The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide

"We are a long-term partner of ARM, and we have enough strength in the field of mobile chips to design chips that meet your company's needs." Guan Jianying said sincerely.

Sitting opposite Guan Jianying was Satoru Iwata, who had just served as the president of Nintendo not long ago. Guan Jianying did not know where he got the news that Nintendo was going to create a new mobile handheld game.

Guan Jianying believes that this is an opportunity for Xinxin Technology. Making chips for game consoles, especially for game companies of this level like Nintendo, will definitely bring huge profits to Xinxin Technology.

Although Xinxin Technology has successively launched two excellent products, the Bluetooth chip and the A-series chip, these are all thanks to Zhou Xin, not the success of Xinxin Technology itself. He always felt that Xinxin had made too many achievements in American's R\u0026D department. Although Shenhai was the headquarters in name, it hadn't achieved much.

If there is no Zhou Xin, Guan Jianying founded Alchip in the curved area, and he started out by helping Sony make PSP chips, so Guan Jianying naturally has a keen sense of game chips and thinks this will be an opportunity.

Therefore, after hearing that Nintendo planned to create a new generation of handhelds, he flew to Neon almost immediately and met with the new president of Nintendo, Satoshi Iwata.

Satoru Iwata looked at the man in front of him who looked obviously Chinese, and thought to himself that our NDS was only approved, how did the other party know?

Then he thought about it again, Xinxin Technology and Sony have a good cooperative relationship, so he can understand, probably the news he got from Sony:

"Mr. Guan, we have the idea of ​​designing a console, but because Nintendo's purpose is to bring entertainment to more people, we may not be able to afford the high chip price of Xinxin Technology."

Nintendo would not be shocked until Sony quickly launched the PSP at the E3 exhibition in 2003. The NDS was established internally in March, and it was released in September of that year. It took only 6 months of research and development time to create a Nintendo DS. A generation of boutique in the history of handheld devices - NDS.

Now Sony's news has been revealed in advance, so Nintendo has also advanced the design work of NDS.

The global sales volume of NDS is about 150 million units, and because NDS is a dual-screen design, NDS needs two CPUs to process the information flow on different screens.

Of course, Guan Jianying doesn't know these things, and Iwata Satoru himself doesn't know what kind of form the handheld should be made to satisfy current consumers.

Especially after realizing the impact that Mphone has brought to the handheld industry, he has only one thought in his mind, that is, Nintendo's new handheld must be cheap enough to occupy the market.

The price of the Mphone is $599, and over time, during the promotional season, you can get it for about $500. If the price of the new handheld is not much different from the Mphone, why would anyone choose a handheld?

This is a real problem. Later, after the launch of the NDS, Nokia saw that its sales were good and launched a game phone at the same time. As a result, it was defeated because of the high price and lack of content.

So they really can't afford the chips of Xinxin Technology. The image of Xinxin Technology in the outside world is not a Huaguo enterprise, but a Silicon Valley enterprise, known for its innovative products and expensive prices.

After the price of the Bluetooth chip produced by Xinxin Technology was announced, there was an uproar in the industry. Although it is true that the technology is much ahead, the price is really cruel.

Including the price of the A1E chip, as a company in the consumer electronics industry, you have heard of it more or less, and Xinxin Technology has a large number of neon employees.

Guan Jianying replied seriously: "President Iwata, our price is set according to the product, if Nintendo's demand is not high, our price will not be so expensive.

If Nintendo buys enough, we can push the price down even further. "

Game consoles do not require high CPU performance, which is why Guan Jianying said this with confidence. What he wants is to use this project to train the team.

Judging from the products of the two lines of Bluetooth chips and A-series chips, Guan Jianying believes that the level of the front-line R\u0026D personnel of Xinxin Semiconductor and the R\u0026D personnel in Silicon Valley is too different, and he urgently needs projects to train the team.

It is far from enough to rely on mobile phone integrated chips.

In order to impress Satoru Iwata, Guan Jianying continued: "I don't know if you know the A-series chips used by Mphone. This chip is designed by Xinxin Technology. Xinxin Technology is especially good at chip design for mobile devices. What we are best at is mobile devices. The end chip achieves a balance between performance and power consumption."

Iwata thought to himself, of course I know that Xinxin Technology is good at chip design for mobile devices, otherwise I would not meet you. One is because of Zhou Xin's face, and the other is that Xinxin Technology does have two brushes in mobile chips. Iwata Satoshi did not send his section chief or any random vice president to meet him, but met Guan Jianying in person.

He said: "I generally understand that Xinxin Technology is a very good semiconductor company, and we have also cooperated with many of our neon companies, such as Sony, Toshiba, Nikon, etc. We also know that the performance of the mobile chip designed by Xinxin Technology for Mphone is very good. powerful."

The 500MHz mobile chip can also achieve 8 to 10 hours of battery life, even if the battery capacity is deliberately increased, it is also a very remarkable thing.

"But our new generation of handhelds wants to keep the cost as low as possible, and we want to keep the price of all the components as low as possible."

Nintendo is really picky. If there is no Guan Jianying, they will adopt the core of ARM, and then design two chips by themselves.

These two chips are the ARM946E-S with a frequency of 67MHz and the ARM7TDMI with a frequency of 33MHz.

ARM946E-S adopts the architecture of ARM9, which belongs to the middle-end products in the embedded CPU, and the mainstream frequency is between 200 and 300MHz, while ARM7TDMI adopts the architecture of ARM7, which belongs to the low-end products, but the mainstream frequency is also 100MHz. to 200MHz.

As for why Nintendo made the frequency so low, it is impossible to know whether it is a technical problem or because of the consideration of power consumption control.

As for the PSP's dual-core chip, both cores can run up to 333MHz. Starting from the CPU frequency alone, the performance of the PSP is obviously much stronger than that of the NDS.

Satoru Iwata also knew that Nintendo's chip R\u0026D department was limited, and he did not reject cooperation with Xinxin Technology under the premise that the price was right.

"President Iwata, our prices are set according to the sales volume. We hope to provide overall services, from chip design to chip manufacturing, all of which are handled by Xinxin Technology.

Therefore, we will calculate the price by chip instead of only charging patent fees for chip design. We hope to form a long-term cooperative relationship with Nintendo. "

Guan Jianying came here this time only to get acquainted with each other, and it will definitely take a long time to follow up if we want to reach a cooperation in the future.

Guan Jianying continued: "We can set up a step-by-step fee. The more the quantity, the lower the fee. At the same time, we can adopt the method of first goods and later payment, and settle quarterly. In terms of fees, you can rest assured that Xinxin Technology will definitely give you a fee. reasonable price.

In addition, if you purchase the public version IP design from ARM, you need to pay the authorization fee, but if you cooperate with us, we are the core partner of ARM, so this fee can also be saved.

The most important thing to cooperate with Xinxin Technology is not the price, but the service. Our experience in the field of mobile chips can help you better serve players. "

Satoru Iwata was not moved after listening to it, but felt that Xinxin Technology could be given a chance. If the products they designed really met the needs of Nintendo, it would not be a bad idea to hand over the chip design of the new generation of handhelds to Xinxin Technology. ?

Nintendo has been designing its own chips before, because the chip design was not as complicated as it is now, and the performance requirements of the game are not as strict as it is now, and the performance is slightly better and almost has little effect.

Now it is different. Players are starting to care more and more about the performance of their handhelds. The quality of performance will directly determine the types of games that can be carried and the smoothness of games. This has caused Nintendo's original chip design department to gradually fail.

If there is no Xinxin Technology, Nintendo will also hand over the chip design to Nvidia from 2012, focusing on the development of games and handhelds.

Guan Jianying said: "I think Nintendo can seriously consider cooperating with Xinxin Technology.

Sony does not design its own chips, Microsoft's Xbox also does not design its own chips, and Nintendo does not actually need to focus on chip design.

Professional things should be done by professional companies. Xinxin Technology is a new player in the field of chip design, and it is a company that has not been established for a long time. But in the field of mobile chips, Xinxin Technology is definitely a first-class enterprise.

We have enough experience to deal with any needs of your company on chips. "

Guan Jianying's self-confidence was more dazzling than the sunshine in the midsummer afternoon in Tokyo. Satoru Iwata was a little moved. He said, "Mr. Guan, we will definitely consider your company's proposal seriously."

After leaving Nintendo, Guan Jianying went to Sony the next day, and the source told him at the same time that Sony and Nintendo were both working on new consoles, so they couldn’t just eat one side.

Not to mention that he has a ready-made relationship network at Sony. Nakamura Suehiro, the head of Sony's semiconductor business department, will later become Sony's chief technology officer. He has known Guan Jianying for many years. They met at IEEE.

The two parties had a good personal relationship. Later, Alchip established by Guan Jianying was able to become the graphics processing chip designer for the PSP series of handhelds. At the same time, it could also cooperate with Sony in the field of chip packaging. In the early days, more than 80% of Alchip's business came from Neo Rainbow is closely related to the good relationship between the two.

"Nakamura, long time no see." Guan Jianying and Nakamura Suehiro were obviously much more relaxed when they met, and they were dressed more casually, only wearing sunglasses and a pair of slippers for vacation.

After Nakamura Suehiro and Guan Jianying embraced, he said, "Kan Sang, we haven't seen each other for a long time.

It has been about half a year, and you have done a good job in Xinxin Technology. Xinxin Technology is an excellent company. In the past two years, the people from Toshiba have been talking about you in my ears, saying that Xinxin Technology has subverted their mobile phones. Understanding of the chip field. "

Guan Jianying said with a smile: "We are just making small troubles. Xinxin Technology has only been established for a few years, and we still need enough support before we can grow."

Guan Jianying is very humble. If he wants to achieve his goal, sometimes he needs to be weak in words.

Suehiro Nakamura waved his hands again and again: "No, no, your A-series chips were able to achieve 500MHz two years ago, which is really an amazing figure.

Not to mention the bluetooth chip you just launched not long ago.

You should know that both Sony and Toshiba have invested in Bluetooth technology, especially us, because Sony is involved in a large number of direct-to-consumer products, such as mobile phones, handhelds, TVs, etc., we do all of them, so we always think that Bluetooth technology has great potential .

As a result, after Xinxin Technology launched the Bluetooth chip, we directly disbanded the Bluetooth R\u0026D team internally, and a total of 100 people in the whole team were diverted to other R\u0026D departments.

Only less than ten people were left to continue to pay attention to the cutting-edge progress of Bluetooth technology.

The existence of Xinxin Technology in the past two years is not like a newly established company. The king of the Internet is still as strong in the semiconductor field. Zhou Jun is really an amazing person.

So when you came out of the company you founded before and then joined Zhou Jun’s company, I told you that it’s a blessing in disguise. "

Guan Jianying deeply agrees: "It is indeed the case. People never know what will happen next. After joining Xinxin Technology, I am full of energy and the development of the company is much smoother than I imagined.

Nakamura, I’m here because we haven’t seen each other for a long time, so I want to catch up on the old days and come to Tokyo for vacation by the way, and secondly, to see if there is any cooperation opportunity between Xinxin Technology and Sony. "

Suehiro Nakamura said: "It's no problem to reminisce about the old days. We can go to an izakaya to have a good drink later in the evening. After drinking, there are many good entertainment venues in Ginza. I will take you to experience it.

There is also no problem with cooperation. Hasn’t Sony always cooperated with Xinxin Technology? I remember that the music phone launched by Sony is selling very well in Tokyo.

It is equipped with the Bluetooth technology of Xinxin Technology. My wife uses this mobile phone. After experiencing it, she is full of praise. Compared with the Bluetooth technology of this mobile phone, other Bluetooth headsets on the market should be thrown into the trash. inside the barrel. "

After hearing this, Guan Jianying was very pleased. He could not feel the impact of the Bluetooth chip launched by Xinxin in Zhangjiang, but it was very obvious after Nihong came. One or two out of ten people wearing headphones on the road were wearing headphones. Bluetooth headset equipped with Xinxin technology.

Because Xinxin Technology is currently only licensed to Sony, Sony's headsets equipped with a new generation of Bluetooth chips are very recognizable and can be recognized at a glance.

In addition, this is Tokyo, Sony's lair, and the place with the strongest neon consumption ability, so the probability of 1 in 10 is not high.

Guan Jianying said: "We are cooperating with Sony Ericsson. We hope to reach a good cooperative relationship with Sony Games, and we also hope to cooperate with Sony headquarters."

The one written the day before yesterday was wrong. Lei Jun joined Jinshan at the age of 23, and then at the age of 33 in 2002. Crow’s memory was mixed up.