Chapter 1414 The Abandoned Inventor
Prior to this, the only semiconductor non-volatile memory that could be programmable, readable and writable, and store data that would not disappear after power outage was the EEPROM invented by Intel.
However, Intel's EEPROM has obvious shortcomings, namely poor read and write performance and difficulty in improving integration.
In other words, Intel is not suitable for storing large amounts of data at all, so it can only be used in the computer's BIOS boot chip to boot the computer's operating system.
The solution is to "deliberately reduce performance".
Simply put, the way of erasing and writing data in EEPROM is in bytes.
In the NOR chip, these data, which originally held individual number plates, are packaged into "small groups" to be viewed, that is, erased and written in blocks.
In the chip, the "number plate" itself occupies a part of the circuit. In the past, there was one number plate for each room, but now it has become one number plate for each building. In this way, the "number plate" Greatly reduced, the area of the chip is naturally reduced and the capacity is larger. Although the writing speed becomes slower, the erasing speed becomes faster.
The overall performance is still reduced, but this price is exchanged for huge cost savings, which meets the requirements of mass production.
And the speed is not really slow. After all, the electrons in the semiconductor are running at the speed of light, so Fujio Shioka named it FLASH, which means storage as fast as a flash. It is translated in China Became "flash memory".
The emergence of flash memory should undoubtedly be a breakthrough product. However, even now, most manufacturers around the world have not realized its true value. Even Toshiba, where Fujio Morioka is located, and those who first noticed the flash memory industry INTEL has positioned it in the narrow application range of computer system boot chips.
The most important thing is that Fujio Fujioka is completely unpopular within Toshiba.
At the age of 28, Fujio Masuoka graduated with a Ph.D. from Junichi Nishizawa, one of the founders of Japanese semiconductor technology. At that time, major companies in the island country were attracted to offer olive branches. The reason why he was attracted to Toshiba was It was because of the words of Takeishi Yoshiyuki, then director of Toshiba's VLSI Research Institute - Let's make something that doesn't exist in this world together.
Just because of such a "big pie", Shuoka made up his mind to reject other opportunities and join Toshiba.
But because of his free and unorganized style, the company's senior management could not believe that he could lead a good team. Although he came up with a new patent on SAMOS memory in his first year after joining Toshiba, he used this to promote Toshiba and Intel. He signed the relevant cross-licensing agreement, but was subsequently exiled from the company.
First, he was transferred to the sales department, but his performance was poor. Later, I worked hard in the factory for a while, but I didn't achieve anything.
In the end, Bole Wushi, who had excavated him, raised his hand and brought him back to the research department in 1980.
After the invention of the NOR flash memory chip, the new invention immediately attracted Intel's attention. They quickly contacted Toshiba and Sugaoka for this purpose, and took the lead in mass-producing NOR flash memory chips in 1988.
In other words, although the concept of flash memory was first born in Toshiba, the founder of the flash memory industry was Intel on the other side of the ocean.
And neither party actually paid much attention to this invention.
Because its cost is too high.
Fortunately, at the moment of crisis for the flash memory R&D team, the director of the research institute, Takeishi Yoshiyuki, expressed his stance: Sugaoka’s approach is in line with the direction of technological development, so let’s do it well.
Not only that, because Seokang’s team could not apply for development funds, Director Takeshi also allocated funds from other projects to them.
In 1986, the unwilling Fujio Sugaoka once again came to the forefront of his peers. He invented cheaper NAND flash memory, which is the kind now used in everyone's mobile phones.
The principle of NAND flash memory has followed the same path as NOR, continuing to sacrifice performance. Although it can achieve higher storage density and faster erasing and writing speeds than NOR flash memory, Its transmission speed is even faster, only one thousandth that of NOR. Toshiba rewarded him with a bonus of several hundred dollars and then shelved it.
After receiving the order for Clover NAND flash memory sticks, Toshiba finally mass-produced a batch, but for Fujio Masuoka, his Toshiba career came to an end.
Because of the backing of his career, Takeishi Yoshiyuki passed away suddenly.
Without the only leader who supported and understood him, Sugaoka was quickly and completely marginalized by Toshiba.
"Director, someone is visiting." The technician under his command hurriedly walked to Fujio Sugaoka's work station, explained to him, and then hurriedly left, as if he was afraid of getting into his bad luck.
Yes, Fujio Masuoka was finally promoted to the technical director of Toshiba Electronics last year, but he was promoted immediately and was actually demoted. He simply became a "three-no" - no office, no subordinates, and no R&D budget.
At the age of fifty-one, a scientific researcher is still in the prime of life, but he is sitting at his work station, doing nothing, and having to bear the strange looks of his colleagues around him.
"Indulgent Zigang" is the private nickname given to him by the employees on this floor.
"Easily angry, he started to get angry early in the morning..."
< br>"You sit in front of him all day long and keep nagging..."
"Sometimes he even gets angry and falls asleep..."
"Don't you know? I heard that he would sleep from morning until get off work at five o'clock in the afternoon, and then ask everyone: Do you want to Let's go have a drink together, hahaha..."
"Yes, yes, if you want to talk about what Shu Gang did, you can't say anything else, but drinking is a must. ..."
I can’t say that all the reviews are nonsense, because before being abandoned, I had a bad temper. In addition to giving the R&D team a great deal of freedom, apart from technology, it seems that it is really He has no "leadership skills"...
And since he was abandoned, he can only drink...
Shigaoka opened his sleepy eyes, the alcohol still lingering in his eyes, but he saw his old acquaintance from university, Matsui Zuo, standing at the entrance of the elevator shaft waving to him.
Beside Matsui Zuo there was a young man with an elegant and calm demeanor. I didn’t know if he was his disciple. When he saw him looking over there, he nodded towards him.
Zoo Matsui and Fujio Shioka are actually very despicable. They have been reduced from technical experts to technical brokers. I heard that they are now going to China to develop UNICODE Chinese, Japanese and Korean ideographic characters.
As an expert, Fujio Shioka certainly understands what is going on. China has already completed the first phase of the Hanwen large font library, which means that the research and development of this workflow from beginning to end has been completed. , the next work is to arrange the remaining characters into the character library according to the designed algorithm.
Therefore, although Hanwen Library has jumped from more than 30,000 words in the first phase to nearly 100,000 words in the third phase, which seems to have doubled, in fact, the main work tools and processes have been completed in the first phase. Ninety percent of the work is done, and the rest is "repetitive work" rather than "creation and invention".
To put it bluntly, the Matsui team was actually there to do hard work for the Chinese.
But this does not prevent people from "returning with great honour".
(End of this chapter)