Rewrite the Technological Landscape

Now that he has made a CMOS image sensor, Meng Qian naturally put in the effort to understand the domestic camera industry. This is another industry that he doesn't know or knows, and it is a pity when he understands it.

The Huaxia digital camera in the film era can be said to be a hundred flowers blooming in the true sense, such as seagulls, the Great Wall, the Pearl River, hundreds of flowers, sweet light, dragons, phoenixes, red plums, chrysanthemums, West Lake, scenery, happiness, labor, leap forward, peacocks, blue sky, starlight, Wanlin, Friendship, Taihu, Panda, Huaying, Huqiu, Swan, Qumei, Pule, Shenlong, Huashan.

You can find hundreds of domestic camera brands by just looking around. It is estimated that young people in future generations have never heard of them.

Moreover, many of these camera brands are not copycats, but independent brands with profound heritage. Just like Seagull, it was a brand that completed a fully self-made viewfinder camera in 1958, and developed my country's first advanced SLR camera DF-7 in 1964.

In this era when film has just started to convert to digital, many domestic established companies are still standing, but these brands have basically fallen down in later generations.

The reason, Meng Qian can probably guess.

"In the 21st century, how many semiconductor-related products have we lost?" Meng Qian couldn't help but sigh, Huaxia really has a foundation in many fields, but it's just that the semiconductor industry was not well grasped in the decade before and after the 21st century. Later generations have become like that, and the more you understand these histories, the more heartache you will feel.

As for Meng Qian’s first choice for cooperation, it is Shanghai Seagull. Shanghai Seagull has a deep cooperative relationship with Changguang, so Meng Qian easily got involved in this line. On July 26, he was on Shanghai Weibo Wang Dayan, the first director of Chang Guang Institute of Electric Technology, personally called Qu Tao, the chairman of Shanghai Seagull. In the afternoon, Meng Qian brought He Yating and several technicians to meet him smoothly.

"Mr. Meng." Qu Tao not only greeted Meng Qian at the factory gate, but even walked towards him quickly when he got off the car.

On the contrary, Meng Qian really felt a little trepidation, and bent down a little on purpose, "Come on a temporary visit and bother Mr. Qu, I hope Mr. Qu will not be offended."

"Mr. Meng, please don't say that. According to Mr. Wang, Mr. Meng has successfully developed a brand new CMOS image sensor? And the test results are very beautiful?" Qu Tao went straight to the point, and Meng Qian saw in his eyes the real desire.

"Yes." Meng Qian made a gesture, and He Yating directly took out the relevant documents and gave them to Qu Tao.

Qu Tao didn't think too much about it, so he glanced at it on the spot, then gave the document to his assistant and told her to take it to the technical department for analysis, "Mr. Meng, let's go to the office to chat."

After exchanging a few pleasantries on the way to the office, I realized that Qu Tao is a person who likes to talk about business first. As soon as he entered the office, Meng Qian took the initiative to say, "I heard from Mr. Wang that the development of our domestic digital cameras encountered some problems. difficulty."

"That's right." Qu Tao didn't have any airs of the chairman at all. The assistant went to the technical department, so he poured tea for Meng Qian himself, and when he put the teacup in front of Meng Qian, he said excitedly, "But the core difficulty , is the image sensor!

Mr. Meng does not know that foreign countries are already playing with 5-megapixel digital cameras, and we are still playing with 500-megapixel digital cameras in China. This year, Tsinghua Unigroup, as the domestic leader, has just successfully developed a 2-megapixel digital camera. pixel CCD image sensor. "

"How could there be such a difference?"

Qu Tao smiled wryly, "Because in the digital age, image sensors are what we fight for, and this has entered the competition in the high-end chip industry. America and Neon have a strong semiconductor foundation, but we don't."

"It's not that we don't have a foundation, we just lagged behind in the past ten years." Meng Qian sighed softly, but immediately adjusted his status, "Now if I can provide high-end image sensors to domestic camera companies, will the development of the domestic camera industry be changed? .”

Qu Tao thought about it for a while, "The core problem is solved, it will definitely be of great help, but the premise is that Mr. Meng must have sustainable innovation capabilities, and the update speed of the image sensor is very fast. .”

"Innovation, our company will naturally do our best, but our company alone will definitely not work. My idea is, if I authorize the architecture and technology, can more domestic enterprises participate in the design of image sensors come?"

Qu Tao frowned, and was silent for a while, but seeing Qu Tao, the silent Meng Qian shook his head helplessly. This is the era when it is more popular to buy than to buy. Even if he authorizes it for free, there will not be many people For those who are willing to engage in R\u0026D, the chip architecture in the United States is not authorized, but there are only a few companies in China that are willing to buy the architecture and do their own R\u0026D.

But Meng Qian still worked hard, because he did create an advantage for domestic companies, "I am very confident in my design. This architecture will open a new era of image sensors. If our domestic companies can now participate in this Design-based research and development, then we can become the group of people who are at the forefront of this field, even if our foundation is poor, we start early, which is our advantage.”

Qu Tao felt that he didn't quite believe Meng Qian's words for the time being, and he didn't show any special mood swings, "Mr. Meng is right. Anyway, we Seagull will never miss such an opportunity. However, although the image sensor is a digital camera core, but it cannot determine the absolute status of digital cameras, and I don’t know whether Mr. Meng understands Kodak’s situation.”

Meng Qian shook his head.

"Kodak's cameras have been going downhill in the digital age, but many people may not know that Kodak has always been a leader in the field of CCD image sensors, but Kodak is too behind in digital camera bodies and other supporting technologies. That’s why Kodak has been ineffective in the era of digital cameras.”

"I understand that no matter how good an engine is, it's just an engine. It's impossible for people to sit and run on an engine. So even if the image sensor problem has been solved in China, we still have to face other problems. Does Mr. Qu mean that?"

"No." Qu Tao gave Meng Qian an affirmative denial, "In fact, we have seen the advent of the digital age, and we have done better than Kodak in this regard. Although we have not made breakthroughs in the field of image sensors for a long time, we have also Because of this, in order to survive, we have spent a lot of effort in other fields. In 2000, the airframe design of our Seagull ranked among the top ten in the world.

It’s just that our domestic companies are not strong enough, and everyone invests in different fields. In fact, if we can unite everyone, we can make good achievements in fields other than image sensors. However, there is no such thing as cooperation. So easy, after all, we have always been competitors.

Especially the most important core technology we can't make, everyone more or less thinks that such cooperation doesn't make much sense. "

"I remember that the lens of the camera is also a very important technology. Isn't there a big gap between our country and foreign countries?"

"Not much." Qu Tao is sure, "The camera lens is not as difficult as the lens of your lithography machine. Although we are not as good as Zeiss, the gap is not very big. If we can fight, it is not impossible. chase."

Qu Tao's words made Meng Qian think of Huaxia's later generation's thinking of overtaking in curves. The core things Huaxia can't do, but the non-core technology things Huaxia has always been very innovative. In fact, it is also a helpless path of self-development.

As for the lens, Meng Qian remembers that the camera lens technology of later generations has become more and more sophisticated, but it is estimated that the gap is not very big at this moment in 2002, but at this time, Meng Qian will naturally not attack Qu Tao, and if the country can start now Catching up, the domestic camera lens in the future will definitely not be the same as it was in the previous life.

"Mr. Qu, I would venture to ask, is Seagull willing to cooperate?"

"Yes." Qu Tao was also unambiguous, "Without cooperation, no one can survive. We can still understand the overall situation, but there are too many things involved in how to cooperate, who will take the lead, and how to distribute benefits."

Meng Qian rolled his eyes quickly, "I think I want to promote cooperation. My CMOS image sensor may be a breakthrough. Mr. Qu knows about the melee in the industry next month, right?"

"certainly."

"I want to hold a press conference with Seagull, is it feasible?"

"Time is a bit rushed, but." Qu Tao smiled deeply, "There is nothing that is impossible."

On August 1, the Kodak press conference was held as scheduled, and all companies in the industry were paying attention to this conference, including Meng Qian, Dafeng Group got a ticket, but Meng Qian did not go to the United States in person, because there are still many He asked Xiao Boshi to deal with the matter.

At the beginning of the press conference, we talked about the company’s history and bragging, which is a common routine of American companies’ press conferences, and then began to release products one after another. Today’s first product is Kodak’s CX4200, which uses a 1.6-inch TFT LCD display and a CCD image sensor. The pixel reaches 2 million.

Followed by Kodak DX4330, 1.8C inch LCD display, also uses a CCD sensor, 3 million effective pixels.

The pixel performance of the two very standard cameras is not amazing at all. The people in the industry who are learning about the press conference through various methods on the Internet have also begun to feel a little restless, urging Kodak to show their cards quickly.

Finally, after long-awaited calls, Kodak’s third camera is their trump card this time. Kodak DCS Pro 14n uses a 35MM 12-bit CMOS image sensor with a maximum resolution of 4536*3024 and an effective pixel of 1350. Ten thousand.

In 2002, when the 6 million pixels of some manufacturers could be used to brag, Kodak produced 13.5 million effective pixels. This melee started with a shocking start to the world.