1991 Starting from the core

Su Yuanshan immediately looked at Akita Ichiro in surprise.

If we divide it according to the priority and importance of Yuanxin, the priority of flash memory is actually not high - but it involves future-oriented storage devices. Therefore, when Li Mingliu decided to hand over the CPU work and focus on the flash memory field, Su Yuanshan felt a little guilty towards him.

After all, flash memory is an industry that will not see large-scale application in the next three to five years. This means that Li Mingliu will have to be silent for at least several years - this is unfair to someone who works so hard.

To be blunt, if Li Mingliu had not been entrusted by Su Yuanshan with the important task of presiding over the Shanghai Science and Technology Park, some people might have thought that Li Mingliu had been assigned...

But how did Sony think of flash memory?

…

Facing Su Yuanshan's surprised look, Akita Ichiro narrowed his eyes slightly, sprayed the coffee and took a leisurely sip. Su Yuanshan seemed to be very satisfied that he could show such an expression.

"Susan, I heard that you have made a key breakthrough in double-layer unit NAND flash memory?" Ichiro Akita asked, staring at Su Yuanshan.

Su Yuanshan twitched the corner of his mouth. The word "spy" just flashed in his mind and then denied it - a gross spy... Yuanxin is engaged in flash memory. You can know it by just asking around. For example, Su Yuanshan can do it casually. You can find out what non-confidential business a certain company is doing.

Akita Ichiro's so-called key breakthrough of Yuanxin should be because they saw the patent application submitted by Yuanxin just last month.

After figuring this out, Su Yuanshan calmed down and said, "Well, soon - don't tell us that you are also interested in flash memory."

"There is great interest." Akita Ichiro did not beat around the bush and nodded calmly: "Sony should not just be a home electronics and imaging entertainment company. We also hope to return to the semiconductor industry."

Su Yuanshan opened his mouth, but closed it without saying anything.

He knew that Sony started with transistor radios and then went on to become popular around the world with various home appliances. Then in the 1980s, Sony, like other Japanese companies, began to get involved in the real semiconductor industry. And he has made great achievements in SRAM and CCD...

However, their global rankings are often outside the tenth place and within the twentyth place. They are considered to be the last group of people.

As the 1990s entered, Niguo Semiconductors generally declined, and Niguo's SRAM production line was almost sold out. Only the CCD sensor was still in use - because cameras were still in demand.

Then Su Yuanshan also knew that Sony would continue to develop photosensitive components in the future, and their CMOS sensors were even the best in the world... In the era of the explosion of mobile phones, Sony even relied on CMOS sensors to return to the semiconductor field.

And now... Ichiro Akita says Sony wants to get back into the semiconductor industry.

"Why flash memory?" Su Yuanshan asked after being silent for a few seconds: "Instead of CPU and wafer fab? You know, we now have both simplified instruction set and complex instruction set processor architectures, and even our YX architecture is more It’s open to licensing.”

"Because we don't have technical reserves in processors, but we have technical reserves in memory." Akita Ichiro said with a smile: "Besides, Li Mingliu Jun's status in Yuanxin is so high, he is personally responsible for the team , it must be an industry with development prospects.”

Su Yuanshan opened his mouth again.

Which one of you has been touched to cross the river?

He is willing to have a good relationship with Sony, but that does not mean that both parties will cooperate in all fields! Otherwise, it would be better to merge the two companies directly...

As for flash memory, he fully believes that Li Mingliu has the ability to lead the NAND team to dominate the future flash memory industry.

And to put it bluntly, Yuanxin is playing "stealing chicken" in the field of flash memory.

For a technology company that focuses on the semiconductor field, it is an international practice to immediately launch a new technology and start working on it - because no one knows whether this will be the next revolutionary field - of course, the premise is that it can be done successfully. Have energy to spare.

For example, when Intel and Toshiba came up with NOR and NAND, a large number of people began to follow the trend, especially Intel, which launched the flash memory card concept early and established a department focused on SSD.

As for others, Fujitsu, AMD, and Samsung all have their own laboratories and invest money in this stuff.

Of course, their vision is still a bit short.

At least for now, including Intel and SanDisk, which was founded by Eli Harari, the father of EEPROM, they only think that it will occupy the storage space of notebooks and tablets with excellent performance.

As for using it on mobile phones, some people have thought about it, but in that case, a mobile phone will become sky-high price - and sky-high price mobile phones are obviously not worthy of supporting a memory market.

And now is also the period of rapid development of mechanical hard drives. The hard drive capacity has already exceeded 1G, and this data is still increasing at a terrifying scale several times every year.

Therefore, except for Intel, SanDisk and Toshiba, which are strongly promoting it, other companies are simply focused on participating. And based on current costs, if you say how much money SanDisk has made, even SanDisk itself would not dare to admit it.

But Yuanxin is different. Su Yuanshan knew from beginning to end that flash memory would dominate the future storage market.

Moreover, Su Yuanshan also knew that before 2007 and 2008, solid-state drives were basically price-based rather than volume-based. The real widespread popularity was only after mechanical hard drives became the main culprit affecting the use of computers.

Before that, flash memory relied on USB flash drives and MP3s to "extend its life."

Therefore, although the priority of the flash memory department is not high, there is no doubt about its importance - otherwise, Li Mingliu, who is known as Yuanxin's strongest research leader, would not be in charge.

——Tell me, why does Su Yuanshan still cooperate with Sony?

"Akita-kun, we are optimistic about flash memory. This is a fact." Su Yuanshan quickly made a few turns in his mind: "But the premise of cooperation is that both of us can complement each other and achieve the effect of one plus one being greater than two."

After speaking, Su Yuanshan paused: "I don't think your memory technology can be useful for NAND flash memory, because these are two different technical directions."

"..." Akita Ichiro glanced at Su Yuanshan with a bit of hatred.

Su Yuanshan just smiled and remained unmoved.

Akita Ichiro said helplessly: "You can't always use our technology, right?"

"Please... Akita-kun, we have always sought cooperation based on technology and market." Su Yuanshan spread his hands: "For example, we have no technology involved in CCD sensors, so we have never coveted your lens technology."

"Crucian carp?"

"Coveting can be understood as yearning for..."

At this time, Kutaragi Ken, who had been smiling and listening to the two people's bickering, suddenly interrupted.

"Susan, what do you think of the future of CCD sensors? Or... how long will it take for digital cameras to replace traditional cameras?"