After rebirth, I became a great master

Chapter 310 The Road to Cost Breakthrough
The plan has changed; now we need to apply for a national project.

Then we need to make ample preparations.

At the very least, we can't afford to have our applications rejected by the expert panel assembled by the National Natural Science Foundation of China due to fault-finding. As Dean Cheng said, while we can be a bit more relaxed at Fudan University, when it comes to getting funding from national ministries, we need to take it much more seriously.

"Your system now faces two major hurdles."

Professor Tan Mingliang also took this very seriously.

Zhou Haoran laughed and said, "Professor Tan, you still have time to care about such trivial matters?"

"This is no small matter."

Tan Mingliang was originally Dean Cheng's disciple.

Zhou Haoran asked, "Which two difficulties?"

"From both a technical and cost perspective."

Although Tan Mingliang is not directly involved in the campus card project, such projects are small and not easy to implement, but the theoretical aspects are easy to understand.

Zhou Haoran nodded. "I've already spoken with Dr. Ning Yuanjia and Dr. Zhang Qu and asked them to help me quickly develop an embedded data processing algorithm using C language."

Tan Mingliang laughed and said, "Yes, the data system has to be rebuilt. You can't avoid that. Even if I use my connections to get back Stanford University's campus card data system, it won't work! We have to build it ourselves!"

"Correct."

Zhou Haoran's main focus is data processing.

He knows it all.

With a larger population in China, Fudan University has twice as many students and faculty as Stanford University. This means that developing a campus card system at Fudan University is more challenging and involves a larger volume of data compared to Stanford.

Current hardware performance is too weak to adopt the common strategy of "making up for insufficient technology with configuration" that will be used 20 years from now.

Then we can only start from the software level.

Whoever has the more sophisticated data processing algorithms can process larger datasets more quickly and efficiently. Because of China's large population, the requirements in this area are higher than in the United States.

Otherwise, there would be no need for domestic companies to develop their own systems.

Just like in many fields, they simply buy a complete solution from abroad at a high price, then change its name and label, and that's considered a domestically developed and applied solution.

Campus cards are not feasible, and foreign solutions are generally not suitable for China's conditions.

Unless it's some private schools with few students and plenty of money, they might try to attract more students for political achievements.

"I'm fairly good at distributed data processing. If you have any problems you can't solve, I might be able to help."

Tan Mingliang's statement was very conservative.

Zhou Haoran laughed and said, "What a coincidence! My specialty is distributed data processing, especially high-concurrency events. If I can't do this, then no one in the world can."

Tan Mingliang felt that the kid was very boastful, but he didn't think he was just bragging.

He is currently writing two papers.

The topic was given by this guy, and he also proposed a very complete structural framework... This is not only a collaboration between the two parties to write a paper, but also presents a teacher-student relationship.

Zhou Haoran is a doctoral supervisor, and Tan Mingliang is a PhD.

It feels absurd.

"The biggest challenge is the technical aspect. If that's not a problem, the cost aspect will be much easier."

Tan Mingliang was happy for him.

Zhou Haoran said casually, "It's not that complicated at all. It's just that the amount of data is too large, which makes the system run too slowly. I'll just use the dynamic hash index algorithm. I've already explained everything to Dr. Ning to do the coding and get the data out in the lab first."

"Dynamic hash index algorithm?" Tan Mingliang was slightly taken aback. "Will this work? The risk of memory overflow is very high!"

"risk?"

Zhou Haoran didn't feel there was any risk at all.

"Wait a minute!" Tan Mingliang stood up, went to the back of his desk and found a magazine, "Computer Applications," a well-known academic journal in the domestic computer industry. "This is the latest issue, and there happens to be a paper in it about the application risks of dynamic hash index algorithms."

"Really?" Zhou Haoran took the journal and briefly read the paper. "Hmm, everything is correct. However, this Tsinghua PhD only pointed out the problem but did not provide a solution."

Tan Mingliang's expression changed slightly. "You have a way to solve this?"

Zhou Haoran nodded and said, "It's just data redundancy. It's actually simple. The biggest advantage of contactless IC cards compared to magnetic stripe cards is that they can integrate chips. With chips, there's edge computing logic. There's no need to hand over all data processing to the backend database."

"You could write a long thesis on this!"

Professor Tan was very impressed.

"Once it's finished, let Ning Yuanjia write it."

Zhou Haoran has too many papers to write, but for projects with clear reference indicators that are already finalized, he can just find any subordinate.

“There’s no problem with the technology, so it’s just a matter of cost.” Tan Mingliang was powerless to do anything about it. “It’s the radio frequency chip in the card that you just mentioned.”

"I heard that we can only purchase them from overseas."

"However, I can introduce you to Professor Gao Xiangwen."

"Hmm?" "Let's go, let's go find him and see what's going on on his end. Maybe our school can develop it on its own."

Tan Mingliang pulled him along as they set off.

Zhou Haoran chuckled and said, "Our school even has a chip engineering program?"

"Yes, they've all registered companies; it's a university-enterprise partnership!"

Tan Mingliang went downstairs with him.

It's not far at all, just a few hundred meters away from the Yifu Building.

"University-industry partnership?" Zhou Haoran seemed to remember something. "Microelectronics?"

Tan Mingliang said, "Yes, it's microelectronics, it's called... Fudan High Technology Company."

"Oh."

Zhou Haoran was not quite sure about this.

In fact, Fudan High Technology Corporation was the predecessor of Fudan Microelectronics. And Fudan Microelectronics was one of the representative companies in the port chip industry.

After 2000, campus cards began to be widely promoted in schools across China, and a key reason for this was the breakthrough in cost reduction.

The so-called cost breakthrough means that the radio frequency chips in smart cards can now be made domestically!

One of the companies that achieved this technological breakthrough is Fudan Microelectronics.

When Zhou Haoran was working on the campus card system in early 97, he inevitably created a channel to connect with Fudan Microelectronics.

What a coincidence.

Afterwards, through Tan Mingliang's introduction, I discovered that Professor Gao Xiangwen's team was working on a project that was a technological breakthrough in domestically produced smart card chips!
"You make radio frequency chips?"

Zhou Haoran was pleasantly surprised.

Professor Gao Xiangwen said, "There are many teams in China doing this kind of work, mainly to serve the banks."

"bank?"

Zhou Haoran initially wanted to work for a bank, but he couldn't stand the conservatism of those people, so he decided to make campus cards to prove himself.

Professor Gao Xiangwen offered some explanations.

Currently, most banks in China primarily offer passbooks or savings accounts.

Because passbooks have lower costs.

Occasionally, some users will use bank cards, but those are all magnetic stripe cards.

However, banks abroad have widely adopted IC card structures for bank cards. China lags far behind in this regard because, for bank cards to become widespread, banks have had to give them away to users for free.

Giving it away for free is definitely not an option if the cost is too high.

If the built-in chip of the IC card is not made in France, cost control is impossible.

It would be impossible for it to become widespread.

After hearing this, Zhou Haoran laughed and said, "Professor Gao, if you want to work for the bank, that's really too difficult. At least in the short term, it's not realistic. I've dealt with people in the financial system, and they're all very conservative. They wouldn't dare to use domestically produced chips easily."

"Understandable."

Gao Xiangwen nodded.

Zhou Haoran said, "Magnetic stripe card technology is outdated but mature. I estimate that within the next ten years or so, even if domestic banks promote bank cards, they will definitely use magnetic stripe cards as the main type."

Gao Xiangwen sighed.

He naturally knows the nature of those people in the financial system.

Innovation is risky.

Domestic substitution carries greater risks!

It's best to let the private sector handle these kinds of things. Once the private sector has done enough experimentation, then we can apply them to projects and engineering works within the system.

It's okay to spend more money on foreign goods, but you must ensure everything is in perfect condition to avoid liability.

In reality, domestic banks will not completely abandon magnetic stripe cards and promote bank cards with domestically produced IC chips until 2015.

However, by 2000, China had already achieved a technological breakthrough and produced its own smart card chips.

Zhou Haoran smiled and said, "Professor Gao, what a coincidence! I was just about to apply for the campus card project. The school plans to make it a flagship project, a model project. If the radio frequency chip can be domestically produced, then the biggest cost barrier can be overcome. Cooperating with banks would take forever, so why don't we cooperate instead!"

"Campus card?" Gao Xiangwen was slightly taken aback, looking him up and down. "Zhou Haoran, which professor are you working on a project with?"

Tan Mingliang cleared his throat and explained, "He's still an undergraduate student; he doesn't have a supervisor yet."

"undergrad?"

Gao Xiangwen was stunned.

(End of this chapter)