Chapter 188: Chips Above Gold

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Zhao Guo Wei was a man in his 50s. He was also the Chairman of Purple Ray Technologies. On the night before, Zhang Wei Jin from Zhong Xin International gave him a call and described a piece of technical information to him.

Zhao Guo Wei’s pupils dilated as he listened to him. He exclaimed, “This is impossible!”

“I thought so too at first!” Zhang Wei Jin said on the phone, “The conformity rate of Zhong Xin’s 14-nanometer chip is now at 99.2% and its production efficiency has risen by 40%! If you do not believe me, come and see for yourself.”

Zhao Guo Wei’s body was trembling. “…that tech is almost mythical. As of right now, the conformity rate of Purple Ray’s DDR chips is not even 30%. If it were to be raised to even just 60%, production capacity would still skyrocket. It would be equivalent to building another 10-billion-dollar memory pellet factory.” He said in a hurry, “Quickly Mr. Zhang, give me Xing Hai Technologies’ Mr. Chen’s number, I want to call him!”

Therefore, Zhao Guo Wei boarded a plan to Shang Hai on the next morning, darting towards Xing Hai Technologies.

…

Zhao Guo Wei arrived at the strategic conference room. “Mr. Chen, I have long heard of your great name, it is an honor to meet you in person.” He felt a tinge of emotion as he walked forward and shook the hands of the young man standing in front of him. My son is around his age, right?” On the contrary, Mr. Chen became the business partner he anticipated and valued the most. He looked at him, his eyes brimming with fire. He sighed. “Every great oak tree was once an acorn. I have really aged. The future definitely belongs to you young people.”

“I’m flattered, Mr. Zhao. You are the backbone of our country and it would definitely be worthwhile for me to learn your fighting spirit.” Chen Jin regarded him with great reverence. He admired entrepreneurs like Zhao Guo Wei. Under the country’s demand, despite knowing that a huge skill disparity existed, he still desperately tried to catch up and endeavored to make up for the country’s shortcomings.

On the surface, he was an entrepreneur. Veritably, people like him were all brave soldiers and unknown heroes. They shouldered difficult tasks, endured mockery from their surroundings, and amidst their struggles in desolation, bit by bit, they filled up the gap between the wide disparity… just like Nuwa patching up the azure sky.

After they exchanged some greetings, Xing Hai Technologies and Purple Ray Group swiftly agreed on a strategic partnership. There were three main contents of the agreement. First, Xing Hai Technologies would provide the “Virtual Factory” technology to improve the conformity rate of Purple Ray’s DDR memory chips and aid in R&D for the more advanced DDR4, DDR5, and DDR6 chips, and HBM chips with bandwidths over 256 gigabytes, 512 gigabytes, or even 1 terabyte per second.

Yes indeed, the benefits of the DDR memory chip were that it was cheap and had a large capacity. The bandwidth, however, was small, commonly between 3.2, 4.8, and 6.4 gigabytes per second. The HBM chips, however, could easily attain bandwidths of tenfold, hundredfold, and more. It was just that production costs were higher. The reason that HBM chips were not popular was not because it had no prospect, as production costs could be shrunk through mass production. It was because there were only a few manufacturers that had mastery over the tech of HBM chips. They had no competitors, so they chose to conceal the technology and ‘milk’ the DDR’s first! When competitors emerged, only then would they reveal the HBM chips and eliminate the DDR technology from the markets! From this, one could see how scary the gap between the Z nation and other countries was within the memory chip field. It was scary to the extent that the opponent managed to gather a whole bucket of milk. Under normal conditions, for the Z enterprises to catch up to foreign enterprises in this field, it would require at least another 10 years! However, with the assistance of Xing Hai Technologies’”Virtual Factory,” this catch-up cycle would be greatly shortened.

Secondly, Xing Hai Technologies would appraise their technology as capital stock and hold 1.2% of the shares of the Purple Ray Group. Similar to Zhong Xin International, Purple Ray Group was a listed company. As of current times, their market value was 125 billion dollars. 1.2% of the shares meant that the “Virtual Factory” that Chen Jin provided was worth 1.5 billion dollars.

In addition, Xing Hai Technologies ordered more than 100 million units of LPDDR3/LPDDR4 from Purple Ray Group to be used in their Wa-wah robot, Little Star learning machine, Bang Bang Robot, and other products. Moreover, the CPU that Xing Hai Technologies used in all their products was purchased from Teng Xun corporation, a subsidiary of Purple Ray Technologies. The number of orders on the CPU was similarly over 100 million units. The NAND storage granules were also entirely purchased from Purple Ray Group’s subsidiary, Rivery Corporation.

Therefore, from these few aspects, the tightness of the partnership between Xing Hai Technologies and the Purple Ray Group was not less than that of them with Zhong Xin International. Hence, Chen Jin had his eyes set on the shares of Purple Ray Group. He let Xing Hai Technologies’ stock market trader acquire the shares of Purple Ray Group in mass amounts. A total of 5 billion dollars’ worth of shares were purchased… it accounted for approximately 4% of the market value of Purple Ray Group. Added up with the technical license of the Virtual Factory, the shareholding ratio of Xing Hai Technologies towards the Purple Ray Group was increased to 5.2%.

Considering that the Purple Ray Group was a state-owned listed company in which their administrative authority lay with the state, Chen Jin’s demands were not high. He would be satisfied with holding about 10% of the Purple Ray Group’s shares and a place on the board of directors as an investor.

Immediately, Chen Jin was full of lofty ambitions. “I have Zhong Xin International in my left hand and Purple Ray Group in my right hand. The production of the CPU, AI chip, and DDR memory chip can all be domestically produced! We will forge a chip empire! From now on, we will be invincible in the chip field!”

Google, Samsin, yada yada yada, would never stop Xing Hai Technologies from charging forward. Those who dare oppose Xing Hai Technologies would come to no good end! Nonetheless… Even if Chen Jin was eager to step on Google and vanquish Samsin, he would still be unable to extinguish the fire.

Due to low conformity rates, the production of Purple Ray Group’s LPDDR3 chips was only about 120 thousand units per day. Even if they sold all of them to Xing Hai Technologies, it would still require at least 100 days to address the demands of the jillions of parents of sixth and ninth graders. The “Virtual Factory” was no doubt formidable, but it was still impossible to improve the conformity rate of Purple Ray’s DDR memory chip in just a few days. It would require a month to establish the Virtual Factory and another two months subsequently for R&D to bear fruit.

The problem was that the mass population of parents could not wait for two months! The time limit for Xing Hai Technologies was only two months! It had to be said that this time, Samsin really did prick on Xing Hai Technologies’ Achilles heel.

After all, how could the parents from the Z nation, that all wished for their children’s success, tolerate their children doing bad in the College Entry Examination due to the absence of an intelligent learning machine? If the issue was not addressed in time, Xing Hai Technologies would get drowned by the swarm of angry parents. Chen Jin’s real self would also have to go into hiding and would only come out by night to avoid any parent from recognizing him. He dared not imagine such a terrible outcome.

“Luckily, I still have a planet.” Chen Jin raised his head and clenched his fist. “Luckily, I have the Base of Operations!” After all the enthusiasm, he once again shook his head helplessly and smiled bitterly as he said, “Never have I thought that even with my hundred-billion-dollar net worth, I would still end up doing transporting jobs.”

Correct. The night before, at the Base of Operations on planet Haierfa, Chen Jin took a few chip samples and ordered Alice to produce 15 million 4 gigabyte LPDDR3 chips. He demanded that she complete the production at the fastest speed possible, as he was in a hurry to use them.

“No problem master, memory chips of this technological level can be printed in the high-precision capsule factory. Alice promises to complete the task within five days.” Alice said with certainty. She thought that the quest her master gave her was too simple, it had almost no difficulty at all.

…

After five days, 15 million chips that were packed and stored in about 50 boxes were neatly placed right before Chen Jin’s eyes. Chen Jin tried to lift one of the boxes. He realized that a box of 300 thousand chips, along with its container, weighed no more than 30 kilograms.

Each chip weighed no more than one gram on average, but each of them cost nearly 100 dollars. Lifting a box would be the equivalent of lifting 30 million dollars. The thing was that it was not only the idea that 30 million dollars of cash could not fit into this box; it would weigh over 30 kilograms as well!

Therefore, at that moment, Chen deeply realized the meaning of the phrase, “The value of chips far exceeds gold!”