Chapter 227 SIC8081
Shirakawa Kaede returned to Tokyo to finish the things he had accumulated, and it was already mid-February.
The people below will keep a close eye on the portable player market, and the task of developing the next generation of products has also been assigned.
Faced with numerous competitors, there is no shortcut and we can only face them head-on.
However, Shirakawa Electric's Walkman has been sold for more than a year, and its brand image is deeply rooted in people's hearts.
With his own cultivated market, Shirakawa Kaede remains relatively optimistic about the walkman business.
As for the handheld game console business, he also has some ideas, but the specifics need to be discussed with HAL and Akagi.
Apart from these more important matters currently facing Shirakawa Feng, the only thing left is SIC.
Shibuya Daikanyama, SIC Building.
Unlike the empty scene last time, this time the reception hall on the first floor not only had the front desk in place.
There were people sitting in those small meeting rooms, most of whom were interviewing talents needed by various departments.
The research and development of chips, the development of CD formats, etc. all require professional and high-end technical personnel.
Although Tokyo Institute of Technology has a large number of highly educated talents, it does lack practical experience.
Therefore, in order to improve R&D efficiency, mature technical personnel are indispensable.
Considering the development of SIC, the interns in the school cannot be left out.
We must grasp it with both hands and make both hands strong.
As for what specific talents need to be recruited, it is up to Shima Masayoshi and others to decide.
Led by his assistant, Shirakawa Feng took the elevator straight to the fifth floor, where was the development area of SIC chip technology.
When they arrived here, Masatoshi Shima and Teru Yamazaki were pointing at the computer screen in the office.
Baichuan Feng, who had already arrived, stopped the assistant's reminder and stood behind them, waiting quietly.
“The size of the transistor must be adjusted reasonably. It is not necessarily the smaller the better. Reducing power consumption and delay is our ultimate goal.
In addition, when the manufacturing process enters the sub-micron level, the impact of interconnection line delay between circuits on circuit performance even exceeds the impact of logic gate delay itself.
At this time, when we design the circuit, we must consider the capacitance and inductance effects between the wire networks.
..."
“Do we also need to avoid the negative impact of clock skew and clock tree parasitic parameters in advance?”
"Yes, ..."
While Shima Masatoshi was talking, Yamazaki Teru beside him nodded from time to time, or continued to ask questions about things he had questions about.
Baichuan Feng, who had been listening for a while behind them, soon felt a little overwhelmed.
Those professional terms look difficult to deal with.
Finally, when Shima Masatoshi picked up the coffee, he noticed the figure behind him out of the corner of his eye.
"Hey, President Shirakawa," Shima Masatoshi quickly put down the half-drunk coffee.
Yamazaki Hui, who was beside him, saw Shirakawa Feng and subconsciously stood up to greet him.
"You're welcome, Shima-san. You and Yamazaki-kun continue the discussion, and I'll just watch."
Baichuan Feng stretched out his hand to signal them not to be so polite. He would not normally bother them unless there was something important.
The most taboo thing for technological research and development is to be interrupted by various trivial matters, so the entire SIC building is relatively quiet compared to the surrounding areas.
"We have almost finished discussing everything that needs to be discussed. But if Mr. Shirakawa doesn't come, I am going to go find him myself."
Shima Masatoshi waved his hand to indicate that work matters were not urgent for the time being. He was mainly teaching Yamazaki Teru about the things to pay attention to in chip design.
Shirakawa Feng casually pulled a chair over and sat down in front of them. "I'm so sorry that I only came today to discuss the backend design of the chip with Shima-san."
When the SIC building was completed years ago, Shirakawa Kaede, Shima Masatoshi and others held a meeting.
The front-end design of the chip is expected to be completed before the end of the year, and most of the work on the back-end design will also be completed in January.
According to the plan, physical design will be carried out in February, and this part of the work requires coordination with semiconductor manufacturers.
However, because Baichuan Feng spent some time in Akita, the progress of chip research and development has been slightly delayed.
Fortunately, the impact was not too long. After dealing with the urgent matter, Baichuan Feng rushed to SIC as soon as possible.
Now that Shirakawa Kaede is here, Shima Masatoshi goes straight to the point.
"Because I didn't identify a specific semiconductor manufacturer, I collected process technology information from several major semiconductor companies in Japan and did some preliminary work."
As he spoke, Shima Masatoshi opened the design drawings on the computer and showed them to Shirakawa Kaede.
"The main layout and wiring has been roughly completed. After the subsequent branching and details are perfected, the integrated circuit layout can be entered into the actual process manufacturing stage."
Looking at the densely packed transistors and circuits on the computer screen, although Baichuan Feng couldn't understand them, he thought they were extremely cute.
This is the power of knowledge. Thousands of transistors are arranged in an orderly manner on the computer screen like ants.
The circuits composed of them are extremely complex, but now we want to concentrate all of them on a small chip and run them smoothly.
This requires consideration of the mutual influence of the entire circuit, power consumption, delay, logical relationships, etc.
Just thinking about it, Baichuan Feng felt daunted.
Sure enough, it is no exaggeration to say that chips are the ultimate manifestation of human technological development.
Baichuan Feng also has great admiration for the bigwigs in this industry.
"Shima-san, I don't understand technical matters. You just need to tell me what I can do for it now..." Shirakawa pointed to the circuit diagram on the computer screen, "What can I do for it?"
Shima Masatoshi likes Shirakawa Kaede's style of really wanting to do things. Meaningless greetings and courtesies are of no help to him.
“First, we need to confirm the chip processing method as soon as possible. After the physical design is completed, we will enter the manufacturing verification stage.
This is equally important for chip design. Any chip requires a lot of adjustments and verification before it is released.
Second, please ask Mr. Shirakawa to consider the future use prospects of this chip as soon as possible.
If it is only designed but not produced and used, then its existence will be meaningless. "
Needless to say, the first point is the top priority at the moment, and Baichuan Feng also has his own plans.
"Regarding chip manufacturers, what do you think of Fujitsu, Shima-san?"
"Fujitsu? Of course no problem." Shima Masayoshi is familiar with several semiconductor manufacturers in Japan.
After all, not everyone can make high-end products like chips.
There are only a few of them in Japan, including NEC, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, and Toshiba, among which Fujitsu ranks probably third.
Nowadays, chip manufacturing processes are still at the micron level, and there is basically no generation gap in technology between them.
Therefore, there is absolutely no problem in choosing Fujitsu as the OEM from a technical point of view.
The reason why Shirakawa chose Fujitsu is because it is also a member of the Dai-ichi Kangyo Bank Group.
With the good cooperation foundation before, Shirakawa Feng believed that there should be no problem with Fujitsu.
However, the specific situation will only be known after discussing with Fujitsu.
Seeing that Shirakawa Kaede seemed confident, Shima Masatoshi did not delve into why he chose Fujitsu.
For him, as long as the technical requirements can be met, it doesn't matter who he works for.
The first thing has been settled, so the second thing...
"Shima-san, I'd like to ask you a question. What do you think the performance of SIC's chip is? How does it compare to Intel's 8086 or Zligo's 8000?"
To ask about the prospects of a chip, of course we must first look at its performance.
When Shirakawa Kaede asked this question, Shima Masatoshi changed his usual humility.
"I can't say about the others, but at least they are not weaker than them." Shima Masatoshi is quite confident about this.
Jokingly, he is a former family member of these two chips and he personally participated in the design.
Even Zligo's Z8000, Shima Masatoshi was involved .
So he was well aware of their performance.
Moreover, when SIC's chip was first designed, it was targeted at Intel's 8086 and Zligo's z8000.
The latter two are basically products from two or three years ago. Although SIC is a latecomer, it is no worse than them.
Hearing Shima Masatoshi's assurance, Shirakawa Kaede was very satisfied.
This is SIC's first product, and it is truly rare to have such performance.
"Regarding the future use of the chip, Shima-san, please list a suitable range for it later, and I will focus on it."
Of course, Baichuan Feng will not make chips just for his own use. He has already made plans to run it as a family business.
Isn't the purpose to bring it to market and create profits for SIC?
To put it bluntly, chips are also a kind of product. Shima Masatoshi is responsible for research and development, and Shirakawa Kaede is responsible for sales.
Moreover, the larger the chip output, the lower the cost, and naturally the higher the profit.
"By the way, Mr. Shirakawa, the research and development of the chip will soon be completed. So what do you think about its naming?"
Nowadays, there is no habit of giving chips codes, and most chips are named directly by model number.
This naming method was also retained on processors in later generations, of course, with the exception of mobile phone processors.
There are so many awesome names that if you don’t know, you might think it’s the Battle of the Gods.
Snapdragon, Kirin, Dimensity... Look, it's definitely a fight between gods.
However, Baichuan Feng did not intend to do so. Now is still the era of selling products, not the gimmick of selling certain components.
Moreover, when he saw Shima Masatoshi's eager eyes, he knew that he could no longer hold back.
"If you have any good ideas, Shima-san, please share them with us."
Baichuan Feng is very open-minded about this aspect, and as a designer, he also respects the other party's rights in this regard.
As expected, after hearing what Shirakawa Kaede said, Shima Masatoshi immediately became interested.
"Mr. Shirakawa, how about calling it SIC8081?"
"8081?"
SIC Baichuan Feng understands what 8081 means.
As if knowing what he was thinking, Shima Masatoshi explained further.
“SIC was founded in 1980, and its first chip was produced in 1981.
So putting these two numbers together as a commemoration, everyone thinks it’s a good idea.”
If this explanation is given, it’s not bad.
"Let's do as Shima-san said and call SIC's first chip 8081." Since everyone was satisfied, Shirakawa Feng also followed suit.
"Yoshi, SIC8081 will definitely enter the commercial stage this year."
This is a chip that was developed entirely by Shima Masatoshi himself, and he has invested a lot of effort in its future.
Now that victory is in sight, he is also full of confidence.
