The SIC building has a total of 12 floors, with the top two floors dedicated to high-rise offices.

Masatoshi Shima and Matsumura have offices here, but many of the private offices are still empty.

This is for other high-end talents in the future, and the total number of current SIC is only about 100 people, including the laboratory assistants at East Institute of Technology.

The place is big and enough. Not only that, but Shirakawa Kaede also has its own office here.

After all, SIC is under Shirakawa Holdings, and it is 100% shareholding.

Then it is not too much for him, the president, to have his own office here.

The top floor, cough ~ the top president's office.

The area of dozens of square meters is so extravagant that it cannot be added.

Kaede Shirakawa, Masayoshi Shima, Masaaki Matsumura, and Hui Yamazaki sat down one by one in the spacious sofa lounge area.

The office building has been officially opened, and tea and coffee are all available.

After the assistant Komatsu who came with him brought them a cup of steaming coffee.

Several people began to discuss, and SIC invested heavily in the research and development of the first product, the design and planning of the chip.

"I heard that the reason why Shirakawa-san had the intention of designing a chip at the beginning was to match a certain music player for decoding in the future?"

Masatoshi took a sip of coffee to warm up his body before he began to speak.

"That's right," Shirakawa Kaede nodded while holding the hot coffee, "Because considering the cost, the purchase price of the 16-bit chip is too expensive, so I have the intention of self-development." ”

A 16-bit microprocessor chip is directly quoted at $360!

To be honest, this price directly scared Shirakawa Kaede, and the cost of the chip alone cost 90,000 yen.

You know, what he's going to do is a CD player, consumer electronics.

The chip costs 90,000 yen, and the whole machine costs more than 100,000 yen.

This is also likely to be the cost price, if you want to make a profit, the price is at least 200,000 yuan!

As a consumer electronics, who is it sold to at this price?

The product has not been made yet, and the cost accounting alone cannot be passed here in Shirakawa Kaede.

He knows very well that if you want to make money from the majority of consumers, price is always the first factor.

So in order to reduce costs, Shirakawa Kaede simply decided to do it himself.

In the early 80s, is chip design difficult?

It's hard to say, it's not hard to say. The key is to see if you can find the big guy.

Shirakawa Kaede looked at Masatoshi Shima and Masaaki Matsumura in front of him, waiting for their answers.

"Shirakawa-san, I think it's a bit too wasteful to design a 16-bit chip for decoding alone."

After pondering for a while, Shimamasatoshi decided to tell the truth.

"Oh~" Shirakawa Kaede raised his gaze in surprise, "Shima-san might as well elaborate." ”

He himself is a complete layman in the field of chips, so he is happy to hear the opinions of the technology bigwigs.

Seeing that Shirakawa Kaede was not displeased by his questioning, Shimamasatoshi also breathed a sigh of relief.

It seems that his new boss is really an enlightened person, and thinking of this, Shimamasashi also put his mind at ease and carefully explained his views.

"If a 16-bit chip is designed specifically for decoding, then this practice is called application-specific chip design in the industry.

Because the goal is clear, the function is determined. Therefore, the chip design cycle is shorter, and the size and power consumption are also smaller.

But there are advantages and disadvantages, and specially customized chips are often expensive to design.

In the future, limited by shipments, the production cost of chips will also be very high.

Shirakawa-san, in the field of semiconductors, the higher the shipment of chips, the lower the production cost.

This also invisibly dilutes the design cost of the chip, but the specially customized chip is destined not to be used on a large scale.

Therefore, the shipment volume is already limited invisibly, so the cost will be relatively high. ”

Chips are such things, as long as the process is the same, then it doesn't matter how much you produce, or what model it is.

At the beginning of manufacturing, the cost of the mask is fixed, so the larger the quantity, the lower the cost per chip.

Otherwise, the cost will rise dramatically.

Shirakawa Kaede understands that if you consider the future CD player market, it may be that the shipment volume is really not comparable to that of a processor-level chip.

"Shima-san, I see what you mean. So in your opinion, what are the suggestions for the current situation in SIC? ”

"Do architecture design, do platform design!" Without hesitation, Masato Shima gave his opinion.

"Platform design?" Shirakawa Kaede was thoughtful.

"That's right," Masatoshi nodded "First do a platform design that can be generalized, and then do special logic optimization for DAC decoding." ”

Masatoshi Shima's thinking is very clear, and his years of experience in chip design allow him to make the most suitable choice in the shortest possible time.

Hearing his explanation, Shirakawa Kaede's eyes lit up, "Shima-san, please elaborate on the platform design." ”

"Shirakawa-san, my suggestion is to design a 16-bit processor chip directly.

Then, on top of the completed design, the logic is re-optimized for digital signal decoding, and then the decoding chip is derived.

In this way, the original 16-bit processor can be family-processed. According to different application scenarios, different application chips are derived. ”

The more I listened to Shirakawa Kaede's eyes, the brighter it became, this... Looks like it works.

With the same design cost and solution, it can be used for multi-platform applications.

It is equivalent to a multi-purpose core, and as for the detailed derivative development, the cost and cycle will be greatly reduced compared with the initial design.

If you think about the launch of the CD player at least 82 years, it is completely possible to develop a 16-bit processor first, and then derive the corresponding DAC decoding chip.

There's a head, Shirakawa Kaede secretly pondered.

"In addition, Shirakawa-san, Matsumura-san and I have checked the current chip development progress together.

The design of the front-end, including system definition, register transfer level design, and design verification, has been completed by Matsumura-san.

I will take care of the rest of the logic synthesis, equivalence checks, timing analysis, etc., together with Matsumura-san.

We expect to complete all the design of the front-end in February next year, and as for the physical design of the back-end, I will follow up all the way.

However, because it has to enter the stage of layout planning, layout, and wiring.

and constraint information based on latency, power consumption, area, etc.

Set the parameters of the physical design tool appropriately, and then continuously debug to find the physical location of the component on the wafer.

This part of the work requires the semiconductor manufacturing company to provide process information before it can be carried out.

Therefore, before that, please be sure to determine the processing party of the future chip. ”

After the design of the chip enters the back-end physical design, it needs to be slowly interconnected with the semiconductor manufacturer.

After all, design and manufacturing cannot be completely separated, the two are inseparable.

However, regarding semiconductor manufacturers, Shirakawa Kaede already has a plan in mind.

He thought of the First Persuasion Bank Consortium that he had just worked with, but this was a later story, and he wouldn't talk about it until at least after the year.

"Please rest assured, Shima-san and Matsumura-san, I probably already have some ideas for the chip manufacturer.

It will definitely be confirmed before February. ”

Shirakawa Kaede is also not ambiguous, he doesn't understand the design side of things, which is too professional.

But as long as I can, just mention it.

Masatoshi Shima and Masaaki Matsumura both nodded with relaxed faces, so that the chip will soon enter the tape-out stage, and it is not far from the actual finished product.

"Shirakawa-san, contemptible people have another suggestion."

Just when Shirakawa Kaede felt that the matter of chips was about the same, Shimamasashi spoke again.

"If you have any suggestions, please don't be polite."

has seen the level of this big guy, and Shirakawa Kaede also attaches great importance to his suggestions.

"In fact, if SIC wants to achieve profitability quickly, the first thing to promote is not 16-bit chips."

Masatoshi Shima gave one again, which made Shirakawa Kaede a little surprised.

"Eh, please also ask Shima-san to make it clear." Shirakawa Kaede put down the coffee in his hand and sat upright.

"At present, in industrial and consumer electronics, a large number of applications are still 8-bit chips.

The main reason is that the technology is mature and the cost is low, which can meet the computing needs of most products. ”

Although 16-bit processors have been born, 8-bit processors are still the dominant ones on the market.

Without him, for one reason, cheap.

"So... What does Shima-san mean to develop an 8-bit chip first? Shirakawa Kaede asked tentatively.

"No," Masatoshi shook his head, "We still develop a 16-bit chip, but we can slim it down." ”

"Slimming treatment?" Shirakawa Kaede was a little confused.

"That's right, it's simply a 16-bit processor that is simplified to an 8-bit processor.

However, its performance will be more powerful than a regular 8-bit processor, between 8-bit and 16-bit.

The advantage is that the cost is significantly lower than that of 16-bit processors, and the price is only slightly higher than that of 8-bit processors, but the performance is much better than the latter.

Overall, very good value for money. It is well suited to market as the first product of SIC. ”

Bai Chuanfeng understood, isn't this Lao Huang's traditional knife technique.

Or to use the analogy of a toothpaste factory, to be more precise.

The performance is not sufficient at one time, but for the differentiation of different grades of products.

In fact, Intel is already engaged in this set. The 8086 is a 16-bit processor, and the 8088 is a simplified version of it.

Tsk, it is worthy of the toothpaste factory, and the traditional skills have been used handy.

Shirakawa Kaede looked at Shima Masato with the eyes of picking up a treasure, talent.

Not to mention the design ability, the key is to have a talent for doing business.

Squeeze the toothpaste, hey, it's up to me SIC!

"That's it! The design of the chip is exactly what you say.

A 16-bit full-body version was developed first, and then a simplified version of it was launched.

When the market matures, the 16-bit Pro version will be launched. Finally, on this basis, special application chips such as DAC decoding are derived.

Oh yes, the DAC decoding chip can also do 8-bit and 16-bit, right? ”

Shirakawa Kaede looked at Masato Shima with blank eyes.

The latter nodded without hesitation, "Of course, the higher the number of bits, the less distortion the output will be, and the clearer the resolved sound will be." ”

"Then it's decided." Shirakawa Kaede happily slapped his palm.

You see, isn't it appropriate for the mid-range and low-end models of the CD player?

"Shima-san, Matsumura-san, SIC is here for you.

If you have any needs, you are welcome, and hopefully we will be able to launch our own chips next year. ”

Shirakawa Kaede gets up, and all the employees of SIC will move in from tomorrow.

The situation that should be understood is also understood, and he is ready to leave.

The professional design of chips should be left to professional people.

"There is one thing that Shirakawa-san needs to solve." Masatoshi Shima and Masaaki Matsumura said in unison.

"Eh" Shirakawa Kaede was stunned, "Two seniors, please speak." ”

Masatoshi Shima and Masaaki Matsumura looked at each other and smiled, "Please also ask Shirakawa-san to find a president for SIC, we are not good at these." ”

"Uh" Shirakawa Kaede didn't expect them to make this request, which was really a little difficult for him.

In a highly professional company like SIC, the president can't be a technical idiot, otherwise he won't be able to work at all.

"If it really doesn't work, Shirakawa-san will temporarily take the position of president, and we have no opinion."

Shimamasa, they smiled and gave a suggestion.

"Okay" Shirakawa Kaede nodded with a wry smile, "Two seniors, please rest assured, the juniors in the back must be looking for a competent president for SIC." ”

Alas, Shirakawa Kaede, who was already busy, took over another heavy task.

It seems that talents will continue to be dug up. Small hoe, keep swinging.

(End of chapter)