Tech Hammer

"Brother Liu, I just thought about it carefully. The instruction set must be made by ourselves. Of course, it is not enough to make the instruction set by ourselves. In order for our chip design to have market space in the future, to put it simply, it can be sold, we also need We start designing an operating system at the same time. The advantage of this is that after our products start production, the supporting software system will be available."

"When designing an operating system, we must consider the software ecological environment. As you know, in addition to hardware support, the operating system also needs software support. The software products that everyone is familiar with now must be able to be used on our operating system , if it cannot be used, we have to come up with better alternatives, which requires countless developers to complete the ecological construction of the operating system."

"That's what I think about this. I'm afraid we still have to cooperate with Huawei at the operating system level. The reason is that it's such a coincidence. Didn't Huawei just release the Cangjie language? Later, our operating system can focus on supporting applications written in this language. This is equivalent to Huawei now starting to help train suitable programmers for our future operating systems."

"In addition, I think we also need to cooperate with major domestic software providers in China. After all, we need their programs to support our systems in the future. Including games, etc. In addition, we will also think of some ways, For example, we use intelligent platforms to optimize programs that are originally applicable to other platforms, so that these programs can also be applied to our own operating system."

"That's all I can think of for now. You can make some arrangements later. I'll talk to Mr. Chen first. If possible, Mr. Chen will bring in all the investors and we'll have a meeting to study this matter. Do both at the same time. Things require a lot of investment, not only in terms of capital, but also in relevant talents. This is what I think about this. I am mainly responsible for some comprehensive work in the laboratory, and then I will do many specific tasks. We will break down the work, set standards, and then bring in as many companies as possible to complete it together.”

"That's all I've thought about for the time being. These things can be done first. The more prepared you are, the better we can do this business. Of course, if our operating system wants to replace the current mainstream The operating system needs to be better than the current mainstream operating system. It is not only reflected in daily use, but also includes the use of some specific tasks, such as the most basic copy editing, screen and 3D drawing, programming, etc. It performs better than Windows, MAC OS, and Linux..."

"Only by achieving these, can our chips and operating systems have sufficient market prospects in the future, and can customers be willing to use our products. This requires a huge team, or we must find ways to construct the entire industry chain from now on. …”

…

After discussing with Yue Yue, Ning Wei rushed into Liu Wei's room and began to explain his thoughts in detail. Of course, these were not just told to Liu Wei, but also informed to Chen Mingcai and higher-up leaders through Liu Wei's mouth.

I have to say that this is a very ambitious plan.

From the most core general-purpose chip instruction set, to chip architecture, to chip production, and the supporting operating system... It is no exaggeration to say that to make these things according to Ning Wei's idea may require tens of thousands of people. Each team of people performs their own duties, and these tens of thousands of people are all very smart people in China. They need to work together to handle the instruction set, chip architecture, chip design, circuit layout, and final tape-out production. Various problems that may arise, in order to match this chip, type out all the codes of the operating system that China has complete intellectual property rights line by line.

However, when Ning Wei finally calmed down from the excitement of building the future, he realized that something seemed wrong with Liu Wei's expression.

Although Ning Wei is not very good at observing words and expressions, after all, Liu Wei and him are almost inseparable. The two of them are too familiar. In addition, Liu Wei rarely shows tangled emotions. If the expression he sees seems tangled, it means that At this time, he was really confused in his heart.

Just now, Liu Wei frowned slightly. In the past ten seconds, he slightly opened his mouth twice, as if he wanted to say something, but did not speak. His hands were crossed unconsciously, and his eyes flickered, obviously not thinking. All attention was devoted to hearing him explain this grand idea...

Ning Wei couldn't help but asked curiously: "Brother Liu, are you in love?"

"Huh? Me? Falling in love?" Liu Wei raised her finger and pointed at her face, which seemed a little dry because she didn't use Dabao: "Do you think it's possible?"

"Aren't you in love? Then why do I think you are a little distracted? According to my experience, except when I think about Chen Shuang, I can be very focused at other times, especially when talking about important things." Ning Said for granted.

"No, no, no, that's not the case. I do have something to say, but it has nothing to do with falling in love." Liu Wei shook her head, and then said with a wry smile: "Actually, I just want to tell you, Professor Ning, are you Is it too complicated? In fact, designing the instruction set to make the chip is not as complicated as you think. What everyone actually means is that we can just have it."

"Is it enough to have it?" Ning Wei frowned unconsciously and asked, "Do you mean not to consider the market?"

"I want to consider the market, but how much investment will it take? Experts have analyzed it. It is difficult to say that we have the market environment to completely replace the combination of Intel and Windows in the PC field. According to estimates, if you really want our Directly introducing products to the market may require huge and continuous capital investment to support the relevant upstream and downstream industry chains, and it may not necessarily meet expectations."

"So what the above means is that if we take it step by step, we can first have the ability to design and manufacture chips by ourselves. In this way, we can at least avoid threats and obtain certain discounts in the current market environment. After we have this capability, we will explore the possibility of gradual substitution. For example, we will first use our own developed chips in some special fields. As for introducing it to the consumer market, we haven’t thought that far yet.”

Liu Wei spread his hands and explained.

Ning Wei blinked... He seemed to be thinking too much.

From Liu Wei to Mr. Chen, all he was told was to design an instruction set. Then he used the instruction set to think of designing a micro-architecture, designing a chip, and developing an operating system. He also specially designed it for Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. I made a phone call to discuss whether Windows can support the new chip...

Of course, Ning Wei felt that this was not entirely his fault. Neither Liu Wei nor Chen Mingcai made it clear to him.

"Um, Brother Liu, do you mean we make a chip first and use it as a nuclear bomb? Just to scare others, can we build this thing?" Ning Wei smashed his lips and asked dryly.

Liu Wei nodded awkwardly and said: "That's probably what I mean. It's good to do supercomputing and other specialized types of CPUs, but if we really want to do general-purpose CPUs, everyone is not very confident. Well, mainly because of the There is little confidence that the product will eventually be brought to market.”

Ning Wei suddenly realized that lack of confidence in marketization is very appropriate. User habits, developer confidence, learning costs, global hardware supporting ecological chain... every problem is a difficulty.

To put it bluntly, it’s not that I’m completely afraid of spending money. The key is that even if a large amount of money is poured into it, it won’t be able to shake their status at all.

It's really better to build something first and not be in a hurry to market it. If you don't market it, you don't have to consider the support of the operating system.

The opponent's technological lead is really daunting. This directly leads to the feeling that it is difficult to make profits by making chips and operating systems on the PC side.

Of course this is understandable. In the current market, both chips and operating systems are high-input, low-output or even zero-output industries. This is also the reason why a large number of technology companies in China, except Huawei, either don’t think about chips and systems at all, or they only have a superficial taste in thinking about them.

Can't afford it, no confidence.

Ning Wei is quite confident. And confidence really doesn’t come out of thin air.

"Brother Liu, then I have to talk to everyone. Really, how about this? Give us more confidence and we can create a miracle?" Ning Weiwei said seriously.

"You also said it's a miracle. Ning Wei, spend more than ten years investing trillions of funds to build an ecosystem that you don't know whether it will be accepted by the market. Do you think it's worth betting on a miracle? So? It is normal for many people to be hesitant. But as you said, if we actually have something, it will be enough to deter some people from continuing to be aggressive at this level. It is probably the most cost-effective solution at this stage. "

"Of course, this does not mean that we do not want to apply it at all. Instead, we first research the instruction set and make supporting chips. At this time, we can temporarily ignore the replacement of the civilian market, which is the most difficult to win. We can use the operations of the Internet open source community System, let our chips be popularized in many non-civilian fields first. For example, servers, supercomputers, government supporting and military systems, etc. "

Liu Wei spoke like an endorsement, obviously repeating the results of discussions among relevant experts.

There is no doubt that this set of development opinions is truly unselfish and can be said to be the lowest-cost development method. There is no doubt that building an operating system with an open source operating system such as Linux as the core will save a lot of money and energy than writing an operating program from scratch.

Of course, this also means that the new system is unlikely to be as consistent with people's daily usage habits as Windows, and it is also unlikely to be supported by too many software. But for building servers, supercomputers and supporting departments, there is absolutely no problem. After all, these application scenarios do not require the operating system to support too many complicated software. As long as the security is OK, then everything is OK.

The only problem is that this will make Ning Wei feel that his call to Satya Nadella was in vain.

We have promised to challenge the combination of Windows and Intel in all fields. Real men cannot keep their word.

The most important thing is that Ning Wei probably understands why the experts are worried. To put it simply, they are afraid that the extremely high investment is not proportional to the harvest. As a result, almost no private capital dares to challenge this direction, so everyone can only spend money. If we can do part of it first and wait until the economic situation is better before spending money to research the operating system and lay out the upstream and downstream industrial chains, we will be much more relaxed.

There must be a brave man under a heavy reward.

The most fearful situation is that money is spent, subsidies are given out, and the market is not built in the end. The chip is okay, it is something that must be made no matter how much money is spent, but if the operating system that has been researched and developed by spending a lot of money cannot be marketed, it will If it goes out and no one uses it, it is really a waste.

"That's it. Brother Liu, please go back and ask me. If I follow my idea, it won't take more than ten years or trillions of investments. Are you willing to give it a try? Or, what should the chip be? Process or what? We go to the market for the operating system. I will attract investment in the early stage. If the operating system is effective in the future and can indeed replace Windows, will it provide some benefits to the companies involved in the design and research through other means? "

"For example, we can give some discounts to companies in China that are willing to develop software for our operating system. If the market share of the operating system reaches a certain level, how much reward will be given? What do you think?"

Ning Wei opened his mouth and gave what he thought was a compromise plan.

Without a proven solution, Ning Wei would not dare to pat his chest and say that the operating system he and March combined will definitely be loved by the public and sell well. Even if someone dares to say such a thing, they must be bragging. .

But Ningwei subjectively feels that this is indeed feasible and should give it a try.

"Ning Wei, are you so confident?"

"To tell you the truth, Brother Liu, I just called Satya Nadella. He heard that I was considering making my own operating system, and he was almost scared to death." Ning Wei nodded and said seriously. .

It's not easy to brag about the market, but I would rather brag about things like scaring people because there is precedent.

"Ahem... Of course it would be great if you have this confidence... And why do you have to say it in advance? If you don't need support, why don't you just do it?" Liu Wei asked in a daze.

Ning Wei tilted his head and replied: "This question seems unprofessional. Brother Liu, this is a matter that affects the whole body. After you determine that you want to adapt to a certain operating system, you will design the instruction set." There is a bias. For example, if according to your previous ideas, in the future our CPU chips will mainly adapt to some open source operating systems, when designing the instruction set, of course we must consider these open source operating systems, mainly for servers. The same goes for service.”

"But if you want to design a general-purpose CPU for the general public, and if you want to adapt to a new generation operating system that fits everyone's usage habits, of course the design of the instruction set must consider many things, such as the most important thing is the multimedia data flow. Support. Otherwise, we will need to add new content to the instruction set and add extension sets in the future, which will be very troublesome, so it is better to do it all at once."

Liu Wei was speechless, and then said sincerely: "Mr. Ning, actually I don't understand at all. What I just told you are the opinions of relevant experts. I generally understand your thoughts, and I think there will definitely be one next time It's a more important meeting. I suggest you attend it. If you say this in person, it will definitely be more convincing than if I relay it."

Ning Wei shook his head and said, "Should you wait for me to get some results first? I also have to ask my partners for their opinions first."

"Huawei?" Liu Wei asked.

"Is there any other family that has the courage and strength to do this now?"

This question was a bit sharp. Liu Wei thought about it for a while but did not answer.

"That's it. Let's talk about it first. Maybe they will be very interested. Anyone with a bit of backbone, after being slapped, will think about how to get the slap back instead of showing the other face. Come on. And the world needs losers...otherwise, who will you let the successful people show off to?"

"Ning Wei, do you want those people to show off in front of you?"

"Brother Liu? Didn't I notice that you still have a bad physique? Do you dare to think boldly, for example, after we successfully defeated Intel and Microsoft, we will show off in front of them?"

"Um……"

…

I have to admit that Ning Wei's ability to beat chicken blood is getting stronger and stronger.

After he left Liu Wei's room, the senior security boss immediately called the leader to report the situation. Otherwise, he would not be able to fully express his surging emotions.

Ning Wei was not idle either. After returning to his rest room, he decided to give Yan Ming a call.

"Mr. Yan, have you heard? We are planning to use three-dimensional through-silicon tube technology to design a CPU."

"Of course, we are one of the design units. We have held several meetings before, and we have proposed that you also participate in the meeting. However, considering that you were preparing to build Ningban at the time, we did not disturb you for the time being. Now you are stuck in In the instruction set debate, our opinion is to make our own instruction set."

"Well, do you dare to be more bold? Since you are thinking of insisting on making your own instruction set, shouldn't you also make your own operating system and complete ecosystem? Make the Chinese market the basic base, and then cannibalize British Soft's market?"

"this……"

"I have thought about it, and now is the best opportunity. Cangjie Programming should not just focus on doing Chinese programming as a gimmick. We have the best compiler and can develop an English version. Building an ecosystem cannot just focus on us. China is one-third of an acre of land. The future operating system will be programmed with Cangjie. To tell you the truth, I already have a bold idea about this."

"Ahem, Professor Ning, this is a big matter, so let's not talk on the phone. I will fly to the capital with the expert tomorrow and we can have an interview?"

"Okay."

"Then it's settled, we'll set off early tomorrow morning."

"By the way, I'm not at school. Let me know when your air tickets are booked and I'll ask Brother Liu to arrange for someone to pick you up at the airport."

"no problem!"