"Mr. Zhou, welcome to the Lion City. When the Lion City branch of CAAS was established last year, we invited you, but you said you didn't have time. This should be your first time in the Lion City," Xiao Li said.
After Zhou Xin landed in the Lion City, Lee Hsien Loong was responsible for the entire reception. At this time, he was still the nominal second-in-command in the Lion City, and there were still two years before he took over the power from his father.
Lee Hsien Loong met Zhou Xin before when he went to Los Angeles to attend an event. The result of that meeting was that Xinxin Technology set up an R&D center in the Lion City. However, this R&D center is not large in size, let alone the R&D center in Silicon Valley. In comparison, even the scale of the R&D center established in Shenhai is not comparable.
However, Zhou Xin’s business scope in the Lion City is not limited to integrated circuits. Xinyun’s Southeast Asia node is located in the Lion City, providing cloud services to small and medium-sized enterprises in pan-Southeast Asian countries. Tencent's Southeast Asia branch is also located in the Lion City to provide corporate services to enterprises in Southeast Asia.
In the past two years, the investment share of Zhou Xin's companies in the Lion City has been increasing year by year, and the growth rate is astonishing.
Zhou Xin came to the Lion City this time, firstly, to consider the future. If he does not get the results he wants, Zhou Xin will move the chip foundry to the Lion City from the perspective of risk management and control.
This is also a strategy. Xinxin Technology in China cannot obtain the most advanced production lines due to the Wassenaar Agreement. However, Xinxin Technology in the Lion City is not restricted by the Wassenaar Agreement and can completely cooperate with TSMC in chip foundry. Breaking hands.
Of course, if you want to compete with TSMC, it is too risky to rely on Zhou Xin's capital alone. Zhou Xin came to the Lion City also to talk about cooperation with the Lion City government. The massive funds held by the Lion City government happened to be short of investment projects, and he could Provide the Lion City with the investment project of chip foundry.
The second is for NewPay. The Lion City is extremely strict on the issuance of electronic payment licenses. NewPay has successfully entered Northeast Asia, successfully obtained electronic payment licenses in China and Neon, and in Tokyo, Neon’s largest city. NewPay has gradually become a popular payment method among young people.
It’s a bit difficult to enter the Goryeo region. Many of Zhou Xin’s companies are in direct competition with Goryeo companies, and Goryeo, in order to protect domestic companies, is not willing to let NewPay in, even if NewPay agrees to establish a Goryeo branch. , the Korean branch allows Korean companies to take shares, and NewPay is even willing to sell most of its shares to the Korean chaebols. They only need to adopt an A/B share structure to ensure that the control of NewPay’s Korean branch is in their own hands.
The Korean side is not willing to accept such loose conditions. The Korean chaebols want to develop their own electronic payment software. We cannot enter the global market, and local companies cannot let you in either.
In such a big environment in the Asia-Pacific region, the most important fulcrum left in NewPay's Asia-Pacific strategy is the Lion City. If it can conquer the Lion City, then NewPay's influence can radiate to the entire Southeast Asia, and Alibaba can follow the trend. Southeast Asian market.
Now Zhou Xin's Internet business map has revealed the momentum of Internet giants such as Tencent and Alibaba to sweep the world in the future.
Therefore, the purpose of coming to the Lion City this time is to exert pressure, but it is not the main purpose, or even just a casual purpose. Negotiating a package of cooperation plans with the Lion City is the core strategy.
After the Hanxin incident, Zhou Xin realized that the Lion City was a good place and another basket where he could put his eggs.
Politicians in Washington will be wary of the rapid development of China's integrated circuit industry, but will relax their vigilance about the Lion City's integrated circuit industry. They can allow TSMC to develop in a roundabout way, and they will also allow another TSMC to appear in the Lion City.
By only placing chip foundry in the Lion City, the chip foundry industry in the Lion City can further feed back the chip foundry industry in China.
This is a strategic plan that achieves multiple goals with one stone.
The information communicated by the two parties through their subordinates in the early stage decided that Xiao Li would receive Zhou Xin this time. Zhou Xin's youth made Xiao Li feel emotional, and even felt a touch of jealousy.
"Mr. Li, I haven't seen him for about a year and a half. This is indeed my first time to the Lion City. After I arrived in the Lion City yesterday afternoon, I walked around the Lion City in the evening.
The cleanliness and urban interface design of the Lion City left a deep impression on me. It is worthy of being a garden city. "
After some pleasantries, he went straight to the topic. Zhou Xin said: “I hope to achieve more in-depth cooperation with the Lion City.
In the past, the Lion City has been increasing investment in the integrated circuit field, hoping to replicate the success of the Neon, Koryo and Wanwan regions. However, compared with the above three regions, the Lion City seems to be lacking something. "
Zhou Xin's past glorious achievements determined that Lee Hsien Loong listened very carefully. Since Zhou Xin began to rise, the Lion City has conducted extensive research on this invincible entrepreneur.
When NewPay was first established, Temasek Sovereign Fund really wanted to invest, but was rejected by Zhou Xin at the time. Then they watched NewPay's valuation soar until they felt it was too expensive.
Lee Hsien Loong nodded: "Although the Lion City is small, it also has various disadvantages in natural resources, such as fresh water resources, lack of a large amount of electricity, lack of talent, etc. These disadvantages determine that the Lion City has inherent disadvantages in the field of integrated circuits.
But these disadvantages cannot stop Lion City’s determination to develop integrated circuits. Lion City started chip foundry earlier than the places you just mentioned.
Because I served as the Minister of Trade and Industry of the Lion City in 1986, I know the integrated circuit industry very well. The earliest place for chip foundry was Xiangjiang. There were three earliest small factories in Xiangjiang that specialized in doing some chip foundry business for IBM. , the second company to start chip manufacturing was Lion City.
In 1968, the first thing after the establishment of National Semiconductor in Lion City was to get involved in the chip foundry industry. We began to take on some chip assembly and testing work from Texas Instruments and IBM. "
On the Chinese Internet, you can only find this long-deregistered company called Lion City National Semiconductor. In fact, the full name of this company is National Semiconductor Co., Ltd. It was established in January 1968. Its earliest office is in the Marina Bay Financial Center. building.
National Semiconductor in the Lion City mainly invests in enterprises in the field of integrated circuits, and its development in history has been far less than expected.
Lee Hsien Loong continued: "Later, after I took over the Ministry of Trade and Industry, I also realized the importance of integrated circuits. In 1986, personal computers had begun to emerge, and the global chip trade market was growing at an unimaginable rate.
There are more and more signs that Moore’s Law is right. Integrated circuits were the most eye-catching sunrise industry at the time, and the Lion City is no exception and hopes to become a country that takes the lead in this chip competition.
I took over the Ministry of Trade and Industry in 1986, and established Chartered Semiconductor in 1987. Chartered Semiconductor specializes in chip foundry, and its customers include AMD, Infineon, IBM, Samsung, etc. We were once the only chip foundry after TSMC and UMC.
In 2000, more than half of the Lion City's total manufacturing output came from integrated circuits and integrated circuit-related industries.
However, as the Internet bubble burst, the chip industry in Lion City has been very difficult to develop in recent years. To put it bluntly, some Lion City have no advantages in this field.
Neon has technological advantages, Goryeo has advantages in supporting industries, and Wanwan has advantages in labor costs and economies of scale.
The Lion City has nothing. In addition, after China joined the WTO last year, the Lion City's advantage in tariffs has also been lost. China's advantage in labor costs is too obvious.
Before the Internet bubble burst, even with a series of costs such as labor costs, equipment depreciation, production line updates, etc., chip foundry was still a good manufacturing industry.
As the Internet bubble burst, chip foundry in the Lion City lost its cost-effectiveness.
Since the beginning of this year, because of the good performance of Xinxin Technology in China, we have also paid attention to it. Chartered Semiconductor has been conducting internal research and plans to locate a new chip production plant in Zhangjiang.
We are already talking with Belling and plan to jointly build an 8-inch wafer fab with Belling. "
Shenhai Beiling obtained technology transfer and equipment support from UMC. Their earliest plan was to build a 6-inch wafer fab and later changed it to an 8-inch wafer fab. This resulted in increased investment requirements and the original investors were unwilling to , Chartered Semiconductor in the Lion City plans to take over.
Zhou Xin said: "There are too many upstream and downstream industries involved in chips. After chip manufacturing, there is packaging and testing. If we look at foundry and packaging and testing as a whole, chip foundry can be regarded as the last stage of chip manufacturing. A part gone.
After just listening to Mr. Li's introduction, I can tell that you are indeed very knowledgeable in this area, at least from the perspective of industrial investment.
In my opinion, the Lion City does not have an advantage in chip foundry. Just because your fresh water is subject to neighboring countries, the Lion City cannot expand the scale and create a scale effect in the field of chip foundry.
I think the Lion City is only suitable for two aspects. The first is to focus on the most cutting-edge chip foundry and put mid-to-low-end production capacity in China.
China has the ability and willingness to undertake mid- to low-end production capacity. Compared with the Lion City, China is subject to too many restrictions and cannot obtain the most advanced equipment, but the Lion City can, and the Lion City can focus on the most advanced chip foundry.
In this way, both parties can cooperate and complement each other. It is impossible for Gao Li and Wan Wan to cooperate with the Lion City. They both have the ability and willingness to swallow the whole cake.
Only China can cooperate with the Lion City because of Amerikan's fear.
For example, the most advanced 90nm process wafer fab is now being built in Lion City. When the process advances to 65nm, 45nm, and 28nm, the previous wafer fab will gradually fall behind. After the equipment depreciation is completed, the entire wafer fab can be relocated to China. "
Many semiconductor companies in the Wanwan area have relocated their outdated equipment back to the mainland. UMC, Powerchip, ProMOS Technology, etc. have all done this.
When equipment depreciation is completed, relocation costs are trivial.
Hanxin's fraud not only caused a stir within China, but also attracted attention overseas because it involved Zhou Xin.
Overseas attention focuses on whether the honeymoon period between Zhou Xin and Hua Guo is coming to an end, and whether the cooperation between the two parties will continue.
Li Xianlong was also very aware of Hanxin and Zhou Xin's attitude towards Hanxin. He did not expect that Hanxin would not affect Zhou Xin's strategic positioning of China and support for China's chip industry.
This makes Lee Hsien Loong pay more attention to Zhou Xin. At such a young age, he can wear multiple masks and switch freely. His anger and dissatisfaction in public seems to be just a performance.
Li Xianlong said: "I understand what you mean, Mr. Zhou. We have originally considered that we define the most advanced chip foundry as high-end. The biggest problem is that we may not be able to obtain enough orders to allow the equipment to operate at full load. .
The higher the high-end chip foundry industry, the stricter the control over costs and profits. Because the higher-end equipment is more expensive, the amount of equipment depreciation is exaggerated, and the salary of front-line engineers for high-end equipment is not a small amount. Once the production line cannot operate at full capacity, the losses on the book will become more and more serious.
This will form a vicious cycle. If it is not operating at full capacity, the yield rate will not increase, the profit margin will not increase, and it will not be able to gain an advantage in the competition with other chip foundry companies. Finally, advanced technology will gradually no longer be advanced.
Especially in the current sluggish environment of the overall chip industry, it is even more difficult to ensure that advanced processes operate at full capacity. "
Why can TSMC rise? Because of the support of Intel. Why can Samsung's chip foundry take off? It's because Samsung is a behemoth, and its other business segments can provide a steady supply of blood. Even if Samsung's chip foundry loses money, it won't have any impact.
The Lion City cannot. Their strategic definition determines that they cannot lose money like Samsung, at least not now.
After listening, Zhou Xin said: "Mr. Li, do you know about Mphone and smartphones? In my opinion, smartphones will be the most important development direction in the next twenty years.
The chip demand from the smartphone business alone is enough to support the high-end chip foundry industry in the Lion City. "
At this year's Mphone Developers Conference, Zhou Xin clearly defined Mphone and the mobile phone form represented by Mphone, which is called a smartphone.
The outside world does not realize how important this definition is. On the contrary, the Mphone Developer Conference itself attracts more attention from the outside world. There are a large number of new games designed for the Mphone platform, as well as game CGs designed exclusively for the upcoming Mphone2 by several well-known producers in the game industry. announced.
These have sparked heated discussions, with smartphones being mentioned at most.
Zhou Xin continued: “Smartphones will continue to maintain demand for high-end chips. The smaller the chip manufacturing process can be, the smaller the demand for smartphones will be.
This is determined by technical principles. The more advanced the chip process, the lower the energy consumption, and the better the battery life of the mobile phone. Smartphone chips will be a trillion-level market. "
After Zhou Xin finished speaking, Li Xianlong asked: "Is the unit in US dollars or RMB?"
“Haha, just kidding, I trust your judgment in this regard, the question is how can the Lion City get a share of the smartphone market.
In other words, how can Lion City cooperate with Xinxin Technology to achieve this goal. "
As he was writing, Crow remembered that the protagonist of the previous book had stayed in Singapore for a long time, and finally bought Singapore. Crow realized that time passed too fast, and a year had passed.
The last book was really frustrating to write.
(End of chapter)
