Chapter 240: Scouting the Enemy
Shima Masatoshi, whose expression couldn't tell whether he was sad or happy, turned around, took off his glasses, and let out a breath.
"Thank you for fulfilling your mission, Shirakawa-san."
Baichuan Feng took a step forward, stood in front of him, looked at him deeply, and then bowed solemnly.
"This day will surely be remembered in the history of SIC, Shima-san!"
Shima Masatoshi looked up and saw the crowd still cheering and applauding, and he also sighed and smiled.
“It’s all the result of everyone’s hard work, and it reminds me of my first experience with tape-out.”
Shima Masatoshi put on his glasses and looked at the chip on the instrument again. He was lost in thought, as if he was lost in some memory.
"I was still abroad at the time, and during the two or three months of preparation for tape-out, I was anxious and restless and couldn't sleep.
I am always thinking about what is right and whether there will be any problems.
When the chip came back and I pressed RESET for the first time, I was extremely nervous again.
The moment you release RESET is the moment that separates heaven and hell."
Shima Masatoshi sighed and gently stroked the device in front of him.
“If the numbers displayed by the logic analyzer are chaotic, my mood will fall into hell and I will be unable to express myself.
If everything goes well, people feel like they are in heaven.
I feel like the whole world is revolving around me and I am the king of the world."
As if he found his own past naivety funny, Shima Masatoshi smiled and shook his head.
"Okay, finally there is no problem with the overall structure." He then put his hands on his hips and let out a long breath.
“I have already noted down the garbled code, and a small part of the circuit can be modified slightly.
There are also some minor bugs that can be circumvented through software.
However, we may need to remake two more masks, so we still need to ask Mr. Shirakawa to increase the budget a little bit."
Seeing Shima Masatoshi's slightly apologetic eyes, Shirakawa Kaede happily took two steps forward and patted him on the shoulder.
"Shima-san, this is already amazing. The successful tape-out is our biggest victory."
Hearing Shirakawa Kaede's approval, Shima Masatoshi also nodded with a smile.
Finally, everything went smoothly and the more than 1 billion yen was not wasted.
As for modifying some circuits and remaking two mask plates, Baichuan Feng didn't care about such a small problem at all.
The board-making fee of thirty or forty thousand dollars is only a few million yen. Compared with the hundreds of millions of yen, it is not worth mentioning.
The most feared thing in tape-out is problems with the overall architecture, which means that all designs need to be started over again.
Not only was it time-consuming and laborious, but the hundreds of millions of yen spent on the tape-out were also wasted.
If we ignore some minor bugs, Baichuan Feng can already declare that SIC8081 has been officially developed successfully.
"Please leave the circuit repair part to me!" At this time, Yamazaki Teru, who had just collapsed on the chair, had stood up again, full of fighting spirit.
Seeing his confident look, Shima Masatoshi did not refuse. "Okay, I'll leave the adjustment to Yamazaki-kun. I'll personally review it after it's completed."
"Yeah!" Yamazaki Hui responded seriously.
The subsequent work is mostly finishing details and fixing some minor bugs.
After studying under Shima Masatoshi for more than half a year, Yamazaki Teru was able to share some of the minor work.
As for Shima Masatoshi, he also had another part of his work, which was to develop a simplified version based on SIC8081.
If it’s fast, it may be completed in two or three months, after all, the overall structure does not need to be changed.
If the knife skills are accurate, after one or two sketch designs , you can basically move on to the next tape-out trial production.
Looking at the people inside and outside the laboratory who were still very excited, Baichuan Feng finally put aside all his worries.
“Ladies and gentlemen, today is the most important day since the establishment of SIC, and history will remember this day!
This is also Japan's first commercial processor chip developed entirely independently, which is no small feat.
The success of SIC8081 is inseparable from everyone’s hard work over the past year.
Everyone present here, you are all contributors to SIC! Your names should be on the SIC monument! "
"Oh~!!!" Even louder cheers broke out again on the fifth floor of SIC.
"Go get the champagne. We have to celebrate today's success with a glass!"
Baichuan Feng waved his hand and signaled the people below to bring the champagne that had been prepared.
"Shirakawa-san, you..." Shima Masatoshi looked at the scene with a helpless smile.
The last time he went to Fujitsu, he did it to boost everyone's confidence.
He once joked that everyone should prepare champagne and wait for his triumphant return.
Now I didn’t expect that Baichuan Feng actually took it seriously.
Soon the champagne that had been prepared long ago was brought up, but because it was in the laboratory area, everyone held their glasses carefully for fear of spilling them.
“Conditions are limited, so we will hold a celebration banquet when SIC’s chips are officially launched.
Now please, King of the World!" Baichuan Feng raised his head and drank the wine.
"Haha" Hearing Shirakawa Kaede's teasing, Shima Masatoshi laughed out loud, then raised his glass and drank it all.
The simple celebration ceremony was completed and the wine glasses were taken away.
Everyone suppressed their excitement and began to work on the next step with full confidence.
Although there were some minor setbacks in the initial tape-out of the chip, it was generally considered a success.
Therefore, morale is boosted and everyone is more looking forward to and confident about future work.
"I'll have to trouble Shima-san for the development of subsequent versions of the chip."
Shirakawa Kaede hopes that the enhanced version of the 8-bit processor will be commercially available this year, but overall time is still a bit tight.
"If everything goes well, we may see it in the second half of the year."
Shima Masatoshi can guarantee this.
SIC currently has sufficient staff and development efficiency will be greatly improved.
"By the way, regarding the naming of subsequent versions, does Shirakawa-san have any ideas?"
Different versions of chips have model numbers to distinguish them, and the same is true for SIC chips.
What would the subsequent version be named? Shirakawa Feng thought for two seconds and then gave a name, "Let's call it SIC8089."
"Eh" Shima Masatoshi didn't understand the meaning of this.
"It's more powerful than an 8-bit processor, so let's use 9." Baichuan Feng smiled and gave an explanation.
As for the fact that it happens to be slightly larger than Intel's counterpart chip 8088, that is purely a coincidence.
"Then let's call it 8089." Shima Masatoshi had no objection to this naming.
After chatting with him for a few more minutes, my work at SIC has almost come to an end.
The design of the subsequent chips is on the right track, and all I have to do is wait and see the next finished product.
As for commercial use, the promotion of 16-bit processors is difficult, at least this year.
After all, the cost is high, and it is estimated that only some professional servers will use it.
But this part of the market is too small to form a scale.
Currently, 8-bit processors still dominate the market, so SIC's subsequent 8-bit enhanced version will be the highlight.
Baichuan Feng already has some ideas about its promotion.
But let's put these things aside for now and finish the things at hand.
…
Ota-ku, Shirakawa Electric.
Baichuan Feng sighed deeply as he looked at the financial statements in his hand. There was some good news from SIC just now, but all the news from Baichuan Electric was bad.
The Walkman business in March declined again compared with the previous month, and was down nearly 18% compared with the average in the second half of last year.
A drop in profit margins of almost one-fifth is already a significant impact.
As expected, in a market that cannot be monopolized, actual revenue has become very low.
It is possible that the situation like last year where the highest monthly profit margin in the country can reach 2 billion yen will never happen again.
Putting down the local financial statements, Baichuan Feng picked up the fax sent from North America. As soon as he took a look at it, he smiled happily.
It has been just over three months since 1981, and Shirakawa Electric has shipped a total of 2.4 million Walkmans in North America, which is a very encouraging growth.
It is indeed worthy of being the world's largest market at this time, with sales in three months exceeding the total sales in Japan for the whole year.
Most of them are mid-to-high-end models, especially SFM-01, which is the favorite of white-collar workers.
Its compact, stylish and textured design, as well as its unparalleled sound quality, are the reasons why it is so popular.
The price of $249 per unit is not a problem for white-collar workers who value luxury.
Thanks to the hot sales of high-end models, they also bring in lucrative profits.
The profit in North America in these three months alone was as high as 20 billion yen, and Shirakawa Electric's previously tight financial situation was instantly relieved.
The reason why Baichuan Feng dared to borrow book funds to invest in Kitato Bank was that he was full of confidence in the North American market.
His risk proved to be worthwhile.
It’s still Mi Jinxiang. It seems that it’s time to put the North American factory on the agenda.
Even for the sake of showing off, you can set up a research and development center.
You see, Shirakawa Electric also attaches great importance to the needs of the American people.
Factories, R&D centers, sales centers, these are all American companies covered in neon lights.
And to be on the safe side, Shirakawa Feng also thought about establishing a joint venture with some local audio brands to build a factory.
Just like the joint venture cars in China, I believe doing so will make the United States feel more at ease.
However, there is no harm without comparison . Looking at the market performance in North America and then looking at the domestic market, Baichuan Feng frowned more and more.
With Shirakawa Electric in such a situation, Sony must be having a hard time too .
Thinking of this, he picked up the phone and started dialing the number.
"Moshimoshi?"
"Is that Oga-san? It's me, Shirakawa." Shirakawa Kaede quickly organized the documents in his hands while holding the phone between his ears.
"It's Mr. Shirakawa. It's been a long time since we last met. How have you been recently?" Ohga Norio's voice sounded a little cheerful.
Hmm? Bai Chuanfeng was stunned for a moment.
Is it possible that Sony's Walkman business is developing smoothly and it has not suffered any losses?
Or is there any other good thing?
Although he thought so in his heart, Baichuan Feng quickly replied, "Thanks to Dahe-san, everything went well."
"Really? That's great." The voice in the receiver paused slightly. "I wonder how the Shirakawa Electric CD player is progressing? Is there a prototype?"
A flash of realization flashed across Shirakawa Kaede's eyes. "The CD player is much more complicated than I imagined. Shirakawa Electric is making slow progress. Is Sony making progress?"
"It's just so-so," Ohga Norio said in a tone that was not very clear. "Think about it, the goal is to start commercial use next year, so time is really tight."
"That's right," Baichuan Feng agreed. "By the way, I wonder if Ohga-san has paid attention to the Walkman market?"
"Walkman? Well, there are some slight fluctuations, but the specific data needs to be analyzed before we can see the trend." The sound of papers being flipped came from the receiver.
"That's great. I'll visit you again when I have time."
After saying goodbye to each other, Baichuan Feng hung up the phone with a click, and a thoughtful look appeared in his eyes.
