The reason why Shirakawa Kaede chose this time to talk to Toshiba was because the proposal from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry had just been shelved.

After the strong opposition of several councillors, they must also know that SIC is not powerless here.

Since there will be no results in the coming months, it is better for everyone to sit down and talk.

"Zobosan, good luck."

"Shirakawa-san, long admired daimyo."

Because Shirakawa Kaede personally came forward, Toshiba also sent the ninth president of the group, Shochi Saba.

After the two sides sat down, there was no need to say anything more about greetings.

Everyone is a leader, even though they have fought each other a few times not long ago, but they are all very humble to each other.

In addition to Kaede Shirakawa, Heitaro Nakajima and Masatoshi Shima from SIC also attended the meeting.

Yoshiyuki Takeishi, director of Toshiba's ULSI Research Institute (VLSI) within the Toshiba Group, also serves as a technical advisor to Shoichi Saba.

When it comes to chips, how can it be done without the presence of professional technicians.

After the greetings, Shirakawa Kaede went straight to the point, "President Saba, why don't we think about the cooperation of SIC processor chips from a different angle?" ”

"What does Shirakawa-san mean...?" A different color flashed in Saba's eyes, and he was surprised by Shirakawa Kaede's directness.

Sure enough, as rumored, the founder of the "new chaebol" is as vigorous as ever.

Shirakawa Kaede didn't know what the other party was thinking, but even if he knew, he wouldn't care.

In his current position, this is not a recklessness. It's a personal style, and it can also be a display of personal charm.

Just like the literati used to call cultural relics, all extraordinaryness comes from the gap in identity.

"SIC does not exclude cooperation with other partners in the field of R&D.

And in terms of openness, both Shirakawa Electric and SIC are second to none in the neon company. ”

Saba agrees with this, and Shirakawa-san's company has the same distinctive characteristics as his people, that is, openness and inclusiveness.

In a survey conducted by NHK Television Co., Ltd., Shirakawa Electric ranked first among employees in the neon rankings.

The 100 current or former employees interviewed praised Shirakawa's free working atmosphere.

Of course, it's not okay to be too free, and HAL's Tanimura is a good example.

However, now Shirakawa Holdings has been making adjustments, but compared with other traditional clubs, Shirakawa Electric's style is still unique.

So now Shirakawa Kaede says that SIC is open to R&D, and Saba believes it.

"SIC is willing and active to cooperate with other clubs, but of course this must be based on mutual respect and reciprocity."

There is no problem with inclusiveness and openness, but reciprocity of interests is the premise.

Mutual? Saba Masashi grasped the point for a moment, "If Shirakawa-san has any suggestions, you might as well say it clearly." ”

"Mutual Empowerment!" Shirakawa Kaede didn't ramble and said his proposal directly.

"What does Shirakawa-san mean by mutual authorization on chips? Is SIC also ready to enter the field of DRAM chips? ”

Shoichi Saba naturally thought of the DRAM chip business, which is currently the most profitable business of Toshiba's semiconductor division.

It is also in this field that Toshiba has its own chip technology patents, otherwise how can they authorize each other.

But if that's the case, then the other party's ambition is not ordinarily big.

Now that the competition in the DRAM business is so fierce, SIC still dares to enter the market, which is full confidence in its own strength?

However, unexpectedly, Shirakawa Kaede shook his head after hearing his question, "SIC wants to reciprocate with Toshiba in the flash memory business. ”

"Flash?" Saba is at a loss, Toshiba has such a business?

Unlike his busyness, Wu Shi Xixing beside him suddenly turned pale.

"I would venture to ask, the flash memory that Shirakawa-san is talking about is a NOR-type flash memory with EPRTOM as the logical mode?"

"Exactly" Shirakawa Kaede nodded, confirming his guess, "However, considering that flash memory is still in the theoretical stage, SIC can only make certain preferential promises in terms of chip architecture authorization." ”

Saba Masa's first reaction when he heard Shirakawa Kaede's conditions was not to consider whether the conditions were suitable.

Instead, he turned his head and asked Wu Shi Xixing what was going on with his flash memory.

The latter quietly leaned over and began to whisper an answer about flash memory.

As Kaede Shirakawa said, this technology is still in the theoretical stage, and it was proposed and verified by an employee named Fujio Makuoka at the research institute.

Unlike DRAM memory, NOR flash memory is a semiconductor non-volatile memory that stores data without disappearing even after the power supply is cut off.

This is somewhat similar to Intel's EEPRTOM (Erasable Programmable Memory with Dots), but the latter has some significant drawbacks.

For example, EEPRTOM has poor read and write performance and is difficult to improve integration, and because of these shortcomings, EEPRTOM is difficult to become a large-capacity memory.

However, Fujio Masaoka came up with another idea, which is to "deliberately reduce performance".

In the original memory, erase data was done in bytes.

Flash memory, on the other hand, treats bytes as "small collectives", i.e., erased and written in blocks.

In layman's terms, it is the sacrifice of refined operations for flash memory, and the operation is changed to modular operation.

Although it seems that the performance is low, the working mode is simpler, and the storage capacity has also increased.

It's just embarrassing that although Fujio Masaoka's idea is good, Toshiba doesn't pay attention to it at all.

Even after the evaluation of the semiconductor department, it did not think of investing money in flash memory at all.

Because of the general neglect of the leadership, in the end, the president of Saba Shoichi did not know about the existence of flash memory.

In fact, the reason why Toshiba does not pay so much attention to flash memory is not unrelated to the background of the times at this time.

Now in the mid-80s, what is the most profitable business of Toshiba's semiconductor division? It's a DRAM chip!

At present, the neon of 64K memory chips has occupied 58% of the global market share, and the 256K chip has reached a terrifying 80%.

Among them, Toshiba alone has won nearly one-third, and it is not an exaggeration to describe the profitability of DRAM with daily money.

And the new 1M DRAM launched this year is a little ahead of its neon counterparts because of its technology.

In this part of the business, Toshiba dominates more than 60% of the global market.

According to internal statistics, Toshiba's daily profit is 200 million yen in the DRAM storage business alone!

Profit! Every day! And that's just the Semiconductor Division!

So with such huge profits in hand, it is understandable that Toshiba does not pay attention to flash memory.

The same is true of the current Shoichi Saba, who is also not interested in this new type of storage after listening to Kiyuki Takeishi explain the specifics of flash memory.

A technology that is still in the theoretical stage, and it is not yet known whether it is possible to achieve it.

Instead of investing more R&D funds to bet on the commercial use of flash memory in the future, why not continue to make efforts on the DRAM track?

After all, the profitability of DRAM has been proven, and as long as it is developed step by step, the profit is almost unexpected.

Flash memory is redundant and uncertain.

Saeki was slightly deliberate for a few seconds before replying, "Toshiba can negotiate the matter of flash memory here, so the chip licensing fee for SIC...?" ”

“1%！” Kaede Shirakawa gave a fairly favorable licensing rate.

The licensing fee of the normal chip is in the range of 1%~3%, and now he directly gives the lowest.

Even Saba was about to open his mouth to make a bargain, but he stopped unconsciously halfway through it.

"Ahem, this authorization fee is still reasonable." Zoba was halfway through the turn and complimented him naturally.

"But SIC also has a condition" Before the other party nodded and agreed, Shirakawa Kaede naturally added.

Is he Shirakawa Kaede so easy to take advantage of? The reason for the low price is naturally the reason for the low price.

And hearing that there are still conditions, I don't know why Saba Shoichi was relieved.

Also, how can flash memory, a technology that currently has no commercial value, be exchanged for the architecture technology of processor chips.

Even if there is only a discount, then the benefits are not equal. Fortunately, there are supplementary conditions, so there should be no pitfalls in this transaction.

Tsk, if Shirakawa Kaede knew what Shoichi Saba was thinking. I will definitely sigh that the persecution paranoia of Zopo Sander is somewhat serious, and it is time to take medicine.

"What conditions does Shirakawa-san have, please say." Shochi Saba, who breathed a sigh of relief, waited for Shirakawa Kaede to offer the price again.

Since the other party said so, then Shirakawa Kaede was not polite.

"Because this technology is still theoretical, we need Yusan Fuji Masaoka to support SIC to improve its validation."

It's not just about technology, it's about people.

"I would like to ask, what kind of business do you want to use flash technology?" Shoichi Saba didn't answer first, but inquired about the purpose of SIC flash memory technology.

Shirakawa Kaede smiled at this, "It's not a secret, Shirakawa Electric is currently developing a new game cartridge."

Let's see if we can find a more efficient way to save your game progress. ”

This is of course a disguise, DRAM although does not support data saving after a power outage. But the ROM has it, it's just a little bigger.

But as long as there is a plausible reason, at least that's a direction.

And after hearing that Shirakawa Kaede wanted to apply flash memory to the game cartridge, Saba lost interest in an instant.

The shipments of game cartridges are nothing compared to the global DRAM market.

Since the market prospect is limited, flash memory is not in the scope of Toshiba's consideration.

Besides, it's just a license, and Toshiba still retains some of the original patents.

"In principle, Toshiba will not influence the personal choice of Yu-san Fuji in Makuoka, and I ask Shirakawa-san to understand."

"Of course" Shirakawa Kaede nodded, knowing in his heart.

This means that Toshiba will not stop Fujio Masaoka from staying, as for whether you can poach people, it depends on your ability.

To be honest, Fujio Masaoka is not well received at Toshiba, and many people even see him as a burden.

After completing his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the Department of Engineering at Tohoku University in '71, he became a full-time employee of Toshiba.

After more than ten years, he first spent time in the manufacturing department, and then was transferred to the marketing department.

However, the sales results were sparse, and in the end, he was recalled to the R&D department by Takeshi Xixing.

Takeshi Yoshiyuki is considered to be the Bole of Fujio Makuoka, but it is just a personal preference, and he cannot influence the company's policies.

Fujio Masaoka's flash memory theory has spent a lot of money, but few results have been achieved.

After a few years, the leaders above have no opinion, which is strange.

At this time, I heard that Shirakawa Kaede wanted to poach people, and the director of the Semiconductor Research Institute, Takeshi Kiyuki, subconsciously wanted to oppose it.

However, Zoha was waving his hand one by one, stopping him from speaking.

One is a promising processor chip, and the other is an unknown flash memory, and Toshiba chose the former without hesitation.

Just like flash memory vs. DRAM, Toshiba has chosen the one with a bright future.

(End of chapter)