Chapter 231 - 225 The Great Wall G1X_1

"Founder of Moore’s Law: Ternary technology is simply not worth the cost."

"Samsung Electronics engineer sharply criticizes ternary technology: Ternary is anti-human design."

"Why was ternary computing abandoned and why is it repeatedly brought up?"

"Gao Xiaosong: Taking an unconventional path won’t result in ’cutting corners’, steadfast effort is the true path to success."

"Aerospace company making chips? Crossing fields is not so simple!"

"..."

On August 18, when five tourists from the Eastern International Space Hotel boarded Unity and entered space to dock with Tiangong Space Station for another space station tourism project, the semiconductor companies hiding away in Maple Country for a small meeting finally reacted.

Named a summit, it was in fact a confirmation of how far China’s ternary technology had developed.

Finding out was easy: just search for keywords in the newly added patent databases of various countries.

Then they saw patents numbering in the tens of thousands... all filed by New Yuan company or its employees, some shared between individuals and the company, others held by the company.

The tens of thousands of patents made one wonder if China’s patent office had been recording patents until their keyboards smoked, but a closer look revealed they were all important foundational technologies.

Although it was an unfamiliar field, the teams of engineers they organized quickly analyzed the situation: the design and manufacturing of ternary chips were quite mature, and the other party’s patent wall could be described as impenetrable.

The scope was so vast it was simply astonishing—if one wanted to venture into ternary, it would be impossible to circumvent these patents.

Of course, the biggest trouble was that with mainland China’s limited production capability of 28nm process technology, ternary computers could match the mainstream chips using 14nm process technology!

This signified not only the threat of ternary technology but also its higher development potential, especially its formidable AI computational capabilities, which is the recognized direction of the future.

While they were busy coming up with countermeasures on the sidelines, they also began to covertly push for the suppression of ternary technology.

As soon as Lin Ju opened his eyes, he saw that the trending topics were almost entirely criticisms of ternary technology, both overt and covert.

Including some relatively well-known media and celebrities who actually appeared to comment on ternary technology?

Who were they? Even the Science and Technology Committee had called for experts from multiple departments for a comprehensive analysis before daring to state a few conclusions, yet these people could make long-winded comments and criticisms at will?

Their aim was clearly the semiconductor summit of the previous month, obviously meant to make people think that researching ternary technology was a waste of manpower and resources, and to disrupt the research process.

New Yuan certainly wasn’t spared either, claiming they were overreaching and messing around without understanding chip technology.

Lin Ju naturally didn’t take it to heart. The more they fussed, the more it proved that the technology put forward could pose a threat, and that he should double down on his efforts.

The question was, would the Science and Technology Committee be able to withstand the pressure?

...

On August 20, Intel Executive Pat Gelsinger and Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf visited China.

Zhang Siren, the director of the Science and Technology Committee, personally received them.

The visits of the two heavyweights from the semiconductor industry were preceded only by a simple notice, and they acted swiftly, arriving on the same flight and heading straight to the Asian headquarters before coming to the Capital.

The two brought what they considered two pieces of good news to Zhang Siren:

First, if necessary, Intel can sell its high-end Xeon CPU series that involves sensitive sequences for the construction of the next-generation supercomputers;

Second, ARM and X86 architectures can be licensed in a limited capacity for chips used in servers and professional workstations.

Although it’s not yet the era where chip embargoes make mobile phones hard to purchase, the two conditions offered by the companies are indeed very tempting, especially since Intel is actually willing to squeeze out a bit of its X86 architecture, albeit limited to professional workstations and servers, which is enough to surprise many.

It should be noted that, apart from avoiding splits by licensing to SupeRmicro and Via Technologies (which has cooled off), Intel firmly holds on to the X86 architecture, not letting anyone else touch it.

Of course, they also have their demands:

To stop the development of ternary chips or to open up 1,400 foundational ternary patents.

To such demands, Zhang Siren politely invited them to climb The Great Wall and Taishan to appreciate the natural beauty of mountains and rivers.

What a joke, as if they could get rid of beggars with such trifles. Now the entire nation’s research institutes and colleges are mobilizing; they can’t just abandon these efforts, can they?

Now, the entire domestic semiconductor industry is nearly going crazy, with New Yuan tacitly making some performance parameters of the X32115 chip and XW151 system publicly available to the internal market.

When the industry realized that the X32115, utilizing 28nm, 45nm, and 55nm processes, could actually match the mainstream 14nm Xeons, you can imagine the excitement they felt, preparing themselves to roll up their sleeves and compete with the foreign giants.

Even though the majority of patents are in the hands of Yellow River Semiconductor and New Yuan, as domestic companies, they can at most charge money but are unlikely to choke supply completely; thus, there is no concern about sanctions.

Therefore, Director Zhang remained extremely calm, knowing that within about a year, waves of domestic ternary chips would flood the market. He believed they could wait that long.

Pat and Steve were not so calm. The less concerned Zhang Siren appeared, the more it indicated the strength of their ternary technology.

But they couldn’t immediately make more decisions, so they simply decided to stay in the Capital and actively connect with domestic contacts.

And regarding the emerging voices of skepticism within the country, the Science and Technology Committee was not idle either.

On August 22, twelve government bodies in the Capital announced a comprehensive upgrade of office computers, unifying the purchase of Great Wall Computer’s Great Wall G1X, high-performance professional workstation’s sub-system laptops.

Then the front-page article headline became: "Domestic ’Core’, Domestic Travel."

Great Wall Computer and the units hosted a grand and open delivery ceremony in Beijing, inviting various media to enter, including manufacturers of consumer electronics products that have penetrated the domestic market.

At the event, the person in charge of Great Wall Computer held up the slightly bulky G1X laptop and loudly read the specifications displayed on the backdrop:

"The Great Wall G1X belongs to the high-performance office laptop category, equipped with a Y1601 ’Qiongqi’ processor from Yellow River Semiconductor, offering both graphic computing and native AI support;

It comes with 9GB ternary dynamic random-access memory produced by Huahong Semiconductor;

The storage is also a 243GB solid-state drive from Huahong Semiconductor;

It runs on the XOS3.2 operating system from New Yuan Aeronautics;

It features a 72Wh large-capacity lithium-ion battery, complemented by a 1080p high-definition screen measuring 15.6 inches, with the whole unit weighing (excluding adapter) 2.3kg, and the adapter power at 230w."

Of course, in reality, the Y1601 chip is just the X32115 picked from the SinoCore production line, which is essentially repurposed automotive electronic components hastily assembled into some computers, mainly to prove that domestic ternary technology has already become practical.

The OS is also provided by Xinyuan; the XOS system currently supports a full suite of office software and audio-video playback, fully capable of meeting the needs of government departments.

The office software was a direct purchase of WPS license from Kingsoft, crudely translated due to its large size and wastefulness, but the X32115 still easily supports its smooth operation, requiring no users to adapt again.