Rebirth of the Tech Madman

Chapter 51 Give Intel 1 more scissors

Tang Huan’s three major personal computer software: spreadsheets, word processing, and database, are able to perform various practical functions like a duck in the water on Apple’s second-generation machine, mainly due to the openness left by Woz at the beginning of the design. -Style expansion slot.

Through this interface, an enhanced card that integrates a microprocessor, a memory and a special circuit can significantly improve the computer’s data processing efficiency and maximize the power of the combination of software and hardware.

The solution of this model is prosperous. For example, in the early 1990s, if users wanted to watch videos smoothly on personal computers, they had to configure special acceleration and decompression card hardware in addition to sound cards, graphics cards and other devices. Matching player software.

In addition, this model can effectively combat piracy.

More importantly, this model caters to people’s blind worship of tangible hardware. After all, in the habitual thinking of many people, the invisible software on the disk is not valuable and unreliable. Only the physical hardware installed in the main computer box is worth buying.

In 1984, in the original time and space, Apple’s annual sales reached 1.5 billion US dollars, while Microsoft’s in the same period was 100 million US dollars. This fact explains to some extent the prevalence of such phenomena.

Regardless of how you consider it, Tang Huan’s products need this model to stay ahead of competitors in the current era.

But then there is a problem that is more troublesome, that is, the read-only memory of the program code is placed, and the necessary update of its content is time-consuming and laborious.

In the history of the development of semiconductor read-only memory, the programmable read-only memory PROM was widely used in the initial stage, which has a determinant wire inside, which can be burned by current according to the needs of the user, so as to write the required data.

The wire cannot be recovered once it is burned, which means that the data cannot be changed, which is regarded as a read-only memory in the true sense.

The next thing that appears is the erasable programmable read-only memory EPROM, which uses high voltage to write data, and can be irradiated with ultraviolet rays through a reserved quartz glass transparent window for a period of time, thereby clearing the original data for repeated use.

EPROM is a read-only memory that is widely used today. The trouble is that the process of clearing the memory by ultraviolet radiation often takes half an hour to complete, and the efficiency is really not flattering. When Kildare wrote CP/M, it suffered.

According to Tang Huan’s memory, the successor of EPROM, the electronic erasable programmable read-only memory EEPROM technology has appeared in Intel in 1978.

The principle of EEPROM is similar to EPROM, but the way of erasing and writing is done using a high electric field, so it is much more convenient and faster than using ultraviolet radiation through a transparent window.

The application of new technology products must mean not low cost, but Tang Huan believes that if Intel’s EEPROM is practical, it is worthwhile to list it as a purchase target.

This is the main reason why he wants to make time to visit Intel before going to Treasure Island for the second time.

…

Intel is now considered to be rich and handsome. The document Tang Huan is looking at shows that just last year, when Intel was founded for its 10th anniversary, its annual sales reached 400.6 million U.S. dollars, the profit was 44.3 million U.S. dollars, and the number of employees. For 10,900, it entered the global Fortune 500 for the first time.

Intel has become synonymous with memory. Yes, don’t look at it. It developed CPU4004, 8008, 8080, and released 16-bit CPU8086 last year, but its main business is DRAM, SRAM and ROM. In the 1970s, Intel was the leader in these three products on the market.

Speaking of Intel’s origins, it can be said that the roots are just as red. Its founder is a master of integrated circuit technology, so that it only took a few pages of simple plans to win one of the four Silicon Valley venture capital giants in 5 minutes. Favored by Arthur Locke, he raised $2.5 million in venture capital.

In 1955, William Shockley, the “father of transistors”, left Bell Labs and came to Silicon Valley, where he founded the Shockley Semiconductor Lab and attracted many talented young scientists to join.

But soon, Shockley’s management methods and bizarre behavior caused dissatisfaction among employees. Among them, Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, Julias Blank, Eugene Claire, Kim Helney, Jay Last, Sheldon, whom Shockley called the “Eight Rebellions” Roberts and Victor Grinick resigned jointly and co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in October 1957.

Due to the rapid development of Fairchild Semiconductor, its internal organization and management and product issues are increasingly out of balance.

In July 1968, two of Fairchild’s co-founders, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, resigned and founded Intel in the same year. After Jerry Sanders left Fairchild Semiconductor, Founded AMD.

The relationship between the two companies was close at one time, but since the mid-1980s, they have turned against each other and staged a good show in the processor market.

After the car arrived at Intel’s headquarters in Santa Clara, Silicon Valley, Tang Huan put down Intel’s related information and walked into Intel’s office with Simeone, and inadvertently saw Intel’s current slogan, “IntelDelivers”.

Tang Huan suddenly wanted to laugh, “intelinside” has been cut out by himself with a clip. I don’t know what slogan Intel will use to fool users in the future of the Pentium CPU era.

There is no private office in Intel. An open floor uses various partitions to separate the space. Employees work in it, and executives are no exception.

Boss Tang Huanda is now considered to be a decent figure in Silicon Valley, so he effortlessly received a personal interview from Andy Grove, who had just been promoted to president this year.

Grove and Simone are fellow villagers, born in 1936 in a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary.

Because of the complex situation and painful experience brought about by World War II, Grove fled to the United States at the age of 20, and went to his uncle and aunt.

In 1960, Grove almost graduated from the City University of New York with a full distinction. However, he is still the leader among his classmates. When he graduated, the “New York Times” made a special report on his academic success, praising him very much, and predicted that he would be a new star in the future scientific community.

After 　　, Grove entered the University of California, Berkeley for a PhD. As always, he excels in his studies and became a star among PhDs.

In 1963, at the invitation of Moore, Grove joined Fairchild Semiconductor.

In 1968, Grove followed Moore and became Intel’s third employee, and has been working until now.

Tang Huan looked at the Grove in front of him, regardless of his short stature and shameless appearance, but he was full of momentum.

Tang Huan knows that Grove’s work style is extremely strong and he will be named the toughest boss in the future.

It is said that Grove once yelled at a female employee: “If you are a man, I will break your leg.”

Among the current Intel executives, if Noyes and Moore sang red faces, then Grove sang white faces.

After a little greeting, the two parties directly talked about the purpose of this meeting-EEPROM.

Grove led Tang Huan and Simeone to take a look at the product demonstration. UU read www.uukānshu.com and bluntly said: “At present, only Intel has this technology, and the production process is not small, so the product price will not It’s low.”

Tang Huan nodded, “For this situation, I am mentally prepared. You can first produce a batch of samples for me to evaluate the actual application effect.”

Grove nodded and agreed. Although the business is not big, it has great prospects. Intel really can’t ask for the little guinea mouse that a new star company like Zheru takes the initiative to come to do experiments.

Strictly speaking, EEPROM technology belongs to the unintentional.

In 1978, when Intel engineer ePerlegos developed Intel2816, based on EPROM technology, a thin gate oxide layer was used, so that the chip can erase its own bits electrically without ultraviolet light, so the model was developed. It is 2816 16KB EEPROM.

As far as Tang Huan knows, Perlegos later left Intel with some colleagues and founded SeeqTechnology to produce EEPROM.

After Seeq’s infighting, Perlegos and a Chinese founded a well-known ATMEL company, Atmel.

It can be seen that Perlegos, the inventor of EEPROM, is not Intel’s loyal minister. He has the opportunity to take this opportunity to enter the semiconductor industry.

“I want to find out about the interface circuit problems with the EEPROM R&D engineers, can I meet them.” Tang Huan, who was a little nine in his heart, asked Grove quietly.