Developing chip jokes

Lenovo plan not only attracted people's attention to Liu Chuanzhi and Yang, but also attracted many people's attention to Academician Ni Guangnan, the former chief engineer of Lenovo. In fact, many people found that many of Si Manan's doubts were mentioned by Ni Guangnan before.

In fact, since ZTE was banned by the United States on 20 18, many people began to discover that China was not without people of insight. Ni Guangnan planned to start making chips 30 years ago and has already started to take action. Unfortunately, Ni Guangnan was eventually expelled from Lenovo and the chip plan failed.

Recently, the official account of National Development Research posted a video about an interview with Ni Guangnan. In this interview, Ni Guangnan talked about the past of a chip research. This account is not simple. It is the official account of the comprehensive journal of current politics and finance headed by the National Development and Reform Commission, not an ordinary self-media account, and it can be said to be absolute authority.

In the interview, Ni Guangnan mentioned one thing. They started trial production at 1988, and finally proved that at least we can design integrated circuits, which is very successful and has great returns.

Ni Guangnan said that at that time, he made numerous investigations, made a detailed plan, and finally handed it to Liu Chuanzhi, but Liu Chuanzhi approved a few lines on the plan and denied it on the grounds that no one was waiting. Ni Guangnan said that it seems a pity now.

People familiar with chips may know that the field of chips is actually very complicated. The so-called chip is actually an integrated circuit. Simply put, it is to integrate a very complicated circuit on a small board. There may be hundreds of millions of transistors on a few millimeters of circuit board. It can be said that from design to production is a very complicated process.

The industrial chain of the whole chip is very complicated, so it is necessary to have a chip architecture. At present, the most advanced structure in the world is designed by British ARM company, and Huawei's Kirin chip adopts ARM architecture.

However, with this architecture, it doesn't mean that you can directly produce chips. You must also design the chip. Chip design is also extremely complicated. At present, only a few companies can design the most advanced chips, such as Qualcomm, Intel and Huawei.

After designing the chip, you must find a foundry. Now the world's leading foundry is TSMC. Chip OEM is different from Foxconn OEM Apple mobile phone, especially high-precision chips. At present, almost only TSMC can do this. Even companies like Apple have to rely on TSMC's OEM.

The foundry must have a mask aligner. The best mask aligner in the world comes from ASML Company in the Netherlands. After everything is ready, you need raw materials from many countries in the world to finally make a chip. Finally, the sealing and testing stage, which is the most advanced link with the least technology in China at present.

In the whole chip industry, architecture, design, OEM and mask aligner are all stuck, which can be said to be indispensable. The experiment of 1988 mentioned by Ni Guangnan is actually a design link. Huawei also began to develop chip design in the early 1990s, which led to today's Kirin chip.

Many people say that Kirin also uses ARM architecture, not independent research and development. This is a layman's word. At present, there are only a few companies in the world that can design high-end chips, less than Olympic champions. In addition, conquering an industry must start from a link, and it needs not only one company, but many companies to do it together, so as to become bigger and stronger.

Today, Huawei's chip field in China is hard to understand. If Lenovo had listened to Ni Guangnan's advice and done it together, today's situation would be different. Many people say that if Lenovo listens to Ni Guangnan and makes a chip, it may fall down.

In fact, Ni Guangnan said in an interview that they could not have invested too much in China at that time, but it turned out that the investment in chip design was not large, but it could have a great return.

This sentence by Ni Guangnan also shows that people who question that making chips means spending a lot of money without making money can actually shut up. In fact, Ni Guangnan once said that at that time, if you want to design an integrated circuit, you not only need to invest too much, but also have a good return.

Moreover, by 1994, Lenovo's revenue has exceeded 4 billion, and it is already a huge company. Under such circumstances, what's wrong with spending some money on R&D every year? Why do you want to abandon Ni Guangnan's independent research and development ideas and transfer to the assembly plant?

At that time, the leaders of the Chinese Academy of Sciences also thought, "We must choose between the two, either Liu Chuanzhi or Ni Guangnan. My idea at that time was that there were still more scientists than entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs were scarce resources in China. "

Today, this reason is all wet. If you are the leader in charge of economic development, you think so, but you are the leader in charge of scientific and technological development, so your idea is wrong.

In fact, in the first ten years of Lenovo's development, it could be successful by independent research and development. Both Hanka, laser printer and later Lenovo microcomputer and switch were independently developed by Lenovo. However, after 1995 Ni Guangnan was fired, Lenovo took another road.

Yan Jiehe, the founder of Pacific Construction, once criticized Lenovo, a state-level high-tech enterprise, for engaging in small loans, as long as the money is shameless. Then why did someone find a reason to fire Ni Guangnan when the situation was good and give up the road of independent research and development? Some things may only be known to God.