1991 Starting from the core

Qin Weimin stood up to say hello to the visitor and stretched out his hand: "Hello. Xi Xiaoding, right?"

The young man named Xi Xiaoding nodded, shook hands with Qin Weimin and sat down calmly. He is thin and has little color on his face, but his eyesight is sharp and energetic.

Su Yuanshan looked at Qin Weimin with some surprise, because he found that Qin Weimin was a little at a loss at this moment.

He coughed and approached Qin Weimin's desk: "Excuse me, senior brother, I will send you a document."

"Well, put it down." Qin Weimin pushed his resume in front of Su Yuanshan, then looked at Xi Xiaoding, smiled and said, "It seems I should call you Senior Brother Xi."

Xi Xiaoding finally smiled, shook his head and said, "It's okay. I studied early, so maybe I'm not older than you."

Su Yuanshan coughed again, and then he saw the resume.

Xi Xiaoding.

HKUST Junior Class.

Master's degree: Electronic Engineering from HKUST, studied under Wang Jianmin.

Ph.D.: Computer and Information Science at UPenn, under the tutelage of George Zoe.

Su Yuanshan took a gentle breath.

The Junior Class of HKUST did recruit many talented young people back then, and most of them chose to study abroad. Many of them also have good prospects after returning home.

UPenn, University of Pennsylvania. How could such a big boss appear here? You know, those who studied abroad are not returning home at this moment!

It was Su Yuanshan and Qin Weimin who looked at each other and saw the doubts and helplessness in each other's eyes. This man was obviously here to kick things off!

Realizing that the atmosphere was strange, Xi Xiaoding smiled slightly, with a blush rising on his pale face: "I came back to China this time because my father passed away. After dealing with it, I still had time, so I wanted to walk around. I saw you on the train. I found the recruitment advertisement interesting, so I came over to take a look. Please forgive me if it’s rude."

"My condolences." Qin Weimin said politely and said with a smile: "Senior Brother Xi, your teacher and my teacher are both from the same school."

Xi Xiaoding nodded: "I heard Teacher Wang talk about Professor Su, and he also admired Professor Su's academic temperament."

"I would like to thank Professor Wang on behalf of my father." Su Yuanshan bowed slightly as a son and said with a smile: "Senior Brother Xi, do you have any plans to stay?"

"Not yet, I've already got an offer from IBM." Xi Xiaoding shook his head: "I just came to take a look."

Oh, just pretend and leave.

"Then what did Senior Brother Xi see?"

"It's like this..." Xi Xiaoding lowered his eyes and smiled: "We who are engaged in technology are not just vain. To be honest, there is a big gap between domestic computers and foreign countries in terms of software and hardware. Someone must go out to see and learn. I see that you are planning to recruit a bunch of college graduates to engage in EDA, and most of them are in science and engineering... This is a bit like working behind closed doors."

Qin Weimin fell silent after talking.

He is a native-born master's student, but in front of a big man like a junior class and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, his aura is indeed a bit lower.

Fortunately, Su Yuanshan is not short both mentally and physically, whether lying down or standing.

He also smiled: "But Senior Brother Xi, the next sentence behind closed doors is the same as going out. In more than a month, Yuanxin EDA has taken a prototype, and the first tool has been basically completed. I wonder how many types of EDA Brother Xi has been exposed to?"

Xi Xiaoding glanced at Su Yuanshan: "Although I didn't continue in the direction of integrated circuits when I was studying for a Ph.D., circuit design has never been lost. I have used it from Protel to Mentor and Cadence."

"How about giving it a try?" Su Yuanshan motioned to Qin Weimin to let him go.

Xi Xiaoding looked at Su Yuanshan in surprise - was he letting himself see the unfinished project interface?

"Senior Brother Xi can also see if the domestic program level lags behind that of the West." Su Yuanshan sat on the chair and stuffed the floppy disk into the computer: "Although this is a commercial secret, I believe that Senior Brother Xi can keep it secret, and even if it is leaked, No one can catch up with me, not even Big Blue." //Note: This is really not a secret, it's just for the protagonist's business perspective, you won't get pregnant after watching it.

Xi Xiaoding endured it, and finally stood up and stood behind Su Yuanshan.

Su Yuanshan opened C++, loaded the project, and then debugged.

The interface that popped up first made Xi Xiaoding's eyelids jump!

beautiful.

"I won't go into details about these reserved interfaces. I'll connect the tools first."

Su Yuanshan opened the source code of the input tool he was responsible for, and in a few steps, he pointed at the interface and started the tool.

"Now let me demonstrate how to draw a simple PCB - the component database is not complete yet, so let's make a radio."

As Su Yuanshan skillfully brought up the drawing interface and began to draw the PCB, he easily added various components to the PCB without even thinking about it, and then the various lines were connected instantly.

In less than five minutes, a simple radio PCB was completed.

Qin Weimin smiled and patted Su Yuanshan on the shoulder. He kept paying attention to Xi Xiaoding's expression from the corner of his eye.

Although he has not used the EDAs that Xi Xiaoding just reported, he has seen them all before.

Frankly speaking, Yuanxin EDA has surpassed similar software by a long way in terms of design ideas, ease of use, and "intelligence"!

Xi Xiaoding's face was expressionless, but his pupils had shrunk to very small sizes, and he inadvertently made a fist with his right hand.

"Moreover, our program design is modular and team-based, using dedicated libraries to achieve a high degree of unity in code readability."

"And what is shown now is just the tip of the iceberg. The core function of Yuanxin EDA is the design of large-scale integrated circuits. It is no exaggeration to say that after its completion, a CPU design team can double the CPU architecture design time ! Moreover, it can now design CPUs with more than 10 million transistors!"

"Correspondingly, our simulation tools provide various in-depth debugging parameters. Only the wafer factory needs to provide corresponding data to complete the corresponding simulation support."

After hearing this, Xi Xiaoding finally retorted: "Impossible! Chip simulation already belongs to the field of physics. If you don't have a lot of data to support it, how can you write an algorithm?"

Even deeper, in his opinion, how could a small workshop-like development team produce software that could lead the world!

Su Yuanshan was silent for a few seconds. He didn't know how to explain to Xi Xiaoding - Senior Brother Xi, I came from thirty years later and once worked on the simulation function of Synopsys. Those data, those physical properties, those algorithms you mentioned, In fact, I already know it by heart? So he had to smile slowly.

“All code implementations are ultimately a reflection of human intelligence.”

“All design solutions are ultimately a reflection of human intelligence.”

"No matter how bad the country is, there are still a few wafer fabs. It's okay to produce some data. We can also recruit and train physics talents. Besides, even abroad, wafer fabs produce various technological problems. The data also needs to be provided to EDA manufacturers. Have you ever seen that EDA design company also set up its own physics laboratory and opened its own wafer factory? So, why is it impossible? Why is it impossible?"

Xi Xiaoding raised his head suddenly and stared at Su Yuanshan for a long time without saying anything.

Qin Weimin squinted his eyes and said slowly: "Brother Xi, you were right just now. We must go out to see and learn. But I think...doctorate is already considered a master's degree in learning."

"C++ has only been around for about ten years, and foreigners are not much more proficient than us." Su Yuanshan stood up and took out the floppy disk: "I think I understand the C++ language better than anyone else. If you don't agree, come and argue."

It took more than twenty years in the previous life and more than a month of training in this life. Su Yuanshan dared to say such a big thing.

And his mastery and familiarity with C++ is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that he has the sensitivity, intuition and various ideas of an "old" programmer. As for EDA, he is supported by various data from later generations, even the FinFET era.

The thirty-five-year-old programmer was fired not because of technical incompetence but because of physical incompetence.

Xi Xiaoding looked at Su Yuanshan in surprise.

Qin Weimin looked at the two of them, smiled and said, "Let's do this, Brother Xi, you sign a confidentiality agreement, you look at Xiaoshan's code, and I'll go outside for an interview."

Xi Xiaoding was silent for a while, then grabbed the pen and paper on the table.

Su Yuanshan and Qin Weimin smiled at the same time.

…

Three hours later, Xi Xiaoding looked up from the monitor.

The office was empty except for him.

Through the translucent frosted glass, he saw a small meeting taking place at the workstation in front of him. Everyone was sitting or standing, and bursts of laughter could be heard from time to time.

I don’t know what Associate Professor Su said, but everyone started to applaud again.

Immediately afterwards, the girl at the front desk and the accountant girl brought lunch boxes for everyone, and a group of people just sat together eating and chatting without any sense of hierarchy. Occasionally, there will be people operating the computer, and then a bunch of heads will gather around to look at it, and several hands will stretch out to point.

This is a dynamic start-up company.

At this time, the door was pushed open, and Professor Su's son Su Yuanshan, the boy who claimed to know C++ best, walked in with a lunch box and looked at him with a smile.

"Senior brother, let's eat."

Xi Xiaoding nodded, licked his lips, pointed at the code and asked, "You wrote it all? Including the engineering library?"

Su Yuanshan nodded: "The main framework, libraries, interfaces, and tools were all written by me."

Xi Xiaoding took the lunch box silently, but didn't know what to say.

He can completely understand Su Yuanshan's code.

You know, code is good if it can be read by others.

Because of this, he knew... Su Yuanshan was very strong, better than all the programmers he had ever seen. If we use martial arts novels as an analogy, Su Yuanshan's programming level has reached an advanced level.

In the past three hours, he had been shocked by Su Yuanshan's programming ideas.

Su Yuanshan's code is concise, efficient and beautiful. Adding a line is too much, subtracting too little code.

Su Yuanshan has the qualifications to speak out and argue if he is not convinced.

This is a genius... Xi Xiaoding thought of this sentence that he was tired of hearing since he was a child.

Leaning back on the chair, Xi Xiaoding exhaled slowly.

Su Yuanshan sat on the desk, swallowed his food, smiled and said, "Senior brother, what do you think of this chair?"

"Oh, it's good, just a little hard." Xi Xiaoding replied casually, but he immediately looked at Su Yuanshan.

"Then change to a soft one." Su Yuanshan said with a smile.

No matter how uneducated Xi Xiaoding was, he still understood what Su Yuanshan meant. He licked his lips again to cover up the confusion and panic in his heart.

Su Yuanshan ate slowly.

In fact, Su Yuanshan came to "attack" Xi Xiaoding with the mentality of treating a dead horse as a living horse doctor - to make him stop pretending! What’s so great about Dr. Penn? We are also PhDs from Columbia University! They are all eight babies on a vine, who is afraid of whom?

Now Su Yuanshan knew that Xi Xiaoding was actually a little tempted.

IBM's salary and prospects are certainly good, but if Xi Xiaoding is really a good person, then he knows how strong the programming ability is reflected in the code of Yuanxin EDA. He will definitely consider whether it is worth participating in the development of a world-class product in exchange for IBM's offer.

If this person is really proud, he will definitely not play the game in easy mode.

To say the least, Yuanxin's future development cannot satisfy him. Participating in or even leading the development of a world-leading EDA is also a shining qualification.

So Su Yuanshan stared at Xi Xiaoding and said slowly: "Brother Xi, do you really want to waste the rest of your life in those irrelevant departments of IBM? Just to get some money and live a life where your wife and children are on the hot bed?"

Since the establishment of a certain organization, Chinese engineers have never been able to enter the latest and most critical positions in semiconductor companies in the west. When Su Yuanshan was at Intel, the most critical technology he had access to was a product that was two generations behind - Pentium II.

"Or maybe you always play simple mode when playing games?"

"We who are engaged in technology never have to worry about starving to death. The only worry is whether the technology can be realized and whether the body and mind are happy at the same time."

"I haven't seen senior brother's skills before, but once I saw him, I felt that senior brother was an outstanding person, and an outstanding person should have the temper to dare to make the sun and moon change the sky."

Facing Su Yuanshan's promotion, Xi Xiaoding lowered his head and smiled after a long silence.

"For example, you just want to engage in EDA?"

"Not only EDA, I also want to develop chips."

Su Yuanshan shrugged: "It's nothing more than liver-burning and brain-burning. Who is afraid of whom?"

After a long time, Xi Xiaoding exhaled heavily.

"Can I ask about the salary?"

(asking for recommendation votes)