Chapter 409 As Long as Synopsys and Stanza Don’t Sign a Contract, I Still Have a Chance!

"Academician Wang, it turns out that you are also a fellow from Mingzhou!"

Academician Wang Yangyuan's cordial opening remarks and the indelible local accent made Li Xiaofan overjoyed. Li Xiaofan previously only knew that there were more than 120 academicians from Mingzhou and the two academies, ranking first in the country.

Unexpectedly, Academician Wang and Academician Ni are both from Mingzhou.

"Yes, my hometown is in Chaiqiao Town, Zhenhai County, below Mingzhou City..."

Li Xiaofan corrected him with a smile: "Academician Wang, Chaiqiao Town now belongs to the newly established Beilun District!"

"Oh, what a big change? I haven't been back to my hometown for a long time."

Not long ago, Zhenhai County under Mingzhou City was divided into districts, with the Yongjiang River as the boundary, Beilun District in the south and Zhenhai District in the north. Chaiqiao Town, Academician Wang's hometown, is now under the jurisdiction of the newly established Beilun District.

In 1947, Academician Wang graduated from Chaiqiao Primary School and was admitted to the then provincial Mingzhou Middle School with his first place in the Zhenhai District and County Unified Examination. In 1953, he was admitted to the Department of Physics of Peking University. In 1978, Academician Wang served as the director of the Microelectronics Research Laboratory of Peking University, and later went to the University of California, Berkeley, as a senior visiting scholar. In 1986, the Institute of Microelectronics of Peking University was established, with Academician Wang serving as the first director.

Just last year, Professor Wang Yangyuan was elected as an academician of the Information Technology Department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Academician Wang is also one of the current authorities in the domestic semiconductor industry. He also has another identity: the director of the National Integrated Circuit Computer-Aided Design ICCAD Expert Committee and the main initiator of the domestic Panda EDA system project...

With this relationship as a fellow Mingzhou fellow, Li Xiaofan felt that communicating with Academician Wang Yangyuan became more cordial.

After a brief exchange, Academician Wang praised:

"Xiao Li, I didn't expect that you were the investor who invested in Academician Ni's Lianhai Microelectronics project. It really surprised me! You are so young and your career has been so successful. I saw the story of your investment in Yahoo from the Internet, but I didn’t expect that you are still a fellow Mingzhou fellow, so you are so formidable!”

"Academician Wang, you are so grateful! I just caught up with the good times and got lucky..."

"Xiao Li, can I ask you a more personal question?" After getting acquainted with each other, Academician Wang smiled and asked Li Xiaofan for his opinion.

"Academician Wang, you are my elder, so don't be polite. If you have any questions, just ask, and I will tell you everything you know!"

"Xiao Li, you used to make a lot of money by investing in Internet projects like Yahoo!, which made you rich overnight. But I'm curious why you returned to China now to invest in projects like Academician Ni Lianhai Microelectronics. Projects like this require huge investments. , the return cycle is long, and we have to face fierce competition from foreign giants, so we may not necessarily be able to make money immediately..."

Li Xiaofan smiled and replied:

"Academician Wang, when the Yahoo company I invested in was successfully listed on Nasdaq, I was really excited in the first few days. I had a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars, and I was so excited that I couldn't sleep. But now I seem to have become numb. Although the stock price of Yahoo is still rising, and my net worth is still rising, in my eyes, it is just a bunch of fluctuations in numbers. In my lifetime, I think it will be good for the country in terms of big things, but it will be good for the small things in my lifetime. For my own sake, I want to do something meaningful and promising for the future!”

Li Xiaofan continued:

"I not only want to invest in the Lianhai Microelectronics Design Center project chaired by Academician Ni. Academician Wang, but now I also want to invest in the domestic Panda EDA system project chaired by you before!"

Academician Wang was surprised by Li Xiaofan's words.

He asked: "Xiao Li, do you know what the current domestic EDA system is like?"

"I probably know a little bit about it. Dr. Jiang Lixin introduced me to some..."

Worried that Li Xiaofan’s brain might get hot, Academician Wang patiently explained to Li Xiaofan:

"Xiao Li, the EDA system is the key to the current domestic chip design constraints. It plays three roles for the chip industry: producing design drawings, producing construction drawings and assisting in the construction process. It can be said that if there is no EDA system, then those of us who Integrated circuit design technicians can only draw transistors one after another by hand. The limit of manpower is only a few hundred or thousands. Once it exceeds ten thousand, it is beyond the reach of manpower, let alone a micron-level one today. Chips contain hundreds of millions of transistors!”

“Four years ago, when our independently developed Panda EDA system was launched, it narrowed the gap between us and the world level to only 5 years. It was actively used by domestic units. In a short period of time, Panda EDA was installed in more than 20 domestic design companies. , completed the design of nearly 200 chip varieties! But you should have heard Dr. Jiang introduce it to you. Two years ago, when the situation of the Panda system was great, Cadence in the United States. Three EDA giants, including DesignSystems, Synopsys and Mentor Graphics, have successively entered the country and dumped their products at low prices, severely squeezing the market share of our domestic Panda system!”

Academician Wang continued:

“And the methods of these foreign EDA giants are also very powerful. As soon as Synopsys entered our domestic market, it sent 20 sets of Design to Tsinghua University. Compiler software, a set of this EDA tool, is worth US$250,000. Last year, the two parties also established a joint EDA center. On the surface, the cooperation between Synaptics and Tsinghua University is just a cooperation between a US-funded private company and our university. But in my opinion, Synopsys’ move is very powerful. The first is to seize the power to formulate standards. Tsinghua receives the task of writing a textbook on chip design, and the second is the help of the tools provided by Synopsys. industry Proliferation. After receiving the EDA software system donated by Synopsys Technology, Tsinghua University became the best EDA laboratory in the country. A large number of scientific and technological personnel who come to Tsinghua EDA Laboratory for training will become accustomed to using Synopsys Technology's EDA system. , the last and most important thing is the popularization of EDA in the higher education system... When the best chip talents in our mainland received training and practice in the Synopsis EDA system in school, it became increasingly difficult to get rid of it..."

Academician Wang’s words hit the nail on the head:

"From writing code to finally handing over the layout to the foundry for production, the EDA system spans physics, mathematics, semiconductor devices and other disciplines, and requires extremely diverse types of talents. Our university education system is sound, and some of the science and engineering talents we have trained, They will be engaged in the chip industry in the future, and they decided to localize The direction of development is that Synopsys, like Synopsys, actively promotes their EDA system to our university regardless of cost, which means cultivating their usage habits in advance. On the one hand, it lays the foundation for use. On the other hand, these users are naturally their Synopsys’ reserve army of EDA industry talents…”

Li Xiaofan answered: "Academician Wang, so I am eager to come to you now and want to invest in our domestic Panda EDA system. My plan is to first let all universities and research institutes in need in our country use your research and development for free." The first-generation Panda EDA system. At the same time, I want the Lianhai Microelectronics Design Center and foreign-invested chip projects to try out our domestic Panda EDA system!”

"Xiao Li, it's great if you have this idea! Now our domestic Panda EDA system has been impacted by the entry of the three American giants into the domestic market. Its current market share is shrinking day by day, and life is very difficult..."

"But, Xiao Li, I remembered another thing in the second half of your words. Four years ago, when our Panda EDA system was successfully developed, many of the people who were involved in the development left. Like Yu from Tsinghua University Dr. Zhiping went to Stanford University in the United States as a researcher in the Department of Electrical Engineering. He founded an EDA company called Stanza with Dr. Hu Chengmin from Silicon Valley and Liu Weiping from Fudan University. We also invited Professor Shen Ming from Tsinghua Institute of Microelectronics to go to the United States to help them participate in the development. The company they founded, Stanza, mainly focused on layout editing tools, and quickly opened up the market to serve integrated circuit design companies in Silicon Valley, because this product has Its characteristics have attracted the attention of Synopsys Technology Company in the United States, and it is said that they may intend to acquire their Stanza company..."

The Liu Weiping mentioned in Academician Wang's words was the main force sent from Fudan to participate in the Panda EDA system research. He later stayed at the Integrated Circuit Design Center in Beijing and took full charge of the Panda EDA system. Later he became the founder and chairman of BGI Jiutian Company. .

Li Xiaofan said in surprise: "Academician Wang, so our domestic Panda EDA system is still very competitive overseas in some aspects, right?"

Especially when he heard that the American Synopsys Technology Company intended to acquire the Stanza company, Li Xiaofan became excited.

As long as they didn't formally sign the contract, he still had a chance!