Kaede Shirakawa returns to Tokyo to finish the things he has accumulated at hand, and the time has entered mid-February.

The people below the Walkman market will always pay attention, and the next generation of product development tasks have been assigned.

In the face of many competitors, there is no shortcut but to face it head-on.

However, Shirakawa Electric's Walkman has been sold for more than a year, and its brand image is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

With the market he has cultivated, Shirakawa Kaede still maintains a relatively optimistic attitude towards the walkman business.

And he also has some ideas about the handheld business. However, the specific matters need to be discussed with HAL and Akagi.

In addition to the current things that are more important in front of Shirakawa Kaede, then the only thing left is SIC.

Shibuya Daikanyama, SIC Building.

Unlike the last empty scene, not only the front desk was already in place in the reception hall on the first floor.

There were also people in the small conference rooms, most of whom were interviewing the talents needed by the various departments.

The research and development of chips, the development of CD format, etc., all require professional and high-end technicians.

Although there are a large number of highly educated talents at the East University of Technology, the practical experience is lacking after all.

Therefore, in order to improve R&D efficiency, mature technical personnel are indispensable.

And considering the growth of SIC, the graduate students in the school should not be spared.

Grasp with both hands, and be hard with both hands.

As for what specific talents need to be recruited, it is up to them to decide for themselves.

Led by his assistant, Shirakawa Kaede took the elevator straight to the fifth floor, where the SIC chip technology was developed.

When the group arrived, Masayoshi Ishima and Hui Yamazaki were pointing at the computer screen in the office.

Shirakawa Kaede, who had already arrived, stopped the assistant's reminder, and instead stood behind them and waited quietly.

"Transistors must be sized wisely, not necessarily as small. Reducing power consumption and latency is our ultimate goal.

In addition, when the manufacturing process enters the sub-micron range, the impact of the interconnect delay between circuits on the performance of the circuit is even greater than the effect of the logic gate delay itself.

At this time, when we design the circuit, we need to consider the capacitive effect and inductive effect between the wire grids.

…”

"Does the negative impact of clock skew and clock tree parasitic parameters also need to be avoided in advance?"

"That's right,..."

When Shimamasashi was talking, Yamazaki Hui on the side also nodded from time to time, or continued to ask questions about what he had questions.

And Shirakawa Kaede, who listened to them for a while behind them, soon felt a little big.

The technical terms don't seem to be easy to mess with.

Finally, when Masato Shimashima picked up his coffee, the peripheral vision of his eyes noticed the figure behind him.

"Eh, President Shirakawa" Masatoshi Shima drank half of his coffee and quickly put it down.

Yamazaki Hui beside him saw Shirakawa Kaede, and subconsciously got up to greet him.

"You're welcome. You and Yamazaki-kun continue to discuss, I'll take a look at it at will. ”

Shirakawa Kaede stretched out his hand to signal that they didn't need to be formal, and if it wasn't for something, he would not usually come to disturb them.

Technology research and development is most taboo to be interrupted by various trivial matters, so the whole SIC building is relatively quiet compared to the surrounding area.

"The things that should be discussed have almost been discussed, but Shirakawa-san will not come again, and I am ready to find it myself."

Masatoshi Shimashima waved his hand to indicate that things at work were not in a hurry for the time being, and he was mainly teaching Yamazaki Hui about the precautions for chip design.

Shirakawa Kaede casually pulled a chair and sat down in front of them, "I'm really sorry, I just came to discuss the back-end design of the chip with Shima-san today." ”

When the SIC building was completed a few years ago, Kaede Shirakawa and Masatoshi Shima had a meeting.

The front-end design of the chip is expected to be completed by the end of the year, and most of the work in the back-end design will also be completed in January.

According to the plan, the physical design will be carried out in February, and this part of the work already needs to be connected with the semiconductor manufacturer.

But because Shirakawa Kaede was delayed for some time in Akita, the research and development progress of the chip is now slightly delayed.

Fortunately, the impact was not too long. After dealing with the urgent matter, Shirakawa Kaede also rushed to SIC here as soon as possible.

At this moment, since Shirakawa Kaede is here, Shimamasatoshi also goes straight to the topic.

"Since I didn't know which semiconductor manufacturer to use, I collected information on the process technology of several major semiconductor companies in Japan and did some preliminary work."

As he spoke, Masatoshi opened the design drawings on the computer and pointed them out to Shirakawa Kaede.

"The layout and wiring of the main body is largely completed. After the subsequent shunting and details are perfected, the integrated circuit layout can enter the actual process manufacturing stage. ”

Looking at the dense transistors and wiring on the computer screen, although Shirakawa Kaede couldn't understand them, he thought they were cute and abnormal.

This is the power of knowledge, thousands of transistors arranged in a neat and orderly manner on a computer screen like ants.

The circuitry that makes them up is so complex, but now it's all in one small chip and running smoothly.

This requires consideration of the interaction between the entire circuit, power consumption, latency, logical relationships, and so on.

Just thinking about it, Shirakawa Kaede has a feeling of being daunted.

Sure enough, it is not an exaggeration to say that chips are the ultimate embodiment of human technological development.

And for the bigwigs engaged in this industry, Bai Chuanfeng is also very admired.

"Shima-san, I don't understand technical things. You just need to tell me that now I can do it for it..."Shirakawa Kaede pointed to the circuit diagram on the computer screen, "What can I do for it?" ”

Masato Shimashima likes Shirakawa Kaede's style of really wanting to do things, and meaningless greetings and politeness don't help him at all.

"First, we need to confirm the processor of the chip as soon as possible. Once the physical design is complete, it moves on to the manufacturing validation phase.

This is also important for chip design, as any chip requires a lot of tweaking and verification before it can be released.

Second, please consider the future use prospects of this chip as soon as possible.

If it is only designed and not produced for use, then its existence will be meaningless. ”

Needless to say, the first point is the current top priority, and Shirakawa Kaede also has his own plans.

"What does Shimasan think of Fujitsu about chipmakers?"

"Fujitsu? Absolutely. "Mr. Shima knows a lot about several of Neon's local semiconductor manufacturers.

After all, not anyone can do a high-end product like a chip.

There are only a few in Japan, NEC, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, and Toshiba, of which Fujitsu probably ranks third.

In today's era, the chip manufacturing process is still at the micron level, and there is basically no generation gap between them.

Therefore, there is absolutely no problem in choosing Fujitsu as the OEM from a technical point of view.

The reason why Shirakawa Kaede chose Fujitsu is because it is also a member of the Daiichi Bank Foundation.

With a good foundation for previous cooperation, Shirakawa Kaede believes that there should be no problems with Fujitsu.

However, the specific situation needs to be known after talking to Fujitsu.

Seeing that Shirakawa Kaede was confident, Shimamasatoshi did not delve into why he chose Fujitsu.

For him, as long as the technical requirements can be met, it doesn't matter who he does it for.

The first thing is that there is a place to go, and the second thing...

"Ishima-san, I take the liberty of asking, what is your estimate of SIC chip performance? How does it compare to Intel's 8086 or Zligo's 8000? ”

If you want to ask what the future of the chip is, of course, you must first look at its performance.

Hearing Shirakawa Kaede's question, Shimamasatoshi changed his previous humility.

"The others dare not say, but at least they will not be weaker than them." For this, Shimamasashi is quite confident.

Joke about the former family member of these two chips, he was personally involved in the design.

Even Zligo's Z8000, Masashi Shima is also involved.

So he knows what they do.

Moreover, at the beginning of the design of this chip of SIC, the benchmark was Intel's 8086 and zligo's z8000.

The latter two are basically products of two or three years ago, and although SIC is a latecomer, it will not be worse than them.

Hearing Shimamasatoshi's assurance, Shirakawa Kaede was very satisfied.

This is SIC's first product, and it's rare to have this kind of performance.

"Regarding the prospect of the use of chips, Ishima-san will list a range that suits it later, and I will focus on it."

Of course, Shirakawa Kaede will not only make chips for his own use, and he has already planned to make a family.

Isn't it just to bring it to market and create profits for SIC?

To put it bluntly, chips are also a product, Shimamasashi is responsible for research and development, and Shirakawa Kaede is responsible for selling.

And the larger the chip output, the lower the cost, and the higher the profit.

"By the way, Shirakawa-san, the research and development of chips will soon come to an end. So what are your thoughts on its naming? ”

Nowadays, there is no habit of giving code names to chips, and most of them are named directly after the model.

Later generations also retained this way of naming on processors, with the exception of mobile phone processors.

The names of all kinds of hanging bombs, I don't know, I thought it was in the war of the gods.

Snapdragon, Kirin, Dimensity... Look, proper fairy fights.

However, Shirakawa Kaede didn't plan to do this, and now is still the era of selling products, not the gimmick of selling a certain part.

And when he saw Shimasatoshi's eager eyes, he also knew that he couldn't bear it anymore.

"If you have a good idea, you might as well say it and listen to it."

Shirakawa Kaede is very open to this aspect, and as a designer, he also respects the other party's power in this regard.

Sure enough, hearing Shirakawa Kaede say this, Shimamasatoshi immediately became interested.

"Shirakawa-san, how about you say it's SIC8081?"

“8081？”

SIC Shirakawa Kaede understands what 8081 means.

As if knowing what was in his mind, Shimamasatoshi explained further.

"SIC was founded in '80, and its first chip was born in '81.

So putting these two numbers together as a memorial, everyone thinks it's very good. ”

That's not a bad explanation, huh.

"According to Isama-san, the first chip of SIC is called 8081." Since everyone is satisfied, Shirakawa Kaede is also as good as a stream.

"Yo Xi, SIC8081 will definitely enter the commercial stage this year."

This is a chip developed by Masayoshi Shima himself, and he has put a lot of effort into its future.

Now that victory is in sight, he is also full of ambition.

(End of chapter)