Located on the corner of a street in Nagaikecho, the four-story building looks brand new, as Sharp's operations and R&D departments have only been relocated from the old factory in Hyogo Prefecture for only two years.

Outside the door, Zhang Heng stopped to watch, and was very emotional in his heart, who would have thought that after a few decades, because of difficult operations, this building would be sold to RB Telecom.

Perhaps Zhang Heng's point of view last night really made Machida sympathize, and Machida, who was smiling, actually greeted him at the gate in person, and accompanied by him, everyone walked into the gate.

In front of him is a bronze bust of Sharp's founder, Tokuji Hayakawa, and the wall behind the statue is covered with black and white photos of Sharp's various products.

The world's first movable mechanical pencil (from which SHARP takes its name), RB's first ore radio, the first black-and-white television, the first NTSC color TV, and the first desktop calculator.

If history hadn't changed, the first TN-LCD handheld calculator would soon be hung on this wall, followed by the first color LCD TV, the first 14-inch LCD monitor, and so on.

Zhang Heng watched it silently, standing in front of a huge photo for a long time.

"Two years ago, President Saeki invested 7.5 billion yen to establish Sharp's semiconductor factory in Sakai City, which was the grand occasion for the start of construction at that time. Machida said with pride on his face.

7.5 billion yen, or about $21 million at the exchange rate two years ago, is equivalent to Sharp's total revenue (not net profit) for a year at this time, which is indeed a big gamble.

Under the leadership of Tokuji Hayakawa, Sharp spent 10 years from 1959 to 1969 to promote the comprehensive home appliance strategy to achieve major success, adding washing machines, refrigerators, fax machines, copiers, microwave ovens, solar cells and other important product lines in addition to the original main business of televisions, firmly occupying the first place in RB home appliances.

Tokuji Hayakawa relinquished his position as president two years ago and held the chairmanship equivalent to the chairman, and Asahi Saeki, who Sharp later called the "ancestor of ZTE," became chairman, and together with Hayakawa, he formulated a strategy for Sharp to transform from a home appliance manufacturer to a comprehensive electronics company.

The construction of its own semiconductor factory is the first step in the execution of the strategy, and the second is LCD (liquid crystal display).

"Why haven't you seen your company's introduction to LCD?" asked Zhang Heng.

Machida was taken aback, looked at Zhang Heng, and said after a while: "It turns out that Zhang Sang also knows the news." ”

Zhang Heng smiled: "The March issue of ED this year published the news that your company acquired all LCD patents from RCA at a price of 3 million US dollars. ”

"Oh, I see. Machida suddenly realized, thought for a while, and said, "Zhang San, since you are interested in LCD, I will take you to see our latest results, but you need to sign a confidentiality agreement." ”

Machida led the group to the new product exhibition room on the fourth floor, and after they signed a confidentiality agreement, a staff member took a plastic bag from the safe and placed it in front of them.

Machida opened the plastic bag, took out the black leather case inside, gently carried the twisted rope, and pulled out a small silver-white calculator, he gently stroked the metal body, his eyes full of admiration.

"This is the EL-805, our latest handheld LCD calculator to be launched next spring. ”

Zhang Heng took the calculator from Machida's hand, and the matte texture of the fuselage felt very good, this is the anodizing process that will be touted by Apple in the future, and Sharp has already adopted it thirty years ago.

He first observed the internal circuit through the glass opening on the side, and then skillfully opened the back cover, a No. 5 battery had been installed in place, so he pressed the red open button, and a silver-white "0" appeared on the LCD screen.

He then did some random calculations, and then handed the calculator to He Jie, and praised Machida: "Perfect workmanship, small body, this is a revolutionary product!"

"Zhang-san, have you noticed the LCD screen and the glass substrate?" Machida looked at him eagerly.

Zhang Heng nodded: "Well, glass substrate circuit, I think this is your unique innovation." ”

"With this model, we were able to compress the thickness of the calculator and reduce the weight at the same time, and this calculator weighs only 210g!" Machida says proudly.

Zhang Heng groaned: "If you do this, there may be a big problem with the yield rate. ”

Machida nodded again and again: "Zhang Sang really has a torch of vision, there are indeed some problems with the yield rate, and the factory is still working hard to improve." ”

The combination of the LCD and the circuit board on a glass substrate was a Sharp initiative, but due to cost and yield, Sharp quickly abandoned this practice, and the EL-805 and its improved version, the EL-805S, became the only calculator on the planet to be made of glass circuit boards.

Although the LCD display of future electronic devices will still use glass substrates, the circuits will still be changed back to ordinary glass fiber boards.

After reading the calculator, the group came to the big office in Machida on the third floor, and the two sides first initialed the purchase contract for the CRT monitor, and after Zhang Heng returned to Hong Kong, Lin Liang formally drafted the contract, and then he and Tanaka Shigeru signed it separately to take effect.

Last night, he and Machida basically finalized the purchase of 500 sets of 17-inch CRT displays, with a unit price of 1,100 Hong Kong dollars, and Machida generously gave 100 Hong Kong dollars.

Putting away the contract, Machida said excitedly: "Zhang San, when I returned home after dinner last night, I thought about it for most of the night, and I had a hunch that LCD would be the real direction of the TV display in the future. ”

Zhang Heng smiled and said nothing, with the great success of the EL-805 a few months later, Sharp was destined to go away on the road of LCD and never look back.

The first batch of major industrialization achievements in the history of liquid crystal development were created by RB manufacturers represented by Sharp and Seiko.

In March 1973, Sharp officially launched the world's first handheld LCD calculator, the EL-805, and in October, SEIKO launched the world's first LCD digital display electronic watch.

The great success of these two epoch-making products will trigger a large number of RB manufacturers such as Casio and Toshiba to quickly join the ranks of LCD product research and development, so that this "gadget" that is looked down upon by large American companies will create a market of hundreds of billions of dollars at the end of the 20th century.

With such a lucrative industry, do you want to participate in Daheng Technology?

Does Daheng Technology need LCD technology?

The answer, of course, is yes!

AND WHETHER IT'S THE COMPUTER DISPLAY OF THE FUTURE, OR THE PLANNED GAMEBOY, THERE WILL BE A NEED FOR A LARGE NUMBER OF LCD DISPLAYS.

However, Zhang Heng does not think that at this time, Xiangjiang can open up this industry out of nothing, like the chip manufacturing industry, it needs a series of supporting technologies, and it is impossible for a company to create brilliance in any case.

Take the LCD industry as an example, its investment is extremely huge, and the related industrial chain is very complex, the reason why RB companies can achieve success, you can look at their existing industrial chain portfolio:

RB Asahi Glass provides glass substrates, Nikon and Canon provide scanning and step exposure machines, NEC-Annehua manufactures dry etching equipment, RB Electricians manufactures color filters and polarizers, large RB Printing supplies lithography equipment, RB Vacuum Technologies provides ITO conductive films, Canon offers mirrored projection systems, and a number of small businesses provide backlights.

Even in terms of liquid crystal chemicals, chemical vapor precipitation accumulation equipment (CVD), liquid crystal driver main chips and high-performance glass, which are not very strong in RB companies, there are alternatives with competitive prices for RB manufacturers whose technical level is second only to that of the United States.

Under the premise of no huge amount of funds, Daheng Technology can only silently accumulate funds, and when the world's first liquid crystal low tide arrives in the early 80s, it can reap the fruits of RB's existing science and technology: equipment, technology and talents.

Therefore, Zhang's strategy was to maintain a long-term friendship with Sharp, including gradually increasing his friendship with Machida Katsuhiko, the future fourth president of Sharp.

At present, it seems that his modesty and prudence, and the few words he occasionally confides, have made the other party initially have a good impression, but the unequal status of the two sides is destined to be just an accidental action on the whim of the other party before.

Next, we can only wait for Daheng Technology to gradually grow to the point that Sharp has to pay attention to, and then the two sides can logically carry out more levels of cooperation and sharing.