Steal the enemy's base at the start and build a technological empire.

Chapter 367 Star Transplantation to ARM

May 15, 2000, 9:00 AM, Jinan Xinghuo Group conference room.

Ling Yun sat at the head of the conference table, a laptop with a silver-gray casing and a Spark mechanical keyboard in front of him. He had just flown back from England yesterday and was still jet-lagged; his eyes were a little bloodshot. Li Mo sat to his left, a notebook filled with writing in front of him. Alex sat to his right, wearing a dark blue polo shirt with a slightly wrinkled collar. He had flown for over ten hours from Silicon Valley and only arrived in Jinan late last night; he also looked tired. The other four members of the alien team sat on either side of the long table—two men and two women, all in their twenties and thirties, dressed casually; one was even wearing a baseball cap.

Ling Yun glanced at the clock on the wall and said, "Let's begin."

Alex picked up a folder from in front of him, opened it to the first page, which contained a table. He said in accented English, "We've assessed that ARM-based laptops are technically feasible, but very difficult."

Alex looked up at Ling Yun and continued, "The biggest problem is in the software. The ARM instruction set is completely different from x86. The code that the Starry Sky system is running now is all written for x86. Porting it to ARM isn't just a matter of changing a few lines of code. The entire underlying layer needs to be rewritten—memory management, process scheduling, driver framework—everything needs to be adapted from scratch."

He turned a page and pointed to a line of numbers on the table. "We calculated that the workload would be about eight to twelve person-months. If we start now, we can release the first beta version by the end of the year."

Ling Yun didn't speak. He opened the laptop in front of him, displaying the Star System's code repository. He typed a command, and a bunch of filenames flashed across the screen. He looked at it for a while, then turned to face Alex and said, "Workload isn't the problem, the problem is performance."

Alex nodded and said, "Yes, ARM has lower power consumption, but also lower performance. At the same clock speed, it's slower than x86. To make the Starry Sky system run smoothly, a balance needs to be struck between power consumption and performance. This isn't just a matter for the operating system; the chip, motherboard, and cooling all need to work together."

Lingyun asked him, "Have you tried it in Silicon Valley?"

Alex said, "I tried running the Starry Sky system prototype on an off-the-shelf ARM development board. It ran, but it was very laggy. The desktop was slow to respond, applications started slowly, and it was unusable for users, severely impacting the user experience."

A young engineer sitting next to him spoke up; he was wearing a baseball cap and had a youthful voice. He said, "The problem mainly lies in the graphics stack. ARM's GPU is different from x86's, and the drivers are different too. The graphics interface of the Starry Sky system is written for x86, so it's inefficient on ARM. We need to rewrite the drivers and even redesign the graphics stack."

Ling Yun looked at him and asked, "What's your name?"

The young man said, "Dave, Dave Chen. I'm from the graphics team."

Ling Yun nodded and said, "Li Mo's team is also working on the graphics stack. You can work on it together."

Li Mo nodded in agreement.

Alex turned to the next page and pointed to several photos. The photos showed a disassembled laptop, with the motherboard, heatsink, and battery labeled with their dimensions and weight. "There are also problems with the hardware. ARM chips have low power consumption and generate little heat, so they don't need fans. But laptops need to be thin, the battery needs to be large, and the structural components need to be lightweight. The materials, molds, and cooling solutions all need to be redesigned; it's not as simple as just piecing together existing parts."

Li Mo began, "Spark Electronics can make the casing and structural components. As for the batteries, we're in talks to acquire a company in Huizhou. We're also discussing the screen, but for the heat dissipation, we need Alienware to come up with a solution."

Alex looked at Li Mo and asked, "How's the technology at that battery factory you've been talking to?"

Li Mo replied, "Their technology is considered good domestically, but it's still a bit behind internationally. However, if we invest money and have them modify their production lines and upgrade their technology, they should be able to catch up quickly."

Alex thought for a moment and said, "Okay, I'll come up with the heat dissipation solution, but you'll have to find the materials. Are there any domestic manufacturers that make lightweight alloys?"

Li Mo said, "Yes, there is a company in Chongqing that makes aerospace aluminum materials. Their technology is quite good. We've worked together before, so we can talk."

Ling Yun listened to their conversation without interrupting. He turned to Alex and asked, "What do you think of ARM?"

Alex paused for a moment, then said, "ARM? You mean ARM Corporation?"

Ling Yun nodded.

Alex thought for a moment and said, "In terms of low power consumption, no one can beat ARM's architecture. Mobile phones, PDAs, and embedded devices are all dominated by them. But in laptops, no one has done it yet; the performance isn't good enough."

Ling Yun said, "If the performance isn't enough, add something. Add more complex instructions to the ARM architecture to improve performance. Mobile phone chips and laptop chips both use the same architecture. Develop the software once, and it can run on both platforms."

Alex looked at him and said, "That would be an even bigger undertaking. Changing the instruction set would require changing the compiler, the operating system, and recompiling the applications. It's not something that can be done in a year or two."

Ling Yun didn't answer. He stood up, walked to the whiteboard, and picked up a marker. He drew a square on the whiteboard and wrote "ARM" inside. Then he drew a larger square next to it and wrote "x86" inside. Pointing to the ARM square, he said, "ARM's power consumption is one-third that of x86." He then pointed to the x86 square and said, "x86's performance is twice that of ARM."

He put down his pen, turned to look at Alex. "If we can achieve 86% of the performance of x86 based on ARM, while maintaining one-third of the power consumption, then this chip will be the future of laptops."

Alex looked at him without saying a word.

Ling Yun returned to his seat. He opened his laptop, pulled up a file, and turned to face Alex. The screen displayed a densely packed line of code, difficult to read. Ling Yun pointed to the screen and said, "This is the memory management module of the Starry Sky system. I modified a part of it. I removed the x86 dependency and replaced it with a generic interface. It ran on an ARM development board, and the memory allocation speed is twice as fast as before."

Alex leaned closer to look at the screen. He stared at it for about ten seconds, then looked up at Ling Yun with a changed expression.

"When did you do that?"

Ling Yun said, "While waiting for Mr. Ni to negotiate in England, I had nothing to do, so I wrote a little."

Alex looked down at the screen for a moment. He pointed to a section of code and said, "This part can be further optimized. Change the cache alignment to 64-bit tuples. ARM's cache line is 64 bits, not 32."

Ling Yun nodded and said, "You change it."

Alex pulled a pen from his pocket and made a note in his notebook. Dave also came over to look, and after a while, pointed to a piece of code at the bottom of the screen and said, "Here, the graphics interface calls can also be optimized. ARM's GPUs are different from x86's; using a unified memory architecture can reduce copying."

Ling Yun looked at him and said, "You know this area well, so you handle it."

Dave nodded and made a note in his notebook as well.

Li Mo stood up, walked to the whiteboard, picked up a pen, and drew a timeline. He marked several points on the timeline: June, prototype; September, beta version; December, official version. He turned to everyone and asked, "Is this timeline okay?"

Alex looked at the timeline, thought for a moment, and said, "A prototype in June is fine. A beta version in September is a bit tight. Dave alone isn't enough for the graphics stack."

Ling Yun said, "Li Mo has two people on his side who work on drivers; we can bring them over for you to use."

Alex nodded and said, "Okay. We'll release the beta version in September and the full version in December."

Li Mo traced those dates on the whiteboard, pressing the pen down hard. He put down the pen and sat back down.

Ling Yun looked at Alex and asked, "How many people can the aliens send?"

Alex thought for a moment and said, "Five. Just the five of us. Any more than that would interfere with the aliens' own projects."

Ling Yun nodded and said, "That's enough. You provide the hardware solutions, and Li Mo's team will coordinate the software. We'll hold a video conference once a month to check on the progress."

Alex nodded.

"Any more questions?"

No one spoke.

He nodded and said, "That's settled then. I want to see the prototype in June."

Alex stood up and closed the folder. He walked to the whiteboard, looked at the timeline for a while, then turned to Ling Yun and said, "Ling, send me a copy of your memory management code. I'll take it back and study it."

Lingyun said, "I've already sent it to your email."

Alex pulled out his phone, glanced at it, and then laughed. He said, "You really can't sit still."

Ling Yun didn't answer. He walked to the conference table, closed his laptop, and held it in his hand. He looked at Alex and said, "Come on, I'll take you to see the production line. The line for the laptop casings, Ma Baoguo just modified it, see if you think it's okay."

Alex followed him out. The others stood up, packed their things, and followed behind. Li Mo walked last, looked at the timeline on the whiteboard one last time, then turned off the lights and closed the door.

In the corridor, Ling Yun and Alex walked ahead. Alex asked him, "How did the talks with Old Ni go with ARM?"

Ling Yun replied, "That's about it. The price has been agreed upon, and the contract is in the process of being finalized."

Alex asked him, "How much?"

Ling Yun said, "It's $1.8 billion for a 25% stake. It's only thanks to the recent decline in US tech stocks that it was so expensive, otherwise it would have been much more expensive."

Alex shook his head. "This price is still not cheap! Wait a little longer, it will probably be more cost-effective. The decline has just begun, mainly in the internet sector. The panic selling hasn't spread to hardware yet. ARM's price will probably be halved soon."

"We need to act quickly and seize the laptop and mobile phone markets. Acquiring them sooner gives us a head start; price isn't the most important factor anymore."

Alex nodded. "I will do my best."