Chapter 115 - Want to Bet or Not?
After hanging up the phone, Su Yuanshan laughed heartily.
That international call had cost him a hundred dollars, but if it successfully triggered Chen Haoming to develop a browser, it was well worth the price.
Ah, the internet of the 1990s!
A golden opportunity to make easy money — Su Yuanshan definitely wasn't going to miss it.
However, he had no intention of letting Yuanchip or Xinghai personally get involved.
It would be enough if Qin Si arranged angel investments through another channel, and then cashed out before the internet winter arrived around the millennium.
One had to understand — the internet winter, which coincided with a semiconductor winter, would be brutal.
From 2001 to 2003, the semiconductor industry would experience the worst growth decline in sixty years — nearly minus 30%.
That period was also notable because it was the only time since the 1980s that Samsung, normally famous for taking advantage of downturns to buy assets, didn't make any big moves.
Su Yuanshan didn't know if Samsung would still play their old tricks in this timeline, but this time, and in the future, it should be Yuanchip's turn to master counter-cyclical investments.
Of course, Su Yuanshan wasn't planning to touch internet businesses directly in the 1990s.
But that didn't mean he would stop his people from doing so if they had the right direction.
Moreover, browsers were the very foundation of the internet.
Even during the worst times, browsers wouldn't freeze over.
At the very least, if Chen Haoming managed to build a browser, it would be as if Yuanchip had created another Netscape.
Anyone with even a little internet history knowledge knew how crazy Netscape's IPO was in 1995.
At the time, capital and the market inflated Netscape to the point of arrogance — the young company even tried to use its browser dominance to challenge Microsoft's operating system monopoly.
Perhaps, in the eyes of young Netscape, Windows 3.1 seemed insignificant.
Unfortunately for them, Microsoft had never been a company that played fair.
Sensing Netscape's ambitions, Microsoft immediately collaborated with Spyglass, licensed their technology and source code, and rapidly built Internet Explorer — the famous IE browser — launching an all-out browser war.
By the time IE reached version 4.0, Microsoft bundled it completely with Windows, making IE the default pre-installed browser.
At that point, Netscape, already losing ground, played its last card — going open-source and starting the Mozilla non-profit project, hoping for a desperate turnaround.
But ultimately, it couldn't resist the steamroller that was Microsoft.
The browser war ended with Microsoft's absolute victory.
When Windows 98 was launched, peace reigned again — under Microsoft's rule.
Later, Netscape was sold off to AOL (America Online).
Meanwhile, Microsoft faced antitrust lawsuits and accusations of abusing market dominance — scaring them badly.
Although Microsoft narrowly avoided being broken up, it still had to pay AOL $750 million in settlement fees and agreed to a seven-year licensing deal.
Later on, during the internet winter, AOL itself became overwhelmed and dissolved the Netscape team.
However, they didn't completely extinguish its legacy — they kept Mozilla alive, leaving behind that mischievous little fox to continue irritating Microsoft.
Compared to Netscape's fate, if Xinghai were to develop a browser, the story would certainly end differently.
Because in this lifetime, Su Yuanshan's goal was very clear:
Microsoft was not his enemy.
His only true adversary was the Big Stick — the future wave of U.S. technological containment.
...
After calling Claude to get the decryption methods and having a brief conversation, Su Yuanshan began decrypting the documents.
Following the principle of "clear accounts among brothers," Xinghai obviously wasn't going to hand over all their patent and trade secret materials for free.
Those would need to be exchanged slowly with Yuanchip's IP contributions.
In fact, the documents provided by Claude this time were mostly records of their achieved results and thoughts about CPU architecture — in essence, a detailed development specification.
This document served as a way for both sides to evaluate each other:
Su Yuanshan needed to judge the technical strength of Claude's team, and Claude needed to assess whether Su Yuanshan's team was as sharp as promised.
...
Ten days later, Gao Xiaodi appeared in Su Yuanshan's office.
Looking at Gao's bloodshot eyes and exhausted expression, Su Yuanshan smiled secretly.
"Finished reading?" he asked.
"Finished."
"Understood it?"
"More or less," Gao Xiaodi said, rubbing his greasy hair and forcing a smile.
"I can understand it, but my mind feels completely blank.
It's like I can start, but also like I have no idea where to begin — X86 architecture is this complicated?"
Su Yuanshan chuckled and reassured him. "Because it wasn't designed by us from the start, it naturally feels messy.
You could bring in Senior Brother Qin, and he'd be just as confused."
Hearing that even Qin Weimin would struggle gave Gao Xiaodi some comfort.
Still, he asked quickly, "And you? Any ideas?"
"I'm ready to start on the architecture design," Su Yuanshan said lightly.
"..."
Gao Xiaodi stared at him for several seconds before muttering, "Forget it, I'm not talking to you anymore.
I'm taking a day off to rest my brain.
Give me my next assignment tomorrow."
Zhou Xiaohui, who was sitting nearby, watched Gao Xiaodi staggering out and couldn't help laughing softly.
"If you didn't know better, you'd think he just had a night of debauchery."
Su Yuanshan kept his eyes on the computer screen.
"Yeah, just like a gigolo who's been drained dry."
Zhou Xiaohui laughed, just as the phone rang.
She picked it up, covered the receiver, and told Su Yuanshan, "Engineer Zheng from the Lithography Institute wants to come visit.
He asked when you'd be available."
Su Yuanshan looked up. "Tell him I'm available anytime."
After relaying the message and hanging up, Zhou Xiaohui smiled, "He says he'll come this afternoon."
"Hmm, probably the lithography machine passed inspection," Su Yuanshan muttered, stretching lazily.
"Sister Xiaohui, how about a bet?
I bet Zheng's visit is about discussing the next research project."
Zhou Xiaohui pursed her lips and smiled. "No bet."
Everyone at the company knew — Su Yuanshan loved tossing out "Want to bet?"
But in reality, he didn't even play poker.
...
After lunch, Su Yuanshan didn't take his usual nap.
Instead, he sat at his desk, sketching ideas in his notebook.
Since he could already guess that Zheng Zhenchuan was coming to discuss future projects, he figured he might as well prepare in advance.
In his memory, Chengguang Institute's next lithography machine project would be completed around 1997, achieving breakthroughs at the 0.8–1 micron node.
Given the technology blockade China was under, completing such a machine in four years was considered impressive.
However, internationally, mainstream lithography machines had already moved into the DUV (deep ultraviolet) light source era, with processes down to 0.25 microns, and were working toward 0.18 microns based on ArF 193nm sources.
The EUV (extreme ultraviolet) alliance had also formed, targeting 10-nanometer nodes in the long term.
In comparison, China was still stuck using mercury lamps and g-line light sources, with both technology and prospects hopelessly behind — so much so that for the next fifteen years, hardly anyone in China even dared mention lithography machines.
But Su Yuanshan knew:
ArF193 with immersion technology would remain viable all the way to 2020.
Right now, the lithography machine they had completed operated at the 1.5-micron node — already three to four generations behind the global forefront.
If they kept following the old path, it would take at least another decade to catch up.
Thus, Su Yuanshan made a decision:
He would strongly persuade Zheng Zhenchuan to abandon visible light altogether.
And if they wanted to develop light sources, they had to pull in Chengguang's parent institute — the Changguang Institute.
(He wrote all of this relying on memory — he would double-check later and correct if needed.)
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