1991 Starting from the core

Yuanxin and Xinghai are high-quality partners of Texas Instruments.

Whether it's a VCD chip or a series of chips for cordless phones, the choice is Texas Instruments. You must know that the improvement of the manufacturing process and the improvement of the yield need to be continuously fed by orders.

In return, TI is also very supportive of FarCore EDA, sharing various data generated by the wafer factory and providing strong support for FarCore EDA's simulations. In turn, FarCore EDA also plays a role in improving the fab's process and yield.

So when Su Yuanshan asked to meet, Vincenti immediately put aside other things and concentrated on waiting for him.

But Vincenti never expected that Su Yuanshan would take the initiative to let Deyi invest in Xinghai - he admitted that there were many people who coveted Xinghai and even Yuanxin, and Deyi was one of them.

After making sure that he had not understood the wrong meaning, Vincenti's mind quickly started to spin.

He immediately thought of the recent rumors and looked at Su Yuanshan in surprise.

Are you really planning to acquire Cyrix?

Su Yuanshan smiled and nodded: Actually, even if we don't acquire Cyrix, Xinghai plans to achieve deeper cooperation with your company through cross-shareholding. It's just that Cyrix has been in a bit of trouble recently, and we are willing to help them tide over the difficulties.

No, you want to get Texas Instruments to bet on Cyrix's lawsuit and future with you. Vincenti immediately shook his head and pointed to the core of the problem.

The acquisition of Cyrix is ​​not a gamble, but the result of careful consideration. We have conducted a rigorous analysis and believe that Intel will eventually reach a settlement with Cyrix. After all, your company currently still holds the X86 architecture authorization. Under the current law, Please explain, I believe that a just judge will make a ruling that is beneficial to the development of the entire semiconductor industry.

After all, Intel is now very powerful. A CPU company with no rivals does not comply with the spirit of the Sherman Antitrust Law.

Listening to Su Yuanshan's calm analysis, Vincenti said solemnly: You forgot that there is a PowerPC Alliance.

In the near future, PowerPC will definitely lose.

Vincenti raised his eyebrows: Why?

Because Mr. Gates is a genius, there should have been a genius in the PowerPC camp, but it's a pity that this gentleman went to make movies.

Vincenti knew who the gentleman Su Yuanshan was talking about who was filming the movie - that almost paranoid idealist who had been approached by Robert Nooy, the father of Silicon Valley, the founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel, countless times. Si's appreciation. He is a person who can enter Noyce's bedroom at will.

Well, his name is Steve Jobs.

However, Su Yuanshan's words obviously could not convince Vincenti. Instead, a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth: Then, why don't you choose to join the PowerPC camp? Maybe you can defeat the wintel alliance.

This is a bit ridiculous - because Su Yuanshan is already known as a genius.

Su Yuanshan sighed softly in his heart.

As an old company that can cultivate founders like Zhang Zhongmou, who will become the overlord of the wafer factory in the future, Texas Instruments has technology, connections, and policies. But their real glory was in the 1990s, the period after the defeat of Niguo Semiconductor.

After the new century, Semiconductor Manufacturing Company relied on Liang Mengsong to get the 0.13 micron copper wire process first, defeating the Landlord teams of IBM, UMC and Infineon in one fell swoop, and successfully reached the peak of the wafer factory's process and became the overlord.

After that, UMC, Texas Instruments, NEC, Global Foundries and others never turned around again.

Texas Instruments has such a strong technology accumulation and resources, but in the end it ended up with the same end as Niguo Wafer Factory. I have to say... they still have little sense in terms of vision.

That's right, Mr. Vincenti. Su Yuanshan said seriously: The Wintel Alliance is far more stable and reliable than the PowerPC Alliance, and it also has more technical advantages - I can even foresee that Intel will launch new products soon. ——Because they have not had in-depth cooperation with our EDA, we have reason to believe that they have previously designed successful products based on other EDAs.”

Looking at PowerPC, although MOTO and IBM are also very strong, the semiconductor industry is ultimately an increasingly segmented industry. Future industry giants will definitely be subdivided into countless fields, and each field will be born. A giant, and these giants will work together to promote the progress of the entire semiconductor industry. So I don’t think their CPUs will be more competitive than Intel’s CPUs.”

That's why we chose to embrace the X86 ecosystem. Even if Texas Instruments doesn't want to join this war, it can still choose to cooperate with us on a small scale and get involved in it through the sea of ​​​​stars.

Su Yuanshan pursed his lips as he spoke, and chuckled: Mr. Vincenti, you don't think that Yuanxin and Xinghai relied on gambling to rise, do you?

Vincenti's eyebrows slowly wrinkled.

The rise of Xinghai and Yuanxin has long attracted everyone's attention. Even TI has done internal analysis on why it suddenly rose.

The result is very surprising, three words: good luck.

But everyone knows that good luck is just a lie. Everyone who plays with technology knows that these three words actually represent three other words - visionary.

After thinking for a long time, Vincenti exhaled softly: I will propose it to the board of directors - what is the maximum number of shares you can sell?

About 20%.

Vincenti had no doubts about this number. He nodded, suddenly remembered something, and smiled: I heard that you have become a famous angel investor in Silicon Valley. Have you picked up the treasure?

Yes, there are plenty of treasures. Su Yuanshan replied with a smile.

Under Qin Si's strategy of generally casting the net and focusing on catching fish, Xinghai invested in dozens of small teams. Although they did not have the same luck as Howard's cordless phone team, there were still many small teams working on gadgets. The team was hatched. One of the most useful is a company called RenderMorphics.

The reason why Qin Si fell in love with R.M. was entirely because Su Yuanshan took the initiative to recruit a GPU team. The GPU team was extremely excited to meet a boss like Su Yuanshan who fully supported their 3D work. In addition to working on chips, they also planned to continue Develop a professional graphics API interface.

Just when we were preparing to recruit people, the founder of R·M came to our door and said that he wanted to build a professional graphical interface, and the two parties hit it off immediately. Xinghai did not do it on its own. It directly invested in R·M and customized an API called Directx 3D based on the GPU that Xinghai was designing.

Yes, this is the famous Directx in later generations - if nothing else happens, it will be acquired by Microsoft two years later and integrated into the operating system. And because it is not professional or powerful, it was initially beaten by 3DFX's Glide and OpenGL, but it could not withstand others' stamina... and finally achieved a great turnaround.

In this life, the butterfly wings have been hung with hurricanes. Although OpenGL still appears as promised, Glide disappears without a trace. But Directx was reborn through time thanks to the blessing of the original 3DFX team.

In the near future, Su Yuanshan plans to connect R·M and Microsoft.