Source: Silicon Valley Those broken things
In yesterday's WeChat, we introduced some of the stories of Fairy Child Eight Rebellion, Intel and AMD "That little breaking history in the chip world". Today we will continue to talk about the rise of Nvidia and TSMC, and a new era they have created.
"The husband only holds Wu hook with his hand, and his spirit is higher than a hundred-foot building. Who has written history for ten thousand years? He wants to be a marquis three thousand miles away?" This poem was written by Li Hongzhang, a former minister of Beiyang in Qing Dynasty, , and is magnificent and transcends the past and present. After reading it, Hirobuki Ito, who was still a teenager, he immediately decided to go to politics and became the first prime minister of Japan a few years later, becoming the leader of the "Three Masters of Meiji". The purpose of my poem here is not to talk about politics, but in the history of chips, there is such a person who is "a marquis of thousands of miles" in the history of chips.
said before that when Intel and AMD were fighting fiercely, other chip companies were not idle either. Some were purely onlookers and some were fighting each other privately. The Battle of Changping is not over yet, and many people who watch the fun are dead first. DEC, ATI, 3COM, Sun, these people who have been coquettish are not as long as AMD has. The most exciting fight among them is the match between ATI and Nvidia. Speaking of Nvidia, it involves the powerful man who is "a thousand miles of marquis".
Nvidia's founder is Huang Renxun . I used to confuse him with Huang Shiren, but later I simply referred to Lao Huang for short. Lao Huang is one of the "Three Silicon Valley Masters" of Taiwanese, and is also considered a genius of the world. After several life and death, Nvidia has finally become the world's third largest chip company. Lao Huang is naturally indelible, but without the help of the "Master" person, Lao Huang might have sold daylily. This "master" is the godfather of Taiwan's semiconductors, Zhang Zhongmou .
Zhang Zhongmou (Morris Chang, founder of TSMC), his love with Lao Huang is so deep! Don’t think wrongly, it doesn’t mean the love of the grass, but the deep love of the father and son. Of course, Zhang Zhongmou and Lao Huang have no blood relationship. The "father and son" here are called this by the media purely because Zhang Zhongmou is dedicated to supporting Lao Huang, who is a younger generation. Lao Huang was also grateful. In 2010, TSMC encountered a shutdown crisis, so he immediately flew to Taiwan to deliver hundreds of millions of orders to Lao Zhang.
Speaking of Zhang Zhongmou, he has not been in Silicon Valley for long, and he has only been 4 years in total. But because almost all chip companies in Silicon Valley cannot do without his TSMC, I still have to give Lao Zhang a lot of 18 August. Zhang Zhongmou, a Ph.D. graduated from Stanford. In February 2012, Stanford Engineering College awarded him the title of Engineering Hero of the Year, which was an amazing honor.
Lao Zhang got married very early. He married his first wife when he was only 21 years old after graduating from university. In 1986, Zhang returned to Taiwan to establish TSMC and left his first wife in the United States. Later, he met Zhang Shufen in Taiwan, but he did not divorce his ex-wife until 1990. In 1990, Lao Zhang is almost 60 years old! Fortunately, Mrs. Zhang Yuanma is not young anymore, and her daughter has no regrets.
Zhang Zhongmou and his confidante Zhang Shufen got married in 2001. Zhang was 70 years old at the time, and Shufen was 57. It has been 14 years since Zhang Shufen and Lao Zhang met. In 1987, Zhang Shufen returned to Taiwan with her husband, and her husband is also a strong man. It was not wrong for both of them to get married, but it was a storm in Taiwan that year. After all, Zhang Shufen and her ex-husband were both subordinates of Lao Zhang, so the reporter would definitely not let go of these topics that can be hyped. Now, fifteen years have passed in a blink of an eye, and the marriage story between Zhang Zhongmou and Zhang Shufen has finally become a rumor and a good story.
Twelve years ago, when I read Huang Renyu 's "5th year of Wanli ", I was impressed by the unrelated "big historical view". Therefore, when I always want to imitate every time I write about history, I am not capable of it. Although I started with small things, I wrote it into gossip. Well, the private life gossip will stop here, let’s talk about Zhang Zhong’s journey of success and fame. This starts with a doctoral qualification exam at MIT.
, which two imperial examinations have the greatest impact on Chinese history? I guess no one can answer them. My nonsense is: the second year of Guangxu (1876) and the fifth year of Guangxu.Because these two scientific examinations completely abolished a person's path to becoming a good student, he joined the army and founded the Beiyang system across the military, political and business circles, and took the two thousand-year imperial Game Over as the first democratically elected president. This person is Yuan Shikai . There are also such "scientific research" in the history of chips.
Episode 0 Zhang Zhongmou studied for a master's degree in the MIT Mechanical Department. He took the doctoral qualification exam twice in 1952 and 1953, but both failed completely. Lao Zhang had no choice but to get a master's degree and find a job. In that era, it was quite embarrassing that Chinese people could not get a doctorate. Lao Zhang was naturally worried that he would go to Stanford to join the class and study for a doctorate many years later. After all, Lao Zhang didn't go to Western Pacific University, so he got a regular doctorate.
However, Zhang Zhongmou's two test failures in 1952 and 1953 are absolutely crucial for the chip industry and even the entire IT industry, because Lao Zhang was confused and joined a small chip company when he first found a job. From then on, Lao Zhang became obsessed with the chip industry and even taught himself the supreme book "Nine Yin and Nine Yang" (Introduction to Integrated Circuits) written by the Mibank Shuanghe. A few years later, he jumped to Texas Instruments and became a big shot in the industry.
There is a non-existent history that Zhang Zhongmou found a job after graduating from MIT and got two offers, one was Ford Motor, a big company, and the other was an unknown small chip company. The small company paid $1 more monthly salary than Ford. Lao Zhang asked Ford to match, but was rejected, so he joined a small company and accidentally entered the semiconductor industry! It was such a magical knife! This is exactly: the Yangtze River flows eastward for eternity, and the ambition of Hsinchu has been rewarded. After thirty years of review, the heroes are also worried about the knife.
Let me tell you a little episode. When Zhang Zhongming met Deyi in 1958, a young man who joined the company at the same time was named Jack Kilby. Although Lao Zhang and Jack are quite good at talking, their views on career development are different. Lao Zhang just wants to "get a little bit of" technical background and then go to professional managers, while Jack is dedicated to technology. 42 years later, Lao Zhang married Zhang Shufen for the second time, but Jack won the explosives award for his contribution to integrated circuits.
1961, because of his outstanding work, Zhang Zhongmou was sponsored by Deyi for his doctorate in the Department of Electronic Engineering at Stanford. In 1964, Lao Zhang finally ended his "doctoral complex". After that, Lao Zhang rose to prominence and stayed in Deyi for twenty years. He has been the senior vice president and the global semiconductor department in charge of Deyi. He has more than 10,000 troops under his command! However, everything will turn back. In 1984, Lao Zhang and other executives of Deyi collapsed and ran away in anger.
"It's crazy and heroic, and it's true. scholars, and it can cry, sing and get along with the common people." I borrowed the poems of Mr. Liang Yusheng, and to evaluate Zhang Zhongmou. Lao Zhang has a very famous style! He smokes cigars, eats red wine, and is moving forward and retreating in the media in a modest manner and graceful manner! When the company held an internal meeting, Lao Zhang immediately changed his face, acted vigorously, dared to act and acted hard, and had a strong spirit when fighting a business war! Of course, Lao Zhang was not Zhang Danfeng after all, and he was not as infatuated as Zhang Danfeng!
Zhang Zhongmou and Deyi's senior management collapsed. The inside story was because everyone had different views on industrial development. At that time, others thought they should learn from IBM and devote their energy to PCs, while Lao Zhang believed that semiconductor wafer lines should be vigorously developed. The Tao is different and they don’t plan to each other. Lao Zhang cannot get recognition and chooses to leave. As a result, there is a brand new industry in the world, wafer foundry! Countless chip designers survived, and the entire IT industry has developed rapidly.
In the previous article, there were many stories about TSMC founder Zhang Zhongmou, but for those who only know the top-level products, Zhang Zhongmou is not a high-profile idol, but this does not prevent Lao Zhang from becoming an important figure in the IT industry. After reading the previous article, I realized that I was going to talk about Huang Renxun, but I led Lao Zhang. OK, let’s start with the eight old yellow.
There are two top talents in the world. Although they have essential differences, they cannot be distinguished in reality because the results they bring are always so consistent: success! The first type is called genius, which can successfully solve the situation that has not happened; the second type is called master, which has such rich experience and has encountered almost all the dilemmas, so they can successfully solve the problem when the dilemma occurs for the second time. Huang Renxun is a talent that accounts for half of each.
Huang Renxun founded the graphics card chip company in 1993. It is now famous. It is known as the "Three Masters of Silicon Valley" of Taiwan, along with Jerry Yang and Chen Shijun.In the past 20 years from the start of the company to the present, Lao Huang has accumulated experience and turned the world around the verge of bankruptcy, and has also dared to innovate and launch GPU to challenge Intel. It can be said that he can retreat and be able to conserve the old days, and he can open up an unprecedented border. The story about Lao Huang starts with voodoo 20 years ago.
"Voodoo" is not a wizard's poison. Voodoo is a once-a-new company in the graphics card field, 3dfx, which launched the code name Voodoo, the 3D graphics acceleration chip in 1996. Early computer players should know the name of voodoo. I remember when I was playing Need for Speed 2, when I changed into a Voodoo graphics card, the effect and smoothness made my dormitory almost jump off the building. Unfortunately, Voodoo went bankrupt in 2002, thanks to Nvidia. What is used to measure the unsuccessful results in
? What should I use to measure whether a bull is arrogant? Results. If the result doesn't work, that's not called cowish, that's called cowish. But the two questions that follow are: 1. How to measure the results? 2. When should the results be measured? Although the first question is not easy to answer, there are still certain rules to follow. In the business field, the result is to make money; in the non-commercial field, the result is to compare reputation (such as various academic titles, honors and awards).
. For the second question: When should I measure the result? With my "spoken talent", I can never answer it. For example, if you look at Apple in 1987, it would be absolutely NB; but by 1997, Apple was almost going to become a junk; but by 2007, Apple was really awesome again! I can only say competition, not one year, ten years, and thirty years. For more details, please see the many stories of sleeping on firewood and tasting gall and discussing protracted wars in history.
Of course, the results measurement theory mentioned above does not include areas based on psychological feelings, such as whether the family is beautiful or not, whether the life is happy or not, whether the hoof is delicious, etc. Looking back, Huang Renxun from Nvidia said that if he saw that in 1997, then Huang was very failed. During this period, he was not able to lead in technology, but also lost his big customer Sega (Sega); but after 1997, Huang, a hero who cut off his arm and completely abandoned Sega, actually ushered in the dawn of new life.
(I can't finish writing it at once, there are so many things...)
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