Reinventing the Millennium

Taiji is the strongest manufacturer in the world of wafer foundry.

This was the perception of almost everyone before 7:40 pm on November 15th.

Of course, this includes Zhang Zhongqiu and all the senior executives in the conference room.

Although Taiji has now entered the packaging field, the company's development has relied on its unrivaled dominance in the foundry link.

Taiwanese journalists have long been accustomed to the challenge of staying ahead of the curve and scrutinizing their competitors.

Whether it is UMC, Samsung, the merged GlobalFoundries, or SMIC, which has tried to rise in the mainland, or Bingxin, which has been catching up very hard in the past two years...

Since entering the 21st century, no opponent can stand head-on in front of the Taiwanese reporters. Everyone is just chasing the second place.

This ice core, this ice core...

How can it surpass Taiwan Records?

Zhang Zhongtong was in a daze. He looked at Vice President Zheng Jingjie who kept swiping his fingers on the screen and asked, "What did he say?"

How did Fang Zhuo introduce the 16nm of ice core?

What is the performance of Yike's Zhurong chip?

Such a question also lingered in the minds of other people in the conference room. Before the leader spoke, everyone took out their mobile phones and re-opened the live broadcast of the press conference, trying to find the answer.

Some people are fast, some are slow. By the time they clicked into the press conference, the introduction of the chip was basically over. Everyone turned to the real-time live broadcast comments to search, but except for the praises and exclamations that filled the screen and the willingness to "buy, buy, buy", there was no See any valid information.

The live broadcast search yielded no results, and everyone in the conference room turned to Twitter again. Only this time did they find the description of the reporter at the press conference.

——OMG! OMG! Yike has achieved a transcendence in hardware this time! Come up with the next generation of 16nm!

——Yike design, ice core manufacturing, the world's most powerful 16nm chip introduced with FinFET technology!

——Mr. Fang said that the performance of this chip has surpassed 80% of notebook CPUs on the market!

——Mr. Fang said that this is the most powerful mobile processor in the world!

——Mr. Fang said that compared with competing products on the market, this time Zhurong can improve performance by 20%, reduce power consumption by 35%, and reduce the area by 15%!

——Mr. Fang said that compared with last year’s Mars 7, this year’s Mars 8.8 has twice the chip gate density of the new technology, the speed is increased by more than 40% at the same power consumption, and the power consumption is reduced by more than 60% at the same speed!

——Mr. Fang said that today marks the day when semiconductor transistors officially enter the 3D era!

——Because, Mars 8.8 is coming!

Yike announced that the world's first 1FET transistor has entered mass production, marking the completion of Bingxin's revolutionary change from traditional planar semiconductor components to three-dimensional gate components, and also marking the entry of global transistors into the 3D era.

Taiji is a leader in the field of wafer foundry and has confirmed that it will mass-produce 16nm in the first half of next year. In addition to foundry, Intel announced in June that its 14nm Core processor will be launched early next year.

But now, both Taiwanese and Intel have lost the opportunity, and Yike took the lead in launching 8.8 based on 1ars.

Zhang Zhongtong looked at the reprinted news, thinking about the figure in the front row who had flashed in the camera before, and thinking about the "FinFET" that Fang Zhuo had announced in his mouth, and he squeezed out a helpless praise from his teeth: "Okay, okay A pair of masters and disciples!”

Hu Zhengming + Liang Mengsong, a pioneer of FinFET theory, continue the life of Moore's Law, a practitioner of advanced process development, and the world's top master.

The two of them leading the team together are undoubtedly the "masterminds" of Bingxin's transcendent breakthrough this time.

Unfortunately, both of them were from Taiwan Journalists, and both had made great contributions there. However, Hu Zhengming returned to California on academic grounds, and Liang Mengsong had a rift due to his promotion. In the end, they were both captured by Fang Zhuo. Ice core.

Because of the progress of ice core in advanced manufacturing processes, the value of these two people leaving Taiji and switching to ice core has always been high.

Now it seems that the gold content is still rising!

Zhang Zhongtong looked at the people who were still searching for more information and asked: "Has Hu Zhengming come to power? Has Liang Mengsong come to power?"

After a moment, someone shook his head: "It seems not. Fang Zhuo didn't seem to mention the specific person in the ice core, nor did he use a particularly long time to explain this huge advantage."

Zhang Zhongqi said "Hey" from his throat. The shock of being suddenly surpassed in his leading position was relieved, and the extremely complicated emotions in his heart became clearer.

Semiconductors are an industry rooted in the global supply chain. Bingxin has benefited from it in the past few years, and even achieved its current results, but it suddenly became the number one. This is not just a shock to Taiwan journalists!

He took a long breath.

But no matter what, Taiji has fallen behind. According to the current plan, it can be estimated that it will fall behind by 5-7 months, so we must make every effort to catch up.

There was still a commotion in the conference room.

Zhang Zhongtong stood up unconsciously at some point. He sat down again, wiped the sweat from his forehead, looked around at the shocked, suspicious, angry and panicked expressions of the senior officials present, and punched the table with his fist.

Boom, boom, boom!

"It seems that Yike's Mars 8.8 relies on the 16nm of the Zhurong chip. This core component exceeds the performance of all competitors..." Zhang Zhongmou corrected his previous evaluation, "It is indeed 8.8!"

When he said this, he suddenly had a new understanding of the name. Previously, everyone said that this was 8.8 that surpassed 8. Now it seems that the reason why it was not directly named 9 is indeed the unique hardware this time. If there are major innovations in product design, it can directly cross generations.

But a "world's first" performance, a performance that can suppress Intel and Taiji, and a performance that surpasses all competitors is enough to form a huge comparative advantage in the market.

"I was shocked by Bingxin's breakthrough. We were too conservative in the development of advanced processes." Zhang Zhongmou's voice suppressed the uneasy atmosphere in the conference room. He continued slowly, "We neither did 3D at the previous node like Intel did, nor did we launch 16nm at a fast enough speed. This is a mistake caused by conservatism."

"Although Bingxin is an opponent, the R\u0026D investment, speed, determination, and even gambling nature it showed this time are worthy of respect."

"Bingxin bypassed 20nm, which contains huge risks, but they still did it unswervingly."

"This is not only Bingxin, but also Yike has invested a huge amount of chips, which is worthy of respect!"

Zhang Zhongmou gave the same evaluation continuously.

Bingxin can definitely choose to carry out 20nm research and development, which is a smoother path, and Yike is highly systematized with Bingxin and is greatly affected by the process technology.

Unfortunately, Yike's gamble was successful.

As a colleague, Zhang Zhongmou can almost directly imagine how much effort and determination have been put into this. It is impossible without the role of Hu Zhengming and Liang Mengsong, but it is also impossible without the concerted efforts of the team.

And, as the founder of Yike and Bingxin, Fang Zhuo's decision to take risks is also an indispensable part.

In the end, in addition to being shocked, he had to give respect.

"Our Taiji's respect for our opponents cannot be verbal or superficial. Bingxin's breakthrough this time will definitely attract widespread attention and bring changes to itself, but beyond this, Taiji will never delay a second if it can come up with 16nm one day earlier!"

"Don't worry about others, don't worry about other fields, we just focus on our own process performance!"

"Taiji is behind!"

"We must strive to catch up!"

Zhang Zhongmou said words that he was unfamiliar with, and the respect burning in his heart became even more intense.

That night, Taiji's meeting on Qualcomm chips was directly changed to arrangements for catching up with advanced processes.

However, this meeting will obviously be held again tomorrow, because everyone in the conference room is shaken and still needs time to digest the shock wave from Bingxin.

…

Fang Zhuo has thought of many ways to introduce the most important breakthrough of Yike Mars 8.8.

Should he invite Professor Hu and Dr. Liang to the stage to describe the full screen like he did before, or should he just mention it himself?

However, after thinking about it, Bingxin is different after all, so he didn't let these two people take the stage to take credit. However, Fang Zhuo is very sure about what will happen next, and it is difficult to end it in one sentence.

So, he compromised and talked about it.

Talking about the world's first, talking about the opponent's difficulty, talking about the symbolic significance...

Just these, the scene of the press conference caused a sensation, and the voices from the audience even ignored the introduction on the stage.

How difficult it is to be the world's first, even without talking about the difficulties in the research and development process and the risks of the bet, just these four words are enough to explain everything.

No need for other labels, "the world's first" Mars is the most irrefutable label left to consumers by this generation of products.

Samsung would cry, Apple would be silent, Nokia would miss it, and Sony Ericsson would want to strangle the past self who provided cooperation...

Fang Zhuo on the stage listened to the noise that could not be concealed at the scene, and accepted the test of frequent flashes. His mind was unconsciously a little erratic. He subconsciously introduced Mars 8.8 but didn't know what he was saying.

Soon, he came back to his senses and saw that no one had any extra reactions. He knew that he had done nothing wrong.

Fang Zhuo raised his hand slightly and said in a light tone: "Mars 8.8 is the world's number one product."

After he said this, he couldn't help but curl up his lips, and laughed a few seconds later.

The on-site press conference was interrupted in fact, and the previous noise and discussion turned into warm applause and cheers.

Fang Zhuo waited for a long time before the noise subsided, and then smiled and said: "Yike has been making mobile phones for so long, and it is really rare to encounter such a situation. It is rare, rare, and I have to thank all my colleagues for their efforts again."

Applause broke out spontaneously at the scene again.

"I'm very excited. I really want to end the introduction of Mars 8.8 right now, but there is indeed a key point that I haven't mentioned yet, and I must talk about it." Fang Zhuo had to raise his hand again, and let everyone's attention return to the introduction of product features.

If the previous function introduction made Mars 8.8 have enough flagship level, then the 16nm Zhurong chip will make it surpass the flagship level.

Now, is there still a key point?

The audience at the scene and around the world were guessing in their hearts, and some sharp people had already guessed what Mr. Fang was going to say.

"This year's Zhurong still integrates the baseband chip, which brings an LTE Cat.9 baseband that supports a maximum download rate of 450Mbps. We have previously cooperated with EE and Huawei and have successfully conducted a three-carrier downlink aggregation LTE Cat.9 transmission test, with a speed of 51.25MB/s."

"In other words, Zhurong's chip performance in this regard is still the world's first-line. I really hope that everyone will test our performance with Qualcomm after getting the phone."

Fang Zhuo's meaning is very clear. Zhurong's integrated baseband this year is almost as good as Qualcomm's, and last year, this gap that was not obvious in use was about 10%.

Not only the process level, Zhurong is also making progress in the field of communications!

However, compared with the extremely obvious 16nm, although there was applause at the scene, it was obviously not as enthusiastic as before, and the audience watching the live broadcast of the press conference was the same.

However, in San Diego, California, USA, which is very far away from the "Yike Center" in Shanghai, Jacob, the head of Qualcomm, who arrived early today to attend the interim shareholders' meeting, has already clenched the cup tightly in his hand.

It's bad, it's bad, it's bad, once Zhu Rong makes progress, Qualcomm will suffer!

Today is another special day. Yike chose the same time to hold the press conference. It was indeed premeditated!

Jacob's mutual attacks with Chen Fuyang these days have shown that there are many shareholders who support each other. Now there is news that the core business has been hit...

It's really adding insult to injury!

Jacob's face was like frost. When he thought of Anhua Gao's deliberate overall Trojan implantation, he felt even colder. The danger of the interim shareholders' meeting may be greater than imagined!

He looked at the close-up shot on the laptop screen, saw Fang's bright smile, pressed the screen, and ended the viewing of the Oriental press conference with a "bang".

Fang Zhuo, who was in the "Eco Center", didn't know if his old friends were watching his Mars 8.8 this year, but he felt that this unusual countdown should attract everyone's special attention.

He ended the introduction of the baseband performance with a smile.

"By the way, Mars 8.8 supports 4k video shooting, with eight million pixels per frame, which is also the highest resolution digital video at present." Fang Zhuo remembered a feature that was previously omitted. After saying this, he paused and said meaningfully, "I hope Mars 8.8 can bring more video happiness to everyone."

"So, such a full-screen mobile phone with face recognition, wireless charging, fingerprint upgrade, 4K shooting and other functions and equipped with a 16nm Zhurong chip, what is its price?"

"We actually made a lot of upgrades this year, and the chip cost has also increased."

"I know everyone can understand this."

Fang Zhuo said slowly under the spotlight: "So, the price of Mars 8.8 this year is..."

He turned sideways and stretched out his hand, and the starting price of the phone was displayed on the screen.

International version is $650.

The price of the domestic version is 4500 Chinese Yuan.

As the price was announced, the scene was buzzing with discussion again.

Last year, the price of the international version was 649 US dollars and the domestic version was 4488 Chinese Yuan.

Now, one has increased by 1 US dollar and the other has increased by 12 Chinese Yuan...

What's the difference between this and giving it away for free!

Fang Zhuo listened attentively and said with a smile: "This year we have shown great sincerity, almost increasing the quantity without increasing the price, so buy it, buy it, buy it!"

- Increase the quantity without increasing the price, buy it, buy it, buy it.

Many media at the scene have already extracted the title or subtitle of the press conference report.

Fang Zhuo also calmed down, and then took out this year's Mars 8.8 Pro from another pocket. Similar to last year, it has a larger screen, better imaging capabilities, and more battery power...

However, compared with the increase in quantity without increasing the price of Mars 8.8, the Pro version has a significant increase. Last year, the international version was 749 US dollars, and this year it starts at 799 US dollars.

Because the standard version had already been introduced, Fang Zhuo explained the Pro version more quickly, and took advantage of the relaxed atmosphere of the press conference to pass on more on-site information and short messages.

Sina, Twitter, Zhihu, Facebook, YouTube...

As Fang Zhuo said, Mars 8.8 is an indisputable world's No. 1 smartphone product with comprehensive product strength. Coupled with the previous countdown and traditional promotion, the flagship appearance of the last of the Big Three satisfied the expectations of the media and consumers.

——Android King!

——Not Android King, but King!

——For only $649, you can buy the world's No. 1 product!

——Yike gave users the greatest honor!

——As the name suggests, Mars 8.8 reproduces the first generation of Mars hitting the Earth!

——Noko!

——Yikia!

——World's No. 1!

The New York Times picked up comments from media platforms online and quickly reported the appearance of Mars 8.8 and the breakthrough of ice core manufacturing process with the title "King of Machines".

As a member of the Yike system, Sina also quickly picked out a brief answer from a popular question on Zhihu as the headline - Since we have seen Mars, why not worship it?