Movie black technology

Chen Shen explained the IP core in detail, and Chen's father also had a basic understanding of this invisible thing in his words, and knew its function.

Chip design is already upstream in the chip industry chain, but this IP core is still upstream of this chip design, it is located in the most upstream of the chip industry!

"There are two key points in the preliminary design of a chip, one is the instruction set and the other is the micro-architecture."

"The CPU needs to follow certain specifications when performing computing tasks. This specification is the instruction set. In layman's terms, it is a collection of a bunch of computer instructions. The X86 architecture of the toothpaste factory and the ARM architecture of ARM refer to the use of the corresponding instruction set. CPU."

"..." Father Chen remained silent for a long time.

This is obviously not understood.

Chen Shen rubbed his brows, and came up with another saying: "The instruction set is like a person going up and down the stairs. A normal person knows to move his legs first, then wave his hands, and walk up step by step. The instruction set is used to guide the chip to calculate the steps needed to 'go up the stairs', but the process of going up the stairs may be different for different instruction sets."

Father Chen suddenly realized, and said to the phone: "Go on and try to be as simple as possible. My brain is not as powerful as yours, and it can hold so many things."

"All right……"

Chen Shen was a little helpless, and continued: "In addition to the instruction set, another key is the micro-architecture. This refers to the internal structure of the CPU, in other words, the arrangement of internal transistors. The micro-architecture is to cooperate with and implement the instruction set. , so depending on the instruction set, the microarchitecture design is also different, and the same instruction set can design many different microarchitectures."

"It's like... just like a person walking up stairs requires the cooperation of both hands and feet, but jugglers can also do handstands up stairs. It’s all about getting the best results possible.”

"I understand, I understand..." Old Comrade Chen nodded repeatedly on the other side, and Chen Shen was not sure if he really understood. Anyway, if you don't understand him now, you can go to a friend to understand it, and it doesn't matter.

He continued: "These two things belong to the IP core of the chip. Judging from the current situation, there is no IP core with sufficient influence in China."

"The instruction set of the chip is either ARM or a toothpaste factory. 95% of the world's mobile phones and tablets are ARM architecture."

Huawei's mobile phone chips also use the ARM instruction set and architecture. Buying the instruction set will also give you a public microarchitecture for verifying the instruction set, so Huawei chips have always used this public microarchitecture.

However, this is the norm in the chip industry. Even four-star companies such as Qualcomm still use the ARM architecture and micro-architecture on mobile phone CPUs and GPUs.

It's not that they don't want to get rid of this public version of the micro-architecture and redesign a better micro-architecture, but that they all failed in a mess, and finally either gave up or continued to use the public version of the magic modification.

It smells so good!

There is only one Apple on this road. Relying on the system is its own big advantage, and it took a lot of effort to get through.

In short, these two things are a kind of convenient general-purpose template, and after buying it, a lot of modification or adjustment is required before it can be put into use on the market.

When Father Chen heard this, he couldn't help being curious: "Are these two things difficult?"

Chen Shen thought for a while, "This depends on the situation. The instruction set is still very easy to make, even an undergraduate student can do it, but the design of the micro-architecture is not so easy."

That requires top-notch chip design capabilities.

After all, even Four Star and Qualcomm failed to jump out of the five-finger mountain of the ARM public version micro-architecture.

Chen Shen said again: "Although the instruction set is easy to make, this thing is related to software and system ecology."

"Take mobile phones as an example. At present, the two mainstream operating systems of mobile phones and tablets support the ARM architecture. If we develop a new set of instructions, it will be difficult to get support from them. Even if we get their support, the ARM architecture The chip only supports the ARM instruction set to run, so as long as the mobile phone using our instruction set cannot use the ARM architecture chip..."

When Chen Shen said this, Old Comrade Chen already understood.

The instruction set, CPU, and operating system are all connected to each other and closely related to each other!

They constitute a large ecology. To overthrow them, technological breakthroughs are not enough, and an ecology must be re-established.

He suddenly thought of what Chen Shen said to him just now, and suddenly realized: "That's why you want to use VR to break the situation?"

"That's right, only by starting with the chip, operating system, and instruction set together, and building a new ecosystem at the same time, can it be possible to overthrow their advantages in a short period of time."

If it weren't for the systematic technical support, Chen Shen would have to face this situation for a long time if he had to come by himself.

But now that there are systematic homework to copy, things should go much smoother.

"Then the next step is to establish a chip department, as you just said, to be responsible for the design of carbon-based chips?"

Chen Shen continued: "Yes, in the next era, the threshold for chip design will become higher and higher, and with the advent of the era of carbon-based chips, IP cores will become a new scarce resource."

Thinking that Dad would definitely not understand the meaning of this passage, he explained by the way: "The future development direction of chips is to realize as many functions as possible on one chip."

"This chip is called an SOC chip, which integrates a series of CPU, GPU, ISP, sound card, baseband, memory controller, and even more chips."

"This means that it reduces the performance limitations that were previously caused by the delay caused by the signal going in and out between multiple chips, and it improves the reliability of the system and reduces the cost of the system. In addition, it saves space inside the device, It also reduces energy consumption.”

Father Chen on the other end was confused, but he still remembered Shen Shen's words just now: "What does this have to do with the IP core you mentioned just now?"

Chen Shen patiently explained: "The SOC chip has complex functions, which will also greatly increase its development difficulty. If IP core assistance is not used in the R\u0026D process, the development cycle and cost of the chip will be unaffordable for most companies."

The template of IP core is used in the development of SOC chip, just like bricks that can be used piece by piece.

With these "bricks", when chip designers face some non-core functions, they only need to take them and use them directly. Designing chips is as convenient as building a house.

"The IP core is the tool we use to influence the design process of carbon-based chips."

In the design information given by the system, some IP cores of carbon-based chips have been given, and they only need to continue to study on this basis.

At least a long way ahead of other manufacturers.

"Combined with the preparation process and VR glasses, we have a powerful influence on chip design, manufacturing, and application."

"As long as this chain is successfully closed, we will be the king of carbon-based chips!"

"When the time comes, maybe our company can also 'sanction' the chip industry of other countries..."

After hearing this, Father Chen couldn't help but look towards Dongfang...