It is said that everything is difficult at the beginning.

Although Wujiang Company has established the operating system, CPU and computer motherboard, everyone still has no clue how to develop it, and Zhao Ye still needs to make specific instructions.

Zhao Ye was also thinking about these issues at this time.

In the afternoon, he went to the operating system development team, gathered everyone, and had a small meeting.

After everyone sat down, Zhao Ye said in a very affirmative tone: "Regarding what kind of operating system we want to develop, I will talk about it here first, if you have any good suggestions in the future, you can also put it forward, and everyone will brainstorm."

First of all, it must be a graphical interface operating system, which Apple has launched as early as 1983 and has been a great success; Secondly, we want to add a lot of useful features to the operating system, such as the introduction of the program manager - [Start] menu, the program manager is more convenient and intuitive to manage programs than the file list! ”

"Then, we need to improve the CPU's memory management technology to support multi-tasking."

"It was also necessary to develop [the control panel] as a hub for the system settings, including things like limited control over the color theme of the interface, mouse flexibility, and so on."

"Support multimedia functions, development of music players and video players."

"Finally, there are some applications bundled in the system, such as 'WPS-office office software', 'WordPad', 'calculator', 'calendar', 'game', etc."

"Oh, yes, I'll add one more."

Zhao Ye suddenly thought of something, paused, and said, "As the saying goes, 'it is convenient for others and for yourself', in order to help hardware manufacturers develop drivers, and at the same time facilitate other software companies to design applications in the operating system, we also need to develop a Software Development Kit (SDK) software development kit, so as to create a system application ecology!" ”

After Zhao Ye finished speaking, everyone was dumbfounded, they didn't expect that developing an operating system was so complicated, it felt very perfect, and they didn't know what to say if they wanted to add it.

"Boss, are we developing an operating system based on Intel X86 chips?" Qiu Bojun asked.

The basis of software operation is hardware, and there must be hardware before there is a software operating system, so I ask Bojun to ask this question.

Zhao Ye knew that in 1985, Intel Corporation launched the first 32-bit microprocessor Intel-80836, and achieved great success.

The Intel 80386 is a processor in the x86 architecture.

Zhao Ye wanted to develop an operating system based on the CPU architecture developed by his own company, but his CPU has not yet been shadowed.

"At present, we will develop the x86 computer system first, and then launch a new version of the operating system when we develop our own CPU!" Zhao Ye said helplessly.

Hearing this, Qiu Bojun nodded and said that he understood.

"Boss, what kind of instruction set is our company's CPU development team going to develop?"

"Intel's CPUs are based on Complex Instruction Set (CISC) and have a lot of patents, not to mention that they won't license them to us at all, and even if they do, we're already several generations behind and it's hard to catch up for a while. So I decided to take a different approach and develop a CPU based on Reduced Instruction Set (RISC). ”

ARM has not yet risen, last year, the British Acorn computer company began to officially launch the ARM program, until April next year, Acorn's chip foundry VLSI company will produce the first ARM chip using the RISC instruction set, the full name is: Acorn RISC Machine.

Twenty days later, the world's first commercial RISC processor, the ARM-1, was successfully running on the Acorn computer.

However, the development of Acorn computers has not been alarming. By 1990, ARM was founded by Acorn Computer, Apple, and VLSI, with only 12 engineers involved.

It is entirely possible for Wujiang to develop a CPU based on Reduced Instruction Set (RISC) at this time, which is completely possible to surpass ARM, not to mention the big bug of Zhao Ye.

In his previous life, Zhao Ye had an in-depth study of the ARM architecture.

It's not hard to design a chip that just surpasses the ARM architecture of the current era.

The most difficult thing is how to produce the chips.

Zhao Ye is not omnipotent, he only has a simple understanding of the production equipment and production process of chips, maybe he can point out the future development trend to developers and save huge expenses, but when it comes to specific research and development, it depends on professional talents......

From chip design to production, there is really a long way to go if you want to see in China.

However, Zhao Ye wanted to try.

As long as we find a way out for chips, we can promote the development of the entire domestic semiconductor industry.

For example, can ARM chips be applied to computers? Of course, in 2021, the revolution that powers the MacBook Air is the ARM-based Apple M1 chip. This Apple MacBook Air is not only the best laptop ever made by Apple, but it is also on China's list of the best laptops of 2021.

In the 80s, ARM's chips were perhaps not as powerful as Apple's M1 chips.

But Intel chips haven't been in development for a few years at the moment.

In addition, ARM's chips can also be applied to mobile phones, BB machines, FC red and white game consoles, backgammon point readers, electronic pets, etc., with a wide range of applications.

As long as Wujiang Company retreats and cultivates, practices the "internal strength" of chips, and comes out of the mountain in a few years, it will be able to gain a foothold in the semiconductor field all over the world.

However, at that time, the chip was not called ARM, but another name.

Zhao Ye had already thought of the name in his heart - Loongson!!

After the development of the operating system was arranged, Zhao Ye immediately went to the personnel department, and he was busy with the Imagine printing chain store, so the company was delayed from launching a large-scale high-end talent recruitment activity.

Personnel.

Zhao Ye said: "The major projects within the company, the lack of talents, from this moment on, immediately spend a huge amount of money to recruit people, whether it is advertising in newspapers or television, or poaching people through headhunting companies, we must recruit high-end talents for the whole society!" ”

Speaking of this, he paused and added, "In addition, you can also appropriately recruit people from abroad and establish a research institute in the local area!" ”

There are very few high-end talents who understand software and hardware in China, many of them are in research institutions or state-owned enterprises, and there are still a few who are willing to come to Wujiang.

"Okay, boss, I'll arrange it right away!" The HR director nodded immediately.

Zhao Ye walked out of the personnel department, thinking of the difficulty of producing CPUs independently, and couldn't help but sigh.

"I want to invest in building a wafer factory, but I always have a feeling of being weak by myself, my connections are not good, and my energy is not enough, so I need someone to help me......," Zhao Ye muttered.

At this time, Zhao Ye suddenly thought of Ni Yinnan.

"Ni Annan wants to make Chinese's own chips, the Chinese Academy of Sciences can't realize his dream, and Lenovo can't realize his dream, but I can!"

Zhao Ye couldn't help but think of digging into the corner.

Ni Annan is not only skilled, but also has more connections than Zhao Ye.

It may be more suitable for him to come forward to contact and integrate the domestic chip industry chain.

How much did it cost to invest in a fab in the eighties?

Zhao Ye has specially asked people to investigate, and the latest news is that in 1982, Jiangsu Wuxi Jiangnan Radio Equipment Factory (742 factory) spent 66 million US dollars to introduce a 3-inch wafer production line (5 micron process, monthly production capacity of 10,000 pieces) from RB Toshiba.

It's only 66 million US dollars, although the investment is a lot, but Wujiang is still acceptable.

However, Zhao Ye hopes that semiconductor equipment can be localized.

Otherwise, when foreign sanctions are imposed, the previous efforts will become in vain, and the wafer factory will not be able to buy advanced production equipment, and sooner or later it will decline.

Zhao Ye doesn't want to be controlled by others, so he doesn't plan to purchase production lines directly from abroad, but tries to support domestic semiconductor equipment production companies, or recruit talents by himself and invest in building factories, such as lithography machines, it is best to be in their own hands, and other research institutions, I'm afraid they don't have enough funds to support them to continue research and development.

If you want to accelerate the localization of semiconductor equipment, in the final analysis, you still have to have money...... At this time, the laboratory was able to produce advanced lithography machines, but it was still difficult to achieve industrial mass production.