In the office at eleven o’clock at night, the only sounds are the hum of server fans and the clatter of keyboards. You rub your dry eyes and look at the test cases in the simulator that still haven’t passed, letting out a soft sigh. This is the third consecutive week you’ve worked late into the night, and that tricky timing issue still looms like a mountain ahead.
Does this scene feel familiar to you?
On the long and arduous journey of chip development, every “chip worker” has experienced similar dark moments. However, today, after reading Ms. Wu Shengming’s “Phoenix Nirvana,” I suddenly want to tell each of you: Keep going, your perseverance will eventually illuminate the future.
Suffering is a tempering process, not the end
Wu Shengming’s life can be described as a real-life version of “suffering and brilliance.”At 16, she opposed arranged marriage and escaped twice; at 51, she was worth millions; at 53, she was imprisoned and sentenced to death; at 61, her husband cheated, and her daughter committed suicide; at 71, she saw the light of day again, working as a cleaner.Fate knocked her down time and again, yet she rose like a phoenix from the ashes each time.At 76, she made a comeback, worth millions, and has now become a well-known entrepreneur and inspirational model.
She once wrote in her memoir: “Every blow life gives me is a gift that makes me more resilient.”
This sentence seems to be written for us in the chip industry.
Do you remember the confusion when you first encountered Verilog? Do you recall the helplessness when you first faced timing violations during synthesis? Do you remember the guilt and despair after your first tape-out failure? Each setback shapes us into stronger individuals.
The chip industry is inherently a difficult path. From architecture design to verification, from synthesis to layout, from tape-out to testing, every step is filled with unknowns and challenges. We often jokingly refer to ourselves as “miners among coders,” digging for that slight performance improvement amidst endless code and waveforms.
But as Wu Shengming has proven: Suffering is never the end; it is the starting point of tempering.
In the darkest moments, guard the faint light
During her lowest point in life, Wu Shengming once sold goods on the street and worked as a cleaner, but she never gave up her faith in the future. She firmly believes that as long as there is a glimmer of light in her heart, it is enough to illuminate the path ahead.
This reminds me of the “clock tree” in chip design—no matter how complex the circuit is, the clock signal must reach every flip-flop in sync. Just as we need to guard our inner “clock signal” in life, which is our love and faith in the chip industry.
Do you still remember the moment you first saw your designed chip working correctly? That joy is enough to offset all the fatigue and setbacks before it.
Our work may seem tedious, but it carries the mission of changing the world. Every line of code, every constraint, every simulation contributes to building this digital world. When smartphones run more smoothly, when autonomous driving is safer, when data centers are more efficient, our contributions are behind it all.
In the darkest moments of technology, we guard that beam of light until it illuminates the entire world.
The ordinary path, the extraordinary mission
Wu Shengming’s legend lies not in any special talent but in her perseverance in the ordinary and her progress in adversity. This is precisely the true portrayal of us chip workers.
We are not the stars under the spotlight but the unsung heroes behind the scenes. When a chip is released, the world remembers the company name, while we remain nameless behind thousands of lines of code. Yet, it is this spirit of being content with ordinariness that allows technology to advance.
There is a term in the chip industry called “reliability design,” which refers to considering how to ensure the chip works stably in various harsh environments during the design phase. Isn’t this also our attitude towards life? By solidifying the foundation in ordinary daily life, we can stand firm in extraordinary challenges.
The road is winding, but the future is bright
Currently, the global chip industry is fiercely competitive, and “bottleneck” technologies urgently need breakthroughs. This is both a challenge and a historical opportunity for our generation of chip workers.
Wu Shengming said: “Opportunities are always hidden in crises.” The development of the semiconductor industry has never been smooth sailing; the limits of Moore’s Law are increasingly approaching, and the exploration of new architectures, materials, and processes is a heavy burden. But it is these challenges that make our work more valuable and our perseverance more meaningful.
Every leap in process nodes, every innovation in architecture, is backed by countless chip workers working day and night. We may feel small, but it is each of these small efforts that converge into the torrent of technological revolution.
A tribute to every extraordinary you
At this moment, you may be debugging a tricky bug, anxious about the upcoming tape-out, or struggling to learn new design methodologies. But please believe that every effort you make is contributing to the semiconductor industry of this country.
Wu Shengming has shown us through her life: the meaning of life is not to avoid falling but to stand up again after each fall.
The road of chips is long and arduous. But we have reason to believe that every simulation, every verification, and every optimization today is accumulating strength for tomorrow’s breakthroughs.
Like the phoenix’s nirvana, only by experiencing the baptism of flames can we soar high.
The journey of semiconductors is long, but we walk side by side. A tribute to every worker striving in the semiconductor industry; you are the true heroes of this era!
This article is dedicated to every chip worker who stays up late and works hard. May you always see the light on this long journey.