Chapter 356: Eastern European Market Launch

In Xucheng, at the Zhuxianzhuang Technology Park, on the eve of New Year's Day.

"Boss, Mr. Hu from the Science and Technology Association is on the first floor."

The sweet voice of the receptionist girl came through the intercom.

"Take him to the conference room on the fifth floor." Chen Yansen immediately arranged.

"Yes, boss." Tian Tian put down the phone, looked at Hu Ruihui and the others with a smile, and said softly, "Mr. Hu, please follow me."

"Troublesome." Hu Ruihui nodded.

Behind him, one of the accompanying staff members looked displeased and muttered quietly, "Young as he is, yet so arrogant."

Hearing this, Hu Ruihui turned his head and glared fiercely at the person.

The Science and Technology Association and commercial companies are already on two parallel lines; if they give face, it is a favor, if not, it is their duty.

Tian Tian heard it too, frowned slightly, and her face immediately sank.

Inside the technology park, no one dares to evaluate her boss in such a manner.

Tian Tian took a deep breath, forced a smile, and led Hu Ruihui and the others into the elevator lobby.

With a 'Ding', the elevator doors slowly opened!

"Mr. Hu, hello. I am Chen Yansen of Chengzi Technology. This is Mike Keller, the chief designer of the Tiangong T100. This is Wu Shengyu, the lead designer of the Tiangong T100."

Chen Yansen stepped forward actively and greeted with a smile.

"Hello, Mr. Chen, sorry to disturb..."

Hu Ruihui had just spoken halfway when his peripheral vision suddenly caught sight of Mike Keller's face, and he instantly choked up.

"May I ask abruptly, did Mr. Mike work in the chip division of AMD?"

Hu Ruihui raised his hand to signal, apologized to Chen Yansen, and then stared at Mike Keller while asking.

"Oh, Mr. Hu knows me? I indeed worked at AMD for six years, presiding over the design work of the Athlon K8 processor, but that was nine years ago. After that, I went to Apple and led the team to develop the A4 and A5 chips successively."

Mike smiled, didn't hide anything, and spoke the truth.

After listening, Hu Ruihui immediately matched the other's resume with a chip design master in his mind.

He originally thought it was just a name coincidence, but the result was unexpected.

For a moment, he stood stunned in place, mouth slightly open, his eyes full of shock.

The remaining dozen or so engineers from the Science and Technology Association also wore expressions of stupor on their faces.

Seeing this, Wu Shengyu's lips curled up slightly.

Back then, after seeing Mike Keller, he too was stunned into silence.

This is equivalent to the president of Mama Ali going to a shopping guide e-commerce company to serve as a sales director, full of magic.

Mike Keller's rank and status in Apple's chip division were second only to the person in charge, Johnny Srouji; his skill level and industry influence were on par with Gao Tong's senior lead engineers.

Whether in the North American region or the Asian region, Mike Keller was no unknown figure.

So, why did you join Chengzi Technology?

Hu Ruihui very much wanted to ask directly, but when the words reached his lips, he forcibly held them back.

Less is better for words lacking emotional intelligence!

Besides, he came to visit Chengzi Technology and had something to ask of Chen Yansen.

"Ten years ago, I represented the Science and Technology Association and visited AMD for study. I never expected that Mr. Mike would now become a chip designer at Chengzi Technology."

Hu Ruihui reacted quickly and shook hands with Mike.

"In my opinion, the R&D environment at Chengzi Technology is not inferior to Apple's, especially the boss's computer programming level is astonishing. I have progressed very quickly here."

Mike shrugged and casually replied.

Chen Yansen's programming level?

Isn't he a liberal arts student?

Hu Ruihui subconsciously turned his gaze toward Chen Yansen, full of doubts.

"Mr. Hu, shall we sit down and talk slowly?"

Chen Yansen reminded.

"No problem."

Hu Ruihui looked deeply at Chen Yansen; he vaguely sensed the other's intention.

Thinking of this, he suddenly turned around and took in the expressions of the others.

These guys, usually proud and arrogant, now all had their heads down, with no more doubts about Chengzi Technology's chip research capabilities.

To people outside the industry, Mike Keller is merely a chip designer, but to those practitioners who have been deeply rooted in the CPU design field for many years, Mike Keller is undoubtedly a legendary figure in the industry.

Then, what kind of strength does Chen Yansen, who is stronger than him in Mike Keller's words, actually possess?

Regarding this, what Chen Yansen thought in his heart was: If you don't do chips, seeing me is like a frog in a well watching the moon in the sky;

If you do chips, seeing me is like a tiny ant gazing at the blue sky.

With one move, he suppressed this group, saving himself from unnecessary trouble.

Chengzi Technology needs partners with the right attitude, not arrogant academic experts.

The following process went extremely smoothly; no one caused trouble, and no one made a scene.

Wu Shengyu gave the main presentation, introducing one by one the execution conditions, encoding formats, register structures, and memory access methods of the OrangeZ1 instruction set.

Hu Ruihui's interest in his eyes grew even stronger; having worked in the chip design field for nearly thirty years, it was not hard for him to judge based on his experience that the encoding efficiency of OrangeZ1 was far superior to MIPS, and power consumption would naturally be reduced accordingly.

"Mr. Chen, can we use simulation tools to verify?" Hu Ruihui requested.

"Of course." Chen Yansen agreed readily and signaled for Hu Ruihui and the others to feel free.

Even good wine fears deep alleys; a good product doesn't necessarily sell well!

As a brand new CPU architecture specification, OrangeZ1 must achieve widespread commercial application to be continuously improved and optimized in practice.

Why are the baseband chips from Gao Tong and Huawei so powerful?

It is because they have accumulated over a decade of commercial product experience in the communications industry, possessing rich testing and tuning capabilities.

Just as Hu Ruihui and others were busy, Huawei also received news and learned that Hu Ruihui had gone to visit Sister Chengzi Technology.

"Mr. Yu, do you think the instruction set patent from Sister Chengzi Technology can reach the level of MIPS?"

He Boting, president of HiSilicon Chips, called over Yu Chendong to ask. After all, within Huawei, "Big Mouth" and Chen Yansen had the most contact with Sister Chengzi Technology; not long ago, he even went to Xucheng to visit Chen Yansen.

"Based on my understanding of Chen Yansen, this person never does useless work, but I also heard from friends in Europe that two months ago, people from Sister Chengzi Technology went to ARM, most likely to purchase architecture licenses, so I am not sure either."

Yu Chendong frowned, thought carefully for a moment, and then answered cautiously.

The implication was that if Chen Yansen had confidence in OrangeZ1, he would not have gone to ARM to buy technical patents.

Therefore, OrangeZ1 most likely has little technical content, or perhaps it is an alternative technical solution targeting the Internet of Things chip market.

As for developing an instruction set technology from November to December in less than two months, Yu Chendong had never even considered it.

If even Huawei cannot accomplish it, can Sister Chengzi Technology get it done?

Yu Chendong was a science top scorer and a graduate student in the Radio Department of Tsinghua University, not a pure manager who knows nothing about technology.

Precisely because he understood, he ignored the answer closest to the truth.

"ARM's annual licensing fee is too high," He Boting sighed, his brows tightly furrowed.

Yu Chendong remained silent; he knew how ruthless ARM's charges were: tens of millions of US dollars a year, plus a 1.5% royalty commission.

For every HiSilicon chip, whether sold or used internally, Huawei had to pay a patent usage fee to ARM.

There are free and open-source instruction sets like RISC-V and OpenRISC, but limited by issues such as power consumption and coding efficiency, they are not suitable to serve as the underlying CPU architecture for HiSilicon.

Huawei worked on self-development on one side while gritting its teeth to pay ARM on the other.

"Mr. He, I think there is no need to rush. Based on Hu Ruihui's judgment, if the OrangeZ1 instruction set can meet the research needs of the Science and Technology Association, I believe that soon news will spread that the Science and Technology Association has purchased the OrangeZ1 instruction set architecture license."

Yu Chendong said with a tone of certainty.

He Boting nodded slightly, forcibly suppressing the impulse to contact Sister Chengzi Technology, and instead chatted with Yu Chendong about the upcoming Huawei Ascend P2 and C8813.

On the other side.

After a day of verification, Hu Ruihui immediately decided to purchase the OrangeZ1 architecture license.

"One-time licensing fee of 10 million, royalty commission of 0.5%."

Before Hu Ruihui could speak, Chen Yansen quoted the price.

"US dollars?"

"Chinese Yuan!"

Hu Ruihui gasped in shock; it was not that it was too expensive, but that it was too cheap, making him unable to believe it.

"Is this Sister Chengzi Technology's external charging standard?"

Hu Ruihui asked curiously.

"If it were Huawei, the conditions would have to be doubled," Chen Yansen answered seriously.

Hu Ruihui grinned, revealing a satisfied expression, and then said: "On behalf of the Science and Technology Association and the Loongson Project, I thank Mr. Chen for his support."

"Mr. Hu, let me state the ugly truth upfront: the content of the licensing agreement must be kept confidential. To develop the OrangeZ1 instruction set, I recruited many senior researchers from integrated circuit companies in Europe and America; the cost was not low, and we must make a profit."

Chen Yansen said this with a straight face, making it up.

"I can understand. Actually, the price at which the Science and Technology Association purchased the MIPS instruction set architecture license was not the 10 million US dollars rumored by the outside world," Hu Ruihui replied with a smile.

"5 million?" Chen Yansen asked with a half-smile.

"Coincidentally, the Science and Technology Association also signed a confidentiality agreement with MIPS," Hu Ruihui replied with a chuckle.

His subtext was that after the Science and Technology Association signed the contract with Sister Chengzi Technology, he would also keep his mouth shut.

"Mr. Hu, pleasant cooperation," Chen Yansen stood up and extended his right hand.

"Pleasant cooperation. I hope Sister Chengzi Technology can inject a new force into the semiconductor cause of Hu Guo."

Hu Ruihui shook Chen Yansen's hand, smiling freely.

"Mr. Hu, you flatter me. Sister Chengzi Technology has no grand ambitions; being able to barely surpass Gao Tong and ARM is enough," Chen Yansen replied.

Hu Ruihui's face froze, and he laughed helplessly, assuming Chen Yansen was joking, until this moment when he could not help but ask: "Mr. Chen, how did you invite Michael Keller to come to the country?"

After thinking it over, the most reasonable explanation was that Chen Yansen had kidnapped the other party's family members or obtained negative evidence sufficient to ruin Michael Keller's reputation.

"Because Sister Chengzi Technology's overtime pay is as high as three times," Chen Yansen said perfunctorily.

"Mr. Chen, that joke is a bit cold."

Hu Ruihui was a smart person; seeing that Chen Yansen was unwilling to speak, he gave up the idea of digging to the root of the matter.

Chen Yansen invited the people from the Science and Technology Association to have dinner together at the rooftop garden in the city center.

The next morning, both parties signed the architecture licensing agreement.

And the Science and Technology Association also became the first external institution in the country to use the OrangeZ1 instruction set.

Upon learning this, He Boting of HiSilicon Chips found Yu Chendong again and asked him to introduce Chen Yansen to him.

Since Hu Ruihui was willing to pay, it meant that the OrangeZ1 instruction set was definitely superior to MIPS in coding efficiency and power consumption.

That afternoon, Chen Yansen received a call from Yu Chendong; after hearing the other party's intention clearly, he agreed to Yu Chendong's cooperation request without the slightest hesitation.

Huawei needed Sister Chengzi Technology's OrangeZ1 instruction set, and Sister Chengzi Technology needed Huawei's Balong baseband chip to serve as an alternative to Gao Tong.

Both parties were in perfect agreement!

They arranged to meet on January 4 at Zhuxianzhang Technology Park.

After seeing Hu Ruihui and others off, Chen Yansen was just preparing to get off work when Zhou Shouzhi called to report that the improved versions of Sister Chengzi C2, Sister Chengzi C3, and Qingcheng D1s had gone on sale in Eastern Europe, mainly through operator channels with online sales channels as a supplement.

First-day sales: 19,000 units!

Although not much, for a non-local foreign mobile phone brand, this result was not bad; the best-selling model was the Qingcheng D1s, which sold 7,000 units in one day in Bingbing Guo.

With moderate specifications and powerful photography functions, priced at only 19 US dollars, it was extremely popular among young people.

At the same time, Xiaomi emulated Nokia's strategy and heavily built offline distribution channels in Tianzhu, cooperating with numerous retailers to stock products in physical stores across the country.

In just one week, 73,000 Xiaomi phones were sold!

Lei Yijun excitedly waved his hand and allocated a sum of activity funds to the person in charge of the Tianzhu market, planning to hold a Xiaomi Fan Festival locally and give away data cables, earphones, printed T-shirts, and other event merchandise to users.

At the same time, Cao Dahua sat in a Mercedes-Benz worth over two million, drove leisurely into Xucheng Academy, and then knocked on the door of Tang Qingshan's office.

(End of this chapter)