Chapter 81

Xiaomei received a call from Qin Jian and immediately ordered two tickets to Wuzhou.

When Qin Jian arrived at Leizhou airport, she was already waiting at the airport.

Not long after waiting, they boarded the plane to Wuzhou.

Xiaomei sat next to Qin Bamboo Slips and asked curiously, "boss, why are we going to Wuzhou?"

Qin Jian said, "streamers!"

Xiaomei said with some questions, "what do you mean by streaming?"

Qin Jian explained: "after a chip is designed, if you want to carry out large-scale production, you need to carry out commercial streaming, and streaming means trial production to ensure that there is no problem with the chip design, and then carry out large-scale production."

Xiaomei nodded and then said, "boss, I still don't understand. Can you make it simple?"

Qin Jian thought for a moment and asked, "did you play with rubber stamps when you were a child?"

Xiaomei nodded and said, "of course, I've played. What I like most is the design of little bear."

Qin Jian said with a smile: "the streamer is equivalent to making a stamp. When the stamp is made, we can take the stamp to print the pattern on a large scale. We went to Wuzhou to make a rubber stamp this time."

Xiaomei smiled and said, "so it is. How long will it take to make it?"

Qin Jian said, "if you're lucky, you can't say it for half a day. If you're not lucky, you can't say it for ten days and half a month."

Xiaomei said in surprise, "the difference is so big!"

Qin Jian smiled and didn't speak. He lay back and closed his eyes.

The plane soon arrived at Wuzhou. After getting off the plane, Qin Jian saw Zhu Chen who came to pick up the plane. They exchanged greetings and then went to the factory.

On the business car.

Zhu Chen introduced a middle-aged man with a Mediterranean hairstyle sitting next to him and said, "this is Liu Jianguo and chief engineer Liu of our factory. This time, I know that President Qin is coming. I have to help introduce him."

The middle-aged man Liu Jianguo stretched out his hand and said, "President Qin, I've heard a lot about your name. I didn't expect you to be so young. You're really young and promising."

Qin Jian and Liu Jianguo shook hands and said, "chief engineer Liu is so polite. I really don't deserve your praise."

Liu Jianguo shook his head and said: "No, no, no, I'm sincere. I've seen the chip information you sent me. It's really admirable. I've never seen such an exquisite design, and it's completely different from the existing mainstream architecture. It's really surprising. I've been wondering about several problems. I want to ask President Qin for advice, and I can tell president Qin. I'm very grateful."

Qin Jian smiled and said, "there's no problem with this. If chief engineer Liu has any questions, please feel free to ask."

Liu Jianguo said happily, "then I'm not polite. He took out a notebook from his pocket, opened a page and asked," I don't understand how this multi bit asynchronous signal is synchronized in the chip design. How is it completely different from the implementation of X86 and arm? "

Qin Jian thought for a while, and then replied, "this way is adopted..."

Qin Jian's answer to Liu Jianguo's inquiry is very detailed, and there is no privacy. It is not how helpful and good a teacher he is, but the more the chief engineer knows about the details of the chip design, the higher the success rate of the streamer. As for whether the chip design will be leaked, there is usually no need to worry. Although the foundry has mastered the chip production process, it is generally not The larger the factory, the less it will leak. If it does happen, no one will dare to find this factory for OEM in the future. This is a self defeating job. Usually, only some very small OEM factories will do so. For a large factory such as Cologne semiconductor, there is no need to worry about the problem of leakage, and even if it is a leak, design a new version Yes, and if there is no software corresponding to the chip to support it, it can't play the function of the chip. If it is really stolen, don't be afraid.

Along the way, chief engineer Liu kept asking questions one by one, and more and more were recorded in his small book, which were records of the answers to Qin bamboo slips. Chief engineer Liu was sometimes excited and sometimes frowned.

Soon the car drove into the factory and everyone got off.

Chief engineer Liu has some unfinished business. He still has many questions to answer.

Zhu Chen said with a smile at this time: "chief engineer Liu, let Qinzhou have a meal first. He said that chief engineer Qin can't run."

Chief engineer Liu was embarrassed when he heard the speech and said, "Oh, look at me. I'm so anxious. President Qin, let's have dinner first!"

Qin Jian said indifferently, "I'm relieved to have such a dedicated person as chief engineer Liu here."

Chief engineer Liu smiled and said, "don't worry, Mr. Qin. I'll watch the chip all the way this time. I'll never let Mr. Qin spend more money."

The crowd laughed and went to the restaurant to sit down.

The food was served quickly. It was exquisite and had the characteristics of the south of the Yangtze River. Qin Bamboo Slips ate a few mouthfuls and were full of praise. This kind of food can't be eaten in Leizhou.

Zhu Chen smiled and said, "Mr. Qin, I always forgot to ask how many orders you are going to place this time?"

Qin Jian replied, "ten million."

Zhu Chen nodded and said, "no problem. I will put forward president Qin's order and strive for early shipment."

Qin Jian said with a smile, "I'm not in a hurry. President Zhu doesn't need special care. If this disrupts the production plan in the field, I'm too sorry."

Zhu Chen sighed and said, "Hey, President Qin is worried. Our factory doesn't have so many plans!"

Qin Jian smiled and asked, "why, business is not good?"

Zhu Chen nodded and said, "it's really not very good. President Qin must also understand the situation of the semiconductor industry. At present, the most advanced process in the world is 7 nm, while the most advanced process in our factory is 14 nm, which is too bad. There are only a few orders that can be received. If there were not all kinds of concessions given by the state capital, we would have fallen down long ago."

Qin Jian laughed in her heart. Zhu Chen's words are right or wrong. It must be true that business is bad, but it will not be reduced to bankruptcy. The 14 nm process is indeed a gap from the most advanced process, but the biggest demand in the market is not the most high-end 7 nm chip, but 14 nm and 22 nm. After all, the sales of high-end mobile phones are limited, The number of medium and low-end mobile phones is the largest.

Qin Jian took a sip of lotus seed porridge and said: "The domestic semiconductor industry has a lot of technical differences with foreign countries, but the main reason is the foreign technical blockade, which makes it impossible for us to buy the most advanced lithography machine. However, this should be solved soon. I heard that there are already a group of experts and professors in China who are tackling the problem of EUV lithography machine. It must not be long before we can catch up."

Zhu Chen shook his head and said, "EUV technology is not so easy to conquer. It is a collection of the world's most cutting-edge technology. It can't be broken by a group of hot minds. There are many research institutes that have failed in recent years. Few can really conquer. Don't say, don't say, come and try this Dongpo meat."

Qin Jian has seen the technology of EUV lithography machine in the plug-in. If he wants, he can buy it directly, but at present, he is not ready to enter the semiconductor industry. Although this industry is a very profitable industry, the establishment of a semiconductor factory is not built. It requires a lot of talents and funds. Although Vientiane group makes money at present The speed is very fast, but if it is invested in the semiconductor industry, it is a start of hundreds of billions, and the subsequent investment is a bottomless pit. Even if Qin bamboo slips have technology, the implementation process is not so easy, so it has to wait and say for this industry, step by step.

After a meal, they chatted for a while. Then chief engineer Liu couldn't wait to propose to go to the workshop.

Qin Jian readily agreed and went to the workshop with chief engineer Liu. Xiaomei let her move freely and go there wherever she wanted. There are still many scenic spots in Wuzhou to kill time.

A chip needs to go through thousands of processes on the assembly line to be produced. Basically, machines are busy. The whole process of streaming is actually very boring. About 10-20 chips can be produced at a time. The success of streaming depends on a series of tests after the product comes out. Each function of the module needs to be verified It's a time-consuming thing.

Qin Jian's chip is a new design. At present, the inspection work can only be carried out by him. For this chip with a new architecture, the factory is also the first time to stream it. It is inevitable that there will be some accidents, such as errors in making the mask, errors in etching, etc. as long as one step goes wrong, the chip may be scrapped or have different functions Often, if you can't meet the design requirements, you need to start again.

Even if there is Qin Bamboo Slips, failure is still inevitable. However, the greatest advantage of Qin bamboo slips is that they can quickly locate the failure and increase the success rate of the next film.

Time and again, Qin Jian felt his heart was aching. Although Zhu Chen gave him a preferential price, each failure of the film meant a loss of 200 million yuan. Qin Jian still felt distressed even though he had hundreds of billions of funds.

However, there is no way to be distressed. Who makes his design a new architecture? The factory needs to constantly try and error, and the machines also need to be constantly adjusted. It's really impossible not to spend the money.

Why are x86 architecture and arm architecture so popular now? On the one hand, the performance is really strong. On the other hand, the foundry is very familiar with these two architectures. The success rate of streaming of chip design companies is very high. Unlike Qin Jian, now, the cost of streaming has spent more than 2 billion, and it is still not successful, which is very important for general chip design For the company, a failure in streaming is almost equal to the bankruptcy of the company, so chip design enterprises are not so easy to do, and it is difficult to gain a foothold in this industry without strong capital.

With more failures, Qin Bamboo Slips become numb. They are not obsessed with the lost money, but constantly improve the process with chief engineer Liu, so that the success rate of streaming is higher and higher.

Half a month later, Qin Jian had a untidy beard on his face and was doing the chip test. This is the M version. He mechanically carried out one test after another. Seeing that one test passed, Qin Jian didn't have any smile on his face. When the last monitoring passed, he suddenly reflected that the chip test was successful.

This made Qin Bamboo Slips overjoyed. This time, the streaming film really gave him a new understanding of technology. Even if he mastered the most advanced technology, it was really difficult to realize it. Without a strong industrial system as support, only technology was useless.

Qin Jian silently raised the priority of establishing a chip factory and fine tuned the future development route.