Harold is obviously not very confident in the computing power of the ARM processor, and it is no wonder that the ARM processor is characterized by low power consumption, which brings a series of advantages, such as low heat, small size, stable operation and so on.

The increase in computing power depends largely on the addition of targeted new instruction sets. In addition, as the chip manufacturing process continues to improve, the number of transistors per unit area on the chip can be increased, so that stronger and more complex computing cores can be designed.

With the improvement of chip manufacturing technology, the chip area is also getting larger, and in the future, multi-core technology can be used to integrate two, three, four or even more computing cores in the chip to further enhance performance.

Therefore, ARM, a reduced instruction set processor, is the best choice for positioning embedded platforms and serving a single purpose.

The processors that use the ARM processing core are certainly far inferior to the X86 series processors that are similar to the all-rounders in terms of overall performance. However, ARM's reduced instruction set processor, compared with Intel's X86 series of complex instruction set processors, has an advantage, that is, as long as there is a special instruction set, which is integrated into the chip through the corresponding IP design, so that the chip can be optimized in a targeted manner, it can play a function that is not inferior to the X86 processor in the corresponding field of computing.

As the processing core of VCD and DVD players, the decoder chip focuses on digital signal processing after computing analog-to-digital conversion, and its only job is to decompress multimedia data.

Moreover, VCD and DVD players are not computers, and users do not have any needs for it in other areas of computing, as long as it can put the disk, it does not need advanced mathematical calculations or database applications and office software to run, because of this, the processor does not need to be designed for other multiple purposes of the user, does not need to add a large number of complex instruction sets, and does not need to build as many as 16 or even 32 pipelines in the chip like INTEL to meet the massive parallel data processing.

Hu Yiting knows that the structure of the current VCD decoding chip CMP1J1 has been roughly perfect, and the improvement required to upgrade to the DVD decoding chip is to add a stronger processing core than ARMV3, and add some special instruction sets for high-efficiency decompression of DVD data. As for the DAC/ADC chips and PLL chips on the motherboard that are responsible for digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversion, you only need to purchase the corresponding models.

Harold was a little embarrassed at this time, and quickly changed the subject and said, "Hu, do you have an English name?"

"Just call me Hu Yiting according to the Chinese habit." ”

"Hu~~a~~Pavilion~~" Harold pronounced strangely.

"Very good, say it a few more times and you'll get used to it. ”

"Haha, okay, Hu Yiting, you know, not long after you came to Cambridge last time, we reached a cooperation with Nokia in Finland. ”

"I've heard that. ”

"Your prediction is accurate, Nokia does need ARM technology as the core of their first smartphone, the Nokia-9000-Communicator, and we at ARM, in conjunction with Texas Instruments, will work with Nokia to develop a set of 16-bit instruction sets for mobile applications, 'thumb', to complement the current ARM instruction set. ”

"Sure enough, I guessed before. ”

"Haha, you guessed accurately, although you are very young, but your vision is really outstanding, you really don't consider coming to our ARM? You know that Cambridge has a genius scholarship, if you are willing to come to ARM for research and development, I can help you get it. ”

"Hehe, I'm not short of money, thank you for your kindness. ”

Hu Yiting smiled and told his colleagues not to visit by themselves, he also had to chat with Harold more, and his colleagues left the ARM booth with an excited smile, confident and proud in their hearts.

"Why do you say Chief Engineer Hu is so familiar with the people at ARM?"

"Of course, our heavy VCD decoding chip uses ARM technology. ”

"Oh, I didn't know before. ”

"Where are you?"

"Chongguang communication, on the side of Hushan in Hui Province. ”

"Oh, I know, I heard that your programmatic machine is very good, and it will produce results so quickly. ”

"Hehe, thanks to Chief Engineer Hu, he is really a genius, and he knows everything at a young age. Hey, by the way, where are you?"

"In my Beidu branch, we mainly do chip design. ”

"Yo, tall, my name is Wang Lele, I just graduated from the University of Science and Technology this year, what about you. ”

"Hello, my name is Zhang Yi, I just graduated this year, and now our department head is Kang Yaoxiang, the original senior engineer of the Institute of Microelectronics, our alumni of Tsinghua University, our main work is to understand the core technology and design ideas of our company's Youying Bawang coprocessor and CMP1J1 chip, Mr. Hu's design is too good, and it is successful in tape-out at one time with almost no technical assistance! I dare to say that in the field of our domestic IC design, no second person can do this!"

"That is, Mr. Hu is a genius who has solved Poincaré's conjecture, and his brain is estimated to look different from ours. ”

"Hahaha, in fact, we often say this when we work, because Mr. Hu's designs are too whimsical, and they are all right, they are simply god-like characters. Just because the Youying Overlord and VCD decoding chips he designed are so good, more than 50 people from the Institute of Microelectronics and the Institute of Computing have jumped to us in the last month alone. ”

"Hahaha, yes, yes. Hey, I think you have a beautiful girl in Beidu Company, what's her name?"

"Hahaha, you said Cao Yunuan, right? Hahaha, that's a minor prodigy, don't make up your mind, the core technology of CMP1J1 chip data processing was made up by Mr. Hu and a few people from the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. ”

"Oh, hehe, it's okay, I'm just asking, we are usually in Hushan, how can we covet you people in the northern capital, hehehe. ”

"How are you treated over there?"

"Very good, I now do the module coding of the control system, 1500 in the first month of the company, and 3000 in the second month, I called my mother and she didn't believe it, the family still thought I had done some criminal activities in Hushan, hahaha, Mr. Hu said, the program control machine is on fire, and the guaranteed bonus at the end of the year is not less than 50,000 per person! But there is a very strange one, the year-end dividend should be paid in the form of virtual shares, unless you leave the company, otherwise you will not be able to cash it out within three years. ”

"That's pretty much the same as us. ”

"How much do you get for chips in your Beidu branch?"

"We look at the position here, the general salary is only three or five thousand, and there is also a share according to the contribution of the project, and we also have a bonus at the end of the year, which is also counted as a virtual stock like you. ”

"Do you think this virtual stock form is stable?"

"It should be no problem, right? Let's refocus on the current two chips alone, and make hundreds of millions of dollars a year, what is this money? ”

"Well, I think so too, our programmatic machines are also selling very well, I guess it's because the company needs money to expand its scale. ”

Of course, Hu Yiting couldn't hear what the employees were saying, and he continued to chat with Harold.

"What is the status of the strongARM architecture that you developed in collaboration with DEC?"

"You're pretty well-informed. Harold said with some surprise, "As far as I know, DEC intends to launch the first strongARM-based processor in February next year." ”

"Do you have technical rights for the strongARM architecture?"

As soon as Harold heard this, he suddenly became enlightened and immediately said: "Of course there is! According to our free license agreement with DEC, we authorize DEC to develop new processors with ARM cores, and DEC's technology on their new processors, that is, StrongARM, can be used by ARM for its own processor designs." ”

"Then did you get it?" Hu Yiting asked anxiously.

"For the time being, DEC said that they will hand over the rest of the information to us after their new processor SA110 is launched, and we intend to combine this new technology in the ARMV4 core, so that the instruction set architecture of our ARMv4 core is officially completed, which will be a comprehensive upgrade of the ARMV3 architecture. ”

Hu Yiting said impatiently: "I hope to get all the technical information and authorization of the ARMV4 core as soon as possible for the development of our DVD decoding chip." ”

Harold said: "I know, but it will take time, DEC's strongARM instruction set architecture and ARMv4 need to converge, so we won't be able to produce a product until June next year at the earliest."

If the technical data is given to you in June next year, you will not be able to design the product until June '97 at the earliest, right? As I said before, maybe a year...... Or two years from now, you won't be disappointed with the computing power of ARMv4. ”

Harold swallowed and said, "But Hu Yiting, how do you know that the StrongARM architecture must be suitable for your DVD products?"

Hu Yiting said casually without thinking: "DEC injected elements of the Alpha processor on his server into the design of StrongARM, designed a 5-level sequential execution pipeline, separated the instruction and data cache, added DMMU (dual memory management unit) and IMMU (instruction storage management unit) components, each MMU (memory) contains 32 TLB (conversion detection buffers) of the fully interconnected structure, and added a 16-level depth B (write buffer) These features are exactly what we need to design the DVD player decoder chip. ”

Harold opened his mouth and stammered, and only after a few seconds did he say, "Hu Yiting, you are really a genius, I didn't expect you to know so much about DEC's technology." ”

Hu Yiting said: "Harold, you are my old friend, since ARM intends to regard Chongguang as a global strategic partner, you must hurry up and hand over the development materials to me." ”

Harold swore by it, "I promise God that you will be the first company to get the ARMv4 core." ”