Chapter 299 USB technology

At this time, the minds in the city suddenly realized that the chairman and general manager of Haizhou Holdings were the real fat. Unfortunately, Haizhou Holdings was completely Zhang Zhixing's territory, and Haizhou Holdings was completely made by Zhang Zhixing. Unless he gave it away himself, others did not think about occupying this position, but Li Mingxue's position as general manager is still jealous of people.

Li Mingxue was a scholarly and went on the road of management and applied what he learned, but his identity was not at the level of a certain subject, and he was not even a party member. It was a bit annoying to see it in the eyes of some people, and even Zhou Fuming asked about it. Zhou Fuming would not have been so obviously placed in private. He just wanted to include Li Mingxue in the cadre establishment. With Li Mingxue's academic influence and his achievements in managing Haizhou Holdings for more than a year, it would not be too controversial to give him a deputy or even a main position. After all, a certain proportion of non-party members are needed in the cadre team, which can also bring the city the beauty of respecting knowledge and talents.

In Zhang Ke's mind, the reform of the state-owned enterprise system must make the government no longer act as a direct manager, but should keep the duties of shareholders. Giving Li Mingxue the title of deputy director or chief director will just regress the innovation brought about by Haizhou Holdings. Fortunately, Li Mingxue was not addicted to being an official, which gave Tang Xueqian the excuse to reject Zhou Fuming's rare kind arrangement.

Zhang Zhixing raised his hand and looked at his watch. It was just after 11 o'clock. He thought that he would not be at ease when he returned home, so he didn't care whether Zhang Ke would go back or not. Even if he didn't care about giving gifts from others at all, it would be wrong to hide. He and his wife had to wait until the 16th to officially move into the new house.

Someone once used computer hardware to distinguish four technical levels of the electronics industry: CPU, components, components, and assembly. Aida Electronics needs to use this standard to measure it. It has just been at the technical level of component production and has not gained a firm foothold.

From components to components is a very difficult step. Don’t look at the fact that many domestic electronic companies are selling well or working for foreign manufacturing giants. The cost of core components usually accounts for three-quarters or more of the total product cost.

Take the decoding board required for the DVD player for example. The production cost is as high as 5 US dollars, but the price of TI and Scooper is more than 70 US dollars, and the agents have to get an additional twenty US dollars.

Yesterday, Zhang Ke saw the burning CD in Shi Chunfeng's hand and remembered the problem of computer mobile storage. In the 1990s, everyone was accustomed to using floppy disks with a capacity of 1.44M. In another ten years, people who are new to computers may not know what the floppy disk looks like, and they are used to using USB flash drives.

More than a decade later, almost most digital products adopt the mobile storage characteristics of USB flash drives. If this technology is in hand, Ida Electronics will have some confidence to compete with those electronic industry giants in the future.

Zhang Ke did not sleep well all night and tried his best to recall the USB features that would only appear after 2000. As a layman, he didn't know anything about anything except that the USB drive supports USB interface and built-in memory chips like flash cards.

The next day, Zhang Ke got up early and went to the company to call Ding Huai. He only learned that flash memory was invented by Toshiba in 1984. Due to the "anti-monopoly" international convention, Toshiba shared this patented technology with Samsung; and the 1.0 standard was formulated in 1995. Due to the lack of software support, it has not yet been widely used.

Regarding the USB interface standard, Zhang Ke remembers some things that Microsoft directly wrote software that supports USB interface standard to the WIN98 system. That is to say, after WIN98, USB applications became widespread.

Zhang Ke asked Ding Huai: "Toshiba invented flash memory in 1984. Are there any ready-made products now?"

"Yes, the computers in the R&D center are in use..."

Zhang Ke and Ding Huai walked to the laboratory of the research center and saw that Shi Chunfeng, who was the second generation of Warcraft, was also inside.

When Shi Chunfeng saw Zhang Ke coming in, he said with some panic: "The Chinese version of the game has not been available yet, it may take a week..."

"Do I look so unemployed?" Zhang Ke asked Ding Huai in a twisted manner.

Ding Huai smiled. Zhang Ke was concerned about the Chineseization of the game, but actually wanted to recommend Shi Chunfeng to Sheng Qing. Of course, this reason cannot be explained. He smiled and asked Shi Chunfeng to help open the side cover of the mainframe box to let Zhang Ke see what the flash card looked like.

The side covers of several computers in the laboratory are usually open, and a large amount of data must be transferred in the real-life room. It is better to pull out the hard disk directly through the local area network. However, when Ding Huai led Zhang Ke in, he hurriedly covered the side cover.

Zhang Ke saw that the flash card was directly connected to the interface on the computer motherboard, and Zhang Ke asked Shi Chunfeng: "Can you dial it down?"

"able……"

Zhang Ke was so stupid that he really went to dial, and Ding Huai quickly stopped him: "Be careful of electric shock, you must turn off the power first..."

"Ah..." Zhang Ke looked at Ding Huai in a daze.

Shi Chunfeng almost laughed out loud. Yesterday, he saw Zhang Ke playing Warcraft so smoothly, and he thought he was proficient in computers. He turned it off and helped to remove the flash card.

Zhang Ke held the flash card in his hand and looked carefully. It was much larger than the USB flash drive in a few years. It was probably because the integration level had not yet developed that level.

Zhang Ke remembers that when using USB drive, it is plug-and-play, and it does not need to shut down and power off. He learned the working principle of a DVD player with Ding Huai and Su Jindong earlier, and understood some basic things. In the blink of an eye, he understood where the difference between USB drive and flash card is. "Plug-and-play" is the feature of the USB interface, not the feature of the USB drive. The USB drive only supports USB interface. As long as the flash card is added with a control component that supports USB interface, it is the USB drive.

Zhang Ke communicated his ideas with Ding Huai, and Ding Huai said: "IDE to USB? This is not difficult to achieve. I will arrange a group immediately, but the USB standard is not widely used..."

Ding Huai's eyes lit up. If the computer is widely equipped with USB interfaces, a flash card plus an IDE to USB controller will be a very convenient large-capacity mobile memory. Of course, the USB standard has only been released for less than a year, and the application is extremely narrow. Moreover, the standard access speed is very slow and the price is very expensive. The market prospects in recent years are very narrow.

However, among the three major strategic policies of Ida Electronics, the first is technological expansion. Ida Electronics must have a considerable technological accumulation before it dares to compete head-on with those electronic industry giants. As a research topic, it is very suitable.

Ding Huai took out his work record book and wrote it down, preparing to arrange the research team to carry out this project.

Zhang Ke didn't know what IDE means, but he thought in his mind that it probably refers to the interface for flash cards. The USB standard is not widely used, which does not mean that it will not be widely used after 1998. Damn, the most critical flash memory technology of USB drive has long been someone else's in-disk meat, and you have to cut some meat from the mosquito's legs.

Shi Chunfeng said from the side: "I have a junior, and the research direction of the paper is the technology of IDE to USB, which is almost at the level of being able to be published..."

Zhang Ke patted his head and said to Ding Huai: "Finish this person and buy what he has studied. It's better for people to buy it... I applied for the patent first, and then did a play to let me use it first..."

Zhang Ke remembered that in 2002, a company named Langco or Langchi claimed that it applied for a patent for USB flash drive in 2019, but other companies ignored them and produced USB flash drives on their own and did not pay the company patent fees. They filed a lot of lawsuits, but there was no result. Zhang Ke understood the reason at this time. The key principle was published as a paper as early as 2019. The company delayed the patent application in 2019 to 2019 before it applied for a patent protection, which was obviously invalid.

Shi Chunfeng soon contacted his junior. The man was still in school and could transfer his skills, but his junior had signed an agreement with TI. After the Spring Festival, he would work at TI China Company.

Zhang Ke heard Shi Chunfeng's report in Ding Huai's office and said, "For subsequent research and development, it is best for him to continue to follow up..." He said to Ding Huai, "Send a chief engineer to meet Shi Chunfeng to Beijing to discuss with him and explain to him the company's R&D policies. If this technology has a market in the future, even if the patented technology belongs to the company, the key person who makes a breakthrough can still enjoy additional awards. He must be willing to come to Aida, and he will be responsible for this topic... As for his work agreement with TI, this is very easy to coordinate." Just grab someone from Chen Xinsheng and say hello, but the key is that he is willing.

Shi Chunfeng is responsible for a project, that is, the chief engineer, and Shi Chunfeng is envious. You should know that the salary offered by Aida Electronics to ordinary R&D personnel is no lower than that of foreign-funded companies such as TI (China), and the treatment of chief engineers is even more important. And he has a considerable scale of project funds. After the project is completed, the funds are not used up, so that is the bonus. Compared with these, what is Beijing household registration?

The Spring Festival will be celebrated in a few days. Since we have decided, there is nothing to delay. It is best to make things happen before the Spring Festival. Ding Huai immediately arranged for the chief engineer of Shi Chunfeng's group and Shi Chunfeng to take a bus to the provincial capital to take a plane to Beijing.

At noon, Su Jindong rushed back to the company from outside. Zhang Ke called them to Ding Huai's office to discuss the technological development direction of Aida Electronics.

TI has placed CD reading technology into a joint venture, aiming at a new generation of DVD DVDs, and strives to get a share of DVD patented technology. Since we started out as a DVD player, even if we can't get a share of DVD patented technology, Aida Electronics will not give up on DVD making.

Like VCD, as long as you enter early, even if you only do the assembly of the whole machine, you can still plunder the huge profits in the early stage. Of course, as the first company in China to produce DVDs, there are still many technical difficulties to be overcome. The first is to crack the DVD anti-pirated system. Without the existence of the pirated industry, it is difficult for the domestic DVD player market to develop, such as VCD and DVDs. This time, other companies will not provide mature technology.

Therefore, in addition to continuing to improve the audio-visual technology of VCD, the research center also needs to follow up on the latest foreign video technology new progress.

Technology expansion also requires the development of technology to be limited to a relatively concentrated direction. Digital technology (usually called digital technology) is the direction chosen by Aida Electronics, but the application of digital technology is quite widespread. In the end, it must be combined with audio-visual entertainment products to fully utilize the brand advantages of Aida Electronics.

Video disc machines have obvious digital technology characteristics. Whether it is a learning machine or an electronic dictionary, there are no technical problems. They are all projects that can be picked up and prepared immediately. The technology of learning machine is simpler. With the production level of Ida Electronics, it can be said that it can be done when picked up. However, with the popularization of personal computers, the real life of learning machines is only a few years. The golden age of electronic dictionary is slightly longer. Key electronic dictionaries can move towards the direction of handheld computers, and the development of products with higher integration requirements is conducive to the improvement of product technology. Next, it will be smooth sailing for mobile memory, MP3, MP4 and other digital products. At present, we have to choose a market target. Of course, Zhang Ke chose to make electronic dictionary.

By measuring the standards of CPU, components, components and assembly, Aida only stays at the level of component production, and is component production without core technology.

In addition to developing a variety of product technologies, Aida Electronics also needs to expand its technology in depth. It should be a good precedent to be able to win the key USB USB technology for IDE, but it is far from enough. According to the international convention of "anti-monopoly", patent rights are prohibited from being abused in any country. With the agreement of compulsory licensing, it cannot be exclusively owned by one. When Scooper transferred the first generation of decoding board technology to TI, Toshiba shared the flash memory technology with Samsung, this is the case. Of course, when the market prospects for IDE to USB technology become clear, Zhang Ke can use this technology to trade with TI or other electronics industry giants.
Chapter completed!