Chapter 236: Finding a Different Way
Coming out of the Japanese garden, Nagata Masaru, Ogawa Kazuo, and Takei Hirotomo all walked together without any prior arrangement.
"Nagata-san, Terada-san and Sakaguchi-san are starting to target Shirakawa-san again." Ogawa Kazuo brought up the topic with a smile.
Nagata smiled nonchalantly, "They underestimated Shirakawa-san, an old guy who has one foot almost in his coffin.
He just relies on his little experience to bully others all day long, and he has put a lot of effort into the continuation of the family line."
Hearing Nagata Tadashi's half-emotional, half-joking words, Ogawa Kazuo and Takei Hirotomo both laughed.
Mr. Terada and Mr. Sakaguchi, their family businesses are mostly traditional industries.
Nowadays, not only has the development stagnated in recent years, but it has even shown a declining trend.
Although Japan's economy is booming, most of it comes from export processing or technology industries.
For example, automobiles, home appliances, small consumer electronics, etc.
As for cotton spinning and local mining, to be honest, they did not reap much economic benefits.
Japan has a small territory and limited energy resources.
Even if there are some small mining areas in some places, the resource reserves are rather touching and it is almost impossible to carry out large-scale mining.
After dozens or hundreds of years, the energy industries of these two companies have almost no output.
Not to mention that after the post-war breakup, many industries have been out of their family control.
However, the descendants of the Terada and Sakaguchi families are all mediocre. If nothing unexpected happens, when the heads of these two families pass away.
In a few years, there may no longer be any Terada or Sakaguchi families.
Everything is lost in the world, and the best outcome is just a wealthy family.
"Come to think of it," said Hiroyuki Takei, who had been silent all this time, suddenly with emotion, "At gatherings a few years ago, we could still communicate a few things. Now..." He shook his head, lacking interest.
"That's right," Ogawa Kazuo agreed, "Every time we get together, they basically talk a lot, and then they raise funds everywhere under the pretext of mutual cooperation.
Don’t you see how many alumni are still attending the reunions? As of today, there are no more than five.
It's really touching~" Kazuo Ogawa remembers that the number of people who first attended the party was far more than a dozen.
And now, if they hadn’t come here to give me face, would this still be considered a party?
In the final analysis, it was those two old guys who sold out their reputation for the sake of their family.
Those alumni who were fed up with it voluntarily stayed away from here.
Yes, at first, for the sake of seniors Terada and Sakaguchi, everyone was happy to sit together and discuss industry issues.
Regardless of how much influence it can have, at least we can support each other.
After all, this campus circle is not limited to Mingzhi University, there are many other universities.
As for Terada and Sakaguchi's extortion, everyone should turn a blind eye and just help them once.
However, unlimited unilateral demands are not the purpose of alumni gatherings.
"Mr. Nagata, will you come next time?" When they were about to part, Ogawa Kazuo suddenly asked about his plans for next time.
Nagata Masaru smiled and didn't say much, but everyone knew what he meant.
"By the way, Mr. Shirakawa..." Takei Hirotomo looked at Nagata Masaru, "What do you think of Mr. Nagata?"
"Eh" Nagata was stunned for a moment, then realized that he was asking for his evaluation.
"The Dragon among Men" Masaru Nagata gave an evaluation that surprised both Kazuo Ogawa and Hirotomo Takei.
"So powerful?" Takei Hirotomo's eyes began to roll, and I wonder what he was thinking.
You have to know that Nagata Masakazu is the chairman of Keio Group. To be praised so highly by him, Mr. Shirakawa must be a very talented person.
“You two may not have dealt with him before. Although Mr. Baichuan is young, he is definitely not a superficial and arrogant person.
Moreover, the world only knows about his Shirakawa Electric, but does not know the real scale of the industry behind it. "
Keio Group, which has cooperated extensively with Shirakawa Electric, naturally knows more about it than the outside world.
"Is Mr. Nagata talking about his series of investments in Akita?"
Kazuo Ogawa also heard about Shirakawa Kaede's acquisition of a local bank in Akita at the beginning of the year.
But I didn’t pay too much attention to it, after all, there are so many local banks in Japan.
It is not surprising to see how many companies are established and how many go bankrupt every year.
Nagata Masaru smiled and said, "Not only that, if you are interested, you might as well pay more attention to Mr. Shirakawa in the future and you will find out."
"Mr. Nagata, Mr. Ogawa" After listening to Nagata Masaru's description, Takei Hirotomo's thoughts became more mature.
"How about calling that Shirakawa-san?"
"Eh?" Nagata Masaru and Ogawa Kazuo looked at him in confusion.
"We will come to the next alumni reunion." Takei Hirotomo said again, which surprised Nagata and others.
"Not only us, but also Mr. Shirakawa and other alumni who have participated in the event." Hirotomo Takei continued his thoughts.
"What Mr. Takei means is..." Nagata Masaru and Ogawa Kazuo looked at each other and saw the light in each other's eyes.
Takei Hirotomo nodded, "We'll all come, but we need to go to a different place."
As he said this, he turned his head and glanced at the ancient courtyard behind him, and said meaningfully, "As for these two elders, they are old, so we should not bother them anymore."
Nagata Masaru and Ogawa Kazuo made eye contact again, and then they laughed at the same time.
"What Takei-san said is that the Meiji alumni association should be a place where everyone sits together to communicate on an equal footing and support each other.
As the younger generation, we cannot agree with the traditions of our predecessors."
They smiled at each other, looked at the courtyard behind them again, and then turned around and left without any reluctance.
…
In the blink of an eye, March is already halfway through, and today the SIC building is bustling with activity.
Except for the figures running around, everyone's face was solemn.
"Shima-san, I'll leave the rest to you."
In the laboratory, Matsumura Masayoshi handed the integrated circuit drawing in his hand to Shima Masatoshi with a serious look on his face.
"Please rest assured that our design has been verified countless times and will never fail."
Compared to the other people in the laboratory who were on high alert, Shima Masatoshi was also a little nervous.
But not like some people who bite their lips so hard that they can't speak.
"Everyone, please prepare some champagne for the celebration. I'll drink with you all when I come back."
Shima Masatoshi, who has been abroad for nearly 10 years, is now cheering everyone on with full confidence, just like the Americans.
Some people were amused by him, while others still looked tense.
After all, the working atmosphere in Japan is much more serious than that in foreign countries.
"Okay, then I'll wait here for Shima-san's triumphant return."
In the end, it was Shirakawa Kaede who stepped out from the crowd with a smile and patted Shima Masatoshi on the shoulder.
"Please rest assured, Shima-san. We have plenty of opportunities. There is no need to rush for immediate success or failure."
Although saying this may undermine his own prestige, Baichuan Feng also knows that chips are a complicated project.
It is impossible to be perfect at once, and it is impossible to be smooth sailing all the time.
Shima Masatoshi took a deep breath, then nodded with a smile, "Please leave it to me. I will not let Shirakawa-san's support go to waste."
After saying that, he nodded to everyone in the laboratory again, then took the drawings and left with Yamazaki Hui.
Watching their departing backs, Baichuan Feng slowly breathed a sigh of relief and decided to just wait here for the results.
"Mr. Shirakawa" At this time, Matsumura Masayoshi came over and wanted to say something else.
But he moved his lips and finally fell silent.
“Don’t worry, Matsumura-san, we’ve already done what we need to do.
Please believe in your own efforts and the efforts of all SIC staff."
Shirakawa Kaede and Matsumura Masayoshi walked to their seats and sat down. He knew what the other party was worried about.
"But it's a cost of millions of dollars after all. If..." Matsumura Masayoshi seemed afraid to mention that word and stopped talking halfway.
That’s right, today is the day when the SIC8081 chip is launched.
Just now, Masatoshi Shima and Teru Yamazaki went to Fujitsu to prepare for the first trial production of chips.
Since officially signing the contract with Fujitsu in February, Shima Masatoshi and his team have spent more than a month perfecting the final physical design part.
We also coordinated the process with Fujitsu and found no problem in confirming the theoretical process.
Today we are also preparing to take that substantive step and formally produce physical chips for subsequent product verification.
"Shima-san is best at logical architecture. As long as there is no problem with the framework, there won't be any major losses."
Shirakawa Kaede is relatively more optimistic. At least this is not the first time that Shima Masatoshi has done such a thing, so there is no reason for a big mistake.
But the cost of millions of dollars is indeed heartbreaking.
It has been mentioned before that the biggest expense during chip tape-out is the mask fee. In fact, the price of a single mask board is not outrageous, about 20,000 to 30,000 US dollars.
So why does it add up to millions of dollars? That’s because more than one mask plate is needed.
A chip the size of a fingernail needs to hold tens or even hundreds of thousands of transistors, so of course it is impossible to accomplish this in just this small area.
The circuit is photolithographically processed in multiple layers, and a mask is required for each layer of circuit etching.
According to the current 3-micron process, SIC8081, with more than 40,000 transistors, requires at least dozens of masks.
The total amount is almost one million US dollars. If you take other expenses into account, it will definitely exceed one million US dollars.
Regardless of whether the chip tape-out production is successful or not, more than one million dollars will have to be spent.
If it fails, it will cost money again, 300 to 400 million yen in one go, even Shirakawa Feng feels heartbroken.
Think about the chips in the future that contain hundreds of millions or even tens of billions of transistors . The mask fees would probably be hundreds of millions of dollars.
As expected, such cost investment alone will scare away more than half of the companies, but fortunately it is still early.
The chip industry has just started, SIC is not too far behind, and the cost of catching up is within an acceptable range.
If he waits until the future when the day comes when hundreds of millions of dollars are needed, Baichuan Feng may not be able to make up his mind.
As for now, the money has been spent.
All we have to do now is wait for Shima Masatoshi and his team to bring back the first batch of samples to conduct logical verification.
March is already halfway through and April is just around the corner. I hope everything goes well.
The US and European markets also need to be planned as soon as possible.
