“It is precisely because of the existence of the TSMC model that I have the opportunity to start my own business.
If chip design and chip production are still together, if I want to manufacture chips, I need to have chip production capabilities. Then the cost of a two billion production line is simply not something that ordinary entrepreneurs can afford. "
To add, before TSMC, chip design and chip manufacturing were almost all done by one company. For consumer electronics companies like Apple, in their early days, other companies helped design and produce their computer chips.
Take the Macintosh as an example. In the early days of the Macintosh series, Motorola was responsible for chip design and production, and later Intel.
Until 1986, Apple began to develop its own chips, and then found manufacturers to help them produce them, but it obviously failed. The designed chips could not be used in personal computers at all.
But their core-making project gave Apple an unexpected gain, that is, they noticed the ARM series of chips, and then acquired a 30% stake in ARM for £1.5 million in 1990.
“So what I want to say is that my experience is not completely useful, and my understanding will be modified by reality.
I used to think that the chip foundry model was not feasible, but later TSMC took this path forward.
Likewise, Newman, you need to convince me of our differences.
You are a master in the Internet field. If we are engaged in Internet entrepreneurship, then I will believe in you unconditionally.
Even if you make a meaningless product, I will think that you have your own meaning.
But in the field of integrated circuits, I have far more experience than you, and you have not proven your case, so I am allowed to maintain a certain amount of skepticism for the sake of the company's development.
To put it simply, we need a running-in process to achieve a balance.
What you just mentioned is one senior engineer leading a group of students. This is obviously unrealistic. "
Zhou Xin could only say: "Okay, let's set up the company first, and then build the entire organizational structure."
Zhou Xin can’t always say that Samsung’s S series chips are in my brain and we don’t need analog IC design.
In the early stage, we focused on cultivating talents. We first mastered Samsung's S series chips, which is enough for us to play for ten years.
After reaching an agreement with Guan Jianying, Lin Benjian also called Zhou Xin back that night:
"Newman, thank you very much for your appreciation."
Just when Zhou Xin thought that the next sentence would be, I still don’t consider the new core lithography machine, Lin Benjian continued:
"I have decided to accept your invitation.
Then I had some Chinese colleagues who worked at IBM before, and I wanted to ask them if they would like to come back to Shenhai to start a business with me.
They may also need corresponding option rewards to be able to mine. "
Zhou Xin said: “No problem, we will build a special option pool as a reward for technical staff in the future.
I'll send you Guan Jianying's email and phone number, and the three of us will meet in San Francisco first.
It is entirely up to you to decide who to look for in terms of technology. I don’t know that much about the field of photolithography machines.
I only know some technical things. As for which engineers are needed to start a business, and which technical authorizations are required, I don’t know anything about these specific research and development things.
So you can decide on this.
At present, we have set up the company's framework first. There are still about three months until the end of the year. I will return to China in December. After I return to China and I have talked with the Chinese side, we will Will officially go to China to work. "
Successfully poaching Lin Benjian is definitely something worth celebrating for Zhou Xin, because without Lin Benjian, the breakthrough in lithography machines between TSMC and ASML would definitely come later.
They have more time to catch up with advanced processes.
At the same time, Nikon is not easily thrown away, and Xinxin Semiconductor can have more time to develop.
As for being able to find Guan Jianying, it is also something worthy of celebration. Guan Jianying was able to make Shixin bigger and ensure the development of the company even if they lost their large Chinese customer who accounted for more than 40% of their sales. The other party is definitely not available. Got the talent.
Where there are talents, there is an enterprise. With Lin Benjian and Guan Jianying, the framework of Xinxin Technology has been established.
Xinxin Semiconductor is responsible for chip design, which is then manufactured by SMIC, and the final product is sold through Matrix.
In this way, the physical industry under his name has formed a complete closed loop.
The key here is to build the Matrix brand well.
While engineer IM Pei was designing the flagship store, Matrix formed a team of more than 200 people.
First, it spent 20 million US dollars to buy the Matrix brand from Motorola.
The second step is to select the location of the flagship store in major cities in America.
It also includes finding decoration suppliers, cultivating service teams, etc.
The physical industry is much more troublesome than the Internet industry.
This is true for both administrative costs and operating costs.
However, compared with the semiconductor industry, the mobile phone industry is easier to poach people, and the threshold for this industry is not that high.
In recent years, the sales volume of the entire mobile phone market has been growing at an annual rate of more than 20%, which has resulted in a large number of employees in the entire industry.
In addition, Simo was the chairman of Nokia and he had more than 40 years of experience in this industry. It would be easy for him to find people with relevant experience.
Matrix has also established a mobile phone research and development department, which is doing product research and development work under the leadership of Zhou Xin.
Zhou Xin’s requirement for Matrix’s first mobile phone is that it must be launched next year.
Therefore, he has very strict requirements.
"Boss, why does a mobile phone have a camera? You can use a camera to take pictures, but the mobile phone camera has very limited pixels.
I think this is a meaningless requirement. "It's difficult for Ansi Wanyaki to understand Zhou Xin's needs.
Anthy is a Nokia executive and has been working for Nokia since 1991. He has been on the Nokia board of directors since 1998.
He was previously Head of Marketing, Head of Multimedia Division and Head of Nokia Mobile Phones at Nokia.
Seamus poached him as Matrix's vice president, fully responsible for the mobile phone business.
Anxi came here because he was attracted by Zhou Xin. The best product manager in Silicon Valley wanted to make mobile phones. What kind of changes would he bring to the mobile phone industry? He had no experience of failure in the product field.
Simo and Anxi have had a very long cooperation. The eight years of working together made Anxi believe that there must be something special about Matrix.
He just didn't expect that after arriving, Zhou Xin's demands were difficult for him to understand.
Without Zhou Xin, the world's first mobile phone with a camera could be traced back to the Sharp J-SH04 in 2000, which had a built-in 110,000-pixel CCD camera.
It has never happened before that a mobile phone has a camera. No mobile phone on the market has a camera.
Anxi also couldn't understand.
Zhou Xin said: "Didn't I tell you? You can't understand a mobile phone as a simple mobile phone, you need to understand it as a multimedia terminal!
Isn’t Nokia cooperating with Time Warner to build a mobile phone that can browse Quora?
If taking pictures with a mobile phone is a meaningless need, then reading Quora on a mobile phone is also a meaningless need! "
Zhou Xin realized that sometimes it is really difficult to change people's ideas.
Anxi whispered: "Why do we want to make a mobile phone that can browse Quora? Because according to our research, more than 80% of Americen users prefer to use a handheld computer to browse Quora.
Even in Europe, among English users, this number exceeds 50%.
Quora is the most popular website in the world and everyone needs it.
People still need Yahoo as the entrance to the Internet, but the value Yahoo can bring is far less than Quora.
Therefore, we believe that if the mobile phone screen is larger and the Quora function is built-in, and users can use the 2G network to browse Quora, it will be very popular.
We have conducted questionnaire surveys, including internal conversations with many colleagues, and their recognition of this product is the highest among all our internal research products in history.
We knew this was going to be a hit, including having made several prototypes before I left Nokia.
Users who have used the model machine have said that it is so easy to use that they read Quora while eating. "
Zhou Xin couldn't think of a better way to explain to Anxi that Quora built into mobile phones would be popular because it has questionnaires and test machines.
How can he find an example to make Anxi realize that a mobile phone without camera function is equivalent to a brick.
"Anxi, do you know Bresson?"
Anxi shook his head: "Who is that?"
Zhou Xin said: “A master photographer, his theory is to capture the decisive moment.
Tell the photographer that during the event, all elements, people, objects, environments, etc., should exactly show their specific connotation and meaning.
For example, in New York's Times Square after World War II, a sailor kissed a female nurse affectionately in Times Square. The two kissed each other like a long-separated couple reunited after the war to celebrate the end of World War II. They were captured by photographers and published in magazines. .
It later became known as the Kiss of Victory.
This is the decisive moment, the decisive moment that the photographer just captured.
The reason why we add cameras to mobile phones is to allow more ordinary people who are not photographers to capture such decisive moments. "
Anxi finally understood: "Boss, I roughly understand what you mean.
This is indeed a very romantic feature. "
When explaining what the other person doesn't understand, you have to find events that are clear enough to back it up.
Otherwise, the communication cost and time will be too high.
Anxi continued: "Boss, I have no problem with adding a camera to a mobile phone, but there are too many functions you want to add to the mobile phone.
Including camera, keyboard, linear vibration motor, and the display screen must be large enough.
This way it will be similar in size to a handheld computer.
It is difficult to put all of these into a mobile phone with current technology. "
(End of chapter)
