With the Time Shop, I Too Am the Greatest Conglomerate of All Time

Episode 97. A different future.

【Two techniques noted by IFA 1999.】

『In Messe Berlin, Germany, a feast of cutting-edge technologies gathered from all over the world was held for 4 days from November 28th.

All the skills were interesting though.

Among them, two technologies that stood out the most attracted many visitors.

The first is an LCD TV from Korea’s Kowon Electronics.

syncopation…

The second was also a product of a Korean company.

It was a new standard PC released by a company called Damoye.

The name given by the developer was ‘Tablet PC’, and the model name of the product was D-Tab.

It resembled a laptop, but was unusually without a mouse and keyboard.

The touch screen was replacing the input device.

Intuitive UI that anyone can easily understand and excellent touch sensitivity provided a more convenient and pleasant environment than using a laptop.

In addition, the drill CPU used in Apple’s D-AMac PC was adopted, and the processing speed was faster than that of a general desktop PC.

In summary, the D-Tab was a product that was thinner, lighter, faster, more convenient, able to take pictures and even more fun to play than a laptop.

However, D-Tab does not use Windows OS, so there are not many applications that can be used right away.

Since there is D-App Store, a platform where anyone can create and upload programs for D-Tab, the lack of applications is expected to be resolved quickly.

It will only be a matter of time before this innovative tablet PC will replace the laptop. 』

Apple CEO Steve Mars, who read the article at once, spit out a person’s name as if sighing.

There was no mention of Kang Jae-woon anywhere in the newspaper.

He instinctively realized that the developer of this product was a fortune.

D-Tab.

The next-generation portable PC he had only thought about in his head for a long time had been implemented in an almost perfect form.

‘Unbelievable. I thought very few people would even think of a PC with this concept. This young genius has gone beyond his imagination and has already made it a reality.’

At the same time, he realized why Jaewoon didn’t hand over the CPU design drawings for the drill to him.

‘The core of this tablet PC is the CPU and OS. As for the OS, we also have enough development capabilities, so we predicted in advance that we would become a strong competitor if even the CPU design drawings were passed into our hands. That’s why he said he wouldn’t sell it to me even if he gave me a billion dollars.’

Shortly after work, Steve called an emergency executive meeting.

“What did the boss suddenly say to get together? Did something happen with the D-AMac?”

“That’s not right. If something like that ever happened, I would be the first to know.”

“okay? Then what is the reason?”

Steve opened his mouth to the executives who were shouting.

“The reason why we suddenly gathered together today is because of a product called D-Tab that was exhibited at IFA 1999.”

One executive answered.

“Oh, I saw that article too. The idea was fresh. But wouldn’t there be a lot of people who feel uncomfortable because the interface itself, called a touch screen, is not that popular?”

Another officer continued.

“you’re right. The reason why a lot of spectators flocked to it was because the PC in its first form was interesting, and it was probably not because they wanted to actually use the product. It is highly likely that the reporter’s comment that it is better than a laptop was exaggerated to get people’s attention. Aren’t all journalists like that?”

Steve had a different idea.

“Such discomfort is felt only at the beginning of this product, and you will get used to it after a while. In the end, people will choose what is convenient over what is familiar. It’s like the desktop PC operating system has changed from a CUI for typing text to a GUI for clicking on images.”

“Well. Do you think Mr. Mars believes that tablet PCs can replace laptops in the opinion of the reporter?”

Steve nodded his head.

“Of course. Now the laptop is not the problem. These tablet PCs will even take away desktop demand. The biggest weakness of laptops is that they do not perform as well as desktop PCs because they have to be made with power consumption in mind. By the way, D-Tab uses the same CPU used in our D-AMac. It is said that it will be a PC that can be carried outdoors and is quite usable inside. Can’t you feel anything like this?”

It was then that a sense of crisis began to appear on the faces of the executives.

“..with that thought, Mr. Mars’ concerns are understandable.”

“So we also need to develop tablet PCs from now on. Today, this is the place to frame that development plan.”

another officer asked.

“Then what do you do with the laptop you are developing?”

“It will be completely discarded.”

“Are you going to throw it away? Now, tens of millions of dollars have been spent on development alone.”

The executives were buzzing.

Steve continued without hesitation.

“In the future, laptops will only survive in the low-end market. If that’s the case, you won’t make a profit even if you sell it. No matter how much money you spend, it will all be blown into the air, so it’s wise to stop now.”

And no more executives refuted Steve’s words.

Eight years earlier than the original history that fortune had known.

Apple’s tablet PC development project, the so-called ‘Apad’ project, has begun.

#Mid December.

Suwon Sungwoon Logic conference room.

President Lee Byung-hoon was briefing me on the results of the next-generation micro-architecture drill 2 core customization (redesign).

“This drill 2 can be made only when the semiconductor process has a minimum line width of 130 nm (nanometers), but the current semiconductor process has a minimum line width of 180 nm (nanometers). So the ALU, arithmetic logic unit and control unit were redesigned for 180nm, and the pipeline order was also changed. The result is this.”

The president pointed to the screen and continued.

“The driving clock is 1.0Ghz and the power consumption is about 1.2W. The original performance would be 1.2Ghz and the power consumption would be less than 1W, but so far this is the best.”

“Well. It’s great to come out like that, but I feel a bit sad about it.”

“It’s because of our incompetence. Keep researching and it will get better. However, what is encouraging is that Wontel has not yet released a 1.0Ghz CPU, and even if it does, drill 2’s IPC (Instruction Per Clock) is good, so we will have a big lead in computational performance. The power consumption is also more than 20 times higher than that of Wontel, so it is not even comparable at all.”

“What is the latest product from Wontel?”

“It’s the Pentium 3 667Mhz (megahertz) that came out last month.”

“Well. Our drill 1 is 700Mhz, so the clock number has caught up a lot.”

At the beginning of this year, the number of clocks, which was only 450Mhz, increased by more than 200Mhz in less than a year.

It was also strong.

However, there was still a sense of leeway on the president’s face.

“Still, there are some differences. The semiconductor processing capability has improved a lot from the beginning of this year, so the Drill 1 CPU that comes out this month has a clock number of 800Mhz.”

“haha. It seems that Go Won Electronics did a good job.”

“yes. It seems that the foundry division in that area received the right investment. The facilities have also been upgraded, and we have received a lot of excellent engineers, especially from the memory division. Thanks to this, the new process was developed well in time.”

It seemed that Vice Chairman Jin was supporting the foundry division properly.

“Drill 1 is still running well, isn’t it?”

“yes. Server-side shipments have increased a lot, so last month alone, we made close to 200 billion won in revenue.”

The D-Tab is yet to be released, but it’s great.

We have to finish the 5th generation line of TM Display as soon as possible to outperform our competitors, but it went well.

I’ll have to use the proceeds from the drill sales to increase the investment in the display side to speed up the line construction.

“Just hearing the words makes me hungry. I will only trust this boss in the future. haha.”

# For a while, I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to worry about the CPU side.

Two days later, President Lee Byung-hoon came to the headquarters.

“Chairman Kang. The atmosphere in America right now is not serious.”

“How is the atmosphere?”

“An acquaintance contacted me, and it seems that the USTR (US Trade Representative) will soon designate Korea and Taiwan as preferred bidders.”

USTR? Priority negotiation?

“..are you thinking of activating Super 301 against Korea?”

It was a law that guaranteed the power to take wide-ranging trade retaliation measures against countries that were judged to be engaging in unfair trade practices.

And because that judgment is arbitrary and made unilaterally.

It was also a difficult law to respond to, given that there was not much room to use in the target country.

But in a previous life, the US used a card against China, so why?

The timing and subject were completely different from my memories.

“Perhaps. Besides, the target of the drug is semiconductors. As the amount of memory exported from Hwanseong and Kowon to the United States is increasing, it seems like they are doing it with the intention of blocking it, but even we are getting caught up in it.”

under..

As soon as I heard that, I had a rough idea of ​​how things were going.

“..and vice versa.”

“yes. It must be a ploy to stop our drilling income. Hwan-seong and Go-won got involved because of us.”

“Um, I don’t quite understand. Memory semiconductors exported by Hwansung or Kowon Electronics are much larger than ours in quantity and proportion, right? But why did you think that way?”

“You said that Taiwan is included in the preferred negotiating country? Taiwan is not a memory semiconductor exporter. It is a country that mainly exports system semiconductors as there are many foundry companies. If only Korea was designated as the preferred negotiating country, Taiwan was also designated at once to avoid moving the drill production line to Taiwan.”

“..CEO Kang’s words are true. But even though Hwanseong and Gowon’s memory semiconductor exports were several times larger than ours, they stayed still, so why did we make them a target of sanctions?”

“Although there are memory semiconductor companies in the United States, their capabilities are not very high and their production volume is not very high. Adjusting the amount of imports of memory semiconductors would increase memory prices and only increase inconvenience to consumers, but there is no reason to do so. However, our system semiconductor and drill CPU are different.”

“In the United States, there is an outstanding system semiconductor company called Onetel, and its production capacity is excellent. Even without our drill, there is no inconvenience to consumers. Onetel can supply enough CPU. There is a justification to protect the country’s industry, and the side effects are not expected to be significant, so it is worthwhile to do this.”

“yes. One way or another, Wontel is deeply involved in this. I thought I couldn’t stand still, but I didn’t know it would work like this.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“How are you doing? It’s not meant to be used like this, but we also have hidden knives. It looks like it’s time to get it out.”