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The war has begun!

On the day before the opening of the Zheru Spring Developers Conference, the Wall Street Journal reported on the topic of the fierce competition in the computer industry at this stage.

Authoritative media certainly won’t gossip and gossip. The Wall Street Journal quoted reliable information from anonymous sources and pointed directly to the P Alliance, or more accurately, the Fangyuan Personal Computer Alliance. For the opportunity to gather together, a meeting aimed at encircling n was held in Cupertino.

What's more, the "Wall Street Journal" confidently further broke the news that the current two mainstream pu models of the Fangyuan personal computer, the holder-p_166mhz and the Intel pentium-mm_133mhz, will usher in a diving price, which will drive the price of the Fangyuan personal computer. reduce.

Specifically, in the second half of this year, a personal computer with a pu operating frequency of more than 100mhz, a memory of 16mb, and a hard disk of 500mb or 1gb can be purchased for $1,000.

For this reason, the Wall Street Journal visited the computer sales outlets of various brands at the fastest speed, and confirmed the fact that users who buy products now have received a price difference coupon that is valid until the end of this year to ensure No worries for the future If the product you purchased, or a product with the same specifications, has a price cut during the year, you can get corresponding compensation based on this, or switch to a discount for buying other products.

There is no doubt that p has declared war on n.

You know, before, the two sides just quarreled, spit, and debated which is better or worse; now, the bayonet is going to be popular.

The Wall Street Journal also conducted a preliminary survey of users who are interested in buying computers. The result is that if you can buy a personal computer with good performance for $1,000, then you will not consider the $800 n. After all, the latter, which does not have a hard disk and is only equivalent to a network terminal, cannot be expected to perform in entertainment such as playing games and watching movies. It is better to spend a few hundred dollars more to buy the full-featured former.

In the conclusion, the "Wall Street Journal" analyzed that the price increase of Fangyuan PC due to the previous Strait crisis has basically disappeared. Coupled with the industry's conscious and active price reduction, the two aspects are added together and will be stimulated in the second half of this year It's time to usher in a sales wave; the fledgling n faces a very severe situation.

As the saying goes, the fire at the gate of the city has affected Chiyu. It’s not so bad. The unlucky Apple computer, first of all, fell into the quagmire of collapse without tears.

Larry Ellison, the creator of n, who was pointed at by Spears, fiercely accused that this is unfair competition under an absolute monopoly!

...

Under the two-sided attack of the n Alliance Conference and the Java Alliance Conference, the Zheru Spring Developer Conference opened grandly.

In his speech, Tang Huan responded to the current market fighting trend, "Our competitive environment is as free as ever; otherwise, how did n jump out?"

"With the popularization of 0.35 micron semiconductor technology, technological progress has led to chip prices, it is very natural for personal computers to follow closely, this is free competition!"

"Look at the user's warm welcome response, you can know how exciting this is and the general trend!"

"I want to emphasize one more point. All of this is a natural result of technological advancement and a fair promotion."

"And this Spring Developers Conference of Philosophy and Confucianism will continue to uphold the spirit of persevering in technology and present cutting-edge, latest research results of extraordinary significance to everyone."

"I think the reason why you choose to participate in the Zheru Spring Developer Conference is also because of this."

"Again, I am proud to tell everyone that you will definitely be worthy of your trip!"

"For example, as far as my personal schedule is concerned, I will preside over two very important topics, namely, copper interconnection, a manufacturing technology that can further increase the operating frequency of microprocessors, and a new standard for wireless LAN ii."

...

To combat competitors, tactics are necessary, but not all, otherwise, it will be difficult to convince the public. In the IT field, technological leadership is an uncontroversial magic weapon to win.

Naturally, the technical content of this Spring Developer Conference of Philosophers is not comparable to that of the n Alliance Conference and the Java Alliance Conference.

In the case of copper interconnection, this idea has existed for a long time, but due to the high difficulty of implementation, the industry is generally not optimistic about its prospects. As a result, Tang it now understands it.

The so-called copper interconnection, to use a simple description, is that in a very large-scale integrated circuit like a microprocessor, the "wire" that connects countless transistors was originally aluminum, but now it is replaced by copper.

Moore's Law "The number of integrated circuits on an integrated circuit chip doubles every 18 months", which can be called the guideline of the semiconductor industry roadmap. In the past 30 years, it has also been full of success.

In this process of continuous advancement, the method for the semiconductor industry to keep up with the pace of development is simple and rude, that is, blindly seeking to reduce the volume of components on integrated circuits to increase the number of transistors that can be accommodated, thereby increasing the speed of chips.

To put it bluntly, this method is that the "knife" used to carve "flowers" on the "radish" is becoming more and more sophisticated, the knife is becoming more and more sophisticated, and the carvings are becoming more and more detailed.

Today, the knife used to engrave radishes in the semiconductor process is popularizing 0.35 microns; Zheru is about to invest 0.25 microns and layout 0.18 microns.

Microprocessors, including holder of Zheru, pentium of Intel, poer of ibm, spar of Sun Microsystems, alpha of de, mips of mips technology, etc., are all actively adopting the 0.35 micron process to smoothly pass the operation. The frequency of 100mhz is a very iconic threshold.

However, this most direct method has limits. The least predictable is that when the process reaches a stage that is more precise than 0.18 microns, the difficulty will be extremely magnified.

Under this circumstance, the upgrade of the semiconductor industry is not only focusing on the "carving knife" of the external element of the process, but also beginning to make a fuss about the internal element of the "radish".

In the past, the methods in this area were also very direct and rude, that is, mainly to increase the wafer size. Since the early 1990s, under the leadership of philosophers, the semiconductor industry has introduced 200mm, or 8-inch wafer manufacturing technology.

Obviously, as the size of the wafer diameter increases, the number of transistors that can be accommodated also greatly increases, but the bottleneck encountered in the process of making "radish thicker" variety improvement is more difficult to break.

Therefore, the semiconductor industry must change the "extensive" development model and spend time on "exquisite" instead.

The introduction of copper interconnection technology is equivalent to starting locally, improving the taste of radishes and increasing the endurance of carving knives.

To explain in professional terms, because the resistivity of copper is about 1.7 nanoohm·m, the resistivity of aluminum is about 2.8 nanoohm·m, and the conductivity of copper is much higher than that of aluminum, so copper interconnects are used in VLSI , Can reduce the thickness of the interconnection layer, reduce the distributed capacitance between the interconnection layers, so that it is possible for the microprocessor to further increase the operating frequency.

At the same time, as the density of integrated circuits further increases, the phenomenon of electron migration cannot be ignored. In this regard, copper also has a strong advantage over aluminum. Because of the fact that the melting point of copper is about 1084 degrees Celsius, and that of aluminum is about 660 degrees Celsius, copper is relatively less prone to electron migration.

To quote a more specific data, the conductivity of copper is about 40% higher than that of aluminum, which increases the operating frequency of the microprocessor by about 15%. At the same time, copper is more durable than aluminum, and it also allows integrated circuits to not only be made. Smaller, it can also increase the reliability by about 100 times.

Of course, everything can't be perfect. Compared with the traditional aluminum interconnection, although the copper interconnection has the advantages of low resistivity, better resistance to electron migration, etc., it is also accompanied by new problems.

For example, groove defects, bubble defects, missing metal, etc.

It is precisely such a variety of technical difficulties that most people in the industry believe that although the traditional aluminum interconnection in the chip has obvious limitations, it is impossible to replace the copper interconnection.

Others worry that under the high investment, there will be no return, but Tang Huan will not doubt that this "from 0 to 1" qualitative change process copper interconnection is the only way and the road to success, so he once again went to the front.

Relying on innovation in the field of new materials, copper interconnection technology is coming as promised!

Through the improvement of the new technology, the copper interconnection layer in the integrated circuit can accommodate six levels.

The existing production conditions of the semiconductor factory, including the manufacturing process, remain unchanged, and the introduction of copper interconnect technology is sufficient to allow the current operating frequency of the highest-end microprocessor to step up to 300mhz from the 200mhz range.

And this is also a sledgehammer. The copper interconnect technology must at least be matched with a more advanced process than the 0.18 micron process, so that it will not be overkill.

Tang it impassionedly said: "Zheru has successfully developed the application of magnetoresistance and giant magnetoresistance, bringing the 1gb capacity to the 3.5-inch ordinary personal computer hard drive, allowing ordinary users to have more relaxed and more freedom~ Local storage space; copper interconnection technology will surely allow microprocessors to operate at a frequency of 1 GHz when the new millennium arrives."

"Everyone, the road ahead for p is still very broad. What we have to do is to continuously enhance it, and its cost will naturally continue to decline with technological progress."

"I will make another affirmative judgment here at least for the next ten years. Not only will p not die, but will grow stronger, and those products that go against the trend will only become worthless e-waste!"

Those n camp "spies" who had to pinch their noses to inquire about intelligence, after hearing the last words of the richest man, all their expressions changed and their feelings of anxiety were hard to suppress.

...

The traditional mainstream media has long been staring at Zheru's every move at the Spring Developer Conference. That night, CNN specially reported Zheru's copper interconnection technology.

The industry experts among the guests commented: "Copper interconnect technology can enable Zheru's new products, including holder microprocessors, to be three years ahead of its competitors. In the face of Zheru, through research in the field of copper interconnection, he can create It will take ten years for this technology platform for other companies in the semiconductor industry to keep up with this pace of development."

The host then asked: "What you just said was the impact of copper interconnection technology on the industry, what about us ordinary users?"

Industry experts talked eloquently: "The use of copper interconnect technology in the manufacture of semiconductor chips means that laptop computers require less battery power, and Internet servers can provide faster page download speeds. In short, the computers, Cameras, phones, and other electronic devices can all be smaller, faster, and cheaper."

The host turned the topic to the very gossip between n and p. "Someone once joked. When Tang spared no effort to promote the development of the Internet, he certainly did not expect that Larry Ellison used the Internet wave to launch n , I was ambushed for this."

"Zheru solemnly introduced the research and development results of copper interconnect at this time. Does it imply that Tang has been angered, so through this move, he demonstrated to the n camp, and at the same time gave p a shot to prove it? The prospects for China are still very bright."

Industry experts laughed ~lightnovelpub.net~ I think if you don't consider face issues, Tang's heart should be very calm. "

"According to market data, at this stage, the number of personal computers in the United States is conservatively estimated to exceed 100 million units. This is also a major basis for the explosive growth of the Internet today."

"In contrast, although Larry Ellison has repeatedly claimed that in his plan, the first step is to sell 1 million units, and the industrial park on the treasure island of Asia already has such a Capacity."

"But including the other two major n manufacturers, ibm and Sun Microsystems, the pace of n advancement is not as brisk as expected."

"Obviously, n is not so easy to replicate. In the early 1980s, the new computer platform was just launched with a miracle."

"After all, the personal computer platform, which has been developed for more than ten years, has accumulated a lot of work results. It is not a simple word that can be abandoned."

"The introduction of copper interconnection technology should be Tang's high level of help to consolidate P's position. Didn't he mention that he will host a wireless LAN theme called'ii'? This should be a shout of breadth. "