"The biggest problem is the lack of talents. China has too few talents in the chip field. Most of the few engineers with previous experience work in state-owned enterprises or research institutes, and are seriously out of touch with front-line production. Some of them have strong learning abilities. , it’s quick to get started.
There are very few engineers who can start working right away.
Regarding this issue, we have started a joint training program with the Shenhai Municipal Government. However, it is not enough for the two companies of Xinxin Technology to lead this plan, and the number of other semiconductor companies in the entire Zhangjiang Park is still too small. .
One is that the number is too small, and the other is that they have little interest in letting college students do internships, and they can bring very few internship positions. "
For the development of semiconductor technology, the most important thing is talent. Talent is the solid cornerstone of all this.
Guan Jianying continued: "Xinxin Semiconductor is mainly engaged in chip design. We can offer very high salaries. Just the A1 series chips and the decoding chips produced for Apple. These two products are enough for us to cover the entire Shenhai The top-notch salaries employ thousands of college students.
Just relying on talents in the field of chip design is not enough. The upstream and downstream of the chip is a huge task.
Chip foundry is the key. Huahong Semiconductor is limited by NEC. We are now negotiating with Shenhai and Yanjing to establish a new chip foundry company jointly between Huahong Semiconductor and New Core Technology. , moving part of Huahong's production capacity to the newly established joint venture.
The joint venture established by Huahong and NEC still produces memory chips, while the new company we established with Huahong mainly produces decoding chips, and the DSP chips that will be used in the next generation Mphone will also be handed over to this new company. make.
In this way, a group of talents in the chip foundry field can be cultivated. "
Whether it is Neon, Goryeo or Wanwan, the rise of semiconductors in these places relies on a large number of excellent engineers.
These engineers are not top talents, but outstanding talents at a certain level. A large and stable supply of excellent talents is an important reason why East Asia leads the semiconductor competition.
Take Wanwan as an example. The best students in the early days of Wanwan would not go to TSMC. They would go to study finance, medicine or computer science. Even if you enter the semiconductor field, chip design is a better place than chip foundry.
MediaTek is also a well-known company in the field of Wanwan chips. The starting salary of MediaTek is higher than that of TSMC, and the working environment is also more relaxed.
Because chip foundry is a manufacturing industry and is an out-and-out industry.
Most of the engineers who can get into TSMC are among the top five percent to one thousandth in the Wanwan area. They are not the top talents, but they are definitely good enough.
Because the characteristic of East Asian education is to cultivate this kind of homogeneous talents.
Therefore, chip foundry has only developed in the Goryeo and Wanwan regions. On the one hand, it is because Amerikan suppresses Neon, and on the other hand, these two regions have a stable enough supply of talents.
It's not enough to be mediocre. Anyone who has worked as a chip OEM knows that people with dreams and talents will not do the kind of screw work that is super tiring and has no sense of accomplishment. The chip foundry industry was not created by a few creative geniuses who proposed directions, but was the result of the stacking up of a large team of engineers.
Almost all of TSMC's R&D leaders were recruited from Americen, such as Hu Zhengming, Liang Mengsong, Lin Benjian, etc., and later some emerged from the grassroots.
The leader of the R&D team only decides the direction. Subsequent team operations and execution are the key to TSMC's leadership.
Moreover, among the tens of thousands of engineers at TSMC, there are only a few hundred people who are qualified to join the advanced process R&D team for the first-generation process. The hundreds of engineers who were later packed away by Americen were the cream of TSMC's engineers, their R&D team for the most advanced processes.
Hu Zhengming is much more optimistic than Guan Jianying: "The current situation is much better than I expected.
Laoguan, I will go to my place of residence to tidy up today. When I go to the company tomorrow, you can help me find some specific information about the Chinese integrated circuit companies that you have collected during this period and introduce them to me.
Also tell me which foreign companies have branches in China and what kind of business these branches do in China. Please give me a copy of this information. If I remember correctly, Intel has a branch in China.
In my opinion, this is not the biggest difficulty. The biggest difficulty is that China is unable to import the most advanced equipment due to the restrictions imposed by the Wassenaar Agreement.
If there were no Wassenaar Agreement, and China could import the most advanced equipment from abroad and build chip production lines with the most advanced processes, it would be easy to cultivate talents. "
It is normal for the upstream and downstream of the chip production line to come from all over the world. Taking TSMC as an example, the factory buildings, circuits and pipelines are all built by Benwan itself. The automation equipment in the factory mainly comes from Neon, while the processing tables and mechanical equipment come from the Netherlands and Neon respectively.
The main products from the Netherlands are photolithography machines, while chemical raw materials come from Germany, France, the Netherlands, Neon, Amerikan and other countries.
This is just like a large aircraft. If you can integrate and produce a finished product, it is already a success.
Full localization is unrealistic in today's highly developed business world. Zhou Xin has never thought about localization. He just wants to control some key technical nodes and achieve technological leadership on these key technical nodes.
"Take the A1E chip you designed as an example. Mphone has sold one million units, which means that 1 million A1E chips have been produced. One such chip costs about US$110, which means that A1E has been around for half a year. That’s $100 million in revenue.
At the same time, chip foundries can help Mphone make chips, so they can also help other chip design manufacturers make chips. With Mphone's chip demand as the cornerstone, it is easy for chip manufacturers to form a positive cycle.
Matrix raises demands, and Xinxin Semiconductor is responsible for designing chips to meet Matrix's needs. Then chip manufacturers manufacture the chips designed by Xinxin, and Xinxin lithography machines slowly enter the manufacturing process.
We can slowly cultivate talents, slowly develop lithography machines, catch up with advanced technology, and at the same time conduct research and development in areas such as chip materials and EDA software.
It does not take long to develop the chip industry. The fastest is five years and the longest is ten years. Then we can lead the entire semiconductor industry forward.
I believe Zhou Xin thought this way at first, but the problem now is that Chinese companies cannot import the most advanced equipment, and they cannot manufacture the most advanced chips by placing production lines in China.
260nm chips cannot meet the needs of Mphone, and the forward cycle is stuck in the chip manufacturing process.
So I need to conduct on-site inspections in China. If Mphone cannot start the first step, then we need to change a product to start the first step. "
I will update a chapter today and there will be another chapter tomorrow morning
(End of chapter)
