Chapter 378: Moon Collector’s Edition
“Of course not.
This is an unforgettable experience, but always looking at the moon’s scenery will eventually get boring. Instead, constantly working, and glancing at the scenery during work breaks, can make the scenery itself more beautiful.
But Professor, hasn’t the superconducting chip test been successfully completed? Why do I see you still running to the laboratory every now and then these seven days?” Lei Jun asked.
This was also his long-standing doubt.
During the entire ash grinding process, Lin Ran did not participate throughout; he would occasionally drive the lunar rover alone to the laboratory in the shadowed region, saying he had some work to do.
This made Lei Jun itch with curiosity, wondering exactly what work it was.
Other work? That must be very important work.
No matter what, he didn’t believe that in such an ultra-low temperature environment, coming once and staying a full seven days just to do the most routine tests on the superconducting chip.
It wasn’t convenient to ask before, but now they’re about to return to Earth, and it’s clearly in the format of a pre-departure interview program from the moon.
If not now, when?
Lin Ran looked at the Xiaomi Glasses and said, “Alright, Lei Zong’s sense of smell is indeed sharp.”
Lei Jun smiled and said, “Naturally, we’re launching our first mobile phone-level chip this year, Xuanjie 01. On chips, I’ve done a lot of homework.
Including our design, testing, and encapsulation process, the phased achievements of our engineering team, I personally listen to their reports to ensure they explain it to a level I can understand.
In such extremely cold conditions on the moon, we can observe many interesting phenomena, and from these phenomena, we should find some interesting ones to apply on Earth.
Just from what I can think of, there are several experiments that can be done.
With such a natural ultra-low temperature laboratory, staying a full seven days and not making good use of it would be a waste.”
Lei Jun said that now it’s 2024, and Xiaomi is about to release their second car and their self-developed chip at the autumn press conference.
By saying this, he expressed that he was somewhat of an insider while also promoting their products.
Lin Ran applauded and said, “Lei Zong is absolutely right. Indeed, the results we observed this time should enable the chip to achieve half-generation improvement effects.
More precisely, it’s translating the phenomena of devices, interconnections, and encapsulation that appear in extreme cold conditions into engineering means on the ground for existing chips.
In these seven days, I did things like power density and heat diffusion model calibration, FBB synergy, DVFS synergy, library corner recalibration, etc. In short, I did quite a bit of work in the laboratory.
I believe our consumers will soon feel the effects brought by this lunar experiment.
The phenomena observed in these experiments will be used in publicly sold consumer electronics products in about half a year. We are cooperating with Huawei to release the Moon Collector’s Edition flagship phone.
Compared to past moon landing flagship editions, this Moon Collector’s Edition flagship will use chips equipped with moon technology. Like Huawei’s current 5nm process, I think our achievements should improve its performance to equivalent 4nm.
Including Ascend chips, they will also be modified based on this achievement to launch computing cards with stronger computing power.”
Lei Jun was shocked inside. If Huawei can launch 4nm, it would be a fatal blow to Xiaomi’s flagship models, meaning Kirin and Qualcomm’s current mainstream flagship 4nm chips have no gap.
3nm is leading, but the lead is shrinking. Considering performance overflow, can Xiaomi’s flagship really compete with Huawei’s 4nm-equipped flagship?
On the live broadcast’s bullet screen, at first there were various emotional releases, now it’s uniformly four words: “Far ahead,” nothing else.
Lei Jun swallowed, “Congratulations.”
But both the audience and Lin Ran could tell his congratulations were insincere.
Lin Ran said, “Lei Zong, this is good news. With this experiment’s success, in the future, companies like Xiaomi with self-developed chip needs can hand over testing content to me. We can apply this Lunar ultra-low temperature laboratory in the moon’s permanently shadowed regions.
Not just for Apollo Technology; other semiconductor companies can apply if they have needs.”
This was another very important purpose of inviting Lei Jun: to advertise the moon’s permanent ultra-low temperature laboratory.
Such a laboratory can do so much; Lin Ran hopes that since it’s built, it should maximize its role instead of keeping it to themselves.
This is a unique research and industry accelerator.
And the upcoming Huawei press conference in autumn will be the best advertisement.
Lei Jun understood, “Professor, you mean it can be used in many fields and serve many companies?
And not just exclusively for Apollo Technology?”
Lei Jun continued, “I’d like to explain a couple of things to the audience friends watching the live broadcast.”
Lin Ran nodded, signaling him to go ahead.
“In the past, ultra-low temperature scientific research on Earth, especially at minus 173 degrees as a routine, large-scale environment, was extremely rare, almost nonexistent.
The key behind it is cost; building such a laboratory on Earth and maintaining that environment requires extremely high costs.
Now on Earth, only America’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, Europe’s CERN, and our Academy of Sciences’ ultra-low temperature physics laboratory have such environments.
Companies don’t have them. On the other hand, I know everyone wonders why other countries don’t do tests first in Earth’s ultra-low temperature environments, following China’s ultra-low temperature superconducting chip technology path.
Equivalent to walking on two legs: one focused on building the moon base on the moon, the other doing advance research on Earth, so once the moon base is built, superconducting chips can immediately be transported to the moon for testing.
I want to tell everyone, it’s not possible. I’ve discussed this with Qualcomm experts. Now Earth’s ultra-low temperature laboratories all face a problem: vibration from refrigeration units, which means on Earth you can study the properties of superconducting materials themselves, but you can’t put transistors made from superconducting materials in for experiments.”
Lin Ran added, “Exactly, so our chips also have to be transported to the moon for experiments. On Earth, only material property tests can be done; chip-type experiments can’t be done due to too many unnecessary influencing factors, making it hard to observe valuable phenomena and metrics.”
Lei Jun nodded, “Another very important reason is they also have no confidence in really building the moon base in a short time.
So for a long time, an environment like the moon’s shadowed region—routine ultra-low temperature without vibration—is unique.
It plays a crucial role in the semiconductor field.
If the ultra-low temperature superconductivity path is really viable, ultra-low temperature environments on satellite surfaces like Europa and Titan will be utilized by us.
Ultra-long-distance communication technology will also be further developed; in the future, our cloud computing will truly be in the sky, truly in the clouds.”
Cloud computing is a long-standing concept, but in the past, this cloud meant services not local.
After listening, Lin Ran said, “Yes, just like our tested nuclear fission power station this time; it can stably generate power. Do you know what that means?
It means in the next three years, we can draw a comprehensive, complete moon map.
We can deploy a small nuclear fission power station and an unmanned rover in every region, say 500 square kilometers as a unit.
Then this unmanned rover runs in that region; when out of power, it returns to the nuclear fission power station to swap batteries.
No charging needed; besides power generation, the nuclear fission power station has battery swapping function, allowing the rover to tirelessly cover the entire moon.
We can draw a detailed moon map.
Then begin large-scale development.
This is a grand plan, also a prelude to developing Mars and other solar system planets; we’ll fully accumulate experience in this process.
Similarly in this process, some of our achievements will be shared with all humanity.
For example, companies like Xiaomi, if you have testing needs, you can hand them to me.”
After the live broadcast ended, they embarked on the journey back to Earth.
Throughout the live broadcast, they talked about a lot, like insights, mental journeys, Xiaomi’s entrepreneurship history, superconductivity-related knowledge, etc.; the content was very rich.
But what the outside world cared most about was the actual effect of the so-called chip performance improvement, how the Lunar Ultra-Low Temperature Laboratory provides external services, and what Xiaomi’s self-developed chip is about— is Pangu really coming?
Because benchmarking Apple, many phone press conferences are in autumn.
They also pull up Apple for comparison, laying out various parameters.
This year’s Huawei’s most important product press conference is also in autumn, but not in Pengcheng, in Shanghai.
At the center of the stage, a huge curved screen slowly lights up, background is the Lunar South Pole’s crater, real shot by astronauts at the Lunar South Pole with wide-angle lens, not like past photos processed from satellite images.
Thus the entire background vividly highlights the gloom, coldness, and desolation of the Lunar South Pole.
Several large words appear on the screen:
“Breaking Earth’s limits, heading to the moon’s future.”
Yu Dawei, wearing a dark suit, walks onto the stage; the audience applauds thunderously; besides partners and employees, the audience are tech enthusiasts and self-media bloggers.
In his hand is this year’s centerpiece; under the lights, the phone’s silver-gray body reflects a rock-like texture.
“Hello everyone, very happy to meet everyone again.
Today’s press conference is very special because what we bring is not just a phone, but a tech gift from the moon.”
He pauses; the screen switches to an animation of Lin Ran testing in the far side of the moon’s permanently shadowed region laboratory.
“Everyone knows, the Lunar South Pole has regions where sunlight never reaches, temperatures constantly as low as minus 173 degrees Celsius.
It sounds like just an extreme environment, but some people have a grand vision, able to view Earth’s problems to solve from the universe’s perspective.
In Mr. Lin Ran’s view, it is a natural ultra-low temperature laboratory.”
When Mr. Lin Ran and our engineering team proposed utilizing the moon’s ultra-low temperature environment to solve the current chip dilemmas, our entire team was excited because obviously, this is a realistic viable path to help us find ways to overtake on bends, even see the dawn of next-generation semiconductor materials.
Therefore, after over a year of close cooperation with Apollo Technology’s team, not only did we create the first ultra-low temperature superconducting chip demo, but also formulated process optimization paths, using the ultra-low temperature environment to guide our production process.”
The screen’s perspective keeps changing: from moon shadowed crater to superconducting chip test module to Lin Ran operating.
“At such temperatures, electron motion noise in silicon-based chips is greatly reduced; we can simulate and verify a low-temperature optimization process.
Simply put, at Earth’s 7nm process level, we can achieve near 5nm effects; at 5nm process, we can achieve over 4nm energy efficiency performance.
This is like our new energy vehicles: rated for 400km range, at suitable temperatures, it can stably reach 500km, with even lower power consumption.”
“Through cooperation with Apollo Technology, we sent a batch of special chip samples to the moon, put into that permanently shadowed cold laboratory for testing.
The results are stunning: under same power consumption, frequency increased 17%; under same frequency, energy consumption reduced 23%; core heat generation decreased nearly 1/4.
In other words, this is Earth’s process completing an overclock evolution in the moon environment.”
Comparison curves appear on the screen: Earth 5nm vs Moon optimized 5nm ≈ Earth 4nm
Gasps rise from the audience.
Yu Dawei smiled and added, “Some ask, does this mean putting the phone in the refrigerator? No, no need! We translate the rules obtained in the moon laboratory into new design methods and heat dissipation packaging technology, allowing it to reproduce this advantage in Earth’s normal environment.
This is our innovation breakthrough this time.”
Moon Collector’s Edition phone debuts
Screen image switches; the phone is slowly raised, back panel engraved with a miniaturized moon crater pattern, beside it embedded a small metal badge: “Moon Shadow Lab Certified”.
“Everyone, now I formally introduce to you: Huawei Mate Moon Edition Moon Collector’s Edition flagship phone.
This phone is equipped with our 5nm chip optimized based on the far side of the moon ultra-low temperature laboratory achievements, performance equivalent to Earth’s 4nm level.
Its AI computing power increased 20%, making your video editing and AI drawing speeds astonishingly fast;
Game frame rates more stable, longer battery life;
Heat dissipation system adopts our new phase-change heat dissipation materials, inspiration also from moon environment.
This is not just a phone, but humanity’s first time bringing alien research achievements into daily life.”
The audience boils over; everyone cares about one thing: the price.
Huawei’s products have always been pricey, accused of cutting leeks.
Of course from sales volume, many are willing to bear such high premiums, to avoid being choked, to enable China’s technology breakthroughs, to not be constrained by America in the semiconductor field.
In the past everyone was willing to buy; now, for such a Moon Collector’s Edition phone with unquestionable global-unique technology, even more willingly buy.
Not to mention premium of thousands; premium of tens of thousands, plenty of consumers will buy.
“As for our pricing, our pricing is very conscientious, offering two versions, priced only 2000 more than Pura 70 Ultra: 16GB+512GB at 11999 yuan, 16GB+1TB at 12999 yuan.
But, production capacity is really limited; everyone knows Mr. Lin returned from the moon in August, we just got the moon data, we started process optimization last month, small-scale mass production of this new Kirin chip just started last week.
Production capacity maybe only 20-30k units per month, really very limited.
In the early stage, we can only sell limited quantities at fixed times on Huawei Mall; friends who can’t grab, please forgive us!”
Yu Dawei bows to apologize.
Followed by Huawei Pura 70 series; after the Moon Collector’s Edition, this series feels lackluster.
Just as everyone starts pulling out phones to comment on social media, anticipating the Moon Collector’s Edition, the background music gradually rises, screen shows a slogan:
“Next-generation computing starts from the moon.”
“Friends, earlier we talked about phones.
But Huawei’s mission is more than that. What we solve is not just personal experience, but the computing power needs of the entire industry and society.”
Screen switches from moon shadowed region frozen experiment module to chip accelerator card render.
“In the far side of the moon ultra-low temperature laboratory, we didn’t just test special edition phone chips; we also brought special edition chips based on Ascend AI chip design ideas up for experiments.
Great thanks to our competitor, our Apollo Technology, for such cooperation; thanks to Mr. Lin Ran. I want to say these experiment results could only be observed and the contained rules found by Mr. Lin Ran personally doing them, to guide Earth’s process production; really very grateful.”
After speaking, Yu Dawei bows, this bow for thanks.
Thunderous applause; camera appropriately shows Lin Ran in the first row, Lin Ran smiling and nodding.
“The test results are shocking.
In minus 173℃ environment, circuitry thermal noise greatly reduced, meaning more stable computation;
Voltage and timing can be more aggressive; under same power consumption, computing power directly up 28%;
More importantly, under long-term load, almost no thermal attenuation.
What is this like?
Like the same engine, running in the moon laboratory’s cold environment, not only faster, but maintains peak performance without dropping the chain.”
Ascend computing card debuts; screen shows real image: a black-gold computing accelerator card, side with “Moon Shadow Certified” badge.
“Based on this achievement, we created the new Ascend MoonShadow computing card.
Its performance specs are:
Through moon laboratory tuning, under same power consumption reaches equivalent 4nm level;
Single card computing power up 30% over previous generation, energy efficiency up 25%;
We also introduced low-temperature phase-change materials in heat dissipation design, allowing this computing card in Earth’s data centers to partially reproduce moon environment’s low-temperature effects.
So hope everyone understands, we also have to produce Ascend computing cards; orders from Deep Red are piling up on our tables.
If not delivered, the Lunar Ultra-Low Temperature Laboratory probably won’t let us go up next time.
So for Moon Collector’s Edition phone delivery, really please forgive us.
At the same time, I believe with Apollo Technology and Huawei joining hands, we’ll catch up to Nvidia someday!”
The whole venue erupts in hot applause; everyone stands to applaud.
