"Distinguished leaders, let's go inside the company. As we tour it, Mr. Fu will give you a briefing on Loongson Design Company!" Zhao Ye said.
"Okay!" The leaders all nodded in agreement.
Loongson Design has 1,108 employees, most of whom are chip design engineers.
Major development projects:
Processors: Kirin 1, Kirin 2, Kirin 3 (under development)
Storage: EPROM storage chip, NAND flash memory (under development), DRAM memory (under development).
Special function chips: MMC (Multi-Chip) for game graphics enhancement, digital video processing chip (under development), D-sensor chip (under development), CMOS sensor chip (under development)...
Chip design software: Loongson EDA-1.0.
As Fu Feipeng introduced the company, everyone couldn't help but feel the power of Loongson Design, which was even more impressive than foreign chip design companies.
"China produces a huge number of television sets, but it needs to import digital video processing chips from abroad every year. If your company can develop this digital video processing chip, it can save a lot of foreign exchange." An official related to the electronics industry couldn't help but say this when he heard that Loongson Design Company was developing a digital video processing chip.
Fu Feipeng replied, "Don't worry, leader. This chip isn't actually that difficult to develop. Now that we have the Loongson EDA-1.0 software, we'll definitely be able to speed up the development process and strive to develop it this year!"
"Really? That's wonderful!" the leader exclaimed happily.
After a while, Fu Feipeng showed everyone the "Loongson EDA-1.0" software. However, the leaders couldn't understand it, but they were impressed by the fact that countless huge and complex circuit diagrams were shrunk down on a drawing interface.
The leaders finally left around 4:30 p.m.
Zhao Ye glanced at his watch; it wasn't time to leave work yet, so he asked Fu Feipeng to call a meeting.
Before long, the conference room was full of people.
"The successful development of Loongson EDA-1.0 is certainly commendable, but we must recognize that it still has many shortcomings. Next, we will further improve Loongson EDA-1.0 and develop version 2.0. At the same time, we will also sell a stripped-down version of Loongson EDA-1.0..."
Zhao Ye then explained why a stripped-down version of Loongson EDA-1 was developed, with the main purpose of maintaining Loongson Design's leading edge in the chip design field.
Making money is important, but Loongson is not only an EDA design company, but also a chip design company.
Just as Zhao Ye finished explaining his point, someone in the room raised their hand and said, "Boss, since it's a censored version, why not change the name?"
"Hmm, you're right!" Zhao Ye thought for a moment and nodded in agreement.
Then he asked, "So, what do you think should be the name of the stripped-down version of EDA?"
"How about calling it Jiaolong EDA? Jiaolong is a mythical beast in ancient Chinese mythology, a water creature with dragon blood. Legend has it that after undergoing tribulation, it becomes a true dragon." The man said excitedly, clearly having read a lot of ancient Chinese mythology.
Upon hearing this, Zhao Ye smiled and nodded: "Jiaolong is good, alright, let's call it Jiaolong EDA. As for the price of this software..."
After a moment's thought, and referring to the prices of EDA systems abroad, Zhao Ye made a decision: "5 million US dollars per set! The most advanced EDA system in the world is worth that price!"
An advanced EDA software can save a lot of money and time in chip design and development, making it absolutely worth the cost.
Of course, there are also cheaper EDA packages, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars per set. Alternatively, you can choose to purchase modules according to your company's needs, which will be much cheaper, costing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
EDA software is very expensive.
If you're making low-end products, it doesn't matter if you don't buy such advanced EDA software.
If you're making high-end chip products, you have to buy the best EDA. Companies like Intel, AMD, and ARM will definitely grit their teeth and buy Jiaolong EDA.
If you don't buy, it means you will be overtaken by your competitors.
Zhao Ye was certainly ruthless in exploiting these companies.
Developing a stripped-down version of EDA will also take some time, so it will be some time before Jiaolong EDA is launched.
...
Loongson Design is already using Loongson EDA-1.0 internally, which has greatly improved chip design efficiency.
The research teams for each project are now brimming with confidence. With excellent chip development tools, they are achieving twice the results with half the effort.
Masuoka Fujio was extremely excited. He hadn't expected Loongson Design Company to be so powerful, having developed such a robust Loongson EDA-1.0 software.
The development of NAND flash memory has reached a critical juncture, and the first commercially available NAND chip will be launched soon.
Over the next period of time, the development team led by Fujio Masuoka worked overtime and finally achieved a major breakthrough on the afternoon of January 26.
Zhao Ye was still reviewing documents at the company when he received a call from Fujio Masuoka. The man excitedly exclaimed, "Boss, we did it! Our team has developed the first commercially viable NAND flash memory with a storage capacity of 20MB!!!"
Upon hearing this, Zhao Ye's face lit up with joy.
What Fujio Masuoka didn't know was that this data was even more powerful than the NAND flash memory that Toshiba released in 1991, which was only 4MB.
The difference between not valuing something and valuing it is indeed enormous.
However, in Zhao Ye's view, NAND's storage capacity is still too low, and its cost is also very high.
In 1991, SanDisk developed the world's first 2.5-inch flash solid-state drive for IBM, with a 20MB capacity costing only $1,000.
We can roughly estimate that at that time, the capacity of NAND was only 4MB, and 20MB would require 5 NAND chips.
In other words, a 4MB NAND flash memory chip cost around $200 at the time.
The flash memory that Fujio Masuoka is currently developing may have 20MB of memory, but it's not cheap.
If NAND were used in game cartridges, it would be far too expensive for players to afford.
If we were to develop a hard drive, the capacity would be too small, unable to compete with current mechanical hard drives.
However, NAND can be used to store computer software.
Currently, the storage device used to store computer software is the floppy disk, but a 3.5-inch floppy disk only has 1.4 MB of storage.
NAND flash memory can also be used as a storage device for cameras.
It has a fairly wide range of applications, but the price is too high.
There's some truth to the fact that Toshiba didn't prioritize NAND flash memory in the 1980s and 90s.
Zhao Ye felt that he had to give NAND a boost, otherwise it would be a long time before NAND could be widely used.
"Congratulations, Fujio Masuoka! I'm heading to Loongson Design Company right now!" Zhao Ye said, preparing to leave.
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