Chapter 74: Chapter 71 The Invisible Hand (Please continue reading~!)

Earlier, it was mentioned that in 2011, the most advanced chip manufacturing process was 32nm—that was towards the latter half of the year.

Although this is the Marvel World, it seems like the technology used by superheroes and civilian technologies are two entirely different things—

The Osborne Group can casually create biological DNA modeling, highly realistic real-time DNA insertion models, yet the common public still uses the old 32nm chips.

It’s unlikely that Osborne themselves are using 32nm process supercomputers, right?

It doesn’t seem so.

But then again, by 2077, chip manufacturing processes were indeed highly advanced and perfectly integrated with human neural systems.

However, production methods varied greatly—

There is a type of chip called the "etching work chip," where as long as the user has a compatible prosthetic eye, arm, and spine implant, and the right equipment, a person can become a human lithography machine.

This work method appeared during the brief recovery period after the crash of the old net, when people no longer had access to AI and were even afraid to go online, let alone talk about automated production.

This is what Lille learned at Arasaka Academy; whether the assembly line in Orbital City works this way is another story.

However, in 2011, it’s more appropriate to find a factory for production; this thing can make a lot of money—a lot of money.

This factory is one of the most famous chip foundries, XMSC.

As a quality foundry enterprise, their demands on clients were also not low, naturally, they could understand the design drawings.

Anthony didn’t understand technology, so he had to bring Lille to discuss important matters—

At this moment, he was following Lille, learning along. He might not understand the technology, but he had to learn how to conduct himself in conversations.

"Hello, Mr. Lee, we want to discuss your company’s situation—your chip is quite advanced, but there is a problem with your company..."

It didn’t look like a serious company.

The speaker was an older middle-aged man, looking somewhat haggard—as a matter of fact, nothing like what Lille had imagined.

"Yes, as you see, my company is like this."

Lille calmly opened his arms: "A small apartment in the slums, with an area just over 100 square meters.

But this doesn’t affect the quality of the chips, so what do you intend to discuss, Mr. Wang?"

Mr. Wang paused—he changed his mind.

He had actually come here to acquire Lille’s company and transform from a foundry into a chip maker.

But it seemed there was only Lille as the researcher here.

"I’ll be direct, Mr. Lee, you look very young and are very talented—would you be willing to join my company and do this work?"

Lille was very surprised.

Honestly, this was more surprising than meeting people like Professor Connor and Peter Parker because this factory theoretically existed in the original world and shouldn’t be making such an offer.

As a foundry, in Lille’s original world, they wisely maintained a neutral policy, always being just a foundry, avoiding many serious issues.

And during the subsequent wars... they somewhat managed to survive.

From what this boss was saying, they wanted to change their neutral policy?

Lille pondered for a moment: "Chip foundry is different from other foundries, there’s no need to transform, right?"

While speaking, Lille quickly searched for relevant information online.

In what situation would a company seek change? Break ancestral ways?

Only when facing a life-or-death crisis.

When he found the information, Lille was stunned.

Mr. Wang sighed: "We used to think the same, but now it’s different, we’ve fallen far behind, and... no orders."

The information Lille found showed that XMSC was in big trouble.

Osborne Group and Stark Industries, needless to say, no one knew where they got their chips from.

But in other civilian fields, there were rumors that this company was pushed to the market’s edge by competitors, seemingly targeted.

Major chip manufacturers in the market, unlike those in Lille’s memory, chose domestic foundries in the United States instead of XMSC.

As if someone was behind the scenes pressuring these companies to choose those foundries.

XMSC had significant losses recently, but a financial mogul from New York chose to invest and increased his control—

Martin Lee from Eastern Street in New York.

This was a poorly run company about to change ownership.

Martin Lee had a lot of money, but he wasn’t a good person, pretty much like a clone of Kingpin.

There was... more to this than Lille had imagined, considering that this was a world of superheroes, maybe some supervillain was involved.

If the pressure came from financial or even higher levels, transformation alone wouldn’t solve the problem—this was just a company after all.

This money looked hot to handle; better to test the waters first.

Thinking of this, Lille touched his chin and said: "Mr. Wang, thank you for valuing me, but I just want to work for myself."

Mr. Wang sighed in disappointment.

Lille continued: "But don’t rush to sigh, I can share the patent with you at a low price, you just need to pay me proportionally.

As... hmm, fellow countrymen, I assure you that the price will definitely allow you to make money.

Besides high-performance processors, I also have SOC designs for small devices—

If you think these can save your industry, you can give it a try. If we’re happy with the cooperation, we can deepen it further."

Mr. Wang was taken aback at first, then his face lit up with joy—

Although the result wasn’t as good as he had hoped for, carrying away a powerful research team, it was still a pretty good outcome.

"If that’s the case... can we start discussing the details now? It might be a bit abrupt..."

"Not abrupt, actually this is what I want." Lille said and then shouted towards the living room, "Mom! Two cups of tea!"

...

According to future classifications, the chips Lille provided to XMSC covered CPUs for civilian use, which also included GPUs, and the integrated GPU performance was considered mid-range in this world.

The standalone GPU, on the other hand, was advanced for AI computing—

Building AI assistance in this world, like beyond 2077, was feasible.

The high-performance AI was for himself, the former included SOCs for small devices like mobile phones, all to make money.

Lille currently needed a small sum, and these investments were enough to cover Professor Connor’s current experimental expenses, and also observe the world’s reaction.

Moreover, the costs of product promotion and sales were not low; if Lille did it himself, he’d have to rush to get the company listed.

Not wise.

After a whole day of work, Lille sat at the dining table again, enjoying organic foods that couldn’t be found in Night City.

Speaking of which, he had not had a proper meal with Jack and V yet.

Maya took off her apron and sat down, still constantly serving Lille food during the meal—apart from her looks, there was no sense of discord.

This made Lille feel a bit helpless—organic food was delicious but not as easily digestible as specially synthesized food.

Speaking of discord, his mom was from Latovia, why didn’t she bring some Latovian customs?

Not to mention the home decorations, even the food was standard Eastern cuisine.

Lille suddenly asked: "Mom, isn’t there any custom in Latovia? What’s it like there?"

Maya’s hand paused as she was serving food, her face filled with sorrow and fear.

"There... is hell, if there’s any custom, it’s death, and the funerals to send off the dead."

After speaking, Maya grabbed Lille’s hand.

"Lille, Mom used a lifetime to escape that hell, to have today’s life, promise me you will cherish life okay?"

Lille was stunned.

Two lifetimes, both moms were similar—the only difference was that this life’s mom had a past she didn’t want to recall.

He had never seen his mother’s sorrowful look.

"...Of course, Mom."