and Qian Fu are both rigorous scientists. These Chinese researchers are the most professional I have ever seen. I am especially impressed by their research spirit of forgetting sleep and food. To be honest, they learn very quickly.
,Okay, I'm going back to the laboratory now."
"Thank you for your compliment. Well, walk slowly..."
Dr. Galicinis had no time to chat, so he left in a hurry after finishing his words, leaving only Wang Yaocheng and Qi Yafei looking at each other and smiling bitterly.
Wang Yaocheng; "Brother Yafei, the chip project is progressing smoothly. I am considering setting up a separate company for operation and development. This is the third high-tech company hatched by Red Hat. What do you think about this?"
"Yes, I think the time has come. The general framework of chip architecture design has been formed, and further research and development is progressing smoothly. Currently, the chip project occupies 266 senior researchers, and the research funds spent have reached three-fifths of the entire company.
It’s time to become independent.”
Qi Yafei thought for a moment and asked, "What kind of name should I use?"
Wang Yaocheng chuckled; "Athlon Computer Chip Company's product is called the 'Athlon' microprocessor series. What do you think?"
"Athlon?" Qi Yafei chewed these two words repeatedly, and the more he thought about them, the more flavorful they became. He nodded appreciatively; "The Athlon microprocessor series is very good, and the name has a good meaning, so let's call it Athlon Company."
The Athlon microprocessor series is actually a product released by AMD a few years later. After being put into the market, it was welcomed by a large number of small and medium-sized customers and quickly occupied the market monopolized by Intel Corporation, opening up a living space for AMD.
Now that the brand name Wang Yaocheng has been used first, AMD can only think of other catchy and beautiful names.
Wang Yaocheng has always had no psychological burden in doing such things that are convenient and cost-effective.
"Now that it has been decided, you will be responsible for taking the lead on this matter. Let the company's legal affairs follow up. A series of legal issues such as company registration will be solved by them. The accounting review process will be completed as soon as possible. The subsequent capital investment will be used as the equity of Red Hat.
The corresponding company management should be in accordance with the standards of listed companies and get on the right track as soon as possible."
Qi Yafei took over another heavy task, which stimulated his ambition again. He drank the red wine in the glass and said simply, "Okay, I'll start doing it right away."
Red Hat was extremely lucky to be able to recruit Dr. Gary Sinise, an academic master, to join the company. The opportunity was very rare.
For such research madmen, as long as there are no differences in scientific and technological concepts, in fact, there is no need to get too involved in technical research. All they need to do is to provide the best research conditions.
In the United States, large companies like Intel have bloated structures, prevailing office culture, and competition for interests is filled with more intrigues.
Intel, a company with a profound technological background, has an endless stream of academic experts. The project manager, Dr. Medellin, is a senior expert, and his academic status in the computer field is no less than that of Dr. Gary Sinis.
When it comes to how to develop a new generation of very large scale integrated circuits, whether to choose high performance or low power consumption, and how to balance the relationship between the two, affects the dominant direction of architecture design. It can be said to be a collision of scientific and technological development concepts.
As academic giants, Dr. Medellin and Dr. Gary Sinise refused to give in to each other on major issues of right and wrong related to the academic route. If the sparks of conflict hit the earth, one of them would inevitably leave.
The conflict between the two sides lies in the differences in scientific and technological concepts. There is no distinction between who is right and who is wrong. All roads lead to Rome. This is a multiple-choice question, and there is no middle way to avoid it.
Dr. Gary Sinise accepted the invitation from Red Hat with deep resentment and full of ambition, just to prove that his academic path was correct, to establish a monument for himself, and to fight back against the ruthless abandonment of his old employer Intel Corporation.
Wang Yaocheng is happy to see this and at the same time, create the best research conditions for Dr. Gary Sinis.
Their purpose is the same;
We have developed microprocessor chips that have reached or even exceeded the international advanced level and have completely independent patents, bringing more choices to the world.
Wang Yaocheng needs a powerful microprocessor chip to realize his dream, and Dr. Gary Sinis also needs it to prove himself. This is related to the persistence of academic lines and the competition for academic status in the field, which should not be underestimated.
For the young Red Hat, even Professor Sun Zhongxiu and Professor Qian Fu of Jinling University faced Dr. Gary Sinise, a leading figure in the field of computer chips. It was still an in-depth learning process, and it was naturally impossible to compete academically.
This reduces internal friction. Chinese researchers have always been known for being rigorous, down-to-earth, and diligent. Everyone focuses on research projects, making rapid progress and continuously obtaining key innovative patent results.
The location of Red Hat is really great. It is less than 3,000 meters away from the Intel headquarters, within easy reach of Stanford University. There are also famous research universities such as the University of California, Berkeley, and it is in Silicon Valley, where there are many high-tech companies.
middle.
There is no shortage of top talents, scientific and technological experimental equipment, abundant funds, the latest scientific and technological information, and high-end research results, which is extremely suitable for the development of research-oriented high-tech companies.
Standing at the company gate and waving, among the ten people who turned around, at least three were Ph.D.s, five were graduate students, the remaining one was the boss of a start-up company, and the last one was probably a college student delivering pizza during a work-study program.