After people's basic needs are met, they will want to pursue higher-level things.
To be honest, Guan Jianying has accumulated a certain amount of experience in the past 20 years of working in Silicon Valley. It is not an exaggeration to say that low-level wealth is free.
After coming to Xinxin Semiconductor, you can achieve a higher level of wealth freedom by messing around with the options you get. At this time, people will have more pursuits.
For a veteran like Guan Jianying who has worked in the semiconductor industry all his life, higher-level pursuits are naturally related to semiconductors. He sincerely hopes to build Xinxin Zhangjiang's R&D team into a team with sufficient combat effectiveness in the industry.
Zhou Xin would deceive him into returning to Zhangjiang to open up wasteland, and he would have some feelings of family and country in his heart.
At that time, Zhou Xin persuaded Guan Jianying to return to China, including participating in the daily operation and management of Xinxin Technology in China. Guan Jianying had a general understanding of what Zhou Xin wanted to do.
After all, the Chinese engineers who come to Zhangjiang to open up wasteland all have the same purpose, which is to develop the chip industry in China.
Because everyone who can be favored by Guan Jianying has two skills. Even if Silicon Valley is affected by the bursting of the Nasdaq bubble and a large number of layoffs in the chip industry, engineers like them with two skills will not be unable to find jobs.
No matter how bad it is, in this day and age, any job you can find in America will pay you more than a senior white-collar worker in China.
Although Guan Jianying is sure that Zhou Xin has the idea of developing China's chip industry, it does not mean that Zhou Xin has to use their group of people. If they don't work well, he will replace them. When Guan Jianying was working in Silicon Valley, he saw many similar things.
Therefore, Guan Jianying hopes to achieve results out of considerations of her own interests, higher-level pursuits, and considerations for other team members.
Within the company, it is also a process of fighting for resources. Xinxin Technology alone has multiple sectors and fields including photolithography machines, chip design, chip foundry, industrial software, and consumer electronics.
The industrial software here refers to EDA, an auxiliary software for chip design. After Hu Zhengming joined Xinxin, Xinxin Technology fully acquired Silue Semiconductor.
After acquiring Silue Semiconductor, Xinxin is slowly moving Silue Semiconductor to China.
Why does chip design get the most dividends every year and get the lion's share of performance pay? It’s not just because of the three leading products of Bluetooth chip, Mphone’s A series chip and mobile phone integrated chip.
These three leading products determine the highest revenue generation in the field of chip design, and can receive the most performance-based wages from the company's performance design.
Employees and managers in other fields will not have any objections, because income is the confidence. If the confidence is here, it is useless for others to make trouble.
But Guan Jianying knew what was going on. Whether it was the Bluetooth chip or the A-series chip, they were all the work of the Silicon Valley team.
The mobile phone integrated chip is their research and development achievement. The difficulty of developing this achievement is limited. Such an idea was proposed by Hu Zhengming after fully investigating the Chinese market. Their credit is also limited.
Lying on such a report card and enjoying the best resources, Guan Jianying, a middle-aged man with thick eyebrows, big eyes, wide head and square face, feels uncomfortable.
He hopes to use the research and development of smartphone chips to train his team and prove to his team that salary and strength are matched.
After hearing this, Hu Zhengming smiled: "Lao Guan, I completely understand you. No one of us who comes to China to open up wasteland will feel a lot of pressure.
Taking me as an example, I am more tired after coming to Xinxin Technology than when I worked two jobs in Silicon Valley.
At the time, I was taking classes at Berkeley, and while working on Clyde Semiconductor, I sometimes took on jobs from other companies.
But I’m not tired at all. I feel like I’m doing it with ease and have a good balance between life and work.
There is even time to come to China for academic exchanges and give academic lectures.
After coming to Xinxin, I felt like a top, being pushed by all kinds of things all the time, and at the same time I had to make the right decision.
Looking back now, both mobile phone integrated chips and Xiaomi Electronics are correct strategic plans.
These two steps bought us time and space, and we simultaneously achieved double gains in efficiency and scale. "
Hu Zhengming didn’t explain much because they had talked about it many times in internal executive meetings.
The time and space gained here means that Xinxin Technology has achieved synergy among different chip industries within Xinxin Technology with the help of Xiaomi Electronics and mobile phone integrated chips, forming business linkage.
Without these two products, Xinxin Technology's source of profits would entirely rely on Bluetooth chips and A chips. These two chips have a huge problem, that is, they need to use advanced processes, and China does not have advanced processes.
In other words, no matter how well these two chips sell, Xinxin Technology can only enjoy the benefits brought by chip design and sales, which will not help chip foundry, semiconductor equipment and industrial software.
Unhelpful means that these two chips cannot help them cultivate their teams and operate various resources such as equipment, funds, talents, etc.
For semiconductor companies, the most critical thing is to operate these resources. The more they operate, the better, even if they lose money.
For example, Samsung bucked the trend and expanded during the down cycle of memory chips. Even if it suffered losses, it could not stop production.
The same is true for Xinxin. It is true that Bluetooth chips and A-chips are important sources of profit. It is also true that they have achieved substantial profits with these two products. However, with only these two products, Xinxin Technology can only become a chip designer. company.
It cannot become a giant across multiple semiconductor fields like Samsung.
Therefore, when Xinxin Technology held its board of directors meeting, it gave high praise to Xiaomi Electronics and mobile phone integrated chips, believing that the success of these two sectors is more important to Xinxin Technology than Bluetooth chips and A chips.
Huawei's consumer business is vital to Huawei's life and death. Why? Because it can digest many internal technologies, so that internal R&D investment has clear output, so that the entire enterprise will not fall into a prisoner's dilemma with only R&D and no output.
Xiaomi's electronics and mobile phone integrated chip business are more important to Xinxin Technology than the consumer business is to Huawei.
Hu Zhengming continued: “I also faced tremendous pressure before making a decision.
China has a large number of consumer electronics brands. In addition to giants such as Lenovo, HP, and Dell, there are also large and small electronic brands. Is there really a market for our personal computers?
If you take the ultimate cost-effective route, will you be suppressed by your peers and impacted by public opinion from all directions?
Including mobile phone integrated chips, there is obviously a market for this, but why are no companies doing it? Is there a pitfall in R&D, or is it because companies don’t buy it, or because regulations don’t allow such products?
I update my list of questions almost every day, and then confirm them one by one, either by doing surveys or asking people to satisfy my own inner doubts and uneasiness.
Looking back now, these two decisions were correct, with good results and good effects, giving Xinxin the possibility to become a cross-field giant.
But what happens if these two businesses fail? Maybe we can still become a cross-field giant.
But life and death will be in the hands of others. Our chip foundry business can only engage in a price war with TSMC like SMIC.
The price of TSMC's chip foundry business is 30% or even 50% off at SMIC.
Regardless of revenue and profits, we must maintain the scale of the company and maintain the operation of the company. "
In the early days, SMIC was completely stealing food from TSMC. When TSMC was about to win an order, SMIC went to the customer and told the customer that I would only pay 30% off the price, and even agreed to help the customer bear the cost of defective chips.
In later generations, Apple forced TSMC to bear the production costs of defective chips in 3nm chip foundry, which is equivalent to TSMC only charging Apple for those good chips.
This is undoubtedly difficult for chip foundry companies to accept. In the early days, SMIC accepted similar terms when it helped Texas Instruments OEM 90nm chips in the second half of the process.
Hu Zhengming said: "Last year, Zhang Rujing and others helped Texas Instruments OEM 130nm chips. When I talked to them recently, they expected to help Texas Instruments OEM 90nm chips by the end of this year."
Guan Jianying looked at Hu Zhengming in surprise: "Old Hu, does SMIC have a way to circumvent the restrictions of the Wassenaar Agreement?
Can they import key 90nm equipment? "
Hu Zhengming shook his head: "They are only helping Texas Instruments make the second half of the 90nm chip, which is equivalent to Texas Instruments completing most of the processes, and then handing over the remaining parts to SMIC.
Originally, TSMC was going to win this business. They had 90nm capabilities and they could do it easily.
As a result, SMIC won the victory by taking advantage of all costs, which is why TSMC sued SMIC at all costs. "
TSMC sued SMIC in the Northern California Federal Court in Americen, arguing that SMIC obtained TSMC’s trade secrets and infringed TSMC’s patents through various improper means.
Hu Zhengming continued: "If we want to rely on external forces to do chip foundry business, the only way is to reduce prices. SMIC's price war in this field is already fierce enough.
If we enter again, the price war will be even more brutal.
I don’t know where SMIC’s technology comes from, but to be honest, we have been making chips for so many years. SMIC obviously got some technology from TSMC.
We bought it, they obtained it through some less than aboveboard means.
This also results in our costs being higher than SMIC, and our disadvantage in the price war will be even greater.
A price war requires constant blood transfusions to maintain scale, which is a terrible thing.
The success of Xiaomi Electronics and mobile phone integrated chips has allowed us to get out of this predicament and put the initiative of Xinxin firmly in our hands.
So what I want to say is, don’t worry too much before doing it, just do it with all your strength.
If you feel that the current team is not motivated, just recruit people. With the treatment of Xinxin Technology, it is easy to recruit people in Wanwan, Shicheng and Korea.
Don’t you still have so many recruiting quotas that haven’t been used up?
I feel that the best way to make a team less efficient is to add people. "
Without the sudden emergence of Xinxin Technology, TSMC, UMC and SMIC would occupy more than 80% of the chip foundry market.
UMC is MediaTek, making huge profits by integrating mobile phone chips.
The emergence of Xinxin Technology has made life difficult for these three companies. It is precisely because life is not easy that TSMC took action earlier than in the original time and space.
Their method is not only to sue SMIC at Amerikan, but also to attack SMIC and UMC at the same time.
Wanwan Hsinchu District Prosecutor's Office judge Chen Ronglin led more than 120 investigators to launch a large-scale search of UMC and took away many account books and computer files without communicating with UMC Chairman Cao Xingcheng.
At the same time, the residences of UMC Vice Chairman Xuan Mingzhi and Continental Hejian Technology Chairman Xu Jianhua were also "searched" by relevant parties. Xu Jianhua was subsequently detained for questioning, and even after being released on bail, he was still prohibited from leaving the country.
Both UMC and SMIC were a little confused after the two sets of combined punches.
The biggest reason is that the market is not easy to operate, and TSMC also wants to crack down on Xinxin Technology. The problem is that it can't find a handle. The patent is evidenced by a contract, and Xinxin Technology bought it at a clear price.
Xinxin Technology does not engage in price wars. They can handle their own internal business and there is no need to engage in price wars with TSMC to grab customers.
From an administrative point of view, China will not attack TSMC at all. Compared with Xinxin, TSMC has no domestic relationship network.
As for Americen, TSMC's relationship network is also not as good as New Core, so it has no choice but to start with its brothers UMC and its enemy SMIC.
Guan Jianying nodded after listening: "I will find a way.
TSMC is still ruthless. I heard from my friends at UMC that Cao Xingcheng didn’t know about this at all, and Hsinchu didn’t reveal it at all in advance. "
Hu Zhengming said: "To put it bluntly, it is still a political game.
Lao Cao is still too young, and I am very familiar with him. UMC sells technology to SMIC through the shell of Hejian Technology.
To put it bluntly, before doing this, Lao Cao had already thought about it from top to bottom.
Lao Cao has already arranged all the key departments, including the Legislative Review Committee, and assessed the risks beforehand. How could he do this casually? You must know that he was the KMT Cabinet Counselor before and was very familiar with all the big shots. .
Before 2000, Lao Cao wanted to take a stake in Shenhai Beiling. At that time, Beiling was building an 8-inch wafer fab. At that time, Beiling only had a 4-inch wafer fab. Lao Cao's participation was extremely important to them. Big boost.
In fact, Lao Cao has always wanted to get involved in the mainland. He has never had a suitable opportunity before, and Hejian Technology is a rare opportunity.
But he didn't expect that their political game would take a new turn, causing him to be investigated without any preparation. "
Guan Jianying asked curiously: "Why does he always want to come to the mainland to get involved?"
This fully proves that the two people's circles are different. Hu Zhengming and Cao Xingcheng know each other and have had many interactions with each other, while Guan Jianying only knows the core members of UMC.
(End of chapter)
