After a few more days in New York, Xu Zhi flew to Texas, the largest state in the southern United States.

Texas Instruments' headquarters is here, Midea has expanded rapidly in recent years, arcade, home console, Gameboy product sales are expanding day by day, in addition to bringing a large number of orders to local foundry companies in Xiangjiang, the core chips still have to be purchased, Deyi is still one of the largest suppliers of Midea.

Texas Instruments was naturally cautious when major customers visited, and after communicating with Midea, it sent Zhang Zhongmou, the company's executive vice president, to receive it.

Zhang Zhongmou was born in Ningbo, entered Harvard University as the only Chinese at the age of 18, entered Texas Instruments at the age of 27, and was also the first Chinese employee of the entire company at that time, 15 years later, that is, in 1972, Zhang Zhongmou became the vice president of Texas Instruments, is the third person of Texas Instruments, second only to the chairman and president, at this time Texas Instruments ranked among the top three in the world in the field of industrial semiconductors, with more than 60,000 employees, half of which were managed by Zhang Zhongmou.

"Mr. Xu, welcome to Texas Instruments. Located at the Deyi headquarters in Dallas, Zhang Zhongmou personally came to the airport to pick up the plane.

Xu Zhi said with a smile: "Mr. Zhang, you have to come to the airport in person." ”

"Our customers are our number one asset. Zhang Zhongmou said with a smile: "This is a sentence I saw on the front desk on the first day I entered the company, and there is still such a small sign in my office, Mr. Xu is one of our biggest customers of Deyi, for the sake of wealth, this little hard work is nothing!"

"Mr. Zhang is really direct. Xu Zhi said, generally speaking, the company is to make money, but in public, a group of people will always say that they are for customer service, for the development of science and technology, like such a direct, in the field of electronics, Xu Zhi is the first time to encounter.

Deyi's arrangement is still very official, Xu Zhi's visit this time is ostensibly to negotiate the cooperation between Midea and Deyi in the next few years, but this kind of thing can generally be handled by He Guoyuan, in fact, the real purpose is for Zhang Zhongmou.

At the hotel arranged by Deyi, Xu Zhi and his entourage enjoyed a very sumptuous dinner with Zhang Zhongmou and some senior executives of Deyi, and in order to take care of the guests from the East, Deyi specially invited several top chefs from Asia.

After lunch, in the supporting study of the presidential suite, Xu Zhi and Zhang Zhongmou began a real conversation.

"Mr. Zhang, I don't know what to think of the current development of semiconductors in Japan?" Xu Zhi asked casually.

"Japan?" Zhang Zhongmou said after thinking for a while: "Over the years, Japanese companies have continued to encroach on the market of American companies by relying on low costs, from the beginning of textiles to the steel and automobile industries, and now the semiconductor industry of Japanese counterparts has begun to enter the American market. ”

Xu Zhixiao asked: "What can Mr. Zhang do, now Deyi is also facing this kind of crisis!"

"For the time being, there is no way. Zhang Zhongmou said negatively: "This is the product of normal competition in the market, some semiconductor companies in Japan are much lower in cost control, which is caused by the culture of the two nations, if you want to be lower than the Japanese company in cost, you must require American employees to bear the same hardships and stand hard work as Japanese employees, and you must remove the interference of the trade union, which is absolutely impossible, there are only 2 ways to solve this problem:

First, increase R&D, the cost of 16KB chips in Japan is low, so we will produce 32 or 64KB products to ensure high profits.

Second, to persuade the U.S. Congress to intervene in the executive. ”

Mr. Zhang did get to the point, but these methods are too risky. Xu Zhi explained: "The trade union problem in the United States involves the national capital, and if it can be changed, the major automobile companies will not be about to go bankrupt now."

It is also difficult to convince the US Congress, which is unlikely to introduce such a policy if it is not for the imminent bankruptcy of the US industry.

As for R&D, or the use of advanced technology, it is true that it can solve the problem in the short term, but the R&D capabilities of Japanese companies are not weak, and no one can guarantee that R&D will definitely produce results.

Zhang Zhongmou nodded: "Yes, now the company is obviously more optimistic about the market in the field of consumer electronics." ”

Xia Bai, the current president of Texas Instruments, is very optimistic about consumer electronic products, intending to transform some industries of Texas Instruments, and Intel was still a dominant company in the semiconductor field a few years ago, and Japanese companies have gradually caught up, and the price war has been killed.

"From a company's earnings perspective, the consumer electronics market is indeed much larger. Xu Zhi nodded and said, Midea's own business is like this, relying on game consoles, Midea has been set by Forbes as the 382nd in the world's top 500, although it is only a valuation, but the real situation is similar, and the profit can be ranked in the top 100 in the world.

Xu Zhi continued: "But as long as a company intends to develop in the long term, the development, R&D and investment of some core technologies are inevitable, otherwise even if they make short-term profits, they will inevitably be eliminated in the long run."

It is almost impossible for American semiconductor companies to be lower than Japanese companies in terms of cost, but 20 years ago, Japan's textile industry and clothing industry also dominated the United States, but now, except for a few Japanese brands, there is almost no shadow of Japanese companies in the garment industry. ”

Zhang Zhongmou also understood, and said: "What Mr. Xu means is that Japanese companies beat the United States in cost, but they will be defeated by other countries in cost?"

"Yes, that's what I meant. Xu Zhidao: "If you want to win back a game, you can't rely on the United States, the only way is to use the way of others, to govern others, and to use the lower labor of other Asian countries to succeed." ”

Zhang Zhongmou added: "However, the semiconductor industry is different from the garment industry, and the technical requirements are very high, and it may be difficult to succeed in non-Japanese regions of Asia. ”

"It's hard, it's not absolute. Xu Zhi said with a smile: "Talent can be cultivated, but culture is not, the United States workers and management model is more extensive, and many Asian countries are the same as Japan, they just lack technology, once the technology can, they will be able to reach the level of Japanese companies in terms of cost, or even lower!"

Zhang Zhongmou nodded and asked, "Mr. Xu means that he wants our Deyi to invest in semiconductor factories in Asia?"

"What does Deyi's matter have to do with me!" Xu Zhi said with a smile: "Midea intends to enter the semiconductor manufacturing field, and I hope Mr. Zhang can join Midea!"