The traditional silicon-based chips might be eliminated forever!
Executives from Intel, Qualcomm, and countless other semiconductor companies had spent their weekends in anxiety, fearing for their jobs.
However, a piece of sudden “good news” made people feel relieved.
The paper on carbon-based integrated circuit technology was withdrawn by IEEE.
Which meant the experimental data could have been fabricated!
This was quite a serious allegation.
Even though some people thought the withdrawal was a bit strange, most people accepted the allegations as fact.
Mostly because the IEEE was quite a trusted professional organization. The vast majority of engineers in the field obtained their information through the IEEE literature database. Most of them dreamed of presenting their work at the IEEE conference.
Since even the IEEE thought this technology was not trustworthy, most people believe that this technology was probably fake.
After all, they were much more willing to trust IEEE than Huawei.
Immediately after the “carbon-based chip” paper was withdrawn, discussions began to churn on Facebook.
[… I told you so, the carbon-based chip is just a fantasy. Even companies like Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD aren’t making any research progress. Now this chip design company comes out of nowhere and claims to have the technology? Do you guys really believe this?]
[How dare the Chinese submit this to IEEE, this is an insult to academia! We have to investigate the person who wrote the paper.]
[But why did they do this? They know we can easily verify their claims and debunk their lies.]
[God knows? The Chinese love faking things? Maybe this is part of their evil plan…]
[Sigh, seems like even Professor Lu makes mistakes sometimes…]
…
Intel corporate headquarters.
People were coming and going in the cubicle and office area.
In a competitive enterprise like this, one could easily sense an atmosphere of tension in the air. If the carbon-based chips really took over the semiconductor industry, most of the people here would be fired.
In order to make themselves look more valuable, everyone was trying to look busy and hardworking, in hopes of not getting fired when the time comes.
Footsteps were heard outside of Mayberry’s office.
Mayberry heard a knock on the door while he was reviewing documents at his desk. He frowned and spoke.
“Come in.”
“IEEE actually agreed to withdraw the paper,” said the young assistant in his twenties. He spoke in a tone of disbelief, “… I can’t believe the IEEE people actually listened to us.”
The assistant was the one who had contacted IEEE. He had no idea that after some back and forth emailing, IEEE had actually agreed to their request so easily.
However, unlike the amazed assistant, Mayberry just pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose and spoke with a blank expression.
“Nothing surprising about that. We have many employees inside the association. Of course, in a critical moment like this, they are on our side. Not to mention that the White House and the industry are putting pressure on them. They have to withdraw the paper, even if they don’t want to.”
When the assistant heard him, his face made a subtle change.
“The White House is also involved?”
Mayberry nodded and spoke.
“After all, this is extremely important to the industry. In some sense, the White House cares more about this than us.”
The electric vehicle industry was no longer dominated by the United States, especially because of China’s dominance over fusion energy. The White House wouldn’t hesitate to leave Tesla behind.
However, the semiconductor was one of the core industries of the United States, so the White House wouldn’t give up this easily.
Not only did this involve tens of thousands of jobs in a trillion-dollar market, it also attacked America’s monopoly in the high-tech field.
Wonder what China’s highest American import was?
It was computer chips!
Mayberry was well aware that the White House was beyond a turning point.
It didn’t matter if they were behind in controllable fusion technology or that they were losing the aerospace race. The semiconductor industry was the upstream chain of the entire high-tech industry. If they lost their dominant position in semiconductors as well, the impact would be unthinkable.
What would happen was that the United States would be completely pushed out of the high-tech field, and the chain reaction caused by this would cause unbearable damage.
In fact, the Nasdaq was already down.
After all, in a capitalistic society, only the fittest could survive. The stock price of a company was an indicator of the future economic outlook.
Therefore, neither the White House nor the industry giants would allow something like this to happen.
The assistant didn’t know why Mayberry was so optimistic. He hesitated for a second before he asking, “But the product launch conference by Huawei’s HiSilicon is still going to be held as scheduled. Why does it matter that we took down their paper on IEEE?”
“Trust, confidence, belief, what do those words mean?” Mayberry patiently said, “When a lone lion tries to enter the area of a group of lions, what do you think happens? If the lone lion retracts its claws and acts docile, maybe it can eat some leftover meat. But the Chinese didn’t do that, they came roaring at us.”
Mayberry smiled and twisted the pen in his hand.
“I admit, their research is strong, and it is also very attractive to our partners in the downstream industrial chain. I bet CEO Swan would do anything it takes for them to share their patent and technologies with us.
“However, sometimes technology isn’t the only thing that determines the market competitiveness of a product. There is also compatibility, customer relations, industry influence, and a whole lot of other factors!”
I guess Mayberry is right, but is HiSilicon really just a lone lion?
One lion couldn’t change anything. Even though it was at the top of the food chain, it was unable to compete with all of its peers. If the lion was unable to integrate into a community, it would soon starve to death.
However…
What if HiSilicon isn’t a lion, what if they’re the hunters with guns?
The assistant still had a confused look on his face. However, it was clear that Mayberry didn’t want to discuss this with him any longer. Mayberry handed a signed document to the assistant.
“Mr. Swan will handle these things. We just have to focus on the technology side. Do something for me, take this to the research and development center and hand it over to the person in charge.”
“Carbon-based… integrated circuit project?”
Mayberry looked at the baffled assistant and said, “Since they have proved this technology is possible, I believe we can do it.”
After the assistant left, Mayberry leaned in his chair and stretched his back. He picked up his coffee mug and took a sip.
His lunch break was in ten minutes.
He decided to take a short break.
Thus, he turned on his computer while he continued to drink his coffee.
He opened his browser and logged onto his Facebook account. A notification caught his eye.
His pupils contracted.
When he read the news, he nearly spat his coffee on the screen.
Jinling Institute for Advanced Study founded a journal called “Future”!
The editor-in-chief is…
Lu Zhou!
