Snyder, the CEO of Nice Semiconductor in the United Kingdom, was a nobleman with a title, although this title did not pass on to him, but he inherited the aristocratic style meticulously. Even when the Nice company was declining and his CEO's salary had to be reduced again and again, he still maintained a proud face like a black swan, posing aristocratic in front of the two yellow-skinned guests sitting in his office.

"Two, please drink coffee, this is hand-ground with coffee beans from Shandos, I have never been used to drinking machine-ground coffee, I think there is a ...... in it The smell of coal. Snyder greeted the guest, his tone tinged with a strong smell of forking.

"Thank you." Xiao Weihao, from China's national security department, nodded politely to Snyder, not minding the other party's show-off.

"I very much agree with Mr. Snyder." This is Qin Hai, who has always been unable to see others pretending, is talking, he picked up the coffee with a smile, and while tasting it in small sips, he said: "The coffee ground by the machine is indeed not as natural as the hand-ground one, especially the machine qì driven by thermal electricity, and the taste of the ground coffee is even worse." However, if you use water and electricity, you can barely enter ......"

"Poof!" Xiao Weihao almost squirted out the coffee in his mouth, you cow, people just drank the smell of coal from the coffee grinded by the machine, you can even taste thermal power, hydropower, it is really a step ahead.

......Snyder was also choked by Qin Hai at once, he wanted to express a little anger at Qin Hai's ridicule, but he couldn't talk about it, after all, he himself provoked this topic first, and people just followed his routine.

"The two of you said on the phone that you are interested in taking a stake in the Nice company. Can you elaborate on that? ”

After a few breaths, Snyder decided to put aside the coffee issue and cut straight to the topic of today's talks.

Qin Hai and Xiao Weihao flew from Beijing to Birmingham, an old industrial city in the United Kingdom, a week ago. After some peripheral understanding of the current situation of the Nice company, Qin Hai called Snyder directly, saying that he was interested in taking a stake in the Nice company. Snyder was worried about Nice's business prospects when he heard someone brave enough to take over. I couldn't help but be overjoyed. However, out of the reserve of the nobles, he did not immediately agree to Qin Hai's request, but only invited Qin Hai and Xiao Weihao to his office for an interview.

Qin Hai went to the UK this time for the Nice company. With his vast network abroad, he had long heard the news that the Nice company was in trouble. Nice is a powerful semiconductor manufacturer in the UK, although it can only be regarded as a second-rate enterprise compared with its international counterparts, but its technology is definitely far ahead of Chinese companies. If such a company can be included, it will be able to comprehensively improve the overall level of semiconductor manufacturing in China.

In a number of areas. It can be seen that the technology of a little-known enterprise abroad is more advanced than the entire country of China, which is not actually because of how great these enterprises are, but because they have the support of the entire Western world. Take Nice as an example, it has advanced equipment such as high-purity monocrystalline silicon growth furnaces, lithography machines, ion implanters, etc., which come from more than a dozen countries such as the United States, Germany, Italy, Britain, France, and Sweden. Western countries will obstruct it under all sorts of pretexts.

In the dictionary of the Chinese industrialists, one word is often seen. It is called "being controlled by others", which is a word that has been precipitated by countless painful lessons. In order to avoid being controlled by others, China's equipment manufacturing industry often has to use the strength of one country to single-handedly compete with its counterparts all over the world, and make up for its own shortcomings one by one, until it becomes the only country in the world that has all the industrial categories in the United Nations Industrial Classification.

Qin Hai came to Nice Company this time. The most direct purpose is to obtain the IGBT manufacturing process and related equipment mastered by the Nice company, and the indirect purpose is to open a gap to the Western semiconductor industry system through the Guò Nice company.

Of course, Qin Hai also knew that he wanted to eat the Nice Company. It's tantamount to fighting with a tiger, which is a very difficult thing to do.

"Mr. Snyder, I heard that Nice has had some difficulties in the last three years, and we wanted to see if we could do something for Nice." Qin Hai said in a tactful tone.

Snyder said arrogantly: "Indeed, as the outside world has said, there have been some temporary difficulties in our company. However, these difficulties are nothing, we are currently making adjustments, and I am sure that we will soon be able to get out of this situation and regain the glory of the company. ”

"Really?" Qin Hai asked, "Is this your personal opinion, or is it the unanimous view of your company's board of directors?" ”

"Mr. Qin, what do you mean by this?" Snyder looked at Qin Hai with small eyes and asked rhetorically.

Qin Hai smiled and said, "In the past few days, Mr. Xiao and I have also visited a few friends in Birmingham, including the directors of your company. According to them, the board of directors is not optimistic about your company's prospects. ”

"It's just a few people's opinions." Snyder replied with some embarrassment, "The company's current difficulties are only a little lagging behind in the speed of technology development, as long as we can bring in a small amount of funds to complete the few technologies currently under development, our difficulties will be quickly resolved." ”

"Oh, really?" Qin Hai said unhurriedly, he knew that the purpose of Snyder's saying this was just to add more weight to himself in the negotiations, the problem that Nice Company was facing now was not as simple as Snyder said, and it was definitely not possible to bring this company back to life with a little bit of capital.

The problem of Nice is actually a common problem faced by all small and medium-sized semiconductor manufacturing enterprises in the world today. With the development of semiconductor technology, the scale effect has an increasing impact on the competitiveness of semiconductor products. Semiconductor companies are either expanding their scale in order to reduce costs, or they can only survive in some market segments, waiting to be squeezed out or merged by large enterprises.

In the past, the Nice company had some technical strength, relying on several advanced technologies, and it was indeed very nourishing. However, due to a lack of foresight of changes in the market and failure to keep up with the pace of technological change, the market of Nice began to shrink and eventually suffered continuous losses. In this case, if Nice wants to regain its strength, it must find a large investor, inject no less than 200 million US dollars, comprehensively update the equipment, improve the technology, otherwise any small investment is just a waste.

Using the contacts accumulated at the Global Materials Annual Conference, Qin Hai learned about the current situation of Nice from several semiconductor experts, and also knew that it was almost impossible for a company like this to find hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in the capital market. In Qin Hai's eyes, the Nice company is a treasure; And for Western investors, semiconductor companies with more investment value than Nice abound, who is willing to throw money into this pit?

A few days ago, Qin Hai targeted several major shareholders of Nice Company to understand their attitude towards Nice Company. The answer from these major shareholders is almost identical: they have completely lost faith in Nice and want to sell it sooner rather than later in order to recoup some of their share capital.

With such information, Qin Hai was naturally not afraid of Snyder's tricks. The other party put on a show, it was because of his character, Qin Hai didn't care, he knew that it was not these little tricks that determined the outcome of the final negotiation, but real money.

"Mr. Snyder, how much additional investment do you estimate your company will need to get out of its current predicament?" Qin Hai asked.

"This ......" Snyder choked, he just bragged about it, saying that as long as he injected a little money, he would be able to get out of trouble, and now in the face of Qin Hai's inquiry, he didn't know how to answer.

Let's just say a small amount, but it's not enough to solve the problem, and you will end up missing an opportunity to attract investment.

Saying a true number is equivalent to slapping yourself in the face, which will make the two guests disdain you. More importantly, in this way, the company's predicament will be clearly revealed, and it will be passive in subsequent negotiations.

"I want to ...... We need about $20 million ......, and of course, maybe it would be better if there were some more. Snyder replied hesitantly.

"$20 million?" Qin Hai sneered, "The IGBT chips currently produced by your company use 400 micron thick silicon wafer technology, and today's mainstream trend is thin silicon wafer technology below 100 microns. To produce thin silicon wafers, you need to update all of your monocrystalline silicon growth equipment, which can be purchased for a mere $20 million? ”

"This ......" Snyder was dumbfounded, originally thought that Chinese didn't know much about IGBT technology, and what he said was what he said, who would have thought that the young man in front of him would see the technology trend clearly, and even the company's equipment status had been figured out.

"Mr. Qin is right, we are indeed considering the introduction of thin silicon wafer technology, and if we can have enough funds to introduce the corresponding equipment, of course, it is the best. What I just said is based on what we have, and we want to do some more technology development on thick wafers. Snyder said. He wasn't entirely lying, because due to the company's financial constraints, Nice's technology department is currently working on thick silicon wafer technology, although this can only be regarded as a patch to outdated technology.

Qin Hai said unceremoniously: "Thick layer silicon wafers have high cost and complex process, and at present, Siemens, Toshiba, IR, SGS and other companies have made it clear that they want to give up this technology, and your company continues to make a fuss about thick silicon wafers, which is just a waste of money." (To be continued......) R1292