My Return to Life

Academician Chen, who was originally planned to lead the team, was specially retained.

Administratively, Shen Demin led the team.

Research and development is led by Professor Zhang.

A total of 19 people flew from Luzhou to Yangcheng first, and then transferred to Wanwan Taipei.

This is the plan that has been decided long ago, and it is also the plan with the lowest comprehensive time cost.

The entire plan is highly confidential, and very few people know the specific content.

At the very least, he did not disclose the true purpose of the trip to Luzhou.

In terms of business trip planning, it is written technical exchanges.

Even if you don't know how to communicate with the local people, at least you can't release some hopeful signal at a time when you obviously don't have absolute certainty.

Although Professor Zhang didn't prepare enough for the meeting at the beginning, the follow-up content report was still very clear. Naturally, Fang Nian would not stop the planned plan because of a small matter.

Besides, it is within the understandable range.

After all, under normal circumstances, this kind of affairs should be summarized and reported by the product manager, so it is difficult to omit it.

However, Frontier has not yet set up this role in each laboratory.

Part of the responsibilities of this position are handed over to the partial business leaders of the R\u0026D teams of each laboratory.

For example, Professor Huang of Nuwa Laboratory and Professor Zhang of Bai Ze Laboratory.

This is mainly because of the specificity of the frontier.

Both laboratories are reinventing the wheel, and the more cutting-edge development plan in the general direction is determined by Fang Nian himself.

certainly……

When watching Shen Demin and Professor Zhang leave, Fang Nian was thinking about this matter in his mind.

No need to think about it, just one idea:

‘Let professional people be responsible for professional things wholeheartedly. '

"..."

After sending off Professor Zhang and his party, it was almost lunch time.

Lu Weiyu and Guan Qiuhe hosted a banquet for some personnel of Bai Ze Laboratory.

There are low-level employees who perform well, as well as administrative management and so on.

I specially found a big hotel to install it, and there are five tables in total.

Fang Nian did not attend, but invited Academician Chen to a banquet alone——

After Academician Chen met Fang Nian through Professor Zhang's relationship and announced to join Bai Ze, Academician Chen was the most powerful one in the professional technology field of Bai Ze's chip laboratory.

After all, it is a very professional technical field, and there is no way to describe how awesome it is.

All I know is that after Academician Chen joined, Professor Zhang and other professors took the initiative to abdicate.

I only know that more than half of the new doctoral students in related majors in Baize Lab on a Chip are because of Academician Chen's face, and a small part are former students of Academician Chen.

The last handful are the face of Frontier Court.

"..."

Chatting and eating, Fang Nian was not in a hurry to get to the point.

When it was time to eat, Academician Chen took the initiative to bring up the topic: "Mr. Fang specially stayed me and invited me to a banquet alone. Do you have any orders?"

"Indeed." Fang Nian said frankly without ambiguity, "There are some things I want to discuss with the academician."

After a short pause, Fang Nian looked at Academician Chen, smiled and said, "Academician, forgive me, I have always had a doubt in my heart;

The academician said before he joined the Bai Ze Laboratory that he wasted half his life, only wishing to realize his ideals when he was young. ’, what exactly do you mean? "

Facing Fang Nian's smiling eyes, Academician Chen looked a little funny: "I didn't expect a word of emotion,

Mr. Fang actually remembered every word. "

Then he recalled, and said: "About 30 years ago, my country established a large-scale integrated circuit leading group, formulated an IC development plan, and introduced integrated circuit technology from abroad for the first time...

At that time, I was still an ignorant teenager, and I plunged into the field of integrated circuits;

Since then, in the integrated circuit industry, I have spent decades of ups and downs. I am over half a century old and vaguely remember my childhood ideals. When I met Mr. Fang, I occasionally felt something. "

At this point, Academician Chen paused for a moment, and said calmly and calmly: "Thirty years ago, my ideal was very simple. To make an excellent general-purpose chip belonging to our country, thirty years have passed, and the ideal is still just an ideal."

After hearing Academician Chen finish speaking, Fang Nian frowned slightly, and said in puzzlement, "So, why did Academician choose Frontier Baize;

You also said at the meeting before that no commercial company will make repeated investments. Taking advantage of globalization and integrating the technologies of various solution providers is already a common way around the world. "

Academician Chen showed a warm smile: "That's what I said, but compared to Frontier Bai Ze, he has a stronger willingness to invest in chip design, not just making small troubles;

In the past five or six months, Frontier Baize has invested as much as 5.1 billion yuan in the design of the first chip in the laboratory, and this reason is enough..."

"As a professional, I understand that in this extremely sophisticated field, the knowledge barriers in European and American countries are so high that it is almost impossible to create a fully independent general-purpose chip;

When it comes to mobile phone SoCs, it is even more difficult. Which one of the CPU, microarchitecture, instruction set, etc. on the SoC is easy to be autonomous and universal? "

Speaking of this, Academician Chen had a smile on his face, and he had no regrets: "It's good to be able to continue to promote the development of my country's integrated circuit industry towards self-reliance in my lifetime."

Finally, Academician Chen emphasized with a smile: "After all, Bai Ze is the most likely laboratory I have encountered in these years."

Hearing Academician Chen calmly and peacefully talk about his story and thoughts, Fang Nian felt a little admiration in his heart.

China's breakthroughs in various fields are not achieved overnight, and behind them are thousands of people like Academician Chen who are working hard to promote them.

Continuously accumulate knowledge reserves.

In the end, it accumulates steadily.

Thoughts swirled in Fang Nian's mind for a moment, and finally he was honest and honest: "Actually, I hope that you, Academician, can use your connections to continue recruiting talents for Bai Ze Laboratory. The current Bai Ze Laboratory is too small."

"In the chip industry, I personally think that more expensive than fine." Academician Chen looked puzzled.

Fang Nian pondered for a while, and said frankly: "I have more ideas about Bai Ze Laboratory. The current professional researchers can indeed be called elite, but the number is far from enough."

After a short pause, Fang Nian said earnestly: "Academician, please excuse me, what I'm going to say next cannot be spread out of this room for the time being, because some inexplicable factors will be involved, please understand."

Academician Chen nodded solemnly.

Fang Nian cleared his throat, and said vaguely: "I have a bolder plan in my mind;

I know that academicians should have doubts, why Bai Ze has unnecessary investment in some aspects, and the funds are as high as billions. "

Academician Chen nodded.

Fang Nian said indifferently: "It's actually very simple. I hope that Bai Ze will become a self-owned chip design unit as much as possible."

Academician Chen: "..."

Was what I said just now in vain?

Fang Nian didn't hesitate much, and continued to say: "The mobile phone SoC is divided into several modules, including core chip units such as CPU and GPU, and some less important chip units;

I have two paths here, the first is to automate the less important modules such as multimedia, ISP, and DSP;

Of course, I don't like this path.

The second way is to prioritize the autonomy of the two core chip units, CPU and GPU, and simultaneously allocate part of the energy to automate other units. "

"..."

Academician Chen was silent for a moment, then frowned and said, "The first way is still possible, but the second way is too tortuous;

An excellent general-purpose CPU architecture and instruction set is a huge threshold. There is no hope in a short time, and the investment in this area is not comparable now. "

Fang Nian smiled slightly, and asked back: "Didn't RISC-V appear last year?"

"Academician, you should take the time to sort out all the technical materials of Bai Ze Laboratory, there may be some inconspicuous things that you have missed;

In addition, you should have heard of Frontier Academic, a company that has funded many research projects in various domestic universities, including in-depth research based on RISC-V instruction sets, and purely independent instruction set research;

Of course, it also includes processor architecture research projects;

In addition, more than half of the interdisciplinary research centers under construction at the Advanced Research Institute of the University of Science and Technology of China will serve related technologies. "

In the end, Fang Nian said calmly: "In a broad sense, the purpose of Frontier is to build the wheel again;

Of course, I am a businessman, and business interests will come first. "

After Fang Nian finished speaking, Academician Chen was silent for a long time, frowning all the time.

I fell into deep thinking.

Fang Nian did not urge.

After a long time, Academician Chen said slowly: "Is this why Mr. Fang specially asked me to stay?"

Seeing Fang Nian nodding, Academician Chen said again: "But why?"

"The pure autonomy of an excellent general-purpose mobile phone SoC may cost more money than expected, or even fetch water from a bamboo basket;

Adding independent design elements on the basis of existing solutions is the most commercial choice! "

Fang Nian smiled and said honestly: "For greater commercial interests;

You should have heard about the Nuwa system. After the incident some time ago, the independent intellectual property rights reached 85%;

Because of enough autonomy, commercial benefits have begun to become considerable enough, and the comprehensive profit rate should have exceeded 50%. "

After a short pause, Fang Nian continued: "By the way, Nuwa Lab also chose the development route of first difficulty and then easy."

Academician Chen pondered for a moment, then smiled and said, "I don't seem to have any reason to refuse, and I have no other choice."

"Thank you, Academician." Fang Nian said repeatedly.

"..."

Then Fang Nian briefly talked about his plan.

"In terms of the long-term development of Bai Ze, I think so, and it is not appropriate to show the edge prematurely;

Although the chips sent for tape-out look very good, all major international manufacturers can receive various licensing fees, which is an integrated design solution with a little bit of technical content;

This is also an inevitable choice, Bai Ze needs enough revenue to support the next research and development investment;

Now that Bai Ze has his own office building, my idea is to set up a more independent confidential research and development department internally, formulate stricter confidentiality regulations, and do not overlap with each other;

This R\u0026D department should be divided into different R\u0026D groups, mainly for independent research and development at the CPU and GPU levels, and of course other self-developed processing units can also be appropriately added;

Strive to design a low-specification independent chip before the end of this year. The manufacturing process is set at 65nm, or even 90nm. The CPU chip unit must complete an independent breakthrough. "

"..."

In short, Fangnian has related plans and requirements for almost every specific module.

Relevant resources in various aspects will also be invested.

Counting last year's technology acquisition and technology accumulation, it will take nearly 9 months to make a breakthrough at the low-standard level, which is an overall reliable development path.

certainly……

The breakthrough of basic technology has a certain degree of uncontrollability, and it may be delayed.

However, the time fixed by Fang Nian is relatively loose and ideal.

After all, it is not a difficult problem that cannot be taken down at all.

It is nothing more than a question of funding.

At any rate, we can still get some research and development funding for the #01 chip.

At least it can relieve a large part of the financial pressure.

…………

After talking about this matter, Fang Nian turned to talk about something else.

"Academician, in fact, I have another unfeeling request from my side."

Hearing this, Academician Chen showed interest: "Oh? Tell me?"

"Frontier has or is about to build three new laboratories." Fang Nian said with a smile, "They are in the field of materials, industrial software, and communication standards."

"At present, these three laboratories lack a strong R\u0026D team. I wonder if the academician can introduce some powerful and influential friends to me."

After a short pause, Fang Nian added another sentence: "However, it must be stated first that the investment in these three new laboratories is not large, and it is estimated that the total investment for this year will not exceed 1 billion yuan;

It is a relatively pure experimental research, and it is only for the accumulation of intellectual property rights, and it is not planned to launch a separate product for the time being. "

After listening to Fang Nian, Academician Chen smiled: "Boss Fang is trying to squeeze out all my abilities, resources, and contacts, um..."

"There's a word for plucking wool, but you didn't catch a sheep like that, did you?"

Seeing this, Fang Nian pretended to sigh deeply, and sighed: "Academician, you don't know, the frontier is difficult, and the attraction of talents is too weak. I wish I could learn from Duke Zhou, but there is no way to seek talent. "

"Although each laboratory has a corresponding frontier institute, they are still separated by one floor after all."

"Ugh……"

Academician Chen interrupted quickly: "Okay, I'll contact Mr. Fang right away!"

He is a half-year-old man who is over half a century old and has devoted his entire life to scientific research. He has never seen such a scene.

If you say you complain, you will complain, and the expression is really sad for those who hear it, and tears for those who hear it.

Even the Oscar winner couldn't bear it.

As soon as Academician Chen agreed, Fang Nian immediately showed a happy smile: "Thank you, academician. It happens to be the weekend of tomorrow and the next two days. Academician has worked hard during this time. How about going to see the land of the motherland?"

"I..." Academician Chen felt his throat was blocked by phlegm, and he wanted to cough.

Is this thing in front of me still a person?

Are you really going to catch him and 'squeeze' him all by yourself?

Academician Chen inexplicably felt that he was really too adventurous last year.

He spent half his life contributing his knowledge and ability to the country. When he was old, he chose to join the laboratory of a private enterprise. Although he was a named honorary director on the surface, he never moved since he arrived in Luzhou. The Spring Festival was always in Luzhou. What happened in the state, the facts are already very obvious.

Now is this going to be 'not guaranteed at the end of the festival'?