In May 1994, Xinchuang Semiconductor's PC memory module had not yet been officially produced and listed, but it had already shaken the memory market.

On May 5, 8MB of memory in the PC market plummeted from a sky-high price of more than $100 to $20 to $80 each. On May 6, it fell again to $75 per bar.

PC users all over the world are happy to see the success and enjoy the price reduction!

After that, memory manufacturers have released their words, believing that the PC memory of Xinchuang Semiconductor is just a plan and will not enter the market soon, but by May 15, the 8MB memory module fell below $70.

Subsequently, Samsung, Micron and other memory manufacturers successively announced that they would reduce the ex-factory price of memory modules, and the ex-factory price of 8MB memory modules for PC computers was reduced to $60. As for the retail price, it rebounded to $75.

Originally, memory chip manufacturers, including Samsung, believed that even if Xinchuang Semiconductor Company wanted to produce memory modules for PC platforms, it would take at least 3~6 months to see the sales of Xinchuang Semiconductor's PC version of memory modules, and mass production was possible until next year.

However, on May 17, Xinchuang Semiconductor released the news that DO memory modules, between 91 ~ 95 years, were widely used in 386, 486 and Pentium computers, with capacities ranging from 4MB~16MB, which is larger than the previous generation of FPM DRAM memory modules.

At present, EDO memory in the PC market is considered to be the mainstream memory.

After this news release, the 8MB memory module in the PC market fell below $60! The market price of the 4MB memory module has fallen to $20!

Subsequently, the new venture semiconductor company announced that it would give away 1,000 EDO memory modules with a capacity of 8MB for free around the world to solicit user comments. Users can get $1,000 for posting their review suggestions through the relevant section of Yahoo's website.

A total of more than 30,000 users, 1,000 lucky users will be drawn. The winning rate should be relatively high.

These memory modules are delivered to users by air through international express delivery.

After that, a bunch of review articles and review articles in different languages quickly appeared on the Yahoo website, constantly singing praises to the new start-up semiconductor.

“…… Although, out of curiosity, I applied for the review. After getting the 8MB memory module, I found that the memory slot in my 486 computer was the same. After plugging in the memory module, the boot is smooth, perfectly compatible, and even, the memory frequency is higher than the original memory. The previous memory module frequency was only 66MHz, but I found that the memory module frequency of Xinchuang Semiconductor is as high as 100 MHz, although frequency is not as important as capacity, but higher frequency also means faster speed, which is very satisfying!"

"I hope that the memory of Xinchuang Semiconductor will be listed as soon as possible, and the memory manufacturers have not yet been listed, and they are already looking forward to more preferential prices in the listed memory market. ”

"I envy that Pangu computers can use cheaper and larger capacity memory, but there is no way, our country stipulates that government office computers can only use PCs, and Pangu is not allowed. For the needs of the office, I had to pinch my nose and use the PC. So much so that the Pangu 8th generation has a memory capacity of 64MB, and my Pentium computer only has a memory capacity of 8MB, it is unimaginable, this is a product of the same generation!"

……

26 May 1994.

Lin Qi went to the newly started semiconductor company and personally inquired about the progress of the memory project.

"Mr. Lin, I have asked my employees to work overtime to achieve mass production of the first PC memory module production line in June. In July, PC memory began to be sold online. Hu Weiwu said, "At present, the plan is to adjust the production line originally used to produce Luban 1 generation CPU chips to produce memory chips." 80% of the chip processing equipment in the 1-micron chip factory does not need to be replaced, after all, a considerable amount of equipment is common to the semiconductor industry. Therefore, the investment in equipment is not very expensive, and it takes about 3 million ~ 8 million US dollars to complete the transformation of the production line. The cost of the first production line is 8 million US dollars, and the budget transformation cost is due to lack of experience, and after a few more transformations, it can be done within 3 million US dollars. The biggest difficulty in adjusting a production line is that employees need to be able to quickly adapt to the production of new products. Fortunately, our factory currently has more than 30,000 employees and more than 5,000 technical backbone employees. After dispatching 1,000 elite soldiers and transforming the first production line, it will be much easier. Processing of memory chip granules. The biggest difference may be in the packaging stage, that is, the socket interface of the memory module is different. But for a large factory like ours, there is no difficulty at all! It should be no problem to get the product on the market in July. ”

"Okay! As far as memory products are concerned, profits are not important, it is important to snipe at companies such as Samsung and expand the territory of our semiconductor industry!" Lin Qi said.

"Actually...... PC memory, estimating the profit, should be very profitable!" Hu Weiwu said, "We are taking the production line with similar depreciation to transform production." The investment in equipment is very low, and now the price of memory modules is even more cost-effective than the price of Pangu 1st generation CPU. It is equivalent to transferring low-profit products to high-profit products. Originally, the Pangu 1st generation CPU production line was being eliminated one after another, and the equipment was sold cheaply after the elimination, but now, there is a greater profit margin in doing so. ”

"Okay!" Lin Qi is pleased with the efficiency of the current new venture semiconductors, and the domestic chip factories such as Ziguang and Jinhua in China in the future have fully introduced overseas lithography machine equipment, and plans to invest more than 50 billion US dollars to prepare to enter the memory particle and flash memory particle market. However, it has been in preparation for more than three years and has not yet entered mass production. Even if the equipment has already arrived in the factory, it is quite difficult to train qualified industrial workers.

To put it simply, in the past, there was no money and no equipment, and when there was money and equipment, it was found that the equipment was in place, and people still needed training. Moreover, the process level of later generations is already the 7nm era, even with the same 7nm lithography machine, it is estimated that the 14nm accuracy can be achieved at the beginning.

Continuous R&D and production can cultivate qualified craft talents from generation to generation.

Later, the importance of talent becomes more important, and even, when there is no equipment and no capital, many people think that it is just poor equipment and technology. When the equipment is in hand, the process technology is packed and transported. But...... You still need a lot of people who know how to do it, right?

The ready-made process technology is already 1~2 generations behind the most advanced technology of the opponent. By the time it is fully delivered, it may take five or six years......

The most important thing in the current domestic semiconductor industry is that it is not starting from scratch, the core giants of the entire semiconductor industry, Xinchuang Semiconductor and Lishan Semiconductor, have tens of thousands of experienced technical employees. The entire country, the pool of knowledgeable talents, is at least hundreds of thousands. If you count all the major supporting industries, there are millions of people.

The number of employees in the industry is large, and the number of teams and talent reserves that can solve the difficulties will increase.

For 8MB memory modules, there is not much difference in the cost of mass production of memory modules under the two different technical standard systems of PC and Pangu.

For mass production chip factories, the cost of an 8MB memory module can be less than $15 per stick. Even if some new production lines have expensive depreciation costs, it should still be difficult to exceed $25 for mass production costs.

At present, 8MB memory module should be the mainstream memory module in the PC market, and the reason why the price is as high as more than 100 US dollars is that major memory manufacturers need to use mature products to earn profits and prepare more capital for subsequent technology upgrades.

For example, at this stage, it is 1 micron process technology to produce 4MB~16MB memory modules, and the investment threshold of the chip factory is between 5 million ~ 15 million US dollars.

However, the next generation of chip factories, the production of 32MB~128MB capacity memory modules, requires 0.5 micron technology to start, and the budget of a chip factory is increased to more than 50 million US dollars.

This is only the investment in the hardware facilities of the chip factory, and the supporting integration of other employee training in various industrial chains, which has raised the entry threshold of the next-generation memory chip factory to more than 100 million US dollars. However, 100 million US dollars can only invest in one chip factory, which is difficult to form a scale effect, and the cost will be more expensive than a large-scale production giant with a bunch of chip factories.

Therefore, memory chip factories, including Samsung, are using 4MB~16MB mature memory products to continue to make money and save money for the next generation of processes.

It is precisely for this reason that around 91~95 years, the technology of memory manufacturers was relatively stagnant in the era of 4MB~16MB, on the one hand, because of the technical defects of EDO memory, which made its capacity and frequency increase relatively slow. In addition, it is because memory module manufacturers are also more willing to stagnate the process and continue to squeeze huge profits with old process production lines.

The new venture semiconductor company began to produce the memory of Pangu computers at Samsung Semiconductor, and directly began to sell low-cost memory modules to the PC market, which is actually a tablelift!

Even if you sell 8MB of memory at $35 a piece, you can't lose money, on the contrary, the profit margin is quite amazing.

After all, Xinchuang Semiconductor produces 8MB~16MB memory modules, and does not need to put into production a new chip factory. Instead, the chip production line that originally produced CPUs for Pangu 6 and Pangu 7 was transformed, from the production of CPUs to the production of memory modules, although some new equipment still needs to be added, but in general, the cost of transforming a production line is less than 3 million US dollars. After renovating a production line, it is conservatively estimated that it can produce 50,000 memory modules per month. In the case of no shortage of orders, it is expected that it will only take about 3 months for each transformed production line to earn back the investment in production line transformation. After that, the profit of more than a million dollars per month is, so to speak, more profitable than the production of CPUs.

And even if the new production line is not put into operation, the old production line is only renovated. The start-up semiconductor company currently has about 60 1-micron chip factories.

If half of it is converted into a memory production line, it can also produce 1.5 million ~ 2 million 8MB memory modules per month. This production capacity alone is already equivalent to half of the current Samsung semiconductor.

At present, the main investment is still 0.5 micron process, the production of Luban 2nd generation CPU supply Pangu computer and ARM chip supply Kirin mobile phone.

If it is really compared, Samsung Semiconductor is weaker than Xinchuang Semiconductor in terms of production capacity and process level.

Although the current Samsung Semiconductor is full of ambitions, it has not yet developed to the same process level and production capacity as later generations, and it can be called one of the top giants in the semiconductor industry at the top of the pyramid.