He didn't stay long in Derby, and he didn't even have time to meet with Wu Zhonghua, the chief engineer of the Institute of Thermal Physics, and only after roughly communicating with Rolls-Royce, he received a call from Ni Guangnan, and Wang Zhengguo rushed to Cambridge as soon as possible.

As a famous university town in the UK, the academic atmosphere is quite strong, but this time he is not here to experience the so-called academic atmosphere, he is engaged in business activities.

Acorn Company started as an electronic components sales store, with the BBC computer fire, now there is a regular office location, a semi-new building, looks like an old building renovation, or quite frugal, very good at living!

When I entered the door, I saw Rasha waiting at the reception, and quickly walked over to the side and asked, "Are you sure it's done?"

"That's right, the other party agreed very happily, and even gave a very flexible payment aspect, proposing that the full set of technology could be licensed to us for production, and they charged royalties, before the output reached 500,000 pieces, each CPU was charged 2 pounds, and the output was 1.5 pounds when the output was 50-1 million, and after more than 1 million, it was 1 pound. ”

There is no need to make a one-time buyout, this news is good and bad, the advantage is that it can effectively reduce the financial pressure, and the disadvantage is that if the CPU production is enough in the future, I am afraid that the patent fee paid will be quite high.

Frowning and leaning against the wall, it was a little difficult to make up his mind.

"By the way, you first talk about the processor itself, how is its design, and is there a possibility of performance improvement in the future?"

"The design of the product architecture is quite good, 6Mhz main frequency power is not without room for improvement, according to the other party, the CPU has the potential to upgrade to 9Mhz main frequency, if we need it, the other party can provide relevant improvement support as required. ”

It is a very intimate solution, and it can also provide the corresponding official improvement design, which should be the most conscientious semiconductor IC design company at present, and there is no one.

As long as Wang Zhengguo is not stupid, he knows that this time it will be done, and Kaiyang Semiconductor will soon enter the era of 32-bit processors, directly skipping the 16-bit processors in the middle, and running into the "intermediate stage of socialism".

"The only problem is the process, Acorn does not produce its own CPUs, they are all outsourced to special factories to do it, so they can't give us support in terms of production hardware, and we have to deal with it ourselves. ”

Lasha said that the only problem that is difficult to solve this time is that it cannot provide hardware production equipment support, which is indeed challenging for Kaiyang Semiconductor.

Sure enough, there is never an easy thing in this world, and with the current technical capabilities of Kaiyang Semiconductor, it is not easy to complete a full set of production processes for a 32-bit CPU alone!

"I understand, presumably the process level required by this processor is far from being as simple as our previous production of 65C02 processors, at least it needs to be upgraded by more than one generation, and even the next generation process upgrade is possible, right?"

Before the 65C02 processor had not high requirements for the CMOS process, generally at the level between the mid-seventies and the early eighties, but now this is the era of 32-bit processors, and it is inevitable to use the technical level of the early and mid-eighties, which has reached the forefront of the trend of the times.

This time, Rasha didn't speak, just nodded and took Wang Zhengguo upstairs together, and found Chief Engineer Ni Guangnan, as well as Roger Wilson, the engineer responsible for designing the 32-bit CPU from Acorn.

After a brief introduction between the two sides, Roger was very knowledgeable, and he did not stay in the conference room for a long time, and after a few words, he gave up the place to Wang Zhengguo's side.

"Chief Engineer Ni, do you think Kaiyang has the ability to complete the whole process of tape-out of this processor production by himself, including production line design, equipment procurement and follow-up maintenance training, we can't let the UK help, and they don't have the ability. ”

If you want to determine whether you can introduce technology, you must first see whether Kaiyang Semiconductor has the ability to digest it, and these must be asked by the company's deputy chief engineer.

Ni Guangnan hadn't thought about these issues in his heart, in fact, the two had already thought of going together.

"To be honest, there must be difficulties, the capital investment alone must reach at least about 50 million US dollars to put a full set of production equipment in place, more than 80% of the equipment of the production line has to be imported, and we are also very lacking in professional and technical personnel, before DC only trained production operators for us, not core process technicians, these two problems are different. ”

As high as 50 million US dollars in equipment import projects, Wang Zhengguo felt cold in his heart just listening to it, and now Wang Zhengguo still has the ability to mobilize so much foreign exchange in a short period of time?

I'm afraid this is hanging!

The pound knocked out from South Africa earlier has been gradually spent in recent years, most of which was invested in Rolls-Royce, and most of the remaining funds were invested in Kaiyang Semiconductor, although Kaiyang has now made a profit, but 65C02 is mainly for domestic sales, and it can't earn a few foreign exchange.

After a pause, after thinking for a long time.

"The problem of money will be slowly scraped together, and the foundation can still come up with 20 million US dollars, and the rest will depend on our domestic relationship. Kaiyang is also a key national defense project, first take this road, to ask for foreign exchange, that is, technical transformation funds; and then to find the Sichuan and Shu provincial government coordination, we such a big project, the company's local government must not give support; and finally look for Shu Hang Optics, they have export orders to the United States every year, foreign exchange quota must have. ”

Before, because the foundation had enough foreign exchange, in order to simplify the process, Wang Zhengguo did not go to various sources to raise money, but this time it was not possible, the landlord's family had no surplus food, and all the places that could be worked hard must be pulled up, so as to tide over the difficulties.

Solving the problem of funding is only part of the problem, if the key talent problem cannot be solved, even if tens of millions of dollars of equipment are procured, I am afraid that no one will be able to understand it.

"Regarding the question of people, I think Mr. Ni should still have some ideas, right?"

Wang Zhengguo can roughly solve the problem of money, and Chief Engineer Ni doesn't think it is difficult to solve the problem of people.

"Now the company's middle and senior technical personnel are not many, in addition to me and Lasha, there are only seven left, three of them are borrowed from the Institute of Optics and Mechanics, the School of Telecommunications Engineering part-time, before the company can only barely maintain the 65C02 CPU line and board these two business needs, now to start a new project, at least ten senior engineers. ”

The simple implication is that for a new project to be operational, the number of existing senior engineers must be doubled.

"So, the only way I can think of is to borrow someone, to borrow someone from Wang An Computer, I met with it when Lao Yan came back, and I also know the situation on Wang An Computer, find Dr. Wang to borrow someone, as long as the conditions we give can achieve a win-win situation with Wang An Computer, I believe this is not a problem. ”