Chapter 151 RISC-V Industry Alliance
"Yes, RISC-V can be used in graphics cards. We can talk about this in detail by Mr. Huang."
"Mr. Kurakura, what does it take for us to join the RISC-V league? We are not doing well now."
"I already have the majority of the shares of Shengdian Company. I am going to acquire Scooper Company. The rest are you Maiwei, VIA and Nvidia. The RISC-V Foundation will invest more than 30% of the shares of each of your three companies, so that you will automatically become diamond members of the RISC-V development alliance and obtain permanent free authorization for the RISC-V instruction set.
My requirement: if your company raises funds, we will continue to inject funds to ensure that the shares are not diluted below 30%. One is to provide funds to promote the rapid development of your company, and the other is to have a certain voice and be able to accelerate the formation of the RISC-V ecological environment.
Don't worry, we will not interfere with your company's decisions. Well, there are not so many high-level managers who want to intervene, so it's basically just to make suggestions. We will also provide some resources to help the company develop, such as suggestions on development directions, patent authorization, etc.."
"This is a good thing. We are not profitable yet. We are short of development funds. Is Lao Huang the same? He is in urgent need of blood transfusion."
"There is no problem with blood transfusion. Our alliance can also do some division of labor, and can develop together to make it bigger and stronger together. The products under the X86 architecture must develop. This is a business that can make money. The alliance will not interfere, but we must keep up with the development of RISC-V, otherwise we will suffer losses in the future."
"That's for sure. The business under the X86 architecture is about looking at the face of Wintel Alliance. Under the RISC-V architecture, we can certainly distinguish which one is more important."
"If you don't have any objections, then just decide. If you lack funds, we can also get more shares. But I hope you will pay attention to the equity and structure. You still need to have controlling rights and try to implement the AB share structure."
Finally, after discussion, Maiwei Technology and Nvidia, the two companies in a miserable situation, agreed to give up 40% of their shares in principle. Cang Yaozu gave relatively relaxed capital injection conditions, Maiwei was 40 million US dollars and Nvidia was 30 million US dollars in exchange for 40% of the equity of the two companies. Of course, the specific signing needs to be carried out after the contract is formulated.
VIA Electronics only gave a 30% stake, but the price was as high as US$80 million, which is a little more expensive. However, it is quite good. VIA Electronics has a very high market share now. However, it is rumored that AMD will release the K6 processor this month.
Cang Yaozu, Chen Wenqi and Wang Xuehong exchanged. VIA Electronics was actually the leader of Wang Xuehong, and Wang Xuehong's proposal was to develop diversifiedly and involved in many fields, but he did not reach the peak in any field.
Cang Yaozu also talked about PDA with Wang Xuehong. Last year, in order to get the ARon company in Apple, Cang Yaozu proposed that he planned to take out the company and cooperate with VIA Electronics to establish a communications company, specializing in the production of PDA and mobile phones.
Wang Xuehong has also been thinking about the establishment of HTC recently. Now that she has authorized the RISC-V instruction set, she has become conscious. The RISC-V architecture is highly efficient and low-energy-consuming, which is very suitable for the design of mobile phone chips. The two sides hit it off. Cang Yaozu occupied 45% of HTC Hongda Electric with Newton and 10 million US dollars of cash. Wang Xuehong occupied 55% of the shares with VIA Electronics' communications department and 30 million US dollars of cash. HTC also became a diamond member of the RISC-V development alliance and obtained a permanent free authorization for the RISC-V instruction set.
Cang Yaozu also talked to Chen Wenqi about the X86 license and patent layout. Whether it is chipsets or communications, we must pay attention to research and development, patents, and beware of those industry giants turning against each other. It is best to buy Cyrix in advance. Cyrix is a factory-free semiconductor company that produces low-end X86 processors. Although the company failed to go public and its operations were in trouble due to a lawsuit with Intel, they have patent licenses for the X86 architecture.
Cyrix has not yet merged with the United States National Semiconductor Company, and it is a good opportunity to buy it. In fact, Cang Yaozu believes that it is difficult to develop under the X86 architecture. Intel and AMD have too great advantages, and VIA Electronics has not much chance of rising.
If you want to buy Cyrix, it will cost about 500 million US dollars. This is not a small amount. Cang Yaozu promised Chen Wenqi that he could spend about half of the funds, and 200 million US dollars or 300 million US dollars is not a big problem. Anyway, just give some shares of VIA Electronics.
I hope that VIA Electronics and HTC will not be as undying as they did in this life. The development of these two companies is still a pity. Now, Cang Yaozu's investment in VIA Electronics is still very effective, and it can at least attract Intel's attention. As for establishing HTC Electronics with Wang Xuehong, it is Cang Yaozu's first step in testing the wireless communications market. Now, domestic mobile phones with independent intellectual property rights are not available, and basically those companies are still doing OEM for foreign brands.
Speaking of independent intellectual property rights, patents have to be mentioned. For most of the past six months, Cang Yaozu's task to Ge Liqin is to purchase and register as many patents as possible. All semiconductor or mobile phone-related patents are within the scope of collection and purchase. Cang Yaozu's patent layout has been done. Although this is very expensive, it is absolutely impossible not to spend it.
As for the RISC-V instruction collection, Yaozu did not choose to be fully open source. After all, it is still early, and the great development of ARM has not yet arrived, and it has now acquired the controlling stake in ARM. At that time, it threatened ARM with the patents of RISC-V open source and MIPS. The acquisition was completed and it was impossible to break the bridge, so it is impossible to fully open source RISC-V.
However, this limited permanent free authorization can still be done. Moreover, Cang Yaozu stipulates that if diamond members experience company sales, Cang Yaozu has the right of first refusal and can acquire related businesses depending on the situation. The permanent free authorization will also be changed to annual renewal. In short, Cang Yaozu has very strict precautions for other competitors using company acquisition methods, such as Intel.
Although the RISC-V instruction set is authorized to Diamond members for free, everyone can use this instruction set for free, but it does not allow everyone to use the CPU designed by Future Cang Yaozu Company based on RISC-V for free. The CPU can also be authorized at that time. Of course, everyone can not use it. It is no problem to develop their own CPU by themselves.
Diamond members can propose some new instructions, and whether or not these new instructions is decided by the RISC-V Industry Alliance.
Maiwei Technology also stated that it can develop RISC-V cores as the control processor of the company's storage device. At the same time, Cang Yaozu and Maiwei Technology discussed the patent license of USB drives, which is not free. The USB drive project will surely allow Maiwei Technology to quickly achieve profitability.
As for the patent of MP3, Cang Yaozu has not taken it out. One is that the record company that Cang Yaozu now has only Universal Records, and there is too little. After this Asian financial crisis, after the Asian financial crisis, Edgar Bronfmann was encouraged to win Polygon Records or Eidelia Records. It would be even better if he could win them all.
At that time, MP3 can be launched. Digital music sales and MP3 authorization must be linked, otherwise it will be a big loss. Anyway, the patents of MP3 players have been registered almost all, so there will be no problem after waiting for a year.
Huang Renxun and Cang Yaozu's communication was very in-depth. Nvidia is only producing graphics cards now, and there is no concept of GPU. Cang Yaozu explained the concept of GPU and Huang Renxun in detail. The design idea of this GPU made Huang Renxun very happy. This is the correct way to defeat Voodoo graphics cards. Cang Yaozu also looked forward to Nvidia's broad future. Although smartphones do not require independent GPUs, they can be integrated together. Moreover, Cang Yaozu also plans to enter the tablet and laptop markets, so GPU support is needed.
Finally, Cang Yaozu told Wang Fengmin and Lai Gaoen about his plan to acquire SGB, and planned to have Wang Fengmin serve as SGB CEO and Lai Gaoen serve as CTO. Both of them will have corresponding equity incentives, but both of them will need to sign a work contract of more than five years.
Chapter completed!