Reborn 2005: The Internet Myth

As August approached, in order not to delay the start of school at Stanford, Wang Zheng took care of the short-term business plans of his companies and then took a small team on a plane to London, the Eagle Country.

This team is composed of two chip experts drawn from PA semi, including Jim Keller, who is highly recommended by Dapopul.

As well as two legal experts and assistant Catherine who were transferred from Ultron, a group of six people went to Cambridge, the Eagle Country.

Looking around the world, the development of most high-tech companies is inseparable from top universities.

Just like Silicon Valley is to Stanford, Stanford and MIT are to Midland, the two world-famous universities of Oxford and Cambridge have also made outstanding contributions to the high-tech industry of Eagle Country.

Wang Zheng came to Eagle Country this time for three main purposes. The first was to license the low-power processor ARM architecture, the second was to license the mobile GPU architecture of Phantom Company, and the third was graphene.

ARM is not far from the University of Cambridge, Phantom is far away in Hereford, Wales, and the two professors who discovered graphene are at the University of Manchester. If you want to complete these things, you have to travel almost half of the Eagle Country.

There is a direct flight from San Francisco to London with no stops required and the flight time is about 12 hours.

Sitting on a long-distance plane is also very tiring. Fortunately, Catherine was more thoughtful and downloaded some movies to her computer, which was enough to pass the time.

The plane landed at 8 am. The hotel was booked in advance and provided pick-up service.

Therefore, it didn’t take much trouble. It took about 40 minutes for the group to settle into the Hilton Hotel in Cambridge.

After a day of rest, Wang Zheng led the delegation to ARM the next day.

This company is currently listed in the United Kingdom and the United States at the same time, and its ownership structure is very dispersed. The largest shareholders are Nokia, Apple, Eagle Country, and Midland Microchip, and others include Samsung, Philips, NEC, and Sony.

A small amount of shares.

Since the 1990s, ARM has given up on chip manufacturing and turned to the chip architecture intellectual property licensing business. It has developed rapidly. In 2006 alone, ARM's partners shipped 2 billion chips.

Smartphones can become popular around the world, and ARM architecture chips have contributed a lot.

If he just came here to buy a license, then Wang Zheng would not take action personally. His main purpose was to see if he could get some equity.

The mobile Internet is still in the gestation stage, and ARM's value has not yet soared to the US$80 billion in 20 years, making it very valuable for investment.

And if we can get some equity, ARM's licensing services will be more advantageous, which will be of great help to PA semi's chip development work.

It is not realistic to seize meat and shares from many established companies for the time being. They are not short of money. Nokia has shut down its mobile phone business and has not even thought of selling ARM's shares.

The reason is that this chip architecture is not only used for mobile phone processor chips. Low-power consumption and high energy-efficiency chips are used in a wide range of applications, ranging from satellites to submarines.

After SoftBank's Masayoshi Son acquired ARM for US$32 billion in 2016, he later wanted to take action. Only then did Huang Yidao acquire ARM for US$40 billion in 2022. Unfortunately, he fell short in the end and spent US$1.25 billion in vain.

breakup fee.

At the turn of the new year, ARM was officially re-listed on both sides of the UK and the United States, and its value has reached 60 billion US dollars. As its development gets better and better, the total value is heading towards 100 billion.

SoftBank has also made a lot of money from these shares. After investing US$20 million in the Grand Thief Group, it became another legend in the investment community.

At present, the value of intellectual property rights on a global scale has not yet been fully reflected, and the total value of ARM is approximately US$2 billion.

When Apple mobile phones appear next year and other major manufacturers start to follow suit, and people discover that the ARM architecture is the optimal solution for smartphone chips, its value will begin to soar.

It is too slow to buy stocks in the market, and this company is listed in both the United Kingdom and the United States at the same time. Eagle Country holds 46% and Midland holds 54%. If you want to buy shares, you have to buy them in both places at the same time to have a chance.

Entering the board of directors will be very troublesome.

So the best way is to find a company that holds shares and buy them directly.

The negotiation was a matter for the team. Jim Keller led the team to select a suitable architecture version based on the information provided by ARM, while Wang Zheng went directly to the office of ARM CEO Bluman Bryden.

Braden is about 40 years old, a typical British man, blond and blue-eyed. He also graduated from Cambridge. He has been working at ARM for more than ten years and has climbed up step by step based on his qualifications and ability.

After soliciting Wang Zheng's opinion, Braden asked his secretary to serve hot tea and said with a smile: "Mr. Phil, I really didn't expect you to enter the chip industry. You have a great vision. ARM is definitely your best."

choose."

Since they are going to cooperate, both parties must have done some research. Now Meta and WeChat have entered the Eagle Country market and are wildly competing for territory. They are two rising stars in the field of online social networking.

As the founder, Justin Fehr's name is still somewhat famous in the European and American technology industries.

Wang Zheng nodded in agreement and said: "PA semi's goal is also to develop low-power chips, which is consistent with the ARM architecture. I hope we can reach long-term cooperation. I am very optimistic about the development prospects of low-power chips."

Speaking of development prospects, Braden replied confidently: "No problem, ARM has enough talents and is committed to expanding in the field of high-energy-efficiency and low-power consumption chip architecture. Our latest Cortex architecture has three levels, which is fully capable

Meet the needs of various application scenarios.”

"At the same time, we can also provide high-quality services. The architecture version is iteratively upgraded every year, which is much better than IBM's power architecture."

While promoting yourself, don’t forget to attack your competitors.

The two chatted for a while, and Wang Zhengcai entered the topic and asked: "By the way, Braden, in order to ensure the smooth cooperation between PA semi and ARM, I hope to join the board of directors of ARM. Is there any current shareholder who wants to sell shares?

You can take over."

Braden suddenly realized that it was no wonder that Wang Zheng came to discuss authorization in person. It turned out that he was here for the equity.

Faced with this problem, Brayden thought about it carefully, and then smiled and said: "I happen to hate Link, you can ask DFJ. If DFJ is willing to take action, I would like you to become ARM's employee.

New shareholders.”

Link? Wang Zheng seems to have some impression. DFJ also participated in Meta's first round of investment, and the person in charge at that time should be Link.

After detailed understanding, DFJ holds 3.3% of ARM's equity and has a director seat. This 3.3% equity is now worth approximately US$65 million.

This is about the same value as Wang Zai’s shares in Crowdfunding Network, but the growth potential is much greater than that of Crowdfunding Network.

After chatting with Braden for a while, the two parties reached an agreement. After Wang Zheng gets the shares, he can be the person acting in concert with Braden, which means that he will fully support Braden on the board of directors, and Braden will ensure that PA semi can

Prioritize access to the iterative update service of the latest version of ARM architecture.

This kind of verbal agreement is also a benefit without any cost. Wang Zheng, who is aware of the future development route, has no intention to interfere with ARM's management work, so supporting Braden is also a cooperation that benefits both parties.

The team's licensing negotiations went smoothly, and Jim Keller quickly selected two SoC chip IPs, CortexA8 and CortexR4, as well as the technology license for the latest ARMv7 version of the core architecture.

In fact, after getting the A8 chip, if you have no idea of ​​changing it, you can take it back and produce it directly. ARM has already set the foundry, process and other parameters for it, so you can just go to the factory to schedule it.

However, the performance of the single-core A8 chip is too poor and it does not support multi-core. This requires obtaining the core architecture and instruction set authorization of the V7 version and re-developing it later.

Since we need to re-develop, why do we need the authorization for A8 and R4? The main reason is to save time.

There is a huge difference in difficulty between designing with reference objects and designing without reference objects.

This operating model is similar to that of Apple, Qualcomm, Juchang and other companies. Only by making drastic changes based on the public version architecture can excellent chips such as Apple's A and M series, Juchang's Kirin and Qualcomm's Snapdragon emerge.

As for those directly produced using public version chips, they are either beggar version machines or PHS.

Of course, what Wang Zheng wants to do will not be a public version, otherwise the A8 chip has already been bundled with the Mali mobile GPU chip, and there is no need for him to obtain the Phantom GPU authorization.

ARM is relatively conscientious now. It only has a licensing fee. For this reason, PA semi has to pay US$5 million and get a 20-year license. However, after the ARM architecture is upgraded, you can get one free update and two small paid updates.

After the rogue Qualcomm started making SoC chips, it launched the famous "Qualcomm tax", charging a patent fee of 5% of the selling price of the mobile phone. After this rogue operation was learned by the industry, the intellectual property rights of the chips increased.

a copyright fee.

This means that the required licensing fee must be paid, and a copyright fee of 1% to 2% must be charged based on the number of chips sold and the selling price.

This idea was unacceptable, so Wang Zheng directly obtained the 20-year authorization to avoid suffering big losses in this regard in the future.

After staying in Cambridgeshire for three days, the contract was finally processed.

Now that it is August and Stanford is about to start school, Wang Zheng will have to go to Stanford this year.

In order to rush for time, he planned to split his forces into two groups. Jim Keller would lead the team directly to the Mirage in Hereford to talk about GPU licensing, while he would go directly to the University of Manchester to find out about graphene.

Wang Zheng, wearing an expensive formal suit and sunglasses, was walking on the campus of the University of Manchester, paying no attention to the curious looks cast by the students around him.

There are quite a few Asian faces here, and it’s hard to tell which country they are from.

The University of Manchester is also one of the world's famous universities, and it is normal for there to be many international students.

Unlike Midland, if Wang Zheng was walking in Stanford like this, there is a high probability that a girl from Midland would have come up to chat with him. However, most Eagle Country people are relatively reserved and would not express their curiosity directly.

Before coming, he had already learned about the man who discovered graphene, the professor named Andre Heim.

The main reason why he was able to find him successfully was his memory advantage. Although Wang Zheng couldn't remember his name, he still remembered that this person won the Ig Nobel Prize in 2000.

The discovery at that time was to use a magnetic levitation device to float a frog in mid-air, and it was deduced that humans can also overcome gravity through magnetic levitation technology.

After finding the name Andre Haim, Wang Zheng asked Stanford Vice President Louis Bryan to write him a letter of recommendation. Only then did he gain Andre Haim's approval and make an appointment with Wang Zheng.

We met in the afternoon.

After asking for directions several times, I finally found Andre's office.

When he opened the door, the professor was concentrating on the experiment. After making a wait gesture to Wang Zheng, his eyes continued to return to the test bench.

Wang Zheng didn't bother him and stood aside for about three minutes. Andre wrote down something on the paper before leaving the experimental platform.

"Justin Fehr?"

Wang Zheng took out a letter of recommendation and handed it over, "Hello, Professor Heim, I am Justin Fehr, from Stanford. This is a letter of recommendation from Professor Brian."

Heim took out the letter of recommendation and looked at it for a few times, then put it aside and looked at Wang Zhengdao calmly: "Okay. Tell me, why do you want to see me?"

Wang Zheng smiled and said: "Professor Heim, as you know, I am also a businessman. I heard that you discovered a two-dimensional structural material. I personally think that it has great commercial prospects, so I came to visit you in the hope of seeking help."

cooperate."

"Oh, you mean graphene." Professor Heim was not surprised. He had previously published two articles in natural science magazines, the main content of which was to verify the characteristics of this two-dimensional material at room temperature.

It turns out that Heim had already named it graphene at this time.

Wang Zheng's heart sank, and then he heard Heim say: "The characteristics of this material are indeed very good, and it is a very tough material, but don't think about commercialization for the time being. We can't find any way except mechanical peeling."

To prepare high-quality graphene in large quantities."

"In addition to toughness, does it have other characteristics?" Hearing Wang Zheng's question, Heim shook his head and said: "Because of the difficulty in preparation, it is difficult for us to obtain a large amount of high-quality graphene for research, so for the time being

No other properties of this material have been discovered."

After hearing Heim's explanation, Wang Zheng breathed a sigh of relief. It seems that Heim's team has not yet started testing its electronic effects and electrical performance.

After relaxing and chatting with Professor Heim for a while about the preparation of graphene, Wang Zheng got down to the topic and said, "Professor Heim, I am indeed very interested in graphene. Even if it is currently difficult to prepare, it will

With the development of technology, I think the problem can still be solved.

I would like to provide you with an educational and scientific research fund in the hope of obtaining complete experimental records about it, what do you think?"

Heim was not surprised by this. They are not only engaged in teaching and educating people, intellectual property rights are the most important source of income.

Graphene is a material that already exists in nature, so it cannot apply for an invention patent. According to the current situation, except for a few papers on water, it is really not important to get a sum of money.

After all, only if you have money can you continue to do research.

After thinking for a while, Heim signaled to wait, walked aside and made a phone call, and then came over to shake hands: "Phil, thank you for your support of the education sector."

Wang Zheng didn't expect it to go so smoothly. He originally thought it would take a lot of effort.

In the end, the two parties negotiated a price of US$500,000 to acquire all the research results of Heim Laboratory on graphene - in fact, they were some laboratory preparation methods and test data, without even any intellectual property rights.

But don’t worry about this. The point is that the Heim Laboratory will no longer be able to conduct research on graphene materials. This limit time is 20 years.

"Phil, thank you for your generosity." Professor Heim was also very happy. US$500,000 is not a small amount, and it is enough for his team to launch one or two new projects.

As for not being able to study graphene within 20 years, it doesn't matter. He is a physicist, not a materials scientist.

In front of Wang Zheng, Heim compiled all the research records on graphene materials in his laboratory, delivered all paper documents and electronic documents to Wang Zheng, and then deleted them directly in front of Wang Zheng.

All electronic documents.

Although the electronic documents may be restored afterwards, Wang Zheng is really not afraid of this given the constraints of the contract.

He has a specific research direction on graphene, which is enough to lead him a long way.

At least I won’t use this thing to study autumn clothes and trousers.

After the transaction was completed and after a few more pleasantries with Heim, Wang Zheng left the University of Manchester with the suitcase containing the documents.

Next, we have to find a suitable candidate for this Nobel Prize in Physics.

This person is not easy to find. First of all, he must have Daxia nationality, and he must have a high enough academic status in physics, especially electronic physics. If he wants to be in the American League, he must be able to work for Wang Zheng.

Although graphene cannot apply for intellectual property rights, how to prepare and use graphene is a free gift of intellectual property rights.

Some conceptual products such as graphene batteries, graphene screens, graphene heat dissipation and other product patents are free of charge.

Thinking of this, although graphene batteries are unreliable, graphene heat dissipation is a good product, and the heat dissipation effect of the chip is quite good.

Those who need to do research still need to do research. If you want to fool people, you must at least do it as if it is true.

However, while the research work on graphene is being carried out, the research work on another material must also be started.

This material is called molybdenum sulfide.

Thanks to the explosion of information in the future, Wang Zheng remembers clearly that this semiconductor material called molybdenum sulfide was first synthesized in 2008. Like graphene, it is also a two-dimensional material.

However, compared with graphene, which is difficult to prepare, molybdenum sulfide is extremely low-cost to produce, and transistors made with it can break through the 1-nanometer silicon transistor limit.

This material was originally used as a solid lubricant, but it was not discovered until ten years later that it could be used to make transistors.

Transistors made of molybdenum sulfide have great advantages. They have higher current density and energy efficiency than silicon transistors, and because they are more resistant to high temperatures and pressures than silicon, they are an ideal product for making chips.

Of course, the process technology for making transistors with molybdenum sulfide is also relatively complex. It was still being researched when Wang Zheng was reborn, but there are indeed products on the market. With a 1-nanometer process technology, its energy consumption ratio is almost four times that of silicon chips.

Molybdenum sulfide is a compound semiconductor that is cheap and easy to prepare. Moreover, molybdenum ore is abundant in domestic reserves in Daxia. It is a semiconductor that is very suitable for overtaking on curves in Daxia.

He studies graphene and carbon nanotubes abroad and molybdenum sulfide at home. As long as the chip manufacturing process can keep up, Wang Zheng has full confidence in making Daxia stand on top of the world.