Chapter 112 - Mobile Phones and Text Messages
Su Yuanshan had once been responsible for logic design himself and knew that Gao Xiaodi was one of the rare "tall ones among dwarfs" in the field in China. Engineers working in logic design usually had a solid foundation in mathematics. And as everyone knew, people who were good at math tended to be a bit proud.
When he initially assembled the IC design team to develop the decoder chip, most of Su Yuanshan's picks had strong math backgrounds as well. It was only thanks to Su Yuanshan personally leading the team, and to Li Mingliu — a T University genius who respected no one except Xi Xiaoding and Su Yuanshan — that the team stayed in order. Otherwise, Xiao Shouping and Gao Xiaodi would have fought each other every other day.
Now, Gao Xiaodi was ecstatic — the frustration he had bottled up over six months as a "rookie instructor" was finally swept away. With Li Mingliu sent off to Shanghai by Su Yuanshan to work on cache memory, it meant that the CPU development team here would be personally led by Su Yuanshan — something that hadn't happened since Su Yuanshan completed the EDA project.
Thus, for the CPU team here, who else could be the real leader if not Gao Xiaodi?
Su Yuanshan saw through Gao Xiaodi's little excitement instantly and chuckled. "Senior Brother Gao, you won't be able to handle leading the X86 team."
Gao Xiaodi froze, immediately unwilling to accept it. "Why not?!"
This fighting spirit made Su Yuanshan appreciate him even more, but he still shook his head. "X86 is a complex instruction set. It has too many addressing modes, which inevitably leads to structural complexity... and we're currently in the architecture and module design phase."
"We'll be co-developing with Cyrix to accelerate progress. They've already accumulated a lot of experience through reverse engineering, so early on, we'll need to learn from them, absorb their experience fully, and then focus on the areas we are best at."
Gao Xiaodi froze again. He was proud, but he wasn't arrogant enough to think he was unbeatable. Yuanchip and Xinghai were sister companies in name, but those at Xinghai were, after all, foreigners. In collaborative development, if Yuanchip wanted to seize the initiative, they had to send a true heavyweight to lead the team.
And among the entire Yuanchip, only two could be considered heavyweights: Xi Xiaoding and Su Yuanshan.
Still, Gao Xiaodi needed confirmation. "So you're personally leading the main team?"
Su Yuanshan nodded with a smile. "Yes, I'll lead the main team, handling the MMX instruction set and the overall architecture."
Although the new core was codenamed Thor, it was fundamentally based on the P55C core — that is, the Pentium MMX core. Su Yuanshan had initially wanted to aim directly for the Klamath core used in the Pentium II, which he was more familiar with. But after deep consideration, he realized the current team couldn't possibly keep up; it would take four or five years to deliver — and by then, the opportunity would have passed. So he decided to step back and start with MMX.
Having once worked at Intel as a "commercial spy," Su Yuanshan also knew he couldn't copy things too obviously. He needed to wait for Cyrix's technical documentation to arrive before adjusting the architecture according to the knowledge and capabilities they already had.
Hearing that Su Yuanshan would personally lead, Gao Xiaodi finally submitted completely.
After a bit more discussion among the three, Su Yuanshan returned to his office.
Before he even reached the door, he saw Tian Yaoming pacing back and forth inside.
"Senior Brother Tian, looking for crickets?" Su Yuanshan joked, nudging the door open with his shoulder.
But today, Tian Yaoming clearly wasn't in the mood for jokes.
As soon as he saw Su Yuanshan, he rushed over. "Big news!
Nokia's GSM mobile terminal is ready for mass production!"
Su Yuanshan froze for a moment, then laughed. "So what? The GSM standard comes from Europe.
Of course they would mass-produce first. It's normal.
No need to panic, you guys just keep working at it."
"It's a big deal!" Tian Yaoming stomped his foot.
"We're split into two teams — nearly three hundred people! Plus over a hundred Silicon Valley elites!
Meanwhile, Nokia only has less than two hundred people working on GSM!"
He was agitated. "Whoever gets mass production first will have a say in the future GSM standard!"
"It's still early," Su Yuanshan chuckled.
"China hasn't even decided what network to use yet.
Don't rush."
"You didn't call me here just to talk about this, did you?" Su Yuanshan added teasingly.
"Hmph, you heartless boss," Tian Yaoming grumbled, amused. "Of course not. Actually, our baseband development is nearly done.
Only two algorithms for digital signal processing remain — if we could get Senior Brother Xi to help, maybe we could crack it quickly."
"No," Su Yuanshan rejected instantly.
"..."
Su Yuanshan sighed. "Senior Brother Xi's algorithm skills are strong, but even for him, getting familiar with your project would take time.
And he's not a magician — it's not like solving a simple math problem."
Tian Yaoming fell silent for a few seconds, then sighed too.
"Besides, Senior Brother Xi is busy writing textbooks, teaching freshmen, and developing mathematical software.
Pulling him halfway into your project would be a bad move."
"If it's just two algorithms, maybe we can go to the math department for help," Su Yuanshan suggested.
"And honestly, I'm not worried about GSM.
Take your time, build your foundations strong.
Our real breakthroughs will come in 3G and 4G networks — faster and more stable."
After thinking for a moment, Su Yuanshan added, "But if you really want an early achievement, I have an idea.
Do you have a working engineering prototype?"
Tian Yaoming said, "In Silicon Valley, the GSM standards committee has already set up a test base station.
Howard is preparing for an initial tape-out to test if all the previous work was wasted or not.
But based on our estimates, the bugs will mostly appear in voice quality."
He sighed again. "It's true what they say: paper theories are shallow — only after actual tape-out can you really know."
Su Yuanshan chuckled. "Exactly. That's why developing SoCs burns money."
"So what's your idea?"
"Well... GSM is digital.
Theoretically, you can transmit text through it.
Since you're stuck on algorithms, why not change your mindset a bit?
Collaborate with Senior Brother Jiang upstairs and see if you can build a system based on GSM to transmit text messages — something like..."
"I get it!"
Tian Yaoming, who had just sat down, sprang up immediately.
Having started his career developing Chinese paging systems, he instantly understood.
Digital signals could absolutely carry text.
And GSM could even access the internet in theory!
Tian Yaoming's eyes lit up, his breathing quickened.
He clenched his fists and exclaimed, "Mobile communication devices aren't like pagers — they can send and receive, and encode messages too.
We can implement true point-to-point text communication!
Just like sending emails!"
"Exactly," Su Yuanshan smiled.
"Each mobile device — or easier, let's just call them cellphones — would have a fixed number, like an email address.
The base station would act like a mail server...
And right now, no one has proposed this standard yet, right?"
Tian Yaoming grinned widely. "Nope!
Howard monitors ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) every day.
There's no such proposal."
"Then go for it. It should be easy for you guys," Su Yuanshan said.
"And name it something simple... how about 'Short Message Service'?"
"Cellphones... SMS," Tian Yaoming repeated, nodding.
"Sounds catchy.
Let's do it!"
Su Yuanshan thought to himself: of course it sounds catchy — in the future, the world would call it SMS for decades.
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