The emergence of a vying for the throne in the field of smartphones is not beyond Zhou Xin’s expectation.
Unlike most giants in the original time and space, they did not begin to enter the smartphone market until 2009 when global sales of iPhones exceeded 20 million units. In this time and space, the Mphone1 was already successful enough.
After the arrival of Mphone2, Mphone2 has a crushing advantage among mobile phones of the same price. There are few mobile phones priced above US$700, but not none.
At this price point, Mphone2 occupies more than 80% of the market share. In the Bay Area, an area with relatively mature 3G network deployment, Mphone2's market share at this price point exceeds 95%.
All Internet-related giants are trying to enter this field, including Neon and Goryeo companies.
In this context, Xinxin Technology, which builds mobile phone processors, the core component of smartphones for Mphone, suddenly became very popular.
Many mobile phone manufacturers came to our door, including many well-known manufacturers, including Samsung Keyian and HTC.
HTC is now better known to the public as HTC Electronics. Dopod is a subsidiary of HTC Holdings. It was initially headquartered in Shenhai and later moved to Jiangcheng for various reasons.
HTC was a giant in the field of handheld computers at this time. Since its establishment, it had been manufacturing handheld computers for major host manufacturers, and later began to build the HTC brand itself.
If Zhou Xin had not kicked off the mobile Internet in advance, HTC would have tried to make a mini host, similar to the mini that was later launched by Xiaomi. The main thing is that it is compact and easy to carry.
But after the birth of the mobile Internet, they found that this field had obviously more potential, and they had been in the PDA business before, so it was easy for them to transform.
Therefore, HTC quickly contacted Xinxin Technology, hoping that Xinxin Technology could design smartphone chips for them.
The reason is very simple. Currently, there are only a few mainstream manufacturers on the market that can create mobile phone chips, including Texas Instruments, IBM, Qualcomm, Intel, AMD and Xinxin. The mobile phone chips designed by Xinxin have the largest sales volume and have been verified by the most users. mobile phone chip.
Even the A1E chip used by Mphone is sufficient for these mobile phone manufacturers, and mainstream applications are not a problem.
As for mobile operating systems, HTC was a staunch supporter of the Microsoft camp in the early days, and MOS was not available for purchase.
There are also many powerful domestic manufacturers that have found new chips, such as DXN, Bird, Gionee, etc. Among them, DXN is also very interesting. DXN was the first to design mobile phones for international giants such as Nokia, Motorola and Qualcomm.
Eight of the top ten local mobile phone manufacturers in China are his customers, and later they will cooperate with Microsoft to take away the work that HTC originally wanted to do. Qualcomm even invested US$35 million in a joint venture with DXN Software to establish DXN Software, with the number of employees increasing from 14 to 3,000 in four years.
Later, DXN was listed on Nasdaq and failed in the mobile Internet wave. The company's core team went to Xiaomi.
This is another story. It is precisely because DXN has strong strength in software that they also want to build their own smartphones.
"We have disassembled MOS. It is an operating system based on the Linux kernel. We can also build a smartphone operating system based on the Linux kernel.
Whether it is selling to domestic mobile phone manufacturers or building your own brand, you can do it. "
Dexin adheres to this idea and contacts Xinxin Technology.
For Guan Jianying, this is a happy trouble. Hu Zhengming is the CEO of the entire Xinxin system, and Guan Jianying is mainly responsible for the chip design sector, which is Xinxin Semiconductor.
He himself had been engaged in chip design for 20 years before joining Xinxin. He has participated in almost all mainstream chip types on the market. In the process of participating in the design of A-series chips in the past, Guan Jianying also accumulated a lot of knowledge about smartphone chips. Design experience.
Zhou Xin can give them solutions based on 90nm smartphone chip design until 2022, but Zhou Xin will not do this.
What Zhou Xin and Xinxin Technology’s Huaguo team said is that the Huaguo team and American’s team are doing research and development of the A-series chips at the same time. Finally, after the tape-out, both parties conduct various tests and select the final Mphone based on the test results. The chip used.
You don’t need to think about it to know that the chips designed by Xinxin Technology’s Zhangjiang R&D team are not as good as those produced by countless iterations in later generations, but at least we can see progress. From A1E to A2, the chips designed by the Huaguo team have made significant progress.
This is naturally inseparable from Guan Jianying. Excellent managers can lead the team to develop together. Under Guan Jianying's leadership, the mobile phone integrated chips designed by Xinxin Semiconductor can compete with MediaTek.
With the advantage of time, Xinxin occupies 60% of the market share in the field of mobile phone integrated chips, while MediaTek's market share is only 20%.
Guan Jianying's trouble is that there are too many manufacturers coming to Xinxin Semiconductor to make demands. These manufacturers obviously cannot accept a set of chips to provide to all of them.
Therefore, Guan Jianying single-handedly led the internally named B-series smartphone chips. This set of solutions is divided into three echelons, each using different processes to provide users with different needs.
When Guan Jianying chatted with Hu Zhengming privately, he said: "I finally understand what Newman meant when he said that making money is too easy and you will lose motivation.
It is too easy to make money from integrated chips. According to our performance level, the team responsible for mobile chips can get more than 500,000 yuan in dividends every year without working. MediaTek is completely incapable of posing a threat to us.
When MediaTek first entered this market, the team members were very nervous. Everyone was very passionate about developing new integrated chips to form a differentiated advantage.
That motivation disappeared again after it was discovered that MediaTek was unable to pose a threat.
This makes the entire team unmotivated. They will do the work when told, but their enthusiasm is obviously not as high as before. "
Hu Zhengming is quite tolerant: “What the job of R&D requires is not passion or enthusiasm, but love and persistence.
Temporary enthusiasm and enthusiasm may achieve temporary success, but in the long run this will be a waste of time. How come I have been in China for so long, do you feel that my Chinese has changed qualitatively? "
The improvement of Chinese language is an unexpected blessing for Hu Zhengming, and the real surprise is to be able to build a company like Xinxin Technology.
Guan Jianying came to Xinxin Technology because he first had an unhappy job at his old employer, and then he started a business with a friend. When he started his business, he was about to get a large investment and reach the peak of his life, but was kicked out.
For Guan Jianying's age and resume, it is easy to find a job, but it is not so easy to find a suitable job. Coming to Zhangjiang to open up wasteland is a good choice, at least Zhou Xin is given good treatment and trust.
Hu Zhengming would come, but Chun Chun was bewitched by Zhou Xin. After arriving, the situation was better than the best he expected.
From a global perspective, Xinxin Technology obviously does not belong to the semiconductor giant, but Xinxin Technology's strategic planning, top-level design and business scope are completely comparable to the giants. Once successful, it will become the top type of giant in the semiconductor field.
Now that the mobile Internet is slowly opening, Xinxin Technology has already occupied a considerable advantage. Hu Zhengming is now very optimistic that semiconductor companies will rise with every wave of the times. This time it is entirely possible that Xinxin Technology will be the one.
TSMC is a semiconductor giant that emerged in the mobile Internet wave. Before that, it was at best a well-known chip foundry company.
Hu Zhengming continued: "I have many students working at Texas Instruments, AMD, and Intel. These giants can last forever, and most of the employees below are peaceful, can balance life and work, and persist for ten to twenty years. In years, you can basically become an expert in this field.
You also need to have a calm mind. Semiconductors are a long-term business. We only need to do our own things well and don’t worry about the rest. "
Hu Zhengming is very open-minded. He doesn't expect to achieve any breakthroughs in a short time. He doesn't think New Core Technology can do anything like punching Intel or kicking IBM.
In his view, Xinxin Technology only needs to catch the wave of the times once to become a company similar to Intel. If it can catch it twice, it will be IBM.
Looking at it now, mobile Internet is such an opportunity, and they have a first-mover advantage in it. The next thing to do is to keep rolling this snowball.
Hu Zhengming also doesn't like to force the employees below to do something, and he doesn't want technical staff to receive too many dividends from the company's development.
Some bosses will find ways to lower wages when they see that the wages of their employees below are high. For example, the salary of a single factory component is 6 yuan. One worker processed 3,000 pieces in one month by increasing working hours and reducing rest time, and received 18,000 yuan. monthly salary.
Some bosses will lower unit prices to control employee wages.
Hu Zhengming owns shares in Xinxin Technology. It is not an exaggeration to say that he is the boss. He would not think so, let alone do this.
Xinxin Technology's salary is relatively high in the entire Shenhai, and it is a top foreign company. Even front-line workers in the wafer factory can easily get a monthly salary of 8,000 yuan.
For this reason, the managers sent by Huahong asked whether employees' wages could be appropriately reduced and maintained at a relatively high level, not so high.
Hu Zhengming’s reason is: “For the chip foundry industry, engineers are the most valuable asset. We cannot regard front-line employees as consumable and replaceable parts. They are important assets of the company.
Our remuneration is not given completely unintentionally, but is linked to the company's performance. We can offer such a high salary now because Xinxin Technology's performance is good enough. When the company makes money, it does not share it with employees. Then we How to ensure that employees can accompany the company to the end when the company declines?
And the average salary of 8,000 is not high. At Xinxin’s wafer factory in Lion City, the salary of front-line engineers can reach 15,000. "
The representative of Huahong retorted: "Mr. Hu, I understand your thinking. We can adjust the coefficients to maintain a relatively balanced state.
In fact, to be honest, people are all profit-seeking. Even if you give them such good treatment now, when someone offers better treatment in the future, or when the company's performance is not good, and their salary level drops, they should stay. If you can’t live in it, you can’t live in it.
On the contrary, for the enterprise, we appropriately reduce this part of the expenditure as cash flow, and in the future it can be used as a supplement to employee wages when the performance is not good. "
Hu Zhengming thought of Huahong's representative from Guan Jianying's words. Their underlying logic had something in common: that is, for employees, there is no need to give them too good treatment, because too good treatment will do more harm than good.
Hu Zhengming doesn’t see it that way: “I don’t know if they will leave, but I think at least the proportion will be lower. If we change the order overnight, how can the employees believe us?
If we do this, if changes occur in the future, the results will only be worse.
When the salary system meeting was held, Huahong sent a representative to sign and confirm. "
The Huahong representative chuckled: "Mr. Hu, to be honest, we didn't expect that the benefits would be so good after Xinxin took over Huahong. The wafer fab's production capacity was directly reached."
Because Huahong only has supervisory power but not management power, even if they have objections, they can only whisper in Hu Zhengming's ears about such things that have been determined, and cannot substantially change the established facts.
After hearing this, Guan Jianying smiled bitterly: "I am not the kind of person who likes to squeeze the team to achieve results for me. I just think that the demand for the entire mobile Internet is so strong that we need to seize this rare opportunity.
If our B-series chips are successful, their annual salary will not be half a million, but one million.
This is good for everyone.
The problem now is that everyone is very excited about the increase from 100,000 to 500,000. Now I tell them that if you work hard, it can be increased to 1 million in the future, but no one feels it. The threshold is too high.
To be honest, the progress of the B series has been slow and has not met my expectations, especially the B series chips that focus on high-end. "
Hu Zhengming said: "Do you want to ask Newman to let the team in Silicon Valley jointly develop it?"
Silicon Valley does have a research and development team from Xinxin Technology, and it does make mobile phone chips, but what they actually do is more focused on the non-core parts of mobile phone chips, such as multimedia chips and power management chips.
The technologies of the A-series chips all come from Samsung in the future.
Guan Jianying shook his head: "I want to rely on myself, and I don't want to admit that the team we lead is not as good as the R&D team in Silicon Valley.
Xinxin Technology has also been established for three years. Part of Xinxin Semiconductor's R&D team is engineers I hired from Wanwan, and part is Chinese engineers poached from Silicon Valley.
Then there are also some engineers and college graduates we recruited from China.
We have been working together for three years, and we should be seeing results. Our team has accumulated sufficient experience in integrated chips, and the current B-series chips are just a challenge.
Every time the R&D team in Silicon Valley is needed, why should Shenhai’s R&D team be needed? We might as well let everyone go back to Silicon Valley directly, and let others be responsible for some marginal businesses like the R&D departments of other foreign companies in China. "
(End of chapter)
