Chapter 545: Steady, Don't Get Reckless

To be honest, regarding the Song Tianji chip, Lin Benjian was relatively satisfied; he even felt it was far better than he had anticipated.

Before coming to Hanxi, Lin Benjian had actually prepared himself for the poor foundational level of Dongxin Semiconductor. Right now, let alone the domestic chip industry, the entire Asian region—excluding Japan, and including the chip industries in South Korea and Singapore—was not doing very well.

Even TSMC over there had only been established for a few years; relying on the founder's reputation and connections in the semiconductor industry for so many years, they were still running around everywhere trying to pull in orders.

The foundry model of TSMC was not yet the mainstream of the chip industry. Being able to secure orders relied entirely on the founder's extensive connections and influence. He was sworn brothers with the chip inventor Jack Kilby, drank at bars with Intel founder Robert Noyce, and was a decades-old friend of the man who proposed Moore's Law. This was also the reason why TSMC could secure orders in its early stages.

That Dongxin Semiconductor could churn out a 600-nanometer process chip like Song Tianji had greatly exceeded Lin Benjian's expectations. Overseas, this could only be considered second or third-rate chip design capability, but placed here in Asia, excluding Japan, Dongxin was already an "advanced" chip company. It was just that magical.

Dongxin Semiconductor possessing the capability for independent chip design saved Lin Benjian a lot of trouble, sparing him from having to build Dongxin Semiconductor from scratch.

"Beyond performance, Song Tianji needs to improve its stability. This is even more important than performance!"

Lin Benjian said to Ni Guangnan and Huang Lingyi. This was his experience speaking. Having been in this industry for so many years, what kind of scenarios hadn't Lin Benjian seen? He didn't know how many people he had seen who popped champagne early only to take a massive tumble in the end.

A chip isn't something you can just design and then rest easy. The most critical thing is stability; this is the top priority. Otherwise, if the paper specs are dazzling but it crashes in all sorts of ways during use, that would be a huge joke.

This kind of crash doesn't distinguish between giant companies and small workshops. Just like decades later in his past life, Intel, an old veteran of the semiconductor industry, could actually blow up on a chip. The latest generation model of the chip, when installed in a computer, would either show a blue screen, lag, or freeze, completely destroying Intel's lifelong reputation in one fell swoop. The last bit of glory was also trampled into the ground and stomped on a few times.

Misfortunes never come singly; when you're down on your luck, even drinking cold water makes your teeth ache. Intel, which had already missed the new chip battlefields of mobile phones, home appliances, cars, and artificial intelligence, saw those who bought Intel stock completely broken after the computer chip issues.

The stock price plummeted 26% in a single day. In less than half a year, the stock price evaporated by 60%, and its market value once fell below 90 billion USD—not even one-fifth of the value of its peak market cap of over 500 billion USD twenty years ago. This was Intel decades later, living more and more regressively. Who could handle that without breaking?

When Intel launched the first-generation Pentium chip back then, even with Intel's seasoned experience, there were constant small and large issues. Could Dongxin dare to say it was foolproof on its first launch of the Song Tianji computer chip?

"The packaging and testing of the Song Tianji chip must be done well. The first generation of Song Tianji absolutely cannot have quality issues; stability must be absolutely guaranteed!"

Li Dongling also spoke up. Regarding the first-generation Song Tianji chip, he didn't expect it to be very advanced. As long as the performance could meet the initial design goals, that would be enough. The rest was stability. It didn't have to be stunning, but it absolutely could not leave a massive mess on the user's computer.

Especially since it was foreseeable that as long as Song Tianji could be successfully put into production, besides self-use, computers in domestic municipal units, research institutes, state-owned factories, universities, hospitals, and other places would also become the main force purchasing Song Tianji chips.

For these units and departments, whether the performance is high or not is really not the primary concern. The key is stable performance—the kind of stability where a computer doesn't shut down for 8,640 hours a year and still runs normally!

"The Song Tianji R&D team here will continue to experiment and upgrade Song Tianji before tape-out to ensure its operational stability!"

Ni Guangnan also knew the weight of this. For Dongxin and the Song Tianji chip, it seemed like there were many opportunities, but in reality, the most important thing was still this first time.

If it succeeds, everything is easy to talk about. Relying on the Song Tianji chip, Dongxin's brand in the country would be firmly established, becoming synonymous with domestic semiconductors. Whether orders would be lacking in the future, he didn't know, but Dongxin surviving would be no problem.

If it loses, it's not that there's absolutely no chance, but it would be very difficult—no less difficult than researching the Song Tianji chip from scratch again. The key is that the country might completely lose confidence in self-developed chips.

Just like in his past life, after several chip scams, domestic self-developed chips stagnated for a full twenty or thirty years. Even if Huang Lingyi led a team to develop the Dragon chip, there were still constant doubts. This is the sequela.

"I promise on behalf of the Hanxi Provincial Government: if the Song Tianji chip project team has any problems, they can bring them up. The government office here will definitely help with all its might!"

After exiting the cleanroom, Zhou Shuyang took off his dust-free suit and immediately expressed his stance to Wu Xinyi and other Dongxin Semiconductor executives.

If Song Tianji could really be successfully launched, then for Hanxi, there would be simply too many things to make a big deal out of. Fame, profit, political achievements, and a legacy—all could be obtained.

"Director Li, I believe the Provincial Department of Industry should strongly support a company like Dongxin and issue another batch of subsidies to Dongxin Semiconductor!"

After hearing this, Li Weimin nodded repeatedly in agreement. Although the Provincial Department of Industry he managed was also racked with anxiety over funding every year, issuing a few million in subsidies to Dongxin was still no problem.

Does Dongxin Semiconductor really lack those few million in subsidies? Or rather, can four or five million allow Song Tianji to be mass-produced? Everyone knew it was impossible, but this was a gesture.

The Hanxi Provincial Government issuing subsidies to Dongxin is an attitude; Dongxin accepting this subsidy is also an attitude. It's a mutual back-scratching affair. If subsidies weren't issued and support in terms of policies and resources wasn't given, then after the Song Tianji chip went on sale, the Hanxi Provincial Government wouldn't even be able to claim the credit for supporting Dongxin to promote it.

For Dongxin, the future also cannot be separated from the support of the Hanxi Provincial Government. Having received subsidies and tax incentives, Dongxin wouldn't easily move its headquarters away in the future.

In the semiconductor industry, every company has corresponding supporters behind it, including Samsung, Toshiba, Intel, Infineon, and a host of other companies. The municipal governments where their headquarters are located support these semiconductor companies with all their might; otherwise, they wouldn't be able to develop in the early stages at all.

Especially after building a chip production plant, the demand for water, electricity, raw materials, and transportation is huge, which requires even more coordination from the municipal government.

Producing chips requires a large amount of water for cleaning and cooling. One-third of the time spent producing chips requires water to "bathe" the chips.

But the water needed by a chip factory is not water in the traditional sense, but ultra-pure water extracted. Chips are much more delicate than humans; the water used is a thousand times cleaner than tap water. Fish wouldn't even be able to survive in this stuff.

If Dongxin Semiconductor builds a production base in the Hanxi provincial capital, coordination from the provincial government will be needed for water, electricity, raw materials, and other aspects.

For semiconductor companies, they are both water-deficient and yet not water-deficient. In his past life, there were not a few domestic semiconductor companies located in western cities. Just in the Hanxi provincial capital, there were two or three hundred companies related to chips, among which Samsung, Micron, Infineon, and others all had chip production plants built in the Hanxi provincial capital.

And as Tianshui Commandery, the place of "the lone smoke in the desert, the long river setting sun," which was Jiang Wei's hometown and the place in the Western Liang Province in the outside world's impression, was the second-largest chip shipping location in the country in his past life. Although it was mainly based on packaging, it also had chip production businesses. There were also other places like Ordos that also had chip industries.

The issue of water deficiency also varies from place to place. For example, many Japanese restaurants in the country buy seafood like salmon from the Western Regions, which are deserts in the country's impression, and crabs raised in Tianshui are sold to coastal areas...

Seeing the Song Tianji chip, Zhou Shuyang, Li Weimin, and others couldn't help but have a look of anticipation. For them, this was an unexpected joy.

Zhou Shuyang and the group headed toward the conference room. Along the way, seeing the various facilities of the Dongxin laboratory opened their eyes.

Coffee machines, an unlimited supply of various teas, all kinds of snacks, light meals supplied 24 hours a day, a gym equipped with rehabilitation therapists and masseurs to provide services for physically exhausted R&D personnel, and so on.

In addition, to allow R&D personnel to rest well, not only was a temporary rest area set up in the R&D building, but housing was also specially rented for R&D personnel in areas close to Dongxin, with car pick-up and drop-off throughout the process.

As for the rest, promising huge bonuses if Song Tianji R&D is successful, allocating housing to R&D personnel in the newly built Oriental Garden in the provincial capital, etc. —these don't even need to be mentioned.

Just looking at the logistical support provided to Song Tianji R&D personnel, and after Zhou Shuyang asked Wu Xinyi about the average salary of the Song Tianji R&D team members, they understood exactly how much money Dongxin had poured into the Song Tianji chip. Dongxin Semiconductor and its parent company, Dongling Gao Ke, had truly gone all out for Song Tianji.

As Song Tianji chip R&D personnel, facing this level of "sugar-coated bullets," they also understood the meaning of "a scholar dies for his bosom friend." If they didn't work their lives out in R&D, they would feel they were letting down the salary they received and the logistical treatment and benefits they obtained.

"Director Li, I heard that Dongling Gao Ke has decided to place the Microsoft game console production base and R&D base in Yangcheng and Yanjing?"

After entering the conference room, Guo Fanqin, the head of the provincial capital's investment promotion department, asked Li Dongling a "deliberately ignorant" question, with a look of regret on his face.

After Li Dongling finished talking with Wu Yaoguo that day, Wu Yaoguo released the news. Whether it was Hanxi or other places' investment promotion units, they all knew Dongling Gao Ke's decision.

Guo Fanqin and the provincial capital municipal government naturally knew it too, but it didn't hinder them from using it as a pretext to see if they could pull in some new projects for the provincial capital. Their days were also tight.

"The Microsoft game console project cannot be landed in a short time. From design to trial production, it will take at least two years, or even longer.

However, Dongling Gao Ke does have a new project that it wants to place in the provincial capital for production!" ===== CHAPTER 546 =====