Sun Jian, who is always paying attention to the progress of lithography machine technology, has not yet heard that Dr. Lin of TSMC proposed the idea of developing "immersive lithography" at the International Semiconductor Symposium.
"Immersion lithography" is to add a layer of water on top of the wafer photoresist. The medium refractive index of water is 144, 193nm144≈134nm. Without changing the wavelength of the lithography machine, the NA is expanded in disguise, so that the 193nm wavelength Can be equivalent to a wavelength of 134nm.
In his previous life, Dr. Lin took this "immersive lithography" solution and traveled to the United States, Germany, Japan and other countries to lobby various semiconductor giants, but he was rejected by all of them.
Warned TSMC executives to ask Dr. Lin to "not disrupt the situation."
ASML, the weakest company, decided to take a bet. Compared with its previous investment in traditional dry lithography, betting on immersion technology was more likely to lead to greater gains. So it hit it off with Dr. Lin and worked hard in just one year. The first prototype was built and successively won orders from major customers such as IBM and TSMC.
The 157nm wavelength dry lithography machines promoted by Canon and Canon were gradually abandoned by the market, and the two companies turned from prosperity to decline.
"Mr. Sun, the company's lawsuit against NVIDIA has failed. The company needs to pay 45 million US dollars in compensation, but the company can't come up with so much cash at once, and banks are unwilling to lend money. Apart from allowing NVIDIA to acquire it, the company has no other way, but everyone in the company Not willing to be acquired by NVIDIA, on behalf of the company's board of directors, I request AITC to invest US$50 million, the company issues new shares, and invites AITC to hold 3dfx."
In the afternoon, Lin Chang and 3dfx legal person and chairman Scott Schillers, CEO Alex Lepp, CTO Gary Taroli, and Ross Smith came to Sun Jian’s chairman’s office. Yu Jianguo, Zhao Yuda, Robert and Qin Junxin stood up to greet them, and everyone exchanged greetings.
Zhao Yuda is the general manager of ATIC (Silicon Valley), Robert is the director of ATIC's equity investment department, and Qin Junxin is the director of ATIC's financial management department.
Scott had a sad look on his face and got straight to the point.
Scott Schillers, Gary Taroli and Ross Smith are the three founders of 3dfx. Until the moment of life and death, the three founders will not personally come to ask Sun Jian to take control.
Greg Ballard, the first CEO of 3dfx, left the company in August last year due to the company's declining performance.
Senior American semiconductor expert Alex Lepp took office in September last year, but 3dfx's performance continued to decline. This year's second fiscal quarter financial report announced that due to fierce competition in the graphics card market, 3dfx's sales revenue increased from 10.4 billion in the previous quarter. The US dollar fell to US$67 million due to a loss of US$100.5 billion due to the acquisition of Gigapixel.
Wukong Angel Investment Fund is the largest shareholder of NVIDIA and 3dfx. In 1997, Sun Jian booked Riva TNT2 and VOODOO2 colleagues, and also obtained Riva TNT2 and VOODOO2 production orders for GPCA from Huang Renxun and Sellers.
In his previous life, Sun Jian only knew about NVIDIA, but not 3dfx and ATI. By chance, Wukong Angel Investment Fund became the largest shareholder of NVIDIA and 3dfx, and the fifth largest shareholder of ATI. Now the three graphics card companies have grown from the top eight graphics card companies in the world. Stand out and become the world's top three graphics card giants, occupying 80% of the global GPU market share, fighting openly and secretly, life and death, and fierce competition.
Wukong Angel Investment Fund has made a written commitment as a strategic investor not to participate in the daily management of the company and never to interfere in the competitive behavior of the three companies.
In early 1997, 3dfx began to enter the game console industry and participated in the research and development of Sega's next-generation console Dreamcast. At that time, there were two competing teams within Sega: one was the Japanese team, codenamed "Big Sword", which used NEC's GPU solution; the other was The American team, codenamed "Black Belt", used 3dfx's GPU solution; however, only half a year later, Sega suddenly unilaterally announced the termination of cooperation with 3dfx and chose a broadsword solution using NEC PowerVR chips.
At that time, 3dfx was preparing to go public. According to regulations, the company must submit investor documents to the SEC, and the documents must truthfully describe the company's business and existing risks.
At that time, Sega was facing competition with Sony and Nintendo, so the cooperation with 3dfx was kept secret, and both parties signed a confidentiality agreement.
It stands to reason that this matter could have been circumvented by choosing not to disclose it in investor documents, but for some reason 3dfx still disclosed everything.
This naturally made Sega executives very angry, so they immediately terminated their cooperation with 3dfx.
Sega's decision caught 3dfx off guard. Subsequently, 3dfx took Sega to court, accusing it of conducting malicious transactions in order to obtain technology. The two parties reached an out-of-court settlement a year later, and Sega compensated 3dfx US$10.5 million, but it was painful to lose the "Sega" tree. Big tree".
Industry insiders believe that 3dfx is doing its own thing.
In April 1997, 3Dfx publicly issued 3.5 million shares at US$18, raising US$63 million (including underwriting fees). The total share capital increased to 26 million shares. Wukong Angel Investment Fund held 9 million shares, accounting for 346 shares, which was still the first A major shareholder has made a written commitment as a strategic investor not to participate in the company's daily management.
In November of the same year, 3dfx launched Voodoo2, the most popular 3D graphics card that pushed 3dfx to the top.
The launch of Voodoo2 makes 3dfx's dominance even more unshakable. The performance of Voodoo2 makes it difficult for opponents to match it.
The price of a Voodoo2 in China is as high as 2,900 yuan! It has become a graphics card that domestic players covet and must buy.
Just when it seemed that 3dfx was unbreakable, a dangerous opponent quietly came to 3dfx again, and it was NVIDIA! It brought an even more powerful explosive to the world: TNT.
3dfx is what NVIDIA is chasing!
In November 1995, 3dfx launched the Voodoo graphics card, the greatest graphics card in human history and the 3D chip with the highest market share in the world, page). The product was planned to be developed in 2 years.
In April 1998, 3dfx suddenly became more confident and believed that it could complete the R&D, production and sales of the Voodoo series of graphics cards on its own. It spent US$14.1 billion to acquire STB, a major German graphics card manufacturer, and transformed from a graphics chip manufacturer into a graphics card manufacturer. We entered into a production contract with PGCA and started the self-produced and self-sold development route. However, we lost the support of major manufacturers such as Diamond, Gigabyte, Innovation, and Elsa. To make matters worse, these major manufacturers all switched to NVIDIA.
