Everyone didn't say a word, looking at Luo Sheng intently and waiting for his next sentence.

Luo Sheng sat comfortably in his place, everyone's curious eyes had not yet dissipated, and they were all waiting for him to speak.

"There are too many things you don't know about the chip rivers and lakes, but you must know, because we are all people in the rivers and lakes, so we must know the things in the rivers and lakes, so I will tell you about it."

Luo Sheng smiled, and in a few words, he brought these young and excellent engineers in the hall into those years.

"It all started one day in the summer of 2000, when Sony and Toshiba knocked on IBM's door. At that time, both companies were in full swing, especially Sony, which won the war of two generations of game consoles in a row, and PS2 became the most wanted Christmas gift for American children. ”

"Sony's moves in the game industry are too big, so that Microsoft, a giant in the software industry, is not calm, and is clamoring to join the war, no one took Gates seriously at the time, and now, Xbox is fighting a bloody way."

Luo Sheng looked at the engineers and said: "At that time, IBM was still in the transition period from a hardware company to a software + information company, and the situation was also quite embarrassing. ”

"But Toshiba and Sony are not interested in this at all, and IBM thinks they should look at the server solution in the store and use it in the home entertainment networking service?"

Still uninterested, IBM asked: Are you interested in our OS/2 operating system? If you want to use it in a home entertainment device, haha, it's really a discerning hero, and we're better than Microsoft's glamorous goods...... Sony couldn't bear it anymore and finally interrupted IBM, which was crazy about boasting, and expressed its meaning concisely: Let's work on CPU together, you IBM will pay people, and Toshiba and I will pay and sell people. ”

Luo Sheng spread his hands and looked at Lu Siming and the others: "The people from IBM were surprised, Watt? Do tin batch yo (CPU)? ”

Everyone couldn't help laughing, the boss's speech was really simple, as if listening to Jin Yong's martial arts stories, and it was also a stand-up comedy.

I saw Luo Sheng restoring a story scene in a scene by himself.

"Toshiba: Hey, I mean, that PowerPC is the thing you developed for Jobs, and we have conducted in-depth tests on this CPU, and the performance is still very good."

"IBM: I've won awards, so what do you want to do?"

"Sony: Haha, of course it's a domination of the rivers and lakes, let's copy Intel's backyard together, and by that time, our brothers will be the 'Lanbo Bay' in the field of civilian chips all over the world, how about it?"

Luo Sheng's stand-up comedy said this, he suddenly sighed and shook his head, took a sip of tea and found that the cup was empty, a staff member immediately helped him to bring a cup when he saw this, Luo Sheng took a sip and continued to talk:

IBM was speechless in his heart, thinking: I'm afraid these two are not stupid hats, no wonder they say that the small book is unreliable, this kind of naïve words can be said, how many glasses did you drink yesterday? Didn't wake up today......"

Sony seemed to see IBM's puzzled expression, laughed a few times, so he took out a bottle of '82 Lafite from his arms, poured a bottle according to the custom of Europeans and Americans, and recalled the glory days of the past with the strength of wine.

Speaking of this, Luo Sheng put down his legs on the workbench, changed his sitting posture to look at everyone and continued: "The semiconductor industry in the seventies was in a blowout development stage, and it was rapidly iteratively updated in the theoretical stage and the application end. ”

"These two inventions are the personal computer and the game console, the personal computer has created the giants of Apple, Microsoft and Intel, and the game console has created Atari, Nintendo, Sega, they are all rising rookies, and they are all in the middle of the day."

"Game consoles in Greater China have been banned, and I don't think the ban will be lifted in ten or eight years, and there is no market for stand-alone games, but why should the Cote d'Azur enter the console market? Why are we here to spread the muddy waters? Why do we want to get into this strife? Does anyone know? ”

After speaking, Luo Sheng looked around at everyone, and more than 200 engineers looked at each other, all at a loss.

In fact, Luo Sheng didn't expect them to be able to see it, and after a while, he continued: "Do you know that even in the nineties, the shipment volume of game consoles was higher than that of personal computers, and even the shipments of console game software were higher than that of personal computer software. ”

"The reason is not complicated at all, the game console is cheap, you can take it home for two or three hundred dollars, it can meet the needs of family entertainment, fun things are always bestsellers, and our little overlord learning machine is even more cabbage price compared to it; However, the average price of personal computers is more than 1,000 US dollars, 7,000 or 8,000 yuan, and the multimedia technology is immature, and the entertainment effect is poor. ”

"However, from the perspective of hardware structure, game consoles are actually customized versions of computers, and there are also CPU, GPU, PPU, memory, storage and other configurations, but the design is biased towards entertainment attributes."

At the end, Luo Sheng said with a long sigh: "In that era, the technical route of civilian computer chips can be described as a hundred flowers, which is like today, Intel's x86 series has become the PC monopoly in the world, and now AMD, Cyrix and other x86 compatible manufacturers have also followed the soup, ushering in the darkest era of toothpaste factories in the industry." ”

"At that time, IBM's PowerPC was a non-mainstream Apple niche market led by Joe, and it also had a presence in the server market, as well as Fairchild Semiconductor, NEC, TI, Motorola, Mostek...... Wait, all the gods you have heard or have not heard of are in the rivers and lakes of chips. ”

"The blossoming of chip technology gives console developers a lot of freedom to choose the best solution from their choice, and then optimize and customize it in depth to differentiate themselves from all competitors. For example, Nintendo's SFC uses MOS6502 CPUs, Sega MD uses Motorola's 68000 CPU, Sony's PS uses 3D soft acceleration technology routes, and Nintendo's N64 uses a more advanced 3D hard acceleration ......"

"This kind of situation of a hundred flowers, while meeting the technical requirements, maintaining a high cost performance, but also facilitating the development of third-party software, thus forming a complete ecosystem."

"However, this kind of customized route can no longer be played by the end of the 90s, the civilian computer chip market is almost completely dominated by x86, Texas Instruments, Motorola and the like are all marginalized, NEC's self-enclosed PC98 is also on the verge of extinction, and Intel is on the road of no return to the dark toothpaste factory."

"If this continues, who will you customize in the future? Sony's PS2 uses an EE CPU developed by Toshiba plus its own deep modifications, and what about the competitors? Microsoft's Xbox simply uses the Intel P3 Celeron CPU, which is probably the most versatile solution on the market. Although the Xbox launch has not been much success due to Microsoft's inexperience, the scary thing is this trend. ”

Luo Sheng talked eloquently, and more than 200 engineers including Lu Siming, who was sitting in the hall, listened attentively, but when they heard Luo Sheng say this, a question involuntarily appeared in their minds.

If one day, x86 completely dominates the rivers and lakes and monopolizes the civilian chip market, then the game console industry may really have no chance, and it will not be able to play.

Because everyone's technical routes are similar to convergence, they are all half-hearted, and no one can win by customization, so they can only rely on cost-effectiveness and scale of the market.

Thinking of this, Lu Siming and the others realized that this kind of thing was happening right now.

Li Chunsheng couldn't help but say: "Isn't Microsoft, which is in cahoots with Intel, want this to happen?" Can Sony endure it? ”

Luo Sheng smiled: "Of course Sony can't bear it, so they took action and found IBM." Straight to the point: Let's work together, Intel will do it. In the face of the alliance of Microsoft + Intel, Sony believes that this vicious opponent cannot be defended, and must take the initiative to attack. ”

"Sony is a cold decision, but IBM is smiling bitterly, how to attack?"

Sony said that it did not panic, and hurriedly comforted IBM, saying that the sales of PS first-generation and second-generation consoles exceeded 100 million units, and the supporting games sold more than 1 billion units, which is the ecosystem. Let's work together to develop a super-dragged CPU, which will be used in the next generation of consoles, and will definitely be able to completely explode competitors, and at that time, we will be fighting out of the game market and counterattacking the PC market with scale advantages, and I don't believe that Intel can withstand it. ”

Luo Sheng once again substituted the scene: "Toshiba hurriedly complied: That's right, we will also use this CPU for our own smart TVs and unify the emerging smart home appliance market." At that point, we will be the majority and Intel will be the minority. You IBMs hate Intel, right? We hate it too, so let's let him die. ”

In the face of these two goods, IBM muttered in his heart: The little book is really eight lifetimes of blood mold, and finally two IT technology giants have come out, but they all suffer from this paranoia. However, IBM still politely euphemistically said: Do you know how much it costs to do this? ”

"Sony: Is 400 million US dollars enough?"

IBM shook its head.

"Toshiba: What about the $4 billion?"

"As soon as IBM heard about the 4 billion knife, the little eyeballs secretly rolled."

Lu Siming and the others burst into laughter, and the laughter of the audience did not decrease, they suddenly discovered that the boss's brand new skills could still speak such a slippery stand-up comedy.

I saw Luo Sheng clasping his hands in front of him, leaning back against the seat and saying lightly: "A few months later, the Cell chip R&D center jointly owned by Sony, Toshiba and IBM will be built in Austin, Texas, North America. In the next four years, more than 400 of the world's top chip engineers will work here, and at the inauguration ceremony, a friend of IBM whispered: You were drunk last night and scolded Sony and Toshiba for their delusions, why did you come here today? ”

IBM shrugged and spread his hands: I didn't pay for it anyway...... You can still give it a go, why not? ”

The audience burst into laughter again, the more Lu Siming and the others listened, the more interesting they became, Bai Lang said: "Boss, listen to what you say, IBM is not a good bird, let's cooperate with them now, this kind of plastic ally has to be guarded against." ”

Li Chunsheng swore and said: "It must be! ”

Luo Sheng did not answer this, and said comfortably: "In the year when the integrity IT bubble burst, Sony and IBM jointly held a press conference and announced the technical indicators of the Cell chip in the R&D center for the first time: 1 trillion floating-point operations per second, with distributed computing capabilities, which is not inferior to supercomputing. Under the word of mouth of the media, the Cell processor can literally simulate the earth. ”

"If that's true, Sony will win the battle for next-gen consoles. As for Intel, it shouldn't die, the toothpaste factory will slowly degenerate into an insignificant little foot, the domination of the x86 architecture over computer chips will also come to an end, and the future will be a big era for Cell, I think that's what Sony imagined. ”

Speaking of this, Luo Sheng paused, took a sip of water and turned on the large screen dedicated to the conference behind him, and then released a detailed picture of the chip, the dense distribution of the chip is like a super metropolis under a microscopic mentality.

Chips, this may represent the crystallization of the highest process level at present, there is no more demanding process than chips, if there is, it is the next generation of chips.

Everyone looked at the big screen of the meeting, and Luo Sheng also glanced back at the image on the screen, and then said:

"Cell's architecture is very complex and strange, it has the functions of both CPU and GPU, and it also leaves room for cloud computing and edge computing, and it is essentially a supercomputer chip. In my opinion, this chip really shows Sony's ambition and unwillingness everywhere. ”

Luo Sheng's gaze shifted from the screen to Lu Siming and others, and said: "But in order to greatly expand the needs of home entertainment, it must meet four very different needs at the same time: supercomputing and high-end servers, desktop PCs, game consoles, and smart appliances such as HDTVs." ”

Speaking of this, Luo Sheng smiled and teased: "Fortunately, there was no smartphone market at that time, otherwise with Sony's paranoia, most of them would have asked to develop a low-power version to compete with ARM." To this day, there is still no processor, no technical architecture that can meet all of the above needs seamlessly, and Sony needs an indispensable condition if it does not fail, and Sony needs an indispensable condition to realize this ultimate dream. ”

Oh?

Everyone kept their eyes open and stared at the boss.

At the end, Luo Sheng said with a smile: "They only need to invite me over and host Cell, but unfortunately, I was still playing soy sauce in high school at that time, as for now...... Hehe... ”

Everyone: "......"

Everyone was caught off guard by the boss's sudden pretence, but after a while, everyone's hearts suddenly fluttered, and the boss said this just to pretend to be something else?!!

Could it be that the boss also has a paranoia like Sony?

……