Jingu Xiqing Science and Technology Development Zone.

This is one of the foundries of Huaxin International, and it is also the first foundry to complete the upgrading and transformation of the 28nm high yield production line.

Wang Minjiang, the general manager and chief engineer of the branch here, led down to the storage place of the final product, and the large room was filled with the unique smell of PCB boards.

There were several black shelves in the warehouse, and the workers took the tray from one of the small compartments and handed it to Wang Minjiang.

"Mr. Wang, this is your Y1611A official version, the '梼杌A1000' chip, it has been less than 20 hours since the packaging was completed and placed here, you can take a look."

Wang Minjiang pried out a processor about 6cm square and put it under the light to observe carefully.

The front of the wafer is completely covered by a nickel-plated copper top cover, and on the back is 3,900 pure gold contacts, also known as gold fingers.

The first batch of chips of Yellow River Semiconductor is still based on X32115 to optimize and improve the desktop end, and the new generation of "Hanqi" processor designed with the "Taishan" architecture, with the internal code name Y1611A, Y1611B, Y1611C three series.

Y is the beginning of the English letter of the Yellow River, 16 represents the year, the third number is numbered according to the series name of the year, and the fourth number is the sorting of version iterations.

For example, Y1601, which was used to save face for the Great Wall Computer, 0 is the code name of the "Poor Qi" series.

A, B, and C represent the performance level respectively, A is the consumer market workstation level, B is the enthusiast level, C is the economic level, and there may be other letters in the future, and the number followed is the specific distinction of each level of CPU.

The Y1611A is the flagship CPU released for the desktop market, but after the release, it will be called TPU, and T is the English initials of ternary.

Because it is very different from the ternary architecture and the traditional architecture, the division of functions is also very different.

The original computer was mainly composed of three parts: processor, memory, and hard disk, and the picture output was decoded by the CPU.

The ternary architecture directly does two jobs, and the same architecture and design ideas can provide considerable computing power support for a variety of scenarios.

The core area of the A1000 is nearly 120% more than the mainstream CPUs on the market, and the rated power consumption is not low, reaching as much as 350W, although it is really high, but because it does not require a graphics card, it can actually save more power compared with a normal computer with a separate display.

梼杌A1000 has 6 cores and 18 threads, the benchmark is Intel's flagship i7 6950X, and the graphics computing power is super strong, and the pure graphics computing can be close to the level of GTX1080ti.

If you want to achieve the ultimate performance in both aspects, you need the automatic overclocking program equipped with the A1000, which releases about 600W of power, and can reach up to 800W under good heat dissipation conditions.

High is high, but it is indeed the top use, and this is still stronger than traditional projects, with XOS and professional software, and now mainstream manufacturers are not involved in AI hardware support, this is a major plus project.

The main purpose of the A1000 is to show off muscles at the consumer end, as well as to sell to enthusiast users and workstation people, of course, the latter is incidental.

Now the domestic ternary ecology has just begun to cultivate, Huawei will release the world's first ternary mobile phone mate10 in a few days, and at the same time, Yellow River Semiconductor will officially promote the program editor of the XOS system to domestic enterprises.

The basic office software and social and life software of the Science and Technology Commission have organized all the translations, but the huge entertainment software, especially games, is very difficult, and the Science and Technology Commission plans to use one year to vigorously promote the domestic software industry into the ternary development.

For this reason, the above is even determined to prepare to enact a relevant bill on software in the new year, vigorously support the ternary system while blocking foreign pressure.

This is not the business of Yellow River Semiconductor, but the work of the entire domestic semiconductor software and hardware industry chain.

So Wang Minjiang has no worries about the hardware, Xinyuan has produced more advanced X32045 than the system X32035, X32055 is also in the design, generation after generation is stronger, Yellow River Semiconductor only needs to squeeze a little regularly, X32035 is enough to eat for ten years.

Putting the TPU back in his hand, Wang Minjiang said:

"We're not worried about hardware, can the cost of SSDs come down?"

"This ......"

The chief engineer of Huaxin was a little embarrassed, but he still told the truth.

"Binary NAND flash memory is 2.8 yuan 1G, ternary flash memory is 8.9 yuan 1G, at least we can't help it."

Wang Minjiang: ......

One of the existing weaknesses of ternary computers: storage.

Now, at the end of 2016, the mainstream storage medium in the market is still mechanical hard disks, and solid-state drives are expensive and have little capacity.

Whether it's a traditional HDD or an SSD, ternary computer reads must be translated, which can dramatically increase latency and reduce read/write speeds.

NAND flash SSD is okay, after all, it is fast, there will be a little performance loss after the transfer but it is still fast, the loss is acceptable, the mechanical hard disk is too uncomfortable, the delay has to go to heaven, not to mention, the already low read and write speed will be discounted.

The dedicated ternary particle SSD is suitable for the computer with fast response, fast read and write, and long life, but the price is naturally more exaggerated.

In the era of car machines, you can use ternary memory or solid-state drives, and you don't care about the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, but not on the consumer side.

The storage space of mainstream computers is more than 500G, that is, more than 1,000 to buy hard disks? I'm afraid most people can't accept it, but the experience of mechanical hard drives is really urgent.

It is not until seven or eight years from now, when the NAND flash memory process advances, or when ternary memory chips are mass-produced, that it is possible to drive down the price of storage devices.

Wang Minjiang has no way to do this, Xinyuan's business has a pitiful proportion of chip cost, and there is no relevant research.

Just when he was a little at a loss, the chief engineer of Huaxin inadvertently said a sentence:

"Mr. Wang, don't be so anxious, nothing is perfect, and the current silicon wafer is not suitable for ternary."

Wang Minjiang: !

"What do you mean? You're looking for other technical routes. ”

The chief engineer nodded:

"It's a waste of two binary elements to simulate a ternary FET, and there is no way to adapt to the compromise of the existing system, we have to find a substrate with three states as the chip material that natively supports the ternary.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences has been researching for a long time, and they currently prefer silicon carbide, both elements are more common and better to obtain high-purity elemental, but also meet the requirements of having three states.

We also have Modu Microelectronics involved, silicon carbide manufacturing chips to reconstruct the industrial line, at present they plan to use it within five years to go through this road, in a few days should pull you in together. ”

After the chief engineer finished speaking, he found that Wang Minjiang's eyes were very strange, and the expression on his face was also tangled and wanted to say something and stopped, and finally patted the chief engineer's shoulder and said solemnly:

"Their innovative spirit is very good, and Yellow River Semiconductor will fully support it, silicon carbide is good, just do this."

Huaxin's chief engineer is a little unclear: "Actually, it's okay, because in recent years, there have been high-power semiconductors of IGBT that are engaged in silicon carbide, so I naturally thought of it, and most of them are existing ideas." ”

Wang Minjiang: "That's right, since the silicon carbide chip already has a foundation, then I suggest starting from this, and the progress should be much faster." ”

(End of chapter)