After such a long period of hard work, we can finally use the z10 CPU core architecture.

At present, Yuzhen Semiconductor has completely shifted its energy to chip design for tablets and notebook computers.

Zhou Zhen’s requirements for this are not very high, as long as it can reach the level of current mainstream laptops and tablets.

As for the requirement to make breakthroughs in performance, it seems to be a relatively difficult task at present.

You must know that the stronger the current chip performance, the greater the power consumption and heat generation, especially this time Yuzhen Semiconductor is designing a chip with a 28nm process technology.

Although tablets and laptops are larger than current mobile phones in terms of space volume, compared with consoles and other devices, their space simply cannot accommodate much heat dissipation.

This means that Yuzhen Semiconductor can improve the performance of the entire chip by exchanging area for performance.

But on the other hand, while ensuring performance, it is also necessary to ensure that the heat generation level of the entire chip reaches a usable level.

The first draft of the first version of Yu Zhen Semiconductor was directly passed by Zhou Zhen.

32 z10 cores, 16 threads, maximum frequency reaches 3.0ghz.

This time the CPU core uses the z10 core, which is completely self-developed by the company. It has very strong performance and very strong compatibility, and is even compatible with the x86 instruction set.

The GPU uses 128 h12 cores, with the highest frequency reaching 980mhz.

Although the performance of this design cannot reach the level of this year's mainstream i9 and i7, it can easily be compared with i5-level processors, and is even better than i5 processors.

This solution is indeed good, but power consumption is also a big problem.

At the same time, if the 28-nanometer manufacturing process and the corresponding core stacking are used, the area of ​​the entire processor chip will be three times the size of the current mainstream processor, and it will be 64 times the size of the mobile phone processor chip.

According to corresponding estimates, the area occupied by this processor chip is at least about 8.1 inches.

If it is used on a tablet and coupled with corresponding heat dissipation materials and other sensor applications, the area of ​​​​the motherboard will probably occupy about 2/3 of the entire tablet.

Such a chip not only occupies the space in the entire device, but also makes it difficult to accumulate heat in a limited space to ensure the performance of the chip.

In order to ensure that your own equipment has sufficient performance, it also has better performance in terms of heat dissipation and volume.

Zhou Zhen decided to adopt a mobile phone chip design solution. The three-dimensional stacking of multiple clusters can control the size of the corresponding processor chip.

In addition, the architecture of such a chip is also convenient. When it comes to chip skills, it is necessary to ensure that the chip can achieve different performance experiences according to different environments.

Performance, scheduling, power consumption, heat generation, area!

This is currently what Zhou Zhen and Yu Zhen Semiconductor Company behind him are most concerned about.

If Zhou Zhen can use a chip foundry process of 5 nanometers or more, or even 7 nanometers, Zhou Zhen will put performance first.

However, as the current processes that Yu Zhen Semiconductor can use are limited, Zhou Zhen and the team behind him need to consider more issues.

Even so, Zhou Zhen led his team to redesign a 28nm process processor chip that balances performance and experience.

The CPU adopts a pyramid-style three-dimensional stacking design.

The bottom layer uses 8 1.8ghz z10 cores.

Going up is the use of six 2.2ghz z10 cores.

At the next level, it only uses four 2.6ghz z10 cores.

At the top level, it uses two 3.0ghz z10 cores.

According to corresponding estimates, the performance of a 20-core CPU has been reduced by almost 68% compared to the performance of the last designed processor chip.

This also makes the overall performance of this processor's CPU basically close to this year's i3-level processor.

Performance is so-so, but it works!

Of course, this can further reduce the power consumption of the entire processor chip, and is expected to directly reduce power consumption by 75%.

Just a processor chip with a very good experience.

At the same time, the overall volume and area have also been reduced to about 4 inches.

In this way, even if it is added to the motherboard, the area of ​​this motherboard plus heat dissipation will not exceed the area of ​​a 6.5-inch mobile phone at most.

The original performance has been completely suppressed, reducing the area occupied by the processor chip and also reducing power consumption and heat generation, making this chip more suitable for use on tablets and computers.

Of course, this processor chip is mainly used in tablets and computers.

And Zhou Zhen hopes to turn the next tablet or laptop computer project designed and produced into an electronic product that can be used for light to moderate use and can be used in office work.

Drawing, design, video editing and other functions are all necessary functions for tablets and laptops in the future.

These corresponding functions still have certain requirements for the CPU, and the CPU of the currently designed processor chip can basically meet the minimum requirements.

While the lowest CPU is guaranteed, the GPU also plays an important role in graphics rendering and can accelerate the use of functions.

For this reason, the GPU part of this chip uses a 16 times 8 108-core h12 GPU architecture.

The graphics processing level of this corresponding GPU is similar to that of mainstream mid-range graphics cards currently on the market.

This method can truly make up for the lack of CPU performance.

All in all, this processor chip specially designed for tablets and laptops can basically meet the needs of mainstream users, and can even become a production tool based on the performance of the corresponding GPU.

As for games such as 3A masterpieces, you may be able to use this chip to make corresponding attempts, but the overall experience is definitely not comparable to a professional-level gaming computer or console.

The main core of the chip design has basically been completely determined, and the next step is for the company's engineers to start completing the corresponding design.

Compared with mobile phone processor chips, the difficulty of designing this type of processor chip is still easier.

After all, there are many modules integrated into the mobile phone processor chip, and how to design these modules on a chip the size of a fingernail also requires the planning and design of the company team.

The main difficulty in the design of the latest processor chips designed for computers and tablets is the stacking of CPU and GPU. As long as this kind of problem is almost solved, the subsequent problems will be much easier.

After discussions with the company's internal employees, the company finally named this processor chip "Nandou c1".

c is naturally taken from “made in c…”

And Nandou is taken from the traditional culture of China.

"The Lord of the North Dipper dies, the Lord of the South Dipper lives!"

The current global technological environment is not very favorable for the current Yuzhen Semiconductor.

Sometimes it even feels like a so-called dead end.

However, with the gradual rise of domestic technology companies, Zhou Zhen also saw hope for the future development of China's technology.

Just like a southern dipper star.

Even though you are in jail, you can still be reborn!

It’s mid-July, and every manufacturer is gathering strength to prepare for product releases in the second half of this year.

Yu Dazui, the head of Juchang's consumer business, also quietly found Zhou Zhen.

Obviously, Juchang, which has suffered a huge blow, has not been doing well recently.

Some clues can be seen from the launch and release of the product. After the release of Honor x10, it was often out of stock. Honor x10 even took the opportunity to launch the corresponding max version of Dimensity 800.

As for Juchang's most important nova7 series, the processor chip used has been downgraded compared to the previous generation nova6.

Directly changed from Kirin 990 chip to Kirin 985 chip.

Although the overall quality of the Kirin 985 chip is not bad and it is an integrated Kirin 5g chip, the overall performance is not on the same level as the Kirin 990.

At the same time, there are rumors that the manufacturer is considering using Dimensity 800 and Kirin 820e versions on nova7se.

Juchang, which was extremely prosperous in the first half of this year, has been having a hard time since June.

This time, Yu Dazui came to Yuzhen Semiconductor specifically to obtain the supply of processor chips produced by Yuzhen Semiconductor.

Nowadays, Juchang and Yuzhen Semiconductor are basically brothers in distress.

Of course, Juchang also found out that Yuzhen Semiconductor had stockpiled a wave of chips before it was hit. Although the specific number is not known, it will definitely not be less than tens of millions.

The current annual shipment volume of FlexPai mobile phones is only about 500 to 6 million units. Yuzhen Semiconductor should be able to provide some chips to slow down the production.

Zhou Zhen didn't feel any strange about Ju Chang's request.

Even when he placed a large order with TSMC, Zhou Zhen already had this idea.

After all, it was too late for FlexPai to be established, and it was too late to join the competition in the entire domestic mobile phone market. It is also relatively difficult to truly gain more market share.

Maybe SoftPai phones will be able to capture some of the high-end market share freed up by Ju Factory in the future, but Zhou Zhen believes that the vast majority of the share will probably be the most delicious fruit.

Achieving tens of millions of shipments a year is already what Zhou Zhen estimates the company will achieve in the next two to three years of development.

As for the original decision to order so many processor chips, there was naturally a plan to sell them to other manufacturers.

"There is not much inventory of Tianxuan 920 at present, but we have about five million batches of Tianxuan 910 processor chips here!"

Zhou Zhen did not intend to directly bring out Tianxuan 920, but instead brought out Tianxuan 910, which has a relatively low positioning.

After nearly four months of production, there are currently almost 12 million in inventory.

As for the Tianxuan 1000 processor chip, which uses a new 8-nanometer manufacturing process with a new architecture, it has been sent to TSMC for tape-out trial production a few days ago.

Although the yield rate obtained is only 50%, the next orders for processor chips mainly produced by Yuzhen Semiconductor at TSMC are estimated to be Tianxuan 1000.
Chapter completed!