When visiting the production line, it was still Yu Cheng who was responsible for explaining.
Yu Cheng is also a technician and is very familiar with the entire workshop.
Ten billion yuan was invested in the first phase of the chip base, and another 5 billion yuan was invested later.
This was the public statement, and Kieran knew that in reality, there weren't that many.
However, the actual cost is as high as billions, all of which are real money invested.
I think An Maochang should understand one thing now.
Chips are not something that ordinary companies can handle, even if they are established listed companies.
As for those shell companies that go public to cash out and take away the money of investors and shareholders, they are not included.
The vast majority of people understand one thing.
That is an electronic product, and the real profits are earned by the manufacturers who possess core technologies.
In fact, the prices of digital products are very transparent and the material costs are not high.
The most important thing is core technology.
Chip technology is one of the most core technologies.
An Maochang had vision, but underestimated the difficulty.
Perhaps they realized halfway that this was a huge pit, but having invested so much financial, human and material resources, it would be difficult to withdraw.
If you give up halfway, all the sunk costs will not be recovered.
But continuing to invest will only lead to a bottomless pit.
In the end, the An Group gradually stepped into the abyss.
The chip base mainly aims to use open source architecture to drive and improve the entire industrial ecosystem of the Internet of Things.
The original intention is definitely good, but it is very difficult.
It is not easy to break free from the monopoly of foreign chip technology.
An Maochang once said that he wanted to build an open source chip system to replace the largest number of imported chips with domestically designed chips as quickly as possible.
This sentence was still included in Yu Cheng’s PPT presentation just now. It is also the goal of the chip base and even the entire chip alliance.
But reality is not as full as dreams, it is more skinny.
The chip base is not yet able to fulfill this ambition.
Lei Zi is an expert. After looking at the chip production line and asking a few questions, he was able to roughly understand the research and development progress of the chip base.
Qin Ran saw disappointment in Lei Zi's eyes and thought to himself, this is bad!
It seems that the chip base does not meet Lei Zi's expectations.
But this is also expected.
Not only did Qin Ran foresee this situation, but Lei Zi also guessed it.
It’s just that Lei Zi had high hopes before visiting the chip base.
Qin Ran had to speak up, otherwise it might be a disaster.
You have to come up with something that attracts people.
Currently, most chips in computers and mobile phones rely on two instruction architectures.
One is Intel's X86, but this architecture is complex and consumes a lot of energy, making it not very suitable for mobile devices.
The other is ARM, which is relatively better, but also has disadvantages.
The licensing fees are high, and it's not completely open source.
Qin Ran did a lot of research and not only knew that Xiaomi's chip supplier was Qualcomm.
We also learned that Qualcomm developed its own architecture based on ARM.
It runs faster, has improved performance, and reduces power consumption.
This is also why Qualcomm has become a global chip giant.
If Xiaomi wants to use its own chips on mobile phones and tablets, it must at least develop a substitute version.
However, the prerequisite is to reduce costs while maintaining similar performance.
Judging from Xiaomi’s current situation, the chips it has developed cannot meet this requirement.
If the chip base wants to cooperate with Xiaomi, it must be able to help the latter speed up research and development or reduce costs.
Qin Ran organized his words and slowly said, "Boss Lei, we're actually also researching the ARM architecture and have achieved some results."
Lei Zi was stunned when he heard this. "Aren't you developing the RISC-V architecture?"
The open source architecture developed by the chip base is not a mainstream architecture and is relatively low-end.
The software support has limited availability, is not mature enough, and has certain design flaws.
The advantages are concise instructions and modularity, and free and open source.
But when the advantages and disadvantages are put together and compared with the mainstream architecture, it becomes clear what is going on.
Lei Zi was also disappointed because of this.
Qin Ran understood this. After all, this architecture had been stagnant in terms of CPU.
At the beginning, An Maochang was a layman, and there were no high-tech talents in the chip field within the group. In the end, he chose a rather difficult architecture for research and development.
Qin Ran knew very well that Lei Zi would not be impressed by just relying on a low-level open source architecture.
So he showed another card.
Cheng Gaolin and several others formed a team and were developing the ARM architecture in their spare time.
At first, I wanted to try to develop something and make a comparison, but I didn’t expect to actually come up with something.
Qin Ran winked at Yu Cheng, who immediately understood.
The two of them had agreed yesterday to give Lei Zi a little "surprise" on the spot.
The show is real, but the research and development results are also real.
Kieran cleared his throat.
"Mr. Lei, we very much hope to cooperate with Xiaomi.
I'd like to share with you my latest technological breakthrough. Please follow me."
Lei Zi immediately became interested. He really looked down on the RISC-V architecture.
But if the chip base can develop a new architecture based on the ARM architecture like Qualcomm did, it would undoubtedly be good news for Xiaomi fans.
It doesn’t matter if it’s not as good as Qualcomm’s chip, that’s normal.
But at least there is hope, and maybe it can provide ideas for Xiaomi's chip research and development.
The chips that Xiaomi is currently developing are based on ARM architecture and Qualcomm's self-developed chips.
Yu Cheng asked Cheng Gaolin to go back to the laboratory quickly and prepare the experimental report.
After walking for more than ten minutes, the group arrived at the laboratory.
There is no need to look at the production line anymore, as the chips used in home appliances are completely unable to meet Lei Zi's needs.
God closes a door but opens a window.
Qin Ran was glad that he had asked Yu Cheng to notify a few people last night, otherwise there would be no unexpected gain later.
For chip development companies, obtaining the latest architecture and IP cores is very important for improving chip performance and functions!
Domestic ARM chips have always been constrained by underlying technology.
However, Cheng Gaolin and his colleagues accidentally developed a product that was similar to ARM Contemporary.
Of course, only some parts are similar, and they are definitely not as stable as each other.
The manufacturing cost will be higher, but the ecosystem is simpler and subsequent maintenance will be less troublesome.
After listening to the explanations of several people, Lei Zi's eyes lit up!
This is what he really wants.
No amount of time will suffice for those outdated architectures.
Countless companies have proven this.
Then Lei Zi asked the most crucial question, "What about performance?"
The head of the technical team first looked at Qin Ran, then at Yu Cheng.
Qin Ran said, "It's okay, speak boldly, Mr. Lei is not an outsider."
At this moment, the initiative was in Kieran's hands.
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