Seeing that Cao Xingcheng, who was unwilling, had a clear understanding, Tang Huan nodded appreciatively, "If you can understand that this is a general trend, then it will be easy to do, at least UMC can be invincible." Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info"

Foundry is a concept paired with fabless semiconductor companies, which separate the traditional vertical operation model of semiconductor industrial manufacturing and design, and each has a specialized responsibility for a link to make full use of capacity and share costs and risks.

In fact, the need for this division of labor began to emerge in the 1970s.

For example, when Federico Fagin left Intel and designed the microprocessor Z80 to compete with Intel8080, he looked for Intel's competitor Mostec tape-out; Motorola's MC6800 R&D team split, and after the members who left designed the classic low-cost microprocessor MOS6502, they also found other semiconductor companies to OEM in the initial stage.

After all, a group of smart people get together and work hard to come up with an intellectual achievement, which often doesn't cost much money, but the semiconductor factory will have a lot of real money, and it is very difficult for technical elites to raise money.

In the 1980s, especially after the advent of the Fangyuan personal computer and the addition of IBM-PC, these personal computer platforms had a friendly and open attitude on third-party function expansion cards, which invisibly created quite attractive business opportunities - electronic engineers organized a small team, optimistic about the market demand, can design a popular functional chip.

The emergence and rise of IBM-PC compatible machines has added a bundle of dry firewood to the development trend of this industry.

On the basis of IBM's technology, the IBM-PC motherboard compatible chip has been optimized to launch the IBM-PC motherboard compatible chip, which has stronger performance and lower cost, making the IBM-PC compatible machine very competitive in the market; The hot sales of IBM-PC compatible machines have in turn driven the demand for such compatible chips.

Gordon Campbell, who left from the semiconductor company SeeQ invested by Tang Huan, became the most famous concept of the "fabless semiconductor company-wafer foundry" model, and he created ChipsandTechnologies, that is, C&T company, according to the model of fabless semiconductor company, designed IBM-PC compatible chips and independent display chips, which was quite successful, and can be described as the hero behind the IBM PC camp.

Cao Xingcheng went to the United States this time, and what he felt was that the factoryless semiconductor company was in the ascendant, and the prospects of the wafer foundry market were becoming increasingly clear. Zhang Zhongmou, who has served Texas Instruments for more than 20 years, obviously saw this earlier, and won the trust and support of the treasure island official.

It must be admitted that Cao Xingcheng at this stage is indeed more tender than Zhang Zhongmou.

"Since Intel80386, Intel has not issued third-party microprocessor second supplier licenses, and our compatible CPU products are likely to stop at the Intel80286 generation." Cao Xingcheng smiled bitterly, "How far UMC can go in the vertical operation model depends on Mr. Tang's support: even if UMC shifts to foundry, you will definitely be the biggest customer." ”

The head of UMC, the meaning of his words is very obvious, the official of Baodao will definitely treat TSMC as his own son, and the richest man should not be in the way, and his strategy is inclined to the other party, and he has forgotten the relationship with UMC for many years.

"Lao Cao, do you think that my supply chain has been balanced between supply and demand?" Tang Huan laughed, "Although I also have my own semiconductor factory, and as soon as I got off the plane, Yu Guohua helped TSMC say hello in advance, but I still need more semiconductor manufacturing capacity at a reasonable price." For example, the new consumer electronics home VCD that I'm working on will explode in demand for chips once it seizes the market. So, don't have any worries, at least in the next few years, including UMC and TSMC, I can squeeze all of your production capacity. ”

"Of course I believe Mr. Tang's words." Cao Xingcheng turned to probe: "I don't know, how is the research on the 0.8 micron process technology?" ”

In order to obtain a powerful microprocessor, Tang Huan spared no expense in semiconductor technology - first achieved the industry-leading 1.5-micron process, and then took less than two years to achieve the world's first 1-micron process, and is now making great strides forward in the development of the 0.8-micron process.

The reason why Fangyuan supercomputers, Fangyuan servers, Fangyuan workstations, and Fangyuan personal computers, which use RISC architecture microprocessor holders, and Fangyuan personal computers, which are more diverse, are so popular with high-end customers is first due to the high performance brought by advanced technology, and then the excellent software system on this basis.

Strictly speaking, Tang Huan's semiconductor factory has been providing foundry services for a long time, but it is mainly for Motorola's MC68000 series and Intel's Intel80386 series to produce high-end CPUs running at a frequency of more than 20MHz, and they are basically digested by themselves, and it is extremely difficult to appear in the retail market.

UMC's 1.5-micron process was introduced from Tang Huan.

There is an invisible rule in this, that is, it is relatively easy to introduce the next generation of craftsmanship on the Treasure Island side, but it will be many times more difficult to introduce the most advanced craftsmanship at the same time - it is not Tang Huan who is in the way, this is how the game is played.

Of course, Chinese mainland can't even enjoy this level of treatment, and the semiconductor factory that Tang Huan brought to the past is still 3 microns in the mid-1970s.

Of course, Tang Huan understood the reason why Cao Xingcheng asked, and the other party planned to introduce the 1-micron process one step ahead of the infancy, forming a crushing trend for TSMC, which was still in its infancy.

"If it goes well, the 0.8-micron process will be ready for commercial use in the second half of next year." Tang Huan didn't beat around the bush and gave the other party a direct answer, "I personally agree with exporting the most advanced 1-micron process to Baodao at this stage, but you have to lobby the official and fight for it when you negotiate with the United States." ”

The United States has raised the exchange rate of the currencies of Japan and West Germany against the US dollar, and the treasure island, which mainly relies on exports to the United States to develop an export-oriented economy, naturally cannot be immune to itself, and is under pressure from the United States to demand the appreciation of the Taiwan dollar.

There is certainly no resistance on the Treasure Island side, but it should still be possible to ask for some compensation such as the relaxation of export controls.

Cao Xingcheng, who got the guidance, showed joy on his face, "I'll start the operation." ”

"I have one more piece of advice." Tang Huan said casually: "The value of UMC's 3-micron semiconductor factory is not very large, so it is better to eliminate it to Funan and help build an industrial foundation there." ”

Cao Xingcheng knew that Tang Huan was soliciting investment for the poor place in Funan, and of course this favor had to be sent, so he nodded happily and said, "Of course there is no problem, I will arrange some personnel to provide training services." ”

……

At this stage, UMC plays a pivotal role in the treasure island, but it is not enough to go out, and its voice in the world semiconductor industry is still very small.

In particular, the Japanese semiconductor companies that have reached the Japan-US semiconductor agreement and have been asked to stop dumping dynamic RAMMs into the United States will certainly begin to reap the fruits of their wars -- they will join forces to manipulate the price of the international semiconductor memory market. ，

In order to avoid being slaughtered by little Japan as he wants, Tang Huan needs to find more semiconductor companies to enter the supply chain to cut peaks and valleys, and it is not enough to have one UMC, he set his sights on Samsung Electronics, which is backed by Samsung Group.

Just as Tang Huan left for South Korea, preparing to encourage Samsung, which has more financial resources, and even the entire Korean chaebol, to follow Japan's example and catch up with semiconductor memory with capital advantages, the annual "Forbes America 400 Rich List" was announced.

Tang Huan continues to sit on the top of the list, which is no longer news, and what makes the world sensational is the newly released figure - 36.6 billion US dollars.

"Forbes" began to calculate the personal net worth of the richest people in the United States in 1982 and ranked it, and this year is the sixth year.

Take this time as an example, the part of Tang Huan's bright assets outside the United States was finally excavated by Forbes, and then superimposed on a record high, crushing Walmart founder Sam Walton's $8 billion several times.

The financial resource that contributed the most to Tang Huan's personal net worth is, of course, the Fangyuan computer company with the highest market value in the world. Wall Street's pursuit of it is definitely no worse than that of Apple decades later, and its market value has exceeded $90 billion.

This level is still some distance from the historical record set by IBM, AT&T and other giants, so investors are generally optimistic that the stock price of Fangyuan Computer Company still has considerable room to rise, after all, this emerging Silicon Valley company is extremely stable, and its advantages in the industry are obvious to all.

Tang Huan, who holds 25 percent of the shares in Fangyuan Computer Company, directly took away more than 20 billion US dollars.

Another obvious source of revenue is EA. At the height of the North American video game market, it was a popular fried chicken with billions of dollars in sales and a market capitalization of tens of billions of dollars.

Tang Huan, who holds 40% of his personal shares, once took advantage of this wave of market to cash out.

However, after the collapse of the home video game market in North America, all the companies involved in the video game field, including EA, were hit hard, and the worst ones were reduced to ashes, bankruptcy and disappearance, and the lightest were the shrinking assets and vitality - EA is one of the latter.

Tang Huan, who still has confidence in the video game industry, has given great support to EA in the capital market, and the shareholding ratio that has been greatly reduced has exceeded 50% in one fell swoop, greatly maintaining stability in all aspects.

Now, this hard work has finally paid off - the North American video game market has recovered strongly, and EA, the world's largest video game company, has re-entered the range of more than $10 billion in market capitalization, contributing a strong fortune figure to its owner, Tang Huan.

The third largest source of wealth for Tang Huan's net worth is the billions of dollars of overseas investment newly unearthed by Forbes, the most typical representative of which is Xiangjiang's Qinhe family.

Compared with these financial resources, although the Hollywood part of the industry is eye-catching, the share contributed by it is much more paled.

Tang Huan's net worth of 36.6 billion US dollars has naturally been interpreted by the media in various ways, among which the most straightforward statement is "365 days a year, 100 million a day", "more than the annual GDP of many countries in the world" and so on.

This wave of hustle and bustle has greatly affected the US midterm elections, which use California high-speed rail as a political bargaining chip.

Supporters of California high-speed rail are advertising in newspapers, television and other media -- 100 million a day, don't be unconvinced, we can complete this project on our own.

Overall, Republicans oppose California high-speed rail, and the Democratic Party supports California high-speed rail, but this is only an overall trend, and due to the interests of each side, the tone within the two camps is not completely uniform.

As a result, when the bargaining chip of California high-speed rail suddenly became impossible for anyone to hold, the politicians who were about to be smashed to the feet also became scrambling, including many speculators whose mouths were swollen and their words flashed to try to change their positions.

As the ostensible head of the high-speed rail project in California, Jerry Brown is even more in the limelight than he was when he was governor of California.

In his quest to secure federal funding in the U.S. Congress, Jerry Brown has repeatedly emphasized that California high-speed rail is not just for California, but for the United States as a whole.

When the "100 million a day" campaign was vigorously launched, Jerry Brown briefed the media that California would make a final decision on the California high-speed rail project in early October, hoping that the two houses of Congress would end the quarrel and make a decision as soon as possible.

Some media commentators pointed out that the rampage of the "100 million a day" advertisement has essentially announced that the main obstacle to the California high-speed rail project -- the problem of funding -- has been beaten into a sick cat. Next, everyone's pragmatic attitude should be to sit together calmly and negotiate how to share the risks and benefits of this project. If Republicans are still obsessed with voting promises from opponents of California's high-speed rail projects, such as aviation, highways, and automobiles, the fate of the midterm elections in early November may be in jeopardy.

……

Tang Huan, who is in Asia, just stands behind the scenes and faintly observes the staging of various dramas. His attitude is still the same - whoever agrees, I will support whom!

At this time, the richest man was already on his way to South Korea. Seoul is about to host the 10th Asian Games, so it has become the center of Asia for the time being. (To be continued.) )