Chapter 266： [The little thing about chips and lakes]

Latest website: Everyone said nothing, watching Luo Sheng intently and waiting for his next sentence.

Luo Sheng sat comfortably in his position, and everyone's curious eyes had not dissipated, waiting for him to speak.

"You don't know too much about the chip rivers and lakes, but you must know, because we are all in the rivers and lakes, we must know the events on the rivers and lakes, then I will tell you about it. "

Luo Sheng smiled, and these words brought these young and excellent engineers in the hall into those rivers and lakes.

"It starts from a certain day in the summer of 2000. Sony and Toshiba knocked on the door of IBM. At that time, both companies, like Sony, especially won the war of two generations of game consoles, PS2. It has become the most desirable Christmas gift for American children. It is easy and enjoyable to punch Sega and kick Nintendo. "

"Sony ’s activities in the game industry are too big, so that one of the software giants, Microsoft, is not calm, and they are eager to join the battle. At that time, no one took Gates seriously. Now, Xbox is just killing. A blood path. "

Luo Sheng looked at a group of engineers and said arrogantly: "At that time, IBM was still in the transition period from a hardware company to a software + information company. Seeing that two wealthy grandfathers, Sony and Toshiba, came, they thought they were interested in IBM's hard disk storage technology. "

"But Toshiba and Sony didn't have this interest at all. IBM thought that they should look at the server solutions in the store and use them in home entertainment networking services?"

"Still uninterested, IBM asked again: Did you look at our OS / 2 operating system? Want to use it in home entertainment equipment, haha, really smart eyesight, we are better than Microsoft's glamorous items ... Finally interrupted the crazy and self-proclaimed IBM, and the conciseness revealed the meaning: Let's engage in CPU together, you are IBM, and I and Toshiba are both money and people. "

Luo Sheng opened his hands vividly and looked at Lu Siming and others: "The people of IBM were taken aback, Watt? Do you have a Tin Pi (CPU)?"

Everyone couldn't help laughing, the boss's speech was really easy to understand. It was as flavorful as listening to the story of Jin Yong's martial arts.

Only to see Luo Sheng substitute himself into a scene to restore a story scene.

"Toshiba: Hey, I said, that PowerPC is the same thing you developed for Jobs. We have conducted in-depth tests on this CPU, and the performance is still wide."

"IBM: Awards and awards, so what do you want to do?"

"Sony: Haha, of course, it's a dominance. Let's copy Intel's backyard together. By that time, our brother is the 'Lanbo Bay' in the field of civil chips around the world. How about it?"

Luo Sheng's stand-up comic talked about it here, and he suddenly sighed and shook his head. He sipped his tea and found that the cup was empty. A staff member immediately helped him to get a cup. Luo Sheng took a sip and continued to talk loudly:

"IBM was speechless and thought: I'm afraid these two goods aren't stupid hats. It's no wonder that small books aren't reliable. Such naive words can be said. How many drinks did you drink yesterday? I didn't wake up today ..."

"Sony seemed to see IBM's confused expression and laughed a few times, so he took a bottle of Lafite from 1982, poured it out according to the habits of Europeans and Americans, and recalled the past through the spirit of wine. Glorious years. "

Having said that, Luo Sheng lowered his legs on the workbench, changed his posture to look at the crowd and continued: "The semiconductor industry in the 1970s was in a stage of blowout development. Fast iterative updates are moving forward. There are two important inventions that have brought the chip from the military to the civilian population. "

"The two inventions are personal computers and game consoles. Personal computers have created giants such as Apple, Microsoft, and Intel. Game consoles have created Atari, Nintendo, and Sega. They are all newcomers who have risen for a while. . "

"The game consoles in Greater China have been banned. I guess that it will not necessarily be lifted for 10 or 8 years, and there is no market for stand-alone games, but why should the Blue Coast enter the game console market? Why should we come to share this confusion? Water? Why are we entering this river-lake dispute? Does anyone know? "

After speaking, Luo Sheng looked around at the crowd, and more than two hundred engineers looked at each other, all dazed.

In fact, Luo Sheng did not expect them to see it, and then said, "Do you know that even in the 1990s, game console shipments were higher than personal computers, and even console game software shipments were also Higher than personal computer software. "

"The reason is not complicated at all. The game console is cheap. It can be taken home for two or three hundred dollars. It can meet the family's entertainment needs. Fun things are always best-selling products. The average price of a personal computer is more than one thousand dollars, seven or eight thousand yuan, and the multimedia technology is immature, and the entertainment effect is poor. "

"However, from the perspective of the hardware structure, the game console is actually a customized version of the computer. It also has CPU, GPU, PPU, memory, storage and other configurations, but it is designed with an emphasis on entertainment attributes."

At the end, Luo Sheng said with a long sigh: "In that era, the technical roadmap of civilian computer chips can be described as blossoming, which is what it is today. The x86 series that became Intel has dominated the world in PCs. Now, x86-compatible companies such as AMD and Cyrix have also Following the soup, we ushered in the industry's darkest toothpaste factory era. "

"At that time, IBM's PowerPC was a non-mainstream Apple niche market that Qiao helped, and also had a sense of presence in the server market. There were Fairchild Semiconductor, NEC, TI, Motorola, Mostek ... and so on. Have you heard or not heard of it? All the great gods in the world are in the rivers and lakes of the chip. "

"The proliferation of chip technology gives game console developers a lot of freedom. They can choose the most satisfactory one among various solutions and then further optimize and customize it to distinguish them from all competitors. For example, Nintendo ’s SFC uses MOS6502CPU, Sega MD uses Motorola's 68000CPU, Sony PS uses 3D soft acceleration technology route, and Nintendo's N64 uses seemingly more advanced 3D hard acceleration ... "

"This situation of blossoming flowers, while meeting the technical requirements, maintains a high price-performance ratio, but also facilitates the development of third-party software, thereby forming a complete ecosystem."

"However, this customized route was no longer available in the late 1990s. The civilian computer chip market was almost completely ruled by x86, Texas Instruments, Motorola and the like were all marginalized. NEC's self-closed PC98 was also on the verge of extinction. That's how Intel went on its way to the dark toothpaste factory. "

"If you continue this way, who do you want to customize in the future? Sony PS2 uses Toshiba R & D plus its own deeply modified EECPU, and the competitors? Microsoft's Xbox simply uses Intel P3 Celeron CPU, which may be the most universal solution on the market "Although the launch of the Xbox did not have much success because of Microsoft's lack of experience, the scary part is this trend."

Luo Sheng talked eloquently. More than two hundred engineers including Lu Siming, who were sitting in the lobby, listened attentively, but when they heard Luo Sheng say this, they had a question in their mind.

If one day, x86 completely dominates the country and monopolizes the civilian chip market, then the game console industry may really have no chance, and it will not play.

Because everyone's technical lines are similar and similar, they are all half-pounded, and no one can win by customization, and it depends on cost performance and scale market.

Thinking of this, Lu Siming did they realize that this is not happening now?

Li Chunsheng couldn't help but say, "Isn't Microsoft, the company that has been embarrassed by Intel, anxious that this happened? Sony can stand it?"

Luo Sheng laughed: "Of course Sony can't bear it, so they acted and found IBM. They said straight away: Let's partner together and Intel did it. In the face of the Microsoft + Intel alliance, Sony thinks this fierce rival Shou can't keep it, he must take the initiative. "

"Sony was a cold decision, but IBM was grinning. How did it strike?"

"Sony said that it was not panic, and quickly comforted IBM, saying that the first and second generation PS consoles sold more than 100 million units, and the supporting games sold more than 1 billion units. This is the ecosystem. Let's partner together to develop a super drag CPU. Used in the next generation of consoles, we can definitely blast our competitors. By that time, we are killing from the game market and using the scale advantage to counterattack the PC market. We don't believe Intel can stand up to it. "

Luo Sheng once again entered the scene: "Toshiba quickly conformed: yes, we will also use this CPU for our own smart TVs and unify the emerging smart home appliance market. By then, we will be the majority and Intel will be the minority Pie. You IBM hate Intel, right? We hate it too, let him die. "

"In the face of these two goods, IBM murmured: The small book has really been blood mold in eight lives, and it has happened that two IT technology giants have just developed this delusion. But IBM is still polite and euphemistic. Say: Do the two grandpas know how much it will cost to do this? "

"Sony: $ 400 million is not enough?"

"IBM shook his head."

"Toshiba: What about $ 4 billion?"

"When IBM heard about $ 4 billion, the little eyes secretly turned around."

Lu Siming and others suddenly burst into laughter, and the audience laughed. They suddenly discovered the brand-new skills of the boss, and they could even say such a slippery stand-up comic.

I saw Luo Sheng embracing his hands in front of him and leaning back against the seat. He said lightly: "A few months later, the Cell chip R & D center jointly owned by Sony, Toshiba and IBM will rise in Austin, Texas, North America. In the next four years, More than 400 of the world's top chip engineers are working here. At the inauguration ceremony, a friend of IBM's friend whispered quietly: You were drunk last night and scolded Sony and Toshiba delusionally, how did you come here today? "

"IBM shrugged and shrugged: It wasn't me who paid for it anyway ... I could still give it a shot, why not?"

The audience burst into laughter again, and Lu Siming and others became more and more interesting. Bai Lang said: "Boss, IBM is not a good bird when you say that. We are working with them now. This kind of plastic ally must guard against. "

Li Chunsheng vowed, "Required!"

Luo Sheng did not answer this, and said comfortably: "In the year when the integrity IT bubble burst, Sony and IBM jointly held a press conference to announce for the first time the technical specifications of the Cell chip in the R & D center: 1 trillion floats per second. Point computing, with distributed computing capabilities, is not inferior to supercomputing. According to word of mouth in the media, the Cell processor can simulate the earth. "

"If it is true, Sony will win the battle for the next generation of game consoles. As for Intel, it should not die out, the toothpaste factory will slowly fall into a trivial role, and the x86 architecture will rule the computer chip. At the end, the future will be the big era of Cell, and I think Sony is thinking so. "

Speaking of which, Luo Sheng paused, drank, and opened the large screen dedicated to the conference behind him, and then released a detailed picture of the chip. The dense distribution of the chip is like a micro-mindset Super metropolis.

Chips, which may be the crystallization of the highest level of process technology at present, there is no more demanding process product than chips. If there is, it is the next generation chip.

Everyone looked at the big screen of the meeting, Luo Sheng also looked back at the image on the screen and said:

"Cell's architecture is very complex and weird. It has both CPU and GPU functions, and also leaves room for cloud computing and edge computing. It is essentially a supercomputer chip. In my opinion, this chip is really It can be said that Sony's ambition and unwillingness are everywhere. "

Luo Sheng's gaze shifted from the screen to Lu Siming and others, saying: "But in order to expand the home entertainment needs significantly, it must simultaneously meet four distinct needs: supercomputing and high-end servers, desktop PCs, game consoles and Smart appliances like HDTVs. "

Speaking of this, Luo Sheng teased with smile: "Fortunately, there was no smart phone market at the time. Otherwise, UU reading would require the development of a low-power version to compete with ARM. .To this day, there is still no single processor or any technical architecture that can seamlessly meet all of the above requirements. Sony didn't fail until he saw the ghost. Sony needs an essential condition to realize this ultimate dream. "

Oh?

Everyone opened their eyes and stared at the boss.

At the end, Luo Sheng laughed and said, "They just need to invite me over and preside over Cell, and it will be realized. Unfortunately, at that time I was still playing soy sauce in high school. As for now ... hehe ..."

Everyone: "..."

Everyone was caught off guard by the boss's sudden pretense, but after a while, everyone's heart suddenly fluttered. The boss said this just to pretend to be a pretender or did he have any other meaning? !! !!

Could it be that the boss has also developed a delusion like Sony?

...