Los Angeles.

The International Conference on Integrated Circuit Design and Technology was held as scheduled.

As the top conference in the field of IC design under IEEE, this is not only an academic conference for industry scholars, but also a stage for major chip manufacturers to show off their skills.

In an industry like this, where it comes to specific application areas, the boundaries between academia and industry are not very clear.

It is not uncommon for many scholars to be temporary engineers in enterprises, senior engineers in many enterprises are reviewers of journals, and even some celebrities are also named editors in a journal under the IEEE while serving as technical directors.

Professor Michael Mayberry standing on the stage is a typical example of this.

In addition to his role as President of Intel Semiconductor Lab, he also holds the position of Intel's Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

At this moment, standing on the stage, he is showing Intel's latest consumer-grade processor chips, as well as a series of technologies such as next-generation core graphics cards to all the scholars, engineers, and business representatives present.

Among the many dazzling achievements, the most eye-catching is undoubtedly its announcement of a new microarchitecture based on the 7nm process technology "Yinguang".

Almost as soon as this content was presented on the PPT, the listed parameters and concept drawings immediately became the focus of attention!

According to Intel's description, this set of "silver light" architecture, which will be launched this year, that is, in the second half of 2022, will improve the performance of the chip by another level on the basis of the "Sunny-Cove" architecture launched by Intel in 19! The new chips that match it will also be very different from the past in terms of integration and process.

Standing on the stage, Michael Mayberry emphasized in an excited and affirmative tone that this is a leap forward in technological innovation, and Intel will redefine the future of chip technology...... Although everyone bragged like this every time, Mayberry's speech did make many people's faces show surprise, even surprise.

As we all know, the 7nm process is almost close to the process limit of major manufacturers, although it is not impossible to achieve 5nm, but it is not so cost-effective in terms of cost.

At 5nm, we are faced with bottlenecks at the theoretical level, including the limitations of the material itself and the increasingly non-negligible quantum mechanical effects, and it is already difficult to work the chip manufacturing process to improve the performance of the chip.

It is precisely for this reason that, in addition to finding alternative materials, major chip manufacturers are now starting to work hard outside the process to squeeze the potential of silicon-based chips as much as possible.

And Intel's "Sunny-Cove" architecture, which was released in the second half of 19 and caused a lot of discussion in the industry, is undoubtedly one of them.

The "Sunny-Cove" architecture based on the 10nm process technology directly improves the performance of Intel's Core and Xeon series chips by 66%!

No one is surprised that Intel can achieve the process of 7nm, but it can make such a major breakthrough in the "Sunny-Cove" architecture, which is tantamount to the level of "black technology" in the eyes of many people in the industry.

Obviously, this academic conference has completely become a show-off conference for Intel.

Sitting in the audience, Derek Wakoff, the chief engineer of Qualcomm, crossed Erlang's legs, watching the CTO of the friends on the stage show off his skills wildly, and couldn't help but have a look of envy on his face.

"Intel's Black Technology...... The last time I heard Mayberry say that they were preparing a big news story to overturn the traditional architectural design, I thought they were bragging, but I didn't expect them to actually come up with it. ”

Sitting next to him, Qualcomm Vice President Kochi, who was also sent to this academic conference, looked at the person on the stage and narrowed his eyes with envy.

“…… Tomorrow, Intel's stock is going to fly into the sky. ”

Although the relationship between Qualcomm and Intel is not so good, if he can make money, he doesn't mind increasing his holdings in advance in his personal name.

At the same time, Mayberry on the stage was already dry, and took a sip of water from the cup handed by the staff halfway.

For half an hour, he spent 20 minutes telling Intel's partners, or potential partners, about — or "showing off" the new architecture named Silver Light and the chips that came with it.

Even though it was full of tedious boasting and pompous rhetoric, there was still no one in the room.

Everyone was well aware of the nature of this Mr. Mayberry.

He may brag, but he certainly won't speak.

Thirty minutes had finally passed, and with a round of applause, Michael Mayberry strode off the podium.

This academic event of the chip industry continues, but it is clear that the focus of the audience has been completely taken away by Intel.

returned to Mayberry, who was sitting in the audience, listening to the faint sound of discussion and exclamation next to him, and couldn't help but write a little pride on his face.

He enjoyed it.

That's why I came to make this report myself.

Otherwise, it is not impossible for this kind of report to be thrown to the people below to do.

The speakers on the stage have changed several rounds, whether it is Qualcomm or Samsung or Apple, the results of this conference are bleak in front of their "silver light".

In particular, the technician from Qualcomm who came to the stage had a deflated expression when he talked about Qualcomm's update to the ARM-V9 instruction set, which made him even more refreshed.

As the speaker from Qualcomm walked off the stage, a Chinese man wearing glasses walked onto the stage.

The thin and tall appearance, coupled with a decent but not very aura suit, makes people look less like a professor or a high-ranking engineer, but more like an intern, a student, an assistant or something like that.

Mayberry, who was about to read the jokes of his friends next to each other, couldn't help but have a trace of contempt in his eyes when he saw the speaker who came to the stage.

Neither the Warwick Hysilicon logo nor the stiff expression on the reporter's face gave him the slightest impression that the next speech was worth his time.

Besides, what can an intern talk about when he or she comes to a place like this to give a presentation?

It's just that I don't want to come up and lose this person myself.

At this moment, Robert Swan, the CEO of Intel, who was sitting next to him and had not spoken, suddenly spoke

"I heard that they have recently begun to be dissatisfied with IC design, and are cooperating with Huaguo's policies to carry out industrial upgrading."

Naturally, they refer to the speakers from Warwick HiSilicon on the stage.

The contempt in Mayberry's eyes didn't change, and his eyebrows lifted slightly.

"Oh? Just those 'high-tech' enterprises of the Chinese people? ”

Robert Swan said in a deep voice: "It's better not to underestimate them too much, after all, we have only touched the door of something like nuclear fusion, and they have already built the cross-regional power grid to the door of our factory in Southeast Asia." ”

Can nuclear fusion and chips be a thing of the moment?

Mayberry pursed his lips disapprovingly, apparently not taking Swan's words to heart.

At this moment, the reporter who was standing on the stage, who was suspected to be an intern, finally spoke.

Perhaps because it was the first time he appeared on such an occasion, his expression was a little restrained, and he took several deep breaths to calm down, and then made a simple opening statement at a steady pace.

Several bigwigs sitting in the front row invariably cast kind and encouraging glances at the young man, including Robert Swann and Mayberry.

They tend to be sympathetic and tolerant of harmless opponents, and even if they can't hide the contempt behind their eyes, at least on the surface he is a humble scholar.

Adult demeanor is like that.

No matter how annoying the noisy bear child is, he will generally hide his boredom in his heart and look at it with loving eyes instead.

"This project is our ...... The cooperation project between Warwick HiSilicon and Jinling Institute for Advanced Study has lasted almost two years. It was supposed to be reported by their research team, but they gave it to us due to concerns about the location of the report and other aspects. ”

The voice that was not very confident made many people in the audience lack interest in listening.

Although the name of the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study attracted the attention of many people, almost everyone had the same disapproval on their faces when they thought that it was only an intern who was sent to report on the stage.

It seems that this has also been noticed.

Seeing that several bigwigs in the front row had already paid attention to other places, and even began to whisper and laugh, the reporter standing on the stage suddenly became a little anxious, so he sped up his speech and went directly to the point.

"I will elaborate on the specific details in the PPT."

"This project is about the carbon-based chips we are working on......"

We're only halfway through that.

Suddenly, the speaker standing on the stage was surprised to find that the venue, which had been a little restless before, had begun to be as silent as death at some point.

Moreover, the silence is a little scary......