"Master Zhao, have you heard about it?" Xiao Zhang, who just graduated from Shenhai Second Polytechnic University and came to the company not long ago, said to Master Zhao with excitement.
As a local state-owned enterprise in Shenhai, Huahong's 8-inch production line can be said to be one of the most advanced production lines in Huahong and even in China. Even so, front-line engineers can only be recruited from Shenhai Second University of Technology.
Huahong's front-line manufacturing department also wants to recruit people from places such as Fudan, Jiaotong University, and Tongji, or even Shenhai University. The result is that Huahong can indeed recruit people from these places, but as long as they want to come to the front-line manufacturing department, graduates from these universities are not willing to come.
In the current era when academic qualifications have not yet depreciated, graduates of corresponding majors from Fudan Jiaotong University can definitely go to the offices of foreign semiconductor companies in China. A second-class college graduate can still stay at Huahong's headquarters, and even doing chip design is better than going to the front-line manufacturing department.
Therefore, the only people at the level of Shenhai Second Polytechnic University who were displaced to Huahong's first-line manufacturing department were those at the level. Shenhai Second University of Technology had a Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering in the 1980s, a major corresponding to the integrated circuit major. Although the things taught in school are not so relevant.
Master Zhao is about ten years older than Xiao Zhang. He is a college student who graduated from the School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering of Jiaotong University. At the time when he graduated, the School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering was still called the School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering.
Master Zhao worked in Huajing Group when he just graduated. Huajing Group at that time was equivalent to Huahong today. In 1978, Huaguo spent 265 million yuan to establish a bipolar integrated circuit production line in Wuxi that was the largest in the country and had the most complete industrial chain nodes.
Master Zhao heard the excitement in Xiao Zhang's tone. He was nominally the technical director of the entire 8-inch production line. He technically managed the entire front-line engineers, but to put it bluntly, he was the highest-level engineer. Because he is kind and easy-going, Xiao Zhang became familiar with Master Zhao not long after he arrived.
"Keep your voice down, in case others don't hear you? We'll find a secluded place during lunch later, and you can tell us what's going on."
After finishing speaking, Master Zhao looked at his nose, nose, mouth and heart, pretending as if he hadn't heard anything, and continued to do the work at hand.
This is something that Xiao Zhang admires Master Zhao very much, because compared with last year, they don’t have so much work this year.
In the current environment, when the machine is started, one chip is made for one chip, and there is no profit at all.
The Internet bubble has caused the bubble burst in the semiconductor industry to be far from over. Coupled with Americen's black swan incident, it can be said that Huahong's 8-inch production line will not be profitable until next year at the earliest.
Master Zhao is able to pretend to be busy even when there is no work to do. When the leader asks, he can break the work in hand into 10 parts and report them.
After finishing the morning's work, Master Zhao and Xiao Zhang sat in a remote corner of the Huahong canteen. Then Master Zhao asked: "Tell me, what did you hear when you went to the group this time? You kid, Xiao Zhang." Make a sound!"
Because Xiao Zhang has just graduated and is a new college student, Xiao Zhang is often sent to the headquarters to report on some transactional handover work. If you say it nicely, it's just a report; if you say it badly, it's just running errands.
Xiao Zhang lowered his voice and said: "I heard the chairman of Huahong NEC calling on the phone today when I was in the toilet. I don't know who he was talking to. He mentioned whether the group wanted to cooperate with Xinxin Technology.
Xinxin Technology has chip design and lithography machines. Our previous cooperation with Xinxin Technology was limited to lithography machines. We have been helping Xinxin Technology test their lithography machines for a long time.
This was cooperation before. If the group wants to cooperate with Xinxin Technology, it will most likely be cooperation in other fields. Do you think Xinxin Technology will give us some orders?
Huahong NEC can’t do it, then it’s our turn? "
Master Zhao asked: "How did you know it was Xia Zhongrui?"
Xia Zhongrui is the chairman of Huahong NEC. He was previously the director of Shenhai Integrated Circuit Office. Before establishing Huahong NEC, he was sent to Silicon Valley for inspection and did some investment promotion work. He introduced Silicon Valley chip design companies to Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park. .
He is now also a rubber stamp at Huahong NEC, and all management rights are in the hands of Vice Chairman and General Manager Keiichi Shimakura.
Xiao Zhang said: "After I graduated and joined Huahong last year, he came to give us a lecture during the new employee training. His voice was relatively recognizable, so I recognized it as soon as I heard it."
Master Zhao thought for a while and then said: "It is possible that Xinxin Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Xinxin Technology, focuses on chip design.
You know that Americen’s popular Mphone and Apple’s recently launched iPod are all designed by Xinxin Semiconductor.
At the end of last year, Jiaotong University approached the Ministry of Science and Technology to make a technological breakthrough in deep sub-micron integrated circuit design. Have you heard of it?
Xinxin Technology has achieved technological breakthroughs long ago, and the designed 0.13-micron chips have been commercialized and mass-produced on a large scale. I really don’t know what Jiao Tong University has to brag about, so it even held a special celebration banquet. "
Deep sub-micron integrated circuits are usually referred to as 0.35-0.8 micron and below as sub-micron level, 0.25 micron and below as deep sub-micron level, and 0.05 micron and below as nano-level.
Shenhai Jiaotong University broke through the difficulty of 0.35 micron integrated circuit design technology in 2000 and conquered the 0.25 micron integrated circuit design technology.
Later, Chen Jin returned to Hanxin, a 0.18-micron semiconductor chip that was heavily promoted, and was widely touted as it was considered to be close to international advanced technology.
Up to now, Xinxin Technology has produced large-scale commercial 0.13 micron chips. Although Xinxin's positioning is relatively vague, Chinese officials have not touted it.
To be more precise, there is no angle to blow it. It took China more than ten years to break through the 0.25 micron chip design. Others just launched 0.13 micron, which is still a large-scale commercial version. The gap is too big. I am not looking for a mountain top place in China.
Therefore, the technological breakthroughs achieved by Xinxin Technology are not as influential as those caused by Hanxin Technology, and they were only mentioned in the news.
Xiao Zhang said: "It is not easy for Jiaotong University to handle deep submicron chip design. Master Zhao, you are good at everything, but sometimes you are too cynical. You can't look down on this or that."
Master Zhao retorted: "It's not that I don't like everything. I think Xinxin Technology is very good. Others can design chips that amaze both Neon and Korean people.
The chip itself is not bad, and the laboratory products of Koryo and Neon can also achieve a frequency of 0.13 microns and 500MHz, but it is too difficult to achieve large-scale commercialization.
Including Xinxin lithography machines are also very powerful. It is really difficult to be able to fully understand Nikon's technology and even be better than Nikon in some aspects.
Engineer Lin is the most technically proficient person I have ever met. He is even more powerful than the most powerful engineer I met when I went to study at Toshiba. "
Xiao Zhang opened his mouth slightly: "How powerful is that?"
Master Zhao has witnessed with his own eyes the process of state-invested semiconductor companies from Huajing to Huahong.
When he first joined Huajing, he was sent to study in Neon because his academic qualifications were high enough. He was the youngest among a group of engineers who went to Neon to study at that time.
At that time, they went to Toshiba. During the days of studying at Toshiba, they could only read but not memorize. They could not take any notes and could only rely on their brains to memorize.
It is precisely because of this that the opportunity to study in Neon came to Master Zhao: he was young and highly educated, and his memory was at its peak.
Master Zhao said: "I don't know. Anyway, he is much better than me. I think that technically I am not much different from the engineer who taught me back then. But I still can't see how high Engineer Lin's level is. All I know is very high.”
Xiao Zhang said: "That's okay. Almost all of Xinxin Technology's experienced engineers come from Silicon Valley. They have very high requirements for recruiting people from within the country. Campus recruitment is relatively better. Social recruitment requires Master Zhao to get in."
I have high school classmates at Xinxin, and Huaguo engineers are working on edge projects. The chip designs you just mentioned are all done by engineers in Silicon Valley. Chip design is already a weak point in China, and it is not easy for Jiaotong University to achieve this level. "
Xiao Zhang is from Shenhai. Although he is at the Second Polytechnic University, he has many classmates from Jiaotong University and Fudan University.
Master Zhao originally wanted to retort, but as if he remembered something, he changed the subject with a smile: "It is indeed possible to design the chip and then hand it over to Huahong for OEM. After all, we are the only one in China that can undertake large-scale production capacity. chip manufacturing company.
But without Huahong NEC, our production capacity would only be 10,000 pieces per month. For the size of Xinxin Semiconductor, it is far from enough. "
Xiao Zhang said: "It would be great if Xinxin Technology could acquire us."
Master Zhao seemed to have been hit by something, "Don't tell me, it's really possible.
With Zhou Xin's strategic vision and character, he now only lacks chip manufacturing in the entire upstream and downstream of the industry chain.
Other companies will not try IDM vertical manufacturing, but it does not mean that Zhou Xin will not, and it does not mean that Xinxin Technology will not.
If Xinxin Technology wants to acquire a chip production line, then one is us and the other is Huahong NEC.
Compared with Huahong NEC, we are obviously the best choice as we have no historical problems. "
Xiao Zhang showed an excited expression: "Is this true? The salary offered by Xinxin is at least three times higher than ours.
Please, Boss Zhou, hurry up and buy us. "
Master Zhao made a silent gesture: "Keep your voice down.
Are you afraid that others won’t know? This is still just our speculation.
Moreover, Xinxinkai’s salary is high and the requirements are also high. Moreover, if a state-owned enterprise changes to a private enterprise, the private enterprise will fire you regardless of how much you do.
Young people should learn more skills while they are young, so that even if Xinxin Technology comes to acquire our production line, you will still have the skills to gain a foothold. "
Xiao Zhang quickly flattered me: "I still have to rely on Master Zhao to take care of me more often."
The matter of cooperating with Huahong can be said to be complicated or simple, and the progress has been very fast after the above announcement.
After the ventilation at the end of 2001, the contract was signed in March 2002.
Huahong packaged the latest 8-inch production line it had built and the 8-inch production line it was building into the newly established Xinxin (Huahong) chip manufacturing company.
Huahong only has dividend rights and supervision rights, but no decision-making or control rights.
The cooperation between Huahong and Xinxin Technology has been widely publicized as a model for the reform of technology-based state-owned enterprises.
"Master Lin, I didn't expect that we could become colleagues." After the establishment of Xinxin (Huahong), Lin Benjian came here more frequently.
He knew that since Xinxin Technology has started to engage in chip manufacturing business, Xinxin Technology's manufacturing business will definitely use a large number of Xinxin lithography machines.
There was not much time left for him to adjust the test-questions.
Lin Benjian and Master Zhao are very familiar with each other: "Yes, the subsequent development of Xinxin Technology still needs our joint efforts.
I still feel that our photolithography machine is not stable enough, and it will still have some problems during the throughput process.
When I asked you before, you always said no problem, no problem.
Now that we are a family, please tell us something real.
I know that you have been using Nikon's lithography machines. The new core lithography machine you purchased also uses Nikon's I Line lithography machine technology.
What is the difference between our photolithography machines and Nikon's? "
Master Zhao thought for a while and then said: "Master Lin, you are technically stronger than me. Photolithography machines also belong to your field. I am just a front-line worker.
Let me tell you my opinion from my perspective. In fact, I have always thought that Nikon is on the wrong track.
So if you buy Nikon's technology and then try to follow Nikon's path, you are making more mistakes.
This is just my personal opinion, and it is based on my feelings. Nikon is the number one player in the field of lithography machines. When I say this about them, it seems that I am overestimating my capabilities.
I've always thought so.
Including the question you just asked me, I didn’t want to say it originally, but I still want to give you some inspiration.
Whether it is a photolithography machine from Nikon or Xinxin, the most critical problem is that it pursues the yield rate too much.
The yield rate is very important, but it is only one of the indicators. A yield rate of more than 95% is enough, and there is no need to pursue the limit.
Nikon’s technical route is to insist on pursuing a 100% yield rate with mature processes. This is unrealistic. Even if it is achieved, it will cause problems in many places.”
Master Zhao's words reminded Lin Benjian of why Neon pursues a 100% yield rate. This is because Neon is a conservative country and Japanese-style corporate management emphasizes quality first.
The corporate culture determines that they must constantly pursue the yield rate.
Chip technology Sometimes technical advantages are more important than quality.
In the early years, Neon's Nikon and Canon were able to defeat Amerikan's GCA and occupy the top two spots in the field of photolithography machines because the technology at that time was not as difficult as it is now.
I can take care of both ends, both technical breakthroughs and quality management, pursuing yield rate.
With the development of technology, technology research and development is becoming more and more difficult. For enterprises, especially technologies like photolithography machines, it is impossible to have both.
If you want rapid technology iteration, you must give up yield.
(End of chapter)
