Global monopoly of technology

Everyone didn't say a word, watching Luo Sheng attentively and waiting for his next sentence.

Luo Sheng sat comfortably in his position, everyone's curious eyes had not disappeared, they were all waiting for him to speak.

"You don't know too much about the chip rivers and lakes, but you must know, because we are all in the rivers and lakes, so we must know the rivers and lakes. Then I will tell you about it. "

Luo Sheng smiled, and in a few words brought these young and excellent engineers in the hall into that period of time.

"Things will start from one day in the summer of 2000, when Sony and Toshiba knocked on the door of IBM. At that time, these two companies were in full swing, especially Sony, who had won the war of two generations of game consoles in a row, PS2 It has become the most wanted Christmas gift for American children. It can be said that it is easier and more enjoyable to punch Sega and kick Nintendo."

"Sony’s movement in the game industry is so great that Microsoft, a giant in the software industry, is not calm and clamored to join the battle. At that time, no one took Gates seriously. Now, Xbox just got out. A bloody road."

Luo Sheng looked at a group of engineers and said: "At that time, IBM was still in the transitional period from a hardware company to a software + information company, and the situation was also quite embarrassing. Naturally, big money owners who faced small books did not dare to neglect. Seeing that the two rich men from Sony and Toshiba came, they thought they had taken a fancy to IBM's hard disk storage technology."

"But Toshiba and Sony have no such interest at all, and IBM thought they should have taken a fancy to the server solutions in the store, which should be used in home entertainment networking services?"

"Still uninterested, IBM asked again: Are you looking at our OS2 operating system? Want to use it in home entertainment equipment, haha, really smart eyes and heroes, we are better than Microsoft's coquettish goods... Sony can't bear it and finally hit IBM, who is absolutely mad and boastful, expressed his intentions concisely and concisely: Let's work on CPUs together, you IBM will pay, and Toshiba and I will pay and pay."

Luo Sheng spread out his hands vividly and looked at Lu Siming and the others: "The people at IBM were shocked, Watt? What about CPU?"

Everyone couldn't help laughing. The boss's speech was really easy to understand. It was as flavorful as listening to Jin Yong's martial arts novels, and it was a stand-up comedy.

I saw Luo Sheng substituting himself into a scene to restore a story scene.

"Toshiba: Hey, I said, that PowerPC is the thing you developed for Jobs. We conducted in-depth tests on this CPU and its performance is still wide."

"IBM: I've been rewarded, so what do you want to do?"

"Sony: Haha, of course it is to dominate the rivers and lakes. We copied Intel's backyard together. By that time, our three brothers will be the "Lan Bo Bay" in the field of civilian chips in the world, how about?"

Luo Sheng's stand-up comedy said here, he suddenly sighed and shook his head. After taking a sip of tea, he found that the cup was empty. When a staff member saw this, he immediately brought him a cup. Luo Sheng took a sip and continued to talk loudly:

"IBM was speechless, and thought: These two guys are not stupid hats. No wonder that the small books are unreliable. You can tell such innocent things. How many drinks did you drink yesterday? I didn't wake up today..."

"Sony seemed to see IBM's puzzled expression and laughed a few times, so he took out a bottle of Lafite from his arms, poured a bottle according to the habits of Europeans and Americans, and recalled the past through Jiujin. Glorious years."

Speaking of this, Luo Sheng put down his legs on the workbench, changed his sitting posture, looked at the crowd, and continued: "The semiconductor industry in the 1970s was in a stage of blowout development. Both the theoretical stage and the application side Fast iterative updates are advancing, and two important inventions have brought chips from military exclusive use to millions of civilian households."

"These two inventions are personal computers and game consoles. Personal computers have created giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Intel, and game consoles have created Atari, Nintendo, and Sega. They are all rookies who have risen in the same time. ."

"Game consoles in Greater China have been banned. I guess that it will not be possible to lift the ban in ten or eight years. There is no market for single-player games, but why did the Côte d'Azur enter the game console market? Water? Why should we enter this conflict between rivers and lakes? Does anyone know?"

After speaking, Luo Sheng looked around at everyone, and more than two hundred engineers looked at each other, all at a loss.

In fact, Luo Sheng didn't expect them to see it. After a while, he said: "Do you understand that even in the 1990s, the shipment of game consoles was higher than that of personal computers, and even console game software shipments were also Higher than personal computer software."

"The reason is not complicated at all. The game console is cheap, and you can take it home for two or three hundred dollars. It can meet the entertainment needs of the family. Fun things are always best-sellers. The Xiaobawang learning machine here is even more expensive for cabbage; The average price of a personal computer is more than one thousand US dollars, seven to eight thousand yuan, and the multimedia technology is immature, and the entertainment effect is poor."

"However, from the perspective of hardware structure, the game console is actually a customized version of the computer, which also has CPU, GPU, PPU, memory, storage and other configurations, but the design is focused on entertainment attributes."

At the end, Luo Sheng said with a long sigh: "In those days, the technical routes of civilian computer chips were flourishing. What is today is that Intel’s x86 series dominates the PC. Now AMD, Cyrix and other x86 compatible manufacturers are also Following the soup, ushered in the darkest toothpaste factory era in the industry."

"At that time, IBM's PowerPC was a non-mainstream Apple niche market led by Joe’s gang, and it also had a sense of presence in the server market, as well as Fairchild Semiconductor, NEC, TI, Motorola, Mostek... etc. You have heard or haven’t heard of it. All of the great gods are in the chip world."

"The blooming of chip technology gives game console developers a lot of freedom. They can choose the most satisfactory solution from various solutions, and then make deep optimization and customization, which distinguishes them from all competitors. For example, Nintendo’s SFC uses MOS6502CPU, Sega MD uses Motorola's 68000CPU, Sony PS uses 3D soft acceleration technology route, and Nintendo's N64 uses seemingly more advanced 3D hard acceleration..."

"This kind of situation where a hundred flowers bloom, while meeting the technical requirements, maintaining a high cost performance, but also facilitating the development of third-party software, thus forming a complete ecosystem."

"However, this customized route was no longer available by the end of the 1990s. The civilian computer chip market was almost completely dominated by x86. Texas Instruments, Motorola and the like were marginalized. NEC's self-enclosed PC98 was also on the verge of extinction. That’s how Intel went on the road of no return to the dark toothpaste factory."

"If this goes on, who will I look for in the future? Sony PS2 uses Toshiba's research and development plus its own deeply modified EECPU, but the competition? Microsoft's Xbox simply uses Intel P3 Celeron CPU, which may be the most versatile solution on the market Although Microsoft’s lack of experience prevented Xbox from launching with much success, the scary thing lies in this trend."

Luo Sheng talked freely. The two hundred engineers, including Lu Siming sitting in the hall, were listening attentively, but when they heard Luo Sheng talking about it, a question emerged in their minds.

If one day, x86 completely dominates the world and monopolizes the civilian chip market, then the game console industry may really have no chance, and it will be impossible to play.

Because everyone’s technical routes are similar and convergent, and no one can surprisingly win through customization, so the only way to rely on cost performance and scale of the market.

Thinking of this, Lu Siming and the others realized that this is not what is happening right now?

Li Chunsheng couldn't help but said: "Wouldn't Microsoft, who are treacherous with Intel, want this to happen? Can Sony bear it?"

Luo Sheng smiled and said: "Sony of course can't bear it, so they acted and went to IBM. They said straight to the point: Let's work together and Intel will get rid of it. Faced with the Microsoft + Intel alliance, Sony thinks this vicious opponent You can’t defend it, you must take the initiative to attack."

"Sony made a cold decision, but IBM smiled bitterly. How to attack?"

"Sony said not to panic, and quickly comforted IBM, saying that the first and second-generation PS consoles had sold more than 100 million units, and the supporting games sold more than 1 billion sets. This is the ecosystem. Let's work together to develop an ultra-high CPU. When used in next-generation consoles, it will surely be able to overwhelm competitors. At that time, we will be out of the game market and use our scale advantage to counterattack the PC market. We don’t believe Intel can stand it.

Luo Sheng entered the scene again: "Toshiba quickly met: Yes, we will also use this CPU for our smart TVs and unify the emerging smart home appliance market. At that time, we will be the majority and Intel will be the minority. Pie. You IBM hates Intel, right? We hate Intel too, so let him die."

"Faced with these two dudes, IBM muttered in its heart: The small book is really bloody in eight lifetimes, and two IT technology giants have finally developed, and they all suffer from this kind of delusion. But IBM is still polite and euphemistic. Said: Do the two masters know how much will it cost to do this?"

"Sony: Is 400 million dollars enough?"

"IBM shook his head."

"Toshiba: What about 4 billion dollars?"

"When IBM heard about 4 billion dollars, that little eyeball turned around secretly."

Lu Siming and the others burst into laughter immediately, and the audience laughed unabated. They suddenly discovered that the boss's brand-new skills could even speak such a slippery stand-up comic.

Luo Sheng put his hands in front of him, leaning back on the seat and said faintly: “A few months later, the Cell chip research and development center jointly owned by Sony, Toshiba and IBM will be established in Austin, Texas. In the next four years, There are more than 400 top chip engineers in the world working here. At the inauguration ceremony, a friend from IBM whispered quietly: You were drunk last night and yelled at Sony and Toshiba for wishful thinking. Why did you come here today?"

"IBM shrugged and spread his hands: Anyway, it wasn't me who paid...I can give it a try, why not?

The audience burst into laughter again, Lu Siming and others listened more and more interesting, Bai Lang said: "Boss, listen to what you said, IBM is not a good bird, we are now cooperating with them, this kind of plastic ally should be guarded. "

Li Chunsheng vowed to say: "It's a must!"

Luo Sheng did not answer this, and said comfortably: "The year that the integrity IT bubble burst, Sony and IBM jointly held a press conference and announced for the first time the technical indicators of the Cell chip of the R&D center: 1 trillion floats per second. Point computing, with distributed computing capabilities, is not inferior to super computing. Under the word of mouth from the media, Cell processors can almost simulate the earth."

"If it is true, Sony will definitely win the battle for the next generation of game consoles. As for Intel, it should not die. The toothpaste factory will slowly degenerate into a minor role, and the x86 architecture will also rule the computer chip. At the end, the future will be the big era of Cell. I think Sony is so imaginative."

Speaking of this, Luo Sheng paused, drank his saliva and turned on the large screen dedicated to the meeting behind him, and then released a detailed picture of the chip. The dense distribution of the chip is like a microscopic mentality. Super metropolis.

Chips, this may represent the crystallization of the highest level of process technology currently available. There is no more demanding process product than chips. If there is, it is the next generation of chips.

Everyone looked at the big screen of the meeting, Luo Sheng also glanced back at the image on the screen, and then said:

"Cell's architecture is very complicated and strange. It has both CPU and GPU functions. It also leaves room for cloud computing and edge computing. It is essentially a supercomputer chip. In my opinion, this chip is really It can be said that Sony's ambition and unwillingness are everywhere."

Luo Sheng’s gaze shifted from the screen to Lu Siming and others, and said: “However, for the needs of home entertainment to be greatly expanded, it must meet four distinct needs at the same time: supercomputers and high-end servers, desktop PCs, game consoles and Smart home appliances such as high-definition TVs."

Speaking of this, Luo Sheng smiled and ridiculed: "Fortunately, there was no smart phone market at the time. Otherwise, with Sony’s paranoid urinary nature, it would probably require the development of another low-power version to compete with ARM. To this day, there is still nothing A processor and any kind of technical architecture can seamlessly meet all the above requirements. Sony will not fail to see the ghost. Sony wants to realize this ultimate dream. It needs an indispensable condition."

Oh?

Everyone opened their eyes and stared at the boss.

In the end, Luo Sheng laughed and said with a haha: "They only need to invite me over and host Cell can be achieved. What a pity, I was still playing soy sauce in high school at that time, as for now...hehe..."

Everyone: "..."

Everyone was caught off guard by the boss's sudden pretense, but after a while, everyone's heart suddenly thumped. The boss said this just to pretend to be a match or did he mean something else?!!

Is it possible that the boss also has a delusion like Sony?

...