Tech Giants: Starting from Bankrupt Companies

176: Chapter 176 Lightning Rescue10:00 AM Beijing Time, Shenzhen.

Luo Qinghe stood in front of the curved giant screen, which was divided into four areas:

Left: Real-time status of major European design centers (Red Alert)

Top right: Global open-source community activity monitoring

Bottom right: ”Shennong” EDA platform backend data

Center: Video conference window, connecting twelve locations

Su Chen had been woken up by an emergency call half an hour ago and had rushed to the command room wearing sportswear. There was no post-sleep daze in his eyes, only cold clarity.

”How serious is the situation?” Su Chen asked.

”Worse than imagined.” Luo Qinghe switched the screen, ”The America Department of Commerce isn’t targeting us this time; they’re targeting the entire European semiconductor industry. Infineon, STMicroelectronics, NXP, ams, X-FAB... a total of seven major European chip design companies have all been banned from using any EDA software containing America technology.”

EDA Chief Designer Academician Li Weimin sat on the sofa. This 72-year-old Chinese-American man was a legend in the EDA field. He was once a core algorithm founder of Synopsys. In 2010, he was forced to ”retire” due to company politics, and half a year ago, he was arranged by the system to join the Xingchen Academy of Sciences.

”The Americans are playing with fire.” Li Weimin’s voice was old but powerful, ”In the global EDA market, three America companies—Synopsys, Cadence, and Siemens (formerly Mentor)—monopolize 95% of the market share. They dare to embargo Europe because they think Europe has no alternatives.”

”But we do.” Su Chen said.

Luo Qinghe nodded and pulled up the ”Shennong” platform interface: ”The ’Shennong’ EDA, developed under the leadership of Academician Li, is based on an open-source framework but has undergone deep optimization. Over the past three months, in internal testing, we have already used it to complete the design of various chips ranging from 28 nanometers to 7 nanometers.”

He displayed the data:

Layout and routing speed: 3-5 times faster than traditional tools (AI-assisted)

Power consumption optimization: 12% improvement on average

Design cycle: Shortened by 30-40%

The most important point: completely independent intellectual property rights, 85% open-source code rate

”But it hasn’t undergone large-scale commercial verification.” Su Chen pointed out the key issue.

”Correct,” Li Weimin admitted, ”We used it within Spark, but we didn’t promote it. There are three reasons: First, the ecosystem is immature and lacks a third-party toolchain; second, European and America customers don’t trust ’Made in China’ EDA; third... we intended to develop quietly.”

Su Chen walked to the giant screen, looking at the sea of red alert symbols over the European design centers.

”Now they have no choice.” He said, ”What does Marcus say?”

In the video window, Marcus’s face appeared on the Europe side. This rigorous German had messy hair and a crooked tie at this moment.

”Dr. Luo, Mr. Su.” Marcus’s voice was dry, ”Frankly speaking, if it were yesterday, I would have politely declined your help. European engineers have our pride—we don’t believe that China’s EDA tools can meet automotive-grade requirements.”

He paused and gave a bitter smile: ”But today... we can’t even open our design files.”

”Are the design data for your three chips still there?” Luo Qinghe asked.

”On the local server, but they are encrypted. The EDA software encrypts design files every time it exits, and you must use the same company’s tools to decrypt them.” Marcus said, ”This is the horror of monopoly—they have locked our data.”

Li Weimin suddenly spoke: ”Is the encryption algorithm RSA-2048?”

”It should be.”

”We have a decryption solution,” Li Weimin said calmly, ”Not brute force, but finding their backdoors—all commercial EDA software leaves backdoors to cooperate with America government investigations. I worked at Synopsys for twenty-three years, and I know where those backdoors are.”

The conference room was silent for a few seconds.

Marcus widened his eyes: ”You mean...”

”Give me server access permissions, and I can export the design data into a universal format without decrypting it,” Li Weimin said, ”Then, re-import it using our ’Shennong’ platform and continue the design.”

”How long will this take?”

”If the network is stable, all the data for the three chips will take about six hours.”

Marcus gasped. The European engineers behind him began to stir.

”But isn’t this illegal?” someone whispered, ”Cracking software encryption...”

”America violated the embargo first.” Su Chen’s voice came through the speaker, clear and firm, ”According to WTO trade rules, when the other party implements illegal sanctions, the sanctioned party has the right to take necessary measures to reduce losses. And—we are not cracking it; we are accessing the data with legitimate permissions. Academician Li holds the highest-level certification for America software engineers, and he has the right to access those backdoor interfaces.”

This was sophistry, but at this moment, no one cared.

Marcus and the executives behind him quickly exchanged glances.

Ten seconds later.

”We need to sign a non-disclosure agreement,” Marcus said, ”And Spark must promise: you will not steal our chip design intellectual property.”

Luo Qinghe smiled: ”Mr. Marcus, if we wanted to steal it, we wouldn’t need all this trouble. Spark’s own 14-nanometer automotive-grade chip was successfully taped out last month, and its performance is 30% better than what you designed.”

He pulled up a data comparison chart.

There was another commotion on the European side.

”Then why are you helping us?” Marcus asked the core question.

Su Chen walked to the camera: ”Three reasons. First, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Second, we need the ’Shennong’ platform to be tested in the real world—what better test is there than saving the European automotive chip industry? Third...”

He paused, looking at the dozens of anxious European faces on the other side of the screen.

”chips should be tools to advance the world, not weapons for political games. Today they can use EDA to lock out Europe; tomorrow they can lock out any country. We must break this monopoly.”

Marcus was silent for a full half-minute.

This German engineer had believed in technical neutrality his whole life, but today, politics had rudely intruded into his laboratory.

”Fine,” he finally said, ”We agree to cooperate. What do you need?”

Operation Code: Open Source Storm.

Luo Qinghe began to deploy:

”First echelon: 12 Spark EDA experts have already boarded the earliest flight to Munich and are expected to arrive at 3:00 PM Brussels time today. They are carrying the offline installation package for the ’Shennong’ platform and a full set of training materials.”

”Second echelon: Emergency mobilization of the open-source community. We have notified 3,270 developers worldwide—they are from China, India, Russia, Israel, Germany, France... all contributors to open-source chip tools. They will collaborate online to help adapt the European design workflow.”

”Third echelon: Academician Li Weimin will personally operate remotely and begin decrypting and transferring data now.”

The giant screen switched to the mission panel, and the countdown began:

Mission: Save the European chip design industry

Time: 72 hours

Goal: Restore the design capabilities of the seven European companies

Progress: 0%

Su Chen added: ”One more thing. The French Minister of Economy will hold an emergency press conference in an hour, and the German Ministry of Economy will follow up in two hours. We will fully open-source the ’Shennong’ platform’s source code on China’s open-source platform Gitee—not partially open-source, but completely. Any country, any company, anyone can use, modify, and distribute it for free.”

Marcus was shocked: ”Completely open-source? How much R&D funding did you spend?”

”Over 5 billion rmb,” Luo Qinghe said, ”Compared to breaking the monopoly, this money is well spent.”

Actually only 1 billion rmb

Before the video call ended, Marcus suddenly said: ”Mr. Su, Dr. Luo... thank you.”

He used the Chinese ”Xiexie” (thank you), the pronunciation was stiff but sincere.