Sir Gao and Intel, as well as founders or veteran employees such as Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore and Andy Grove, have a history of more than ten years. During this period, Intel worked together before its listing, and Intel retired with success when its share price was high. Until now, Intel is often a helping hand after its collapse.
This reflects the loyalty of Sir Gao. In contrast, the vast majority of the capital that pursued Intel at the beginning have stayed away, and even died themselves.
Therefore, with this emotional foundation, Intel can basically listen to the opinions put forward by Sir Gao, who essentially represents the first largest shareholder of Intel Gaoyi.
In fact, Intel has no confidence to refute. It wants to completely produce its own products on the generation of Intel 80386, and it is impossible to prohibit other manufacturers from developing and manufacturing compatible products.
First of all, Intel obviously can't afford to offend big customers like IBM. From Intel 8086, Intel 8088 to Intel 80286, giant blue can produce compatible products by itself. In addition, sir Gao took over 20% of Intel shares from IBM, which all reflects the firm's confidence and hegemony that the company is not controlled by others.
Secondly, for peers such as ultramicro, Intel does not want to be able to do it, because the development and production of compatible products is a major business of ultramicro. If Intel wants to cut off people's financial resources, it will naturally cause a strong rebound. If it starts a lawsuit, it will be open and lasting. At this time, ultramicro will not be idle and really stop the compatible products business.
In addition, if Intel wants to eat alone, it also has to weigh. Has the x86 family microprocessor really come to the point where the industry is inseparable?
In such discussions, Intel is obviously lack of confidence and can't argue. Especially when it comes to the danger of being replaced, Andy Grove, who has always been regarded as a gun envoy, is equivalent to admitting that Intel can't do it. Straight through, sir Gao has never abandoned and favored ZILOG in recent years.
Sir Gao was amused. He also openly eliminated this possible resentment. At the beginning, I supported FeiJin who ran away from Intel to establish ZILOG because I cherished talents.
You won't deny Fagin's talent, but he can't adapt to Intel's militarized and strict enterprise management system. Let him give full play to his expertise under the more common free working system in Silicon Valley.
Now ZILOG focuses on RISC and low power consumption. The microprocessor market is so large that it will not entangle with Intel in the consumer market where x86 family microprocessors are located. You don't have to worry about ZILOG unnecessarily.
After seeing Andy Grove trying to find out the details from Sir Gao, Gordon Moore quickly pulled back. Intel has made microprocessors its main business, so it must absolutely control x86 family microprocessors. There is no objection to this, but please give more advice on how to achieve it.
Sir Gao flipped through the document in front of him, which was submitted by Intel, including the high sounding reasons that Intel released to the outside world to prohibit other manufacturers from developing and producing Intel 80386 compatible products.
For example, Intel claims that this is conducive to maintaining the underlying consistency of Intel 80386 series products and the long-term development of X86 family microprocessors. Previously, those "second supply" manufacturers would add some "optimization" with their own technical characteristics when developing and producing Intel 8086, Intel 8088 and Intel 80286, Thus, the compatible products show some bottom differences. In the long run, it will inevitably cause technical confusion.
For another example, Intel believes that with the development of the semiconductor industry, the technology, process, detection and other links have been perfect and reliable, and Intel itself has sufficient capacity to ensure the lasting stability of the supply of Intel 80386. This slogan may not be easy to understand outside the circle. Just take the example in the "old script". Intel will keep Intel 80386 available until 2007 in the next century.
"Obviously, if Intel wants to change the past practice and absolutely control x86 family microprocessors, it must make these grounds credible." Gao Xian patted the file gently, "But I've heard that the mass production of intel80386 alone has encountered problems. It was originally expected that the main frequency of mass production chips would be 16mhz for the first time. However, because the yield is not satisfactory, we can only retreat and ask for it. Taking the 12.5mhz microprocessor as the first batch of listed models, how can we ensure the long-term stability of the claimed supply."
Gordon Moore and Andy Grove immediately showed embarrassment. Sir Gao, as the gold owner, although loyal, is not perfect. It is mainly reflected in his profound and unpredictable. He said that you are professionals, but once you get serious, you can directly hit the death hole of technical problems.
Intel released Intel 80386 last year, that is, before the end of 1985, but it only started mass production this year. Because the normal operation process is like this, and because of poor performance, it leads to financial tension. It is difficult to avoid being short of factory investment necessary for the production of new products.
As a result, the mass production of intel80386 is really not very smooth.
The problems mentioned by Sir Gao still save face for Gordon Moore and Andy Grove.
There are many problems with intel80386. For example, when 32-bit operand multiplication is performed near the boundary value, it will return an error result.
Fortunately, the mass production of Intel 80386 is not smooth, with few finished products and few defective products. Moreover, 32-bit operations in personal computer application scenarios are relatively rare at this stage, which is not so easy to trigger bugs, which also gives Intel enough buffer to correct its mistakes and stop losses.
Although there are problems with Intel 80386, it is still much better than Intel 80286, because there are more bugs in Intel 80286, which creates a lot of trouble for the new operating system OS2 being jointly developed by IBM and Microsoft. As a result, IBM increasingly distrusts Intel's chip design ability and ignores Intel's new Intel 80386, while gates from Microsoft, Simply publicly call intel80286 "hydrocephalus chip".
Gordon Moore can no longer let Andy Grove stand in front. He confessed these problems and poured bitter water. The mass production of intel80386 requires a lot of investment, but now the company is really short of funds. Sir Gao, can you help me find a way? As long as the financing is in place, I will issue a military order to solve all the problems as soon as possible.
Sir Gao, who was waiting for you and muttered in his heart, said, "it is now common for enterprises to issue bonds in the capital market, and Intel can adopt it."
Gordon Moore looked hesitant. Does Sir Gao mean the kind of junk bonds issued by Drexel Burnham Lambert to help MCI raise $1.1 billion? Will the interest burden be too heavy?
"No, no, No." Sir Gao waved again and again. "Through the reasonable combination design including convertible bonds, preferred shares and warrants, Gaoyi is sure that Intel's credit rating will not be so low."
Now, as the largest shareholder of Intel, Gaoyi I holds about 25% of Intel's shares, which can hardly be increased. With the rapid development of the semiconductor industry, the microprocessor will only become more and more special and become a sensitive field. Therefore, some hidden rules should be recognized as soon as possible, so as not to hinder Intel's image As in the "old script", become the microprocessor overlord.
However, compared with the apparent shareholding ratio, Gaoxian has more ways to consolidate its control over Intel and share more of Intel's earnings from microprocessor development dividends. At this time, the motivation to help Intel finance comes from this.
In terms of technology, Gordon Moore and Andy Grove are professional enough; but Sir Gao is professional when playing capital. Gordon Moore and Andy Grove naturally have no reason to question. Moreover, they are really short of money now. Let's issue bonds.