1991 Starting from the core

"How to build more transistors in a limited area is not only the design direction of CPU, but also the direction of memory. This needs no explanation. We mainly talk about the structure of MOSFET."

After entering the technical discussion, there were a few more people in the conference room. Su Yuanshan grabbed the manuscript paper and drew a MOSFET structure diagram like a scribble.

"Wait, I need to say something." Li Mingliu interrupted Su Yuanshan: "Mr. Shan, don't be nice. We all know that building a building on a piece of land can accommodate more rooms than building a bungalow. But chip design is not architectural design. , the architectural design only needs to consider structural mechanics, material mechanics, etc. As long as you don’t build weird-shaped buildings, the construction is generally no problem.”

"The difficulty of chip design lies in the realization of the process. I can draw a multi-layer structure right now. But carving it out is the difficulty."

Su Yuanshan was delighted when he heard this: "Let's leave this kind of process to the wafer factory."

Li Mingliu obviously didn't believe it: "Is it really that simple? I think the fab will beat people."

"Well, it's really not that simple." Su Yuanshan put down his pen with a smile and looked at the people in the office.

These are the top people of this era and have been working in related industries for such a long time. If you want to say that they would not think of developing a multi-layered structure, it would be really funny. However, as Li Mingliu said, the structure changes from single-story to multi-story, "from bungalow to building", which involves not only design, but also craftsmanship.

Just like building a house or building a bungalow, you can just call a few masons or two to get it done. But if you want to build a skyscraper, you don’t have a professional construction management team and solutions to various problems. Even if you call 10,000 masons, you can’t build it.

To create a new architecture, we must create new processes to implement it.

From the channel to the stack, to P and N doping, etching and cleaning, ion implantation, oxidation and evaporation, vapor deposition... the entire process has dozens of steps at least.

With this set of processes, the technology may not need to be innovated, but the steps need to be redesigned. Not to mention the long-standing problems such as cell leakage and poor adhesion of gate polysilicon.

Playing with engineering is not like playing with materials, just Ou Huang. New craftsmanship relies on money, time and loneliness.

…

After a few seconds of silence, Su Yuanshan said slowly.

"Design and technology are like two legs. Whether it is the birth of a new architecture or a breakthrough in the manufacturing process, it will drive the entire industry forward."

Su Yuanshan pursed his lips and carefully considered his words: "But from the emergence of large-scale integrated circuits to now, the development of semiconductors has mainly been enjoying the dividends brought by process breakthroughs. Look at the process nodes, and then count the number of transistors. Know."

"But the process has its upper limit after all. In the foreseeable future, breakthroughs in the process will definitely become difficult. At that time, the improvement of the architecture will be the only way to save Moore's Law."

Memories flashed before Su Yuanshan's eyes. It was when the light source of the lithography machine stopped at DUV193nm that the idea of ​​​​FINFET (fin field effect transistor) appeared, the idea of ​​​​GAA (gate structure) also appeared, and at the same time, the more radical EUV solution also appeared.

"Now we are not only lagging behind in manufacturing processes, but if we cannot lead others in terms of architecture...then how can we compete with others in the future?"

Su Yuanshan said and looked at everyone: "You don't want to rely on VCDs and selling business divisions to support yourself, right?"

This sentence made everyone feel unspeakable emotions.

Yuanxin had two main sources of income before, one was EDA and the other was VCD.

Then Su Yuanshan sold 20% of Xinghai's shares to acquire Cyrix, and with the money he got back, he built Yuanxin Technology Park. Then he sold more than half of his EDA shares, took back more than 2 billion US dollars in cash, and started to build the Shanghai Science and Technology Park and Xinde International, as well as the Silicon Valley R\u0026D Center.

As for microcontrollers, YXCPU, architecture licensing, and various commercial chips... these are actually small amounts of money.

Especially for microcontrollers, in order to forcefully promote 91 microcontrollers, the licensing price of Yuanxin's microcontrollers is very low. Although it successfully entered the European market, the money earned was only enough to cover expenses.

Therefore, in just two years, Yuanxin has single-handedly succeeded in selling microcontrollers to a bargain price. It has reduced the cost of many domestic electronic products, ranging from TV remote control panels to radios and cassette players, by dozens of dollars.

To this end, Science and Technology Daily also published a special column article, unabashedly praising Yuanxin, which can be regarded as a political gain.

As a result, the current salary of Yuanxin employees depends almost entirely on the VCD business unit. Last year, there were more than 10,000 people in Yuanxin including the factory and R\u0026D center, and the salary of more than 500 million yuan came from the contribution of the VCD business unit.

Even though Li Mingliu has been hailed as the father of VCD by the outside world, he has to admit that VCD... does not have any technical content.

For a high-tech enterprise to make a living by relying on "low-end" electronic products with little technical content, it is really...

Very shameful.

…

After the meeting, Su Yuanshan stuffed the draft paper on the table filled with his thoughts into the shredder.

"I will stay here these few days to sort out my thoughts with everyone and finally determine the direction. Once the direction is determined, we will keep our heads down and fight to the death."

As he spoke, Su Yuanshan looked at Jiang Tao: "Senior Brother Jiang, the controller involves many technologies and is very complex, but as long as you understand it thoroughly, it is no problem to design any chip."

Jiang Tao nodded: "If I follow the direction you said, I'm thinking that the processor of the main control chip will probably have to be a dedicated processor like the YX architecture."

Su Yuanshan said: "Well, that is the inevitable direction. Large-scale data throughput requires a high-speed processor. But now, the single-chip microcomputer is barely enough."

After dinner, Su Yuanshan returned to the hotel.

Jiang Tao originally planned to lend him a laptop, but even an international hotel like the Hilton did not have access to the Internet at this time, so he had to give up.

"Is there nothing going on today?" Su Yuanshan saw Zhou Xiaohui take out his mobile phone from his briefcase. When the technical seminar was held this afternoon, Zhou Xiaohui left the conference room with his mobile phone so as not to disturb them.

"It's nothing big. It's just that the SAR said that the e-mail has completed internal testing."

"Oh?" Su Yuanshan became interested, sat upright and said, "What did Senior Brother Ding say?"

"I plan to go to the science and technology park tomorrow and use Yuanxin's server to set up an internal email server and ask everyone to help test it. If there is no problem, we can launch it on the market." Zhou Xiaohui paused and said: "I Let him contact Mr. Xi directly."

"Yeah." Su Yuanshan nodded, and suddenly remembered something funny, and asked, "Has he named the electronic post office system?"

"It is said to be called 163." Zhou Xiaohui blinked and said: "Old Ding said that he had been asking for a long time before he found out that the civilian dial-up network account being set up by the General Administration of Telecommunications was 163, and he was going to give it a fuck."

Zhou Xiaohui spread her hands: "His exact words."

"Ha ha ha ha!"

Su Yuanshan laughed and picked up the buzzing mobile phone.