The biggest winner of the 1982 Golden Horse Awards was undoubtedly Hong Kong films. Among the four most important awards, Best Director and Best Picture were won by the Hong Kong and Taiwan co-production "Xinhai Double Ten". and "Marginal Man", which won the Best Actor, and "Wu Song", which won the Best Actress, are also from Hong Kong's New Arts City Company and Shaw Brothers Company respectively.

After participating in the Golden Horse Awards, Li Xuan rushed to Hsinchu City, north of Taipei City, the next day to complete the last task of his trip to Taiwan, cutting the ribbon for the start of the Hsinchu wafer factory of Oriental Semiconductor Company.

The fab is not technologically advanced, using 3-inch wafers and a 2.5-micron process. The new factory built by Dongfang Semiconductor in the United States at the same time has adopted a 4-inch wafer and a 1.5-micron process. The wafer factory that the American company Deyi started construction not long ago is said to be likely to use 5-inch wafers.

However, the positioning of each plant is different, which is not to say that the more advanced the technology, the better, because the new technology means high investment, and the yield rate is far inferior to the mature mainstream technology. Dongfang Semiconductor's Hsinchu wafer fab is mainly used to produce 6502 processors and small and medium-capacity DRAM chips.

The technical content of these products is not high, relying on small profits and quick turnover. If you use a new process that needs to be improved, you may lose all your pants. Of course, as far as Taiwan is concerned, Dongfang Semiconductor's Hsinchu wafer fab is enough to be called the most technologically advanced factory.

Taiwan's first semiconductor production company, UMC, also owns a 3-inch wafer fab. But its main products are chips used in electronic watches, toys and remote controls, and the technology content is much lower than that of Dongfang Semiconductor's Hsinchu factory. This is also the reason why Taiwan favors Dongfang Semiconductor Company to invest, hoping that the new technology it brings can further promote the development of Taiwan's semiconductor industry.

And where is this promotion embodied? The Hsinchu plant has three production lines. The monthly production capacity of wafers reached 30,000 pieces. Dongfang Electronics' internal orders cannot meet its needs, so it needs to undertake external orders to increase the operating rate. Since last year. Hong Kong and Taiwan are emerging as new semiconductor design companies.

These companies are attracted by Dongfang Semiconductor, and they themselves cannot afford to spend tens of millions of dollars on the construction of a fab. And the emergence of the Oriental Semiconductor Company. It just so happened that their production problems were solved.

The Hsinchu plant is also the real beginning of Dongfang Semiconductor's practice of the wafer foundry model. The 3-inch, 2.5-micron process has been the mainstream process that has been successfully developed for three or four years. Therefore, with the technical team recruited by Dongfang Semiconductor in the United States, it is not difficult to achieve a high yield rate. This provides a guarantee for the company to accept commercial orders.

"At the last meeting, there were many voices within the group who were worried that you would take too big a step and that the operating rate of the new factory would be too low!" Li Xuan smiled at Zhang Zhongmou beside him.

He had a gentleman's agreement with Zhang Zhongmou before that the affairs of Dongfang Semiconductor Company would be fully responsible for the other party. And Li Xuan has always kept his promise and never interfered in the company's affairs. Previously, Dongfang Semiconductor Company announced that the Hsinchu wafer factory together with the supporting large-scale chip packaging and testing plant. The total investment is up to 40 million US dollars.

In fact, the two production lines of the Hsinchu factory are both from the old equipment of another wafer factory acquired by the company in the United States. While it costs some money to upgrade the technology, it's still much cheaper than buying new equipment. Therefore, the actual construction cost is only about 30 million US dollars. However, the internal cash flow of Dongfang Company is relatively abundant, and Li Xuan's reserved funds are indeed 40 million.

So Zhang Zhongmou simply revised the plan, further expanded the scale of the original Hsinchu factory, and added a new production line, so that the factory's monthly wafer production capacity reached 30,000 pieces. Depending on the area required for each chip design, a wafer can be divided into hundreds or hundreds of chips. If the Hsinchu wafer fab is at full capacity. At least 80 million chips are produced each year, which is not a small number.

"At least we will not starve to death with orders from within the group, and the development of external customers is also steadily advancing! Yesterday the sales department just received good news, and Sigeics decided to cooperate with us. We will be responsible for the OEM production of a variety of chips, including 555 time-based chips!" Zhang Zhongmou said with a smile.

A time-based chip is a type of digital integrated circuit, which is widely used in a variety of timers, pulsers and oscillators. Sigecs is the inventor of this circuit.

"Oh? looks like their management. I was scared by the injury case a few years ago, no wonder I haven't invested in the construction of a new wafer factory in the past two years!" Li Xuan said.

Two years ago. At a sigics fab in California, USA, workers working on site were repeatedly exposed to chemical gases in the plant. And the guide zhì is unwell. This is the first case of employee occupational injury in the history of the U.S. semiconductor industry.

Although Sigecs vehemently denied it, the matter was finally closed. But the incident has taken a toll on its reputation, and the U.S. National Occupational Safety and Health Agency's ongoing entanglement has also disrupted Siggics' plans for a new plant. It seems that the top management of Sigecs has decided to find another way, and Dongfang Semiconductor will OEM this part of their new production capacity.

This is indeed good news for Dongfang Semiconductor, one of the semiconductor companies in Silicon Valley. If it is not ready to build a new wafer factory by itself, and hands over part of the chip production task to Dongfang Semiconductor foundry, this order can eat up at least 30% of the production capacity of the Hsinchu factory.

Coupled with a large number of orders within the Eastern Group, the Hsinchu plant has been able to break even. This means that the first step of Dongfang Semiconductor's foundry model is very smooth. Although Li Xuan knows that the OEM model is the general trend in the future, if the Hsinchu factory loses money for a long time, whether it is him or Zhang Zhongmou, the pressure within the group will be increasing.

The most difficult part of a new fab is often in the early stages of construction, because the market still doesn't approve of your technology. When the factory of Seiko Epson was built, it fell into the quagmire of insufficient operating rate. It was the large number of orders in the early stage of the development of Dongfang Electronics Company that allowed it to survive the most difficult stage. Now Seiko Epson's wafer business is very profitable, and the construction of a second wafer fab has begun not long ago.

Li Xuan returned to Hong Kong happily with this good news. (To be continued......)