Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 532 When it comes to throwing money around, Zhiyun has never been afraid of anyone.

On TikTok, in the game live streaming category, Feng Ge's live stream is ranked number one. As one of the earliest people to start professional virtual game live streaming, Feng Ge can be considered the first person to reap the benefits of virtual game live streaming.

Of course, his ability to become the number one virtual game live streamer is not only due to his early entry into the industry, but more importantly, it is due to his own abilities, such as his eloquence and ability to make friends.

He has a wide circle of friends in virtual games and knows a little about all sorts of gossip.

When something big happens in a virtual game, especially when some expert players are going to have a so-called competition or a big battle, many people like to call him over as a witness... Of course, many people are actually just using Brother Feng's popularity to satisfy their vanity and want to become famous.

Of course, this is also due to the fact that TikTok gave Feng Hualong a lot of traffic support in the early days... After all, he was one of the first people to become a professional virtual game streamer.

At that time, due to the shortage of virtual equipment, many game streamers did not even have virtual equipment, so how could they stream virtual games? At most, some streamers would sporadically stream a little bit in the virtual experience hall.

But no one else can have their own virtual equipment and broadcast live all day long like Feng Hualong.

Therefore, Feng Hualong benefited from the early traffic.

After this positive cycle was established, Feng Hualong's fan base grew, and now he has more than eight million fans on TikTok.

Even though many virtual game streamers have emerged since then, no one has been able to shake his status in the gaming world for the time being!
Feng Hualong's ability to accumulate eight million followers in just a few months is the most obvious proof of the popularity of virtual games.

There are so many people who are interested in the virtual world and virtual games, but many of them can't actually experience the virtual world or play virtual games; they can only watch live streams to satisfy their cravings.

In Feng Hualong's live stream, the view was still from a third-party perspective, as if a virtual camera was following Feng Hualong's virtual character.

Feng Hualong's virtual character is a fair-skinned, beardless middle-aged man in ancient costume. At this moment, he is flying on a flying sword while chatting with netizens through a virtual camera.

"Let me tell you, tonight's showdown is no simple matter... One of them is Mad Warrior, the vice leader of the Sunflower Dynasty, a real big shot. His combat power is at least in the top 100 in the entire server. His main weapon, the Autumn Water Sword, is at least level eight. Tsk tsk, it's not easy to synthesize the Autumn Water Sword to level eight!"

"Who's stronger, the streamer or the Berserker? Is there even a question? Of course it's the Berserker! My combat power is at most second-rate, not even first-rate. Besides, as everyone knows, I'm busy streaming and running around all day looking for fun. I don't have much time to grind dungeons and level up. My character level and skill level are still a bit lacking!"

"And as for weapons and equipment, needless to say, the Dragon Slayer Blade in my hand has only been synthesized to the fifth level, the gap is too big."

"However, I still want to remind everyone in the live stream that you should be careful when crafting weapons in the Demon Blade. You should act according to your ability. Generally speaking, three levels are enough for synthesis. Synthesis within three levels is 100% successful, but there is a chance of failure if you synthesize beyond four levels. Once it fails, the weapon will still be there, but all the previous synthesis levels will be lost, and you will have to start synthesizing from scratch!"

"Moreover, the higher the level, the greater the chance of failure!"

"If you're aiming high, aiming for level 5 is fine; the success rate is decent. But the success rate for synthesizing anything above level 5 is extremely low. As for 80%... you'd better be prepared to fail hundreds of times!"

"The cost is too high, and the risk is too great!"

Feng Hualong chatted as he walked... but before he even realized it, the viewers in the live stream noticed first: "Brother Feng, be careful, someone's trying to rob us!"

When Feng Hualong realized what was happening, he looked over and saw that several virtual characters were already charging towards him with swords and knives. Upon closer inspection of their clothing, he realized that they were members of the infamous Mengshan Gang.

This group is the Mengshan Gang, a bandit gang in the game. They love to ambush and kill people everywhere. The problem is, not all members of the Mengshan Gang are experts; on the contrary, there are a lot of newbies...

Why would anyone want to become a bandit and rob someone? In this crappy game, killing someone in PvP doesn't drop any equipment, and robbing doesn't bring any benefits. In fact, you'll lose a lot of experience if you get killed instead.

Why else? People just like playing the villain and engaging in PvP... That's just how this game is, there are all kinds of people, it's all about character design.

Since there are villainous players, there will naturally be people who are bored and pretend to be righteous, chasing after these bandit players everywhere.

Feng Hualong frantically tried to fight back, but fortunately his character level was decent, and his weapons and equipment were also good. After a series of maneuvers, he managed to kill two of them. The remaining one, seeing that he couldn't kill him, simply ran away.

"Looks like I'm having a bit of bad luck today. I ran into robbers as soon as I stepped out the door. But it's okay, let's keep going!"

"We're definitely going to broadcast today's epic showdown live. If you're lucky, you might even catch a glimpse of Xiao Yunduo, since this competition started because of her!"

------

While Feng Hualong was live-streaming, many staff members at Moguang Technology in Shanghai were still working overtime.

There's not much time left before the major update is released, but many things are still not finished, and they've been working overtime every day lately.

It's not so much recently, but ever since the game was launched, Magic Light Technology has been working overtime every day!

The game was so popular that the revenue from in-game purchases was enormous, which suddenly made the Magic Blade of Light more important. They kept improving the game mechanics and adding content, trying to extend the game's lifespan and earn more money.

The major update coming in late July is very important for Magic Light Technology Co., Ltd., as it will determine whether their Magic Light Blade can maintain its current momentum.

The people at Magic Light Technology are busy working overtime every day, and many other internet workers who have entered the virtual content industry, especially those working on virtual games, are also working overtime every day.

They are all trying to launch their own virtual games as soon as possible, laying the foundation in the early days of virtual games.

However, virtual games are not easy to make, and the development difficulty is also quite high.

The development of virtual games is quite different from that of traditional PC games or mobile games. It requires the use of various free virtual world development software provided by Zhiyun Group before the virtual game can be run on the Zhiyun Virtual Reality Engine.

This is no easy task; the workload is quite large.

In particular, there is a severe shortage of talent skilled in virtual game development, while the demand is enormous. As a result, many internet companies are forced to both poach talent from various sources and organize their employees to learn and develop simultaneously.

This was the early talent market landscape of the virtual gaming industry... There were too few experienced people, and the learning curve was steep.

Although Zhiyun Group has released a large number of supporting development software, learning and mastering them to create virtual games requires a very high level of learning ability and technical skills from the technical personnel.

It's not something an ordinary person can learn by simply going to a training course and attending for a few months. Only highly skilled individuals with sharp minds and abundant technical expertise can smoothly learn and master these development kits.

The overall learning curve is quite steep!
This has led to a surge in the salaries of developers in the virtual game industry!
After entering July, the annual salary of technical talents with some experience in virtual game development in China is basically three to five hundred thousand yuan.

Senior technical personnel who can build the underlying technical architecture generally earn starting salaries of millions of yuan per year.

Some job search agencies have also released a report on virtual industry talent, pointing out that virtual content development engineers have become the highest-paid profession in China.

The average median annual salary reached 560,000 yuan. Senior technical positions, such as virtual physical simulation master controllers, virtual artists, and virtual interactive master controllers, which are newly emerging high-tech positions, can generally achieve an annual salary of over one million yuan.

Moreover, the virtual content industry faces a significant shortage of technical talent, with major companies investing heavily in recruiting highly skilled professionals.

The emergence of this high-tech industry brings with it a large number of high-tech jobs!

Just like when smartphones first appeared, due to a shortage of talent, major smartphone manufacturers competed with each other for employees, resulting in very high salaries for those working in the smartphone industry.

And the current virtual industry is also showing this trend!
In the field of hardware development, the salaries of various development engineers are also very high.

In the software development field, the salaries of engineers developing various virtual games and virtual content are also quite staggering.

The main reason is that the virtual devices and the accompanying virtual content industry developed by Zhiyun Group are so impressive, showing a very large market prospect.

This has led major high-tech companies to target the virtual industry, rushing to enter it one after another, which in turn has caused the price of talent to soar.

This is both painful and joyful for virtual game-related technical personnel who entered the industry early and have strong learning abilities!

They earn high salaries while working overtime every day!
There are too few talented people and the development tasks are too heavy, so one person has to do the work of three!
Just like the early batch of technicians at Magic Light Technology Co., Ltd., they made a lot of money, but they were also really exhausted.

But this kind of exhaustion is something I willingly endure...

Working people aren't afraid of working overtime or being tired; what they're afraid of is not being paid enough by their boss!

However, Fang Junli, the boss, was ambitious and knew the importance of retaining this group of technical personnel. Therefore, he offered very generous compensation, not only high salaries but also shares to deeply bind their interests together.

The virtual gaming industry is not only booming in China, but also overseas!

In late July, the day after Magic Light Technology officially launched its second major version update in China.

Google's overseas virtual game project department has officially released their first virtual game, "Poseidon's Wrath".

This game was launched in the Americas, Europe, and Asia immediately, aiming to capture the virtual game market in Europe, Japan, and South Korea. On its first day of release, it gained more than 5,000 peak concurrent users.

Just two days later, Microsoft's virtual reality game Halo Fortress was also officially launched, and it performed well, gaining 3,000 concurrent users on the first day.

The simultaneous launch of two virtual games by two major companies in overseas markets demonstrates the fierce competition between Google and Microsoft in the virtual gaming field.

The virtual era has arrived, and it's incredibly lucrative. Google and Microsoft are both investing heavily in the virtual gaming field, trying to seize the market as soon as possible.

Other domestic and overseas game companies, or internet companies with game businesses, also released their works during this period.

However, due to the large investment and high technical difficulty, most of the virtual games released by companies are still small to medium-sized games, and because of the tight development time, many are only half-finished products. And most of these small to medium-sized games, after their release, failed to achieve any significant success.

In today's virtual game market, Yihai Technology's "Kingdom of Kings" has taken the lead in both domestic and international markets due to its first-mover advantage. In late July, its peak concurrent online users officially broke the 60,000 mark.

Although the early stages of Moguang Technology's "Magic Blade" were very rudimentary, it became very popular in China and Asia due to its unique PK system and the sense of martial arts spirit. The number of concurrent online players reached 15,000, and the growth rate was very obvious.

Next up is Yihai Technology's "Doomsday Wars," widely recognized as the pinnacle of virtual game technology, which pushes the limits in physical simulation effects, virtual visual effects, and virtual interaction.

However, despite its many merits, this game is too hardcore and realistic, making it too tiring and difficult to play... It's a typical case of being critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful, with only around 10,000 concurrent online players... Moreover, the vast majority of its users are virtual experience center users with limited spending power, resulting in poor revenue from in-game purchases.

Besides these three domestic games, Google and Microsoft each have a decent virtual reality game.

Aside from the five virtual games mentioned above, there aren't many other virtual games that are actually played... But even though there aren't many players, virtual game users have strong spending power, so even if each game only has a few thousand users, it can still generate a very good revenue.

The virtual gaming industry right now is a blue ocean!
The limited number of virtual game users are extremely eager for high-quality virtual games that meet their requirements.

Meanwhile, the number of virtual game users is growing rapidly... Specifically, the growth rate of virtual game users is almost proportional to the sales volume of Zhiyun Group's virtual devices.

Meanwhile, the production and sales volume of virtual machine devices of Zhuyun Group are continuing to rise!

Especially after Zhiyun Group released the second-generation Yun VW, both the 450,000 and 900,000 RMB versions used the APO4500 graphics card, which has slightly lower technical requirements.

The APO4500 graphics card uses a mature and high-capacity 12nm process, and its packaging technology uses 2.5D packaging technology with sufficient capacity and is also being expanded. All of these factors ensure the production capacity of the APO4500 graphics card.

Another production capacity constraint for VR omnidirectional virtual machines is the fifth-generation Micro OLED screen. This ultra-high precision screen with a pixel density of 5,200 pixels is technologically far ahead of other screen manufacturers and is the only screen in the world that can meet the requirements of virtual machine devices.

However, this type of screen has high technical requirements and is not easy to mass-produce, so its production capacity has always been relatively limited.

However, CSOT's second fifth-generation Micro OLED screen production line has been successfully built and began large-scale mass production and supply in July.

Meanwhile, a third production line is under construction and is expected to be put into production next spring. The planned capacity of this third production line is even larger, reaching 300,000 pieces per month!
Huaxing Technology expects that by next spring, their fifth-generation Micro OLED screen production capacity will increase to 400,000 units per month, which is enough to meet the production needs of 200,000 virtual machines.

Meanwhile, based on the huge demand and prospects of the current virtual machine industry, they are planning a fourth production line... which will be an even larger production line.

The planned production capacity of these screens is not only intended for supplying virtual machine products of Zhiyun Group, but also for preparing production capacity to supply other virtual machine equipment manufacturers... The virtual era has arrived, and other manufacturers are actively following suit. Even if they cannot produce virtual devices with the technical level of Zhiyun virtual machines, there is still some hope of making a simplified version of the virtual device.

Some manufacturers are even planning to simply create an upgraded version of VR, add other external control devices, and that's it—no need for an omnidirectional treadmill at all…

The virtual era has arrived, and CSOT is actively preparing its screen production capacity for the explosive growth of the virtual era.

At the same time, they are also developing a new generation of Micro OLED screens. Their planned sixth-generation Micro OLED screen will have an astonishing pixel density of over 10,000, and its image quality performance will be more than double that of the current fifth generation.

It is expected that using a screen with this pixel density will enable more realistic image quality in virtual scenes.

Their ambitions are still very large!
In the future, as the production capacity of APO series graphics cards further increases, prices will continue to decline, especially for relatively mature technologies like the APO4500 graphics card, which has sufficient production capacity and is available on a large scale at a relatively low price.

Production capacity for high-performance Micro OLED screens has increased.

As production and sales volume increased, the R&D costs and production line costs were gradually reduced, eventually leading to a gradual decrease in costs for many other core components.

The production capacity of virtual machine equipment of Zhiyun Group will gradually increase, and the price will continue to decline.

It would be quite normal for entry-level virtual devices priced at 200,000 or even just over 100,000 to appear in the future, and this world turning point is not far off; it may appear within five years.

All of these factors will lead to a surge in sales and inventory of virtual devices... In the end, it won't just be Zhiyun Group that will be able to earn substantial profits by selling virtual devices and the accompanying virtual world services.

At the same time, other manufacturers can also get a share of the profits.

Many component suppliers for virtual devices are among the beneficiaries. For example, CSOT has made Micro OLED screens one of its main businesses driving revenue and profit growth.

This type of screen has high demand, high unit price, high profit, and few competitors, making it an ideal way to make money.

Then there are a whole bunch of sensor suppliers, motor suppliers, and so on.

In the software sector, companies like Yihai Technology, Magic Light Technology, and other domestic internet companies venturing into the virtual industry, as well as foreign companies like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, have all been able to reap substantial profits.

To broaden the scope further, with Zhiyun Group pioneering the virtual reality device industry chain, companies like Apple, Google, and Sixing are also able to follow suit and make virtual reality devices... They can't make VR omnidirectional treadmills, but they can make relatively inexpensive VR virtual reality devices that can be controlled using joysticks or mice and keyboards. Although the experience is not as good, they can still provide a partial experience.

After all, the high-end products made by Zhiyun Group cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan, which is not something that everyone can afford or use.

There will still be a large market demand for simplified VR virtual reality devices costing tens of thousands of yuan or even less in the future.

In this situation, companies like Fruit, Gugou, and Sixing will still be able to get a share of the pie from the emerging virtual industry chain!

The emergence of the virtual era has brought about entirely new industrial chains and opportunities... This is true not only for Zhiyun Group, but also for many other companies.

Of course, the biggest beneficiary is still the Zhuyun Group!
However, to gain more benefits, the production capacity of virtual machines needs to be increased... In order to expand the production capacity of virtual machines, Zhuyun Group has also gone to great lengths.

At the end of July, Ding Chengjun, Senior Vice President of Zhiyun Group and CEO of Zhiyun Microelectronics, attended the groundbreaking ceremony for an advanced packaging plant in Shanghai.

Zhuyun Microelectronics will invest more than five billion US dollars to build a large-scale integrated packaging plant in the area, including three relatively mature 2.5D packaging production lines and two top-of-the-line 3D packaging production lines!

This is part of Zhiyun Microelectronics' plan to expand its advanced packaging capacity!

With the continuous explosion of products such as artificial intelligence, virtual machine devices, and robots, the demand for various computing chips is also increasing rapidly.

Many computing chips require advanced packaging, especially AI/APO series graphics cards, EYQ series chips, PX series chips, ZY series chips, etc.

Therefore, in the coming years, Zhuyun Group will continue to invest heavily in expanding its 7nm process capacity and building 5nm process capacity.

Another key focus is on investing heavily in advanced packaging capacity and technology research and development, with the investment reaching hundreds of billions of dollars, which is quite staggering.

This is also an interesting trend after chip technology has developed to the point of advanced processes. As the difficulty and cost of advanced process technology increase, advanced packaging technology has become a more reliable technical route to continue to promote chip performance.

Unfortunately, chip development has physical limits... Current EUV lithography machines, and even the next generation of EUV lithography machines that are foreseeable in the future, even with the adoption of multiple exposures, can only achieve a semi-metal spacing of more than ten nanometers.

If we continue to lower the voltage, we will encounter increasingly bigger problems, such as leakage problems.

As for the quantum tunneling issue that some self-media outlets are exaggerating, there's no need to worry about that.

Because of the quantum tunneling effect, it is likely to occur at around three nanometers. This three nanometers does not refer to an equivalent three-nanometer process, but to the actual physical spacing of the transistor, such as the contact gate spacing and metal spacing.

With current human technology, reaching three nanometers is still a long way off in terms of actual physical limits!
Taking Zhiyun Microelectronics' second-generation 7-nanometer process as an example, this 7-nanometer is not the actual physical limit of 7 nanometers, but rather an 'equivalent 7 nanometer'... This is actually a product code name or a marketing term.

Zhuyun Microelectronics' second-generation 7nm process has a contact gate pitch of 54 nanometers and a metal pitch of 38 meters. TSMC's 7nm process and the 7nm process that Fourstar will launch this year are roughly at the same level.

Furthermore, it has become extremely difficult to shrink further after reaching this level... In Zhiyun Microelectronics' equivalent 5-nanometer process, the planned metal pitch is only 28 nanometers.

This is already close to the physical limit of the single-exposure performance of EUV lithography machines!
Going further down the line, we need next-generation EUV with higher overlay precision and stronger performance, which will require double exposure or even quadruple exposure for production!
The equivalent 3-nanometer process in the R&D stage of Zhiyun Group is expected to use the next-generation EUV lithography machine and a double exposure process, while the metal spacing design specification of the first-generation process is 23 nanometers.

The so-called equivalent two nanometers, one nanometer, and fractions of a nanometer processes then continue to shrink the metal gap, and it is a small and slow increase of one nanometer or two nanometers!
Zhiyun Microelectronics predicts that by the time the process technology is ready in twenty years, the metal spacing should be able to be reduced to about twelve nanometers... As for actually reducing the spacing of transistors to three nanometers, let alone twenty years, it would probably be difficult even in forty years!

Moreover, in forty years... Zhiyun Group will probably be able to make quantum computers widely available for civilian use, at which point the demand for high-performance electronic chips will be greatly reduced.

However, it's worth noting that while quantum computers are very useful in many specific fields, such as the parallel computing required for artificial intelligence, they are not yet very suitable for general-purpose computing.

Currently and in the future, the core application of Zhiyun Group's LC series superconducting quantum computers is to develop artificial intelligence, to train and run artificial intelligence... Even so, they still need to be used in conjunction with traditional electronic computers.

Looking ahead, Zhiyun Group hopes to develop quantum computers with greater computing power and smaller size, which can be used as a widely adopted production tool.

However, it will take a considerable amount of time to continuously drive technological progress.

Therefore, quantum computers are unlikely to completely replace electronic computers for a considerable period of time in the future.

Developing quantum computers and developing electronic computers are not contradictory, but rather complementary.

For many years to come, electronic computers will not be replaced, which is why Zhuyun Group continues to invest heavily in the research and development of the semiconductor-related industrial chain and continues to invest in the field of electronic computers.

Among the many technologies in the semiconductor industry, advanced packaging technology is an emerging core area!
This is not only a matter of great importance being attached to and heavily invested in by Zhiyun Group; semiconductor manufacturers such as TSMC, Samsung, and Intel are also paying close attention to it and are all developing their own advanced packaging technologies.

In the coming years, competition in the semiconductor industry will be a dual competition of advanced manufacturing processes and advanced packaging technologies!
This kind of competition presents a huge challenge in terms of funding!
And that's precisely where Zhiyun Group's advantage lies...it has money!

With over $300 billion in cash reserves and a steady stream of high profits from its multiple core businesses over the next few years, Zhuyun Group is well-positioned to avoid cash shortages in the future competition in the advanced semiconductor industry.

When it comes to spending money, Zhuyun Group has never been afraid of anyone!
(End of this chapter)