1991 Starting from the core

Three years ago, with Mr. Qiao returning to Apple, Apple shifted its business focus from the traditional personal computer industry to consumer electronic digital products.

There is one thing to say, in the field of product design, Apple is really awesome.

Whether it is a PDA or an MP3 player, when Apple intervened or Mr. Qiao returned, it caused a sensation in the market as soon as it was launched and quickly became Sony's opponent.

Su Yuanshan must admit that from the aesthetic point of view of industrial design, Yuanxin is still far behind. Therefore, in the exchanges between domestic and foreign R\u0026D centers carried out at the beginning of this year, the first to communicate was the design team of the Capital Design Center and the Silicon Valley branch.

But just because Yuanxin is slightly inferior in design, it doesn’t mean that Yuanxin is no longer competitive...

What Yuanxin emphasizes is that big bricks fly, and technology guides the future - with the blessing of innovative technologies and ideas, no matter how ugly the design of Yuanxin's products are, there will still be fans who are keen on digital products to pay for them.

What's more, Yuanxin's product design is only slightly worse than Apple and Sony under harsh conditions.

But this time, as Mr. Qiao came with the chip design director, Su Yuanshan guessed with just his toes that Apple should have designed a new chip based on the YX architecture to tape out the 0.25 micron process.

…

Shanghai International Hotel Western Restaurant.

Mr. Qiao, I advise you to eat some meat.

Since it was a reception banquet, there was no reason to leave the rest of Apple's mid-level and senior management, so Su Yuanshan simply asked for a table at the International Hotel, but he sat next to Steve Jobs.

Seeing Mr. Qiao only eating vegetarian dishes, Su Yuanshan shook his head.

He knew that the other party was a vegetarian, and it was even said that Mr. Qiao's illness was related to his long-term vegetarianism, so he said sincerely: There are also vegetarian diets in the East, but those are only limited to lay people who don't work very much. You work overtime every day like this Yes, just being vegetarian is not enough.”

Oh? Really?

Yes.

Jobs smiled and nodded, but still had no intention of eating meat.

Sue, what do you think the notebook mainly has to offer?

After picking up a napkin and wiping his mouth, Jobs looked at Su Yuanshan and asked casually.

Whatever you want to provide, it can provide. Su Yuanshan also answered casually - Mr. Qiao's tapeout obviously means that the chip design is successful.

And even if Apple keeps it secret, Su Yuanshan can guess the approximate performance through the YX public version architecture it adopts.

Since Apple dares to directly adopt the most advanced process such as 0.25 micron this time, it is obvious that its performance must be good - at least not worse than the chip used in Yuanxin's previous Xbook notebook.

But Su Yuanshan couldn't guess whether Apple would take this opportunity to directly enter the notebook market, or whether it would lock in the tablet industry in advance.

If it's the latter... then it's something to be wary of.

Of course, it is also possible that Apple wants to enter the mobile phone industry in advance - but Apple currently does not have the ability to integrate baseband chips, and the current mobile phone chips have been pulled into the baseband integration process by Yuanxin in advance. If Apple wants to plug in the baseband ... Cost alone is a natural disadvantage, and it is obviously unable to compete with Yuanxin and Sony, the two major high-end brands at present.

Not to mention local companies like Xinghai that enjoy the authorization of Yuanxin.

…

Su Yuanshan's answer sounded perfunctory, but Mr. Qiao showed a satisfied expression.

Yes, whatever we want to offer, the notebook should offer.

Su Yuanshan was slightly startled, then looked at the other party with a smile: Aren't you planning to push the notebook now?

Well, yes, we plan to launch notebooks now. At the same time, our Macintosh will fully use X86 architecture processors.

Jobs's words contained such a huge amount of information that Su Yuanshan was stunned for a few seconds before he came to his senses, and then immediately said: X86 processor! We have it!

Jobs winked at him: I know you do.

…

After receiving the news, Su Yuanshan first sent Jobs and his party to a hotel to catch up on the jet lag, then returned to the office without stopping, and held a small meeting with Gao Xiaodi and the others.

When Su Yuanshan said that Apple might purchase Yuanxin's Along series processors as the central processor of the MAC, everyone immediately became excited!

Holy crap! Shan, is it real or fake? Gao Xiaodi was the first to express his disbelief.

As the head of the CPU department, even if he is only responsible for technology, he is also familiar with the channels and architecture of major PC manufacturers. He knows that because MAC OS has been based on PowerPC in the past few years, Macintosh computers still use it. PowerPC architecture.

If Macintosh computers are to fully embrace the X86 architecture, this will not only be a fierce competition between Apple and PowerPC, but also a difficult transformation.

It's true - if Mr. Qiao isn't teasing me. Su Yuanshan nodded with a smile.

He was also a little sad.

Because according to the historical trajectory, it was inevitable for Steve Jobs to abandon PowerPC and choose X86. At the same time, it was inevitable to choose ARM for the low-power reduced instruction set architecture.

Now, ARM is gone, and Apple has also conducted in-depth architectural cooperation with the YX architecture team, making it inevitable for Apple to choose the YX architecture for a low-power streamlined instruction set.

But for processors based on It's over.

Let's not talk about it for now. Since Mr. Qiao has revealed this intention, we have to think about what we have in the X86 field that Apple can choose to cooperate with.

After hearing what Su Yuanshan said, everyone looked at me and I looked at you, and they were speechless for a while.

The reason is simple. My children know it. Except when the Tamron series processors were launched three years ago, Yuanxin briefly ascended to the performance throne and made the world exclaim... then it quickly fell silent.

The reason is simple: insufficient foundation.

Not to mention Intel and AMD, even at Xinghai, the Cyrix team is a veteran that has been fighting in the CPU field for many years.

As for the team at Yuanxin... except for being supported by Su Yuanshan, a genius, no matter in terms of team history, technology accumulation, or talent pool, Yuanxin cannot compare to those sitting in Silicon Valley and even the entire CIA are the three companies with chip design talents in developed countries.

Under this circumstance, the Tamron series processors have become slower and slower, gradually becoming bottom in performance.

So what does Joe always want to do? Want to save Yuanxin?

Everyone finally looked at Su Yuanshan.

Yin Zilin, who had been cooperating with Su Yuanshan just a while ago, hesitated.

Mr. Shan, is it possible that Mr. Qiao thinks you are naughty? So he is optimistic about us?

Su Yuanshan: ...