Compared with Hu Zhengming, whose research fields are all over semiconductor components, EDA circuit simulation software, upstream and downstream high-end chemical materials in the semiconductor supply chain, analog IC circuit design, etc., Guan Jianying's expertise is more focused on chip design and R&D team management.

In other words, Guan Jianying is better at being the manager of Xinxin Semiconductor, and under his leadership, Xinxin Semiconductor can become a giant in the field of chip design with the help of the dividends of the mobile Internet.

However, it is necessary to rely on one's own efforts to drive the development of semiconductor enterprises in the entire park, and Guan Jianying has not been able to catch it.

Hu Zhengming can do it, with nearly 30 years of work experience in academia, and a member of the board of directors of many upstream and downstream companies in the semiconductor industry chain, he has sufficient ability to judge the overall industry and enterprises.

For Hu Zhengming, just by looking at people, you can have a preliminary judgment on whether this company has a drama, which is equivalent to data analysis at the subconscious level of the human brain.

In the process of interacting with other people, there will be such a process in the subconscious of the brain: if in your memory, someone with similar looks has brought you bad memories, then you will have a subconscious disgust and disgust for him.

Hu Zhengming is already very skilled in judging semiconductor companies, let alone going to China to do this, China's semiconductor companies are still in their infancy, and there is a generation gap between technology and cutting-edge technology in the industry.

From this point of view, Hu Zhengming is the most suitable person to help the semiconductor supply chain enterprises in the entire park to provide technical direction guidance.

Hu Zhengming reminded with a wry smile: "Newman, have you ever thought that if I go to work in Xinxin Technology, you will have no mentor."

Although you can graduate from Berkeley with a different mentor, if you change your mentor, you may not be as good at talking as I am.

Newman, you don't want to suddenly change your supervisor after two years of Ph.D. study, do you? ”

With Zhou Xin's fame, it is Berkeley that should worry that Zhou Xin will not be able to graduate normally, although Berkeley is a public research university and mainly relies on funding from the California government, but no university will feel that it does not need alumni donations.

Zhou Xin donated 100 million RMB to Yan University in the name of student scholarships when he was in China before New Year's Day of the millennium, and after returning to Berkeley, Hu Zhengming hinted that he should also donate some to Berkeley.

Therefore, Zhou Xin also donated 10 million US dollars to Berkeley, and at the same time contributed 100 million US dollars in the name of Xinxin Technology to build a laboratory with the Department of Electrical Engineering at Berkeley, and the final laboratory results were shared by Xinxin Technology and Berkeley.

$100 million is not a small figure in any era, and in 2000 the NNI program, which funded the nanomaterials research program at the national level, allocated only $495 million for the whole year.

The $495 million is still shared by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Berkeley National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory.

Of course, it is not a loss to Zhou Xin, and he can use Berkeley's professors and scientific research dogs to help him do some projects that he wants to do but does not have the energy to promote, anyway, the final scientific research results are half of Xinxin Technology.

As for whether America will admit it in the future, wait until they don't recognize it, at least America can't recognize it in China.

After these two incidents, Berkeley's attitude towards Zhou Xin became more eager, and he wished that Zhou Xin would stay in Berkeley for a few more years and then graduate successfully.

Before Zhou Xin, Berkeley's famous alumni were concentrated in the field of scientific research, and there were not many alumni who could do it in the field of Internet entrepreneurship, and there was no comparison with Stanford and MIT.

With Zhou Xin, Berkeley has a significant number of alumni in the Internet field. Of course, this can only play the role of icing on the cake, and the core is the resources that Zhou Xinxin has in his hands, which determines that Berkeley will ensure Zhou Xin's successful graduation at Berkeley no matter what.

Zhou Xin said: "Professor, even if you go to work in Zhangjiang, you can still be my supervisor at the doctoral stage.

Berkeley can leave a faculty position for you, and you can remotely supervise my academic work while you work in Zhangjiang. ”

According to the original historical trajectory, Hu Zhengming went to TSMC to work as chief technology officer for three years, and the professorship of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Berkeley has been reserved for him.

It's 2001, not 2021, and academia isn't as sought-after. And with Hu Zhengming's qualifications and academic achievements, even in 2021, Berkeley will reserve an academic position for him.

Hu Zhengming said: "I still need time to think, mainly because I am also old, going to Zhangjiang is equivalent to starting from scratch, which is a very big challenge for me."

You know, I don't like to take risks, otherwise I wouldn't have worked at Berkeley for the rest of my life, even if I did Strategy, it was a low-cost start-up.

To be honest, compared with the entrepreneurship in the direction of circuit design, chip manufacturing, semiconductor materials, and semiconductor equipment, the start-up cost of EDA software is the lowest.

Circuit design requires engineers from different modules, then it needs to be tested, tape-outs are needed, and the final designed chip needs to be paid for by someone to produce it, and the cost is very high.

Not to mention chip manufacturing, any production line is sky-high, and the same is true for semiconductor materials and semiconductor equipment.

Take the lithography machine as an example, 20 years ago, the research and development of the lithography machine had to invest at least 100 million US dollars, which was 100 million US dollars 20 years ago, and the new chip lithography machine should have spent at least 500 million US dollars to buy the lithography machine technology two generations behind Nikon, right?

Otherwise, Nikon wouldn't have sold it to you at all.

$500 million is enough for Silio Semiconductor to operate for ten years.

So different people have different appetites for risk, and I'm a relative risk averse person.

In the entrepreneurship of Strategy, Strategy's main business is to make EDA software, and at the same time, it will do some foundry of chip design.

Chip design foundry is also for EDA software, if we don't have to think about the EDA software ourselves, then how do we know how to optimize it?

When we first started our business, we invested a total of $5 million, of which I didn't pay a penny, and I invested in pure technology.

Of course, I believe that I will go to Zhangjiang with you, and you will not let me pay for it, but there are too many things that I am not sure about going to Zhangjiang.

Judging from my experience of giving lectures at Yan University in the past few years, Huaguo is very short of talents in the field of integrated circuits.

Since about 1995, I have been going to China every year to do some academic exchanges, and then give some academic lectures to Chinese students.

Yan University should gather the top students in China, they are very talented and smart, but they lack practice, in Berkeley, you can enjoy the resources of Silicon Valley, you can do internships in Silicon Valley, and learn what the first-line industry is doing in Silicon Valley, and what kind of technology will help them find a job or start a business in the future.

Huaguo students have to graduate to have this concept, and they don't know what the industry's most advanced technology direction and technical route is when they go to school, and then they don't know what kind of work they like to do.

I have always felt that there is a problem with Huaguo's talent training mechanism.

Of course, having said that, for integrated circuit entrepreneurship in China, especially as you mentioned, around chip foundry, lithography machines, chip design, to extend investment in upstream and downstream semiconductor companies, this talent gap is even greater.

It's not a little bit hard, and if you really do it when you go back, you need to be patient, and it's going to be a long battle.

Talent training has to cultivate at least three to five echelons, which will take five years, and then the results will have to be a five-year planning cycle, and I estimate that the second five years will slowly come out. Hu Zhengming said very sincerely, and he also talked about his thoughts on the current situation in China.

Unlike Zhang, Hu Zhengming has feelings for the mainland and wants to support the development of the mainland, but because of his risk preference, he has no way to give up everything he has now and return to China for development.

Hu Zhengming went to Wanwan when he was a baby, and Zhang spent his teenage years in the mainland until he left the mainland to study at Harvard in 49, that is, at the age of 18.

As for his position, Zhang Zhongmou's attitude on the surface is to always remain neutral and not support either side.

However, judging from the results of TSMC's construction of the factory later, in the end, it was still on the Ameriken side, originally TSMC only built advanced process factories in Bend, and mature process foundries were only in Bends, and later directly moved the advanced process factory to Ameriken.

Zhang Zhongmou's attitude can also be inferred from the results, because although he left the post of chairman of TSMC, he divided the power into two when he left and handed it over to Liu Deyin and Wei Zhejia respectively, which shows that he still holds the decision-making power on the important agenda.

When TSMC built a factory in America, Zhang Zhongmou publicly stated that even if the manufacturing cost of building a factory in the United States was 50% higher, TSMC would continue to transfer some production lines to the United States.

Zhou Xin didn't know that Zhang Zhongmou would openly stand in line in 2022, but this did not affect him when he was a doctor under Hu Zhengming, and he understood what kind of person Zhang Zhongmou was from Hu Zhengming.

Of course, I still know Zhang Zhongmou from Liang Mengsong, who has worked at TSMC for many years after graduating from Berkeley.

Zhou Xin said: "Professor, I can fully understand your worries, I also have this patience, my funds are sufficient, not to mention ten years, fifteen years can also be."

Moreover, Huaguo has a broad market, and the local market is enough to cultivate some excellent semiconductor companies, and it is not absolutely a loss to do this.

Some parts can be profitable, such as chip foundry, the processor of the Matrix mobile phone is designed by Xinxin Semiconductor, and we also designed a decoding chip for Apple, which is all income.

With these two items alone, it is not a problem to feed Xinxin Semiconductor.

The same is true for other areas of integrated circuits, backwardness means that the enterprise is small, and the enterprise is small means that the requirements for profitability to achieve breakeven will not be too high.

Therefore, what Zhangjiang needs to do is to establish the ecology, and after the ecology is established, a positive cycle has been formed, and I believe that the wisdom of the Chinese people can do this well. ”

Later, a large part of the reason why Huaguo Semiconductor developed slowly was that the upstream and downstream of the chip industry, whether it was a branch of a foreign company in China or a local company in Huaguo, were unwilling to use the products of local Chinese companies.

I am not willing to give any opportunity to local Chinese companies.

This is why there is no chain owner with a core position to play a leading role at the beginning.

Zhou Xin continued: "Regarding the problem of insufficient talents, I have also communicated with the Chinese side.

Starting this year, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park will sign cooperation agreements with several major universities in Shenhai to provide students with internship opportunities, which will continue from their freshman year to their senior year.

This program is not only for Shenhai students, but will also be open to the entire Huaguo 985 colleges and universities in the future.

At present, the problem is that there are not enough enterprises, and the internship places that can be given are only enough to meet the needs of Shenhai University.

Professor, you have been in the university for so many years, and I invite you to Zhangjiang because you have a lot of experience in the field of industry, education and research, and you can play a great role in this regard.

The internship plan we are engaged in is very superficial, and how to achieve the effect in the specific implementation process, I think you can definitely have better results if you plan it. ”

Zhou Xin wanted to dig Hu Zhengming to Zhangjiang, and Liang Mengsong was also stabilized in the follow-up.

When SMIC was in chaos, he entered SMIC strongly, and then took Liang Mengsong to take over SMIC, kicking out all the people who wanted to make trouble.

In later generations, because of the dispersion of SMIC's shareholdings, the infighting was quite strong, which gave many people the impression that SMIC was good at infighting.

Of course, SMIC is indeed good at infighting, and the excitement of infighting is comparable to that of palace fighting dramas.

Hu Zhengming said: "You still need to give me time, I need time to think." ”

"Uncle Lin, it is precisely because of your new core lithography machine that we can get on the right track so quickly.

The first prototype came out much longer than I expected. Zhou Xin personally went to San Francisco International Airport to pick up Lin Benjian.

This time Lin Benjian returned to Ameriken, one was to visit relatives, and his wife followed him to Zhangjiang, but his two daughters did not follow.

After shaking hands with Zhou Xin, Lin Benjian said: "The engineers in Huaguo are very diligent, and their diligence is no less than that of me, who just went to work at IBM.

Although they are inexperienced, they work very hard and learn very quickly.

With their hard work, the new core lithography machine can build the prototype so quickly, if it weren't for their cooperation, no matter how good I am, I can't do this alone.

Newman, it's been a long time, I think it's been a whole year.

I came back from Christmas break last year and stayed at home for two weeks, and we didn't have a meal together. ”

Zhou Xin nodded: "Yes, this time I came to see you, one is that we haven't seen each other for so long, and there is another important reason."

Before I say this reason, I would like to give you a gift, which is also to congratulate you on your achievements in Zhangjiang. ”

After Zhou Xin finished speaking, he handed a box printed with the Matrix logo to Lin Benjian: "Mphone, if you have been paying attention to Silicon Valley news recently, you should know about this product I designed." ”

Lin Benjian took it and said: "Of course, I often see Mphone's news on online forums and portals in China.

As time went by, more and more people began to recognize Mphone as an epoch-making product.

But I've heard that because all the servers of Mphone's built-in apps are set up in Americacan, the experience of using Mphone in China is particularly bad, and its essence can only be experienced in China by one-third.

Because the network latency is too high.

There is no silky smooth feel at Americacan. ”

Zhou Xin said: "Yes, we have been talking to the Ministry of Information Industry of China recently about Mphone's entry into China.

I estimate that it will be soon, and it will enter China by the end of this year, and the server environment for these applications has been deployed in China. ”

Zhou Xin turned the topic back to the surprise just mentioned: "I've talked to Cymer about the same here, and they are willing to accept the acquisition of Xinxin Technology. ”

A smile finally appeared on Lin Benjian's originally calm old face: "What do you need me to do when I come back this time?" ”

Zhou Xin said: "Dr. Richard wants to talk to you, and he still has a lot of doubts about the future.

I don't know much about light source technology, you already know Richard, we need to tell Richard why Xinxin Semiconductor wants to acquire Cymer, and what we will do and what we will not do after the acquisition of Cymer.

I've had a very clear conversation with Dr. Robert before, and Dr. Richard might want to hear you say it again. ”

Cymer, a company that makes light sources, the light source here is a light source used in lithography machines, Cymer is in a leading position in technology, with a market share of more than 70%.

The light source is one of the most critical technologies upstream of the lithography machine.

Together, the light source and the lens make up the source of light from the lithography machine, and compared to the lens giant Zeiss, Cymer can afford it.

Zeiss really can't afford it.

With a market capitalization of only three billion, Cymer is completely affordable.

Cymer is actually very important, it has been leading in technology, and the market in the field of light source is very small, it occupied 80% of the market in 2000, and its revenue was only 500 million US dollars, which is the leader in the segment.

Originally, ASML would acquire Cymer in 2009, but in 2000, when Lin Benjian and Zhou Xin were communicating on the phone, Lin Benjian saw the news of Zhou Xin's acquisition of Nvidia and ARM from the news, and proposed that if there was an opportunity, he could consider acquiring Cymer.

In Lin Benjian's view, Cymer's technical strength is very strong, and the acquisition of Cymer is conducive to their technological development, which is a strategic acquisition.

After Zhou Xin learned about it, he verified Cymer's information and memory, so he directly made up his mind to acquire this company.

It turned out to be very difficult to talk about, because Cymer's founding team, Richard and Robert, both PhDs in the field of lasers, later started a business together to focus on making light sources.

Their start-up process has been smooth, and they have successfully listed on the NASDAQ, and the bubble burst has not had a great impact on such a monopoly.

It is nothing more than a drop from 5 billion to 3 billion.

In the second half of last year, Zhou Xin chatted with Robert almost as a unit, talking about future development, and talking about how they want to reshape the pattern of existing lithography machines.

Robert was fooled, there is another founder, that is Richard, compared to Robert, Zhou Xin's aura has no effect on Richard.

Richard just wanted to talk to Lin Benjian.

As a researcher engaged in light sources at IBM, Lin Benjian knew Richard and Robert, and was more familiar with Richard, and they often chatted for a day at the International Optical Congress.

"Richard doesn't like change, and he's reluctant to be acquired.

Even if you put a higher premium and promise that the other party would not interfere with Cymer's business, Richard would not be willing to accept it.

Since Richard is willing to talk to me, it means that he has been persuaded by Robert, and he just needs me to analyze it for him as an objective third party.

You can leave this to me.

For us, it is very important to acquire Cymer and integrate Cymer into the system of Xinxin Technology, I think I have found a solution to overtake in the field of lithography machines, but this plan, I think is not hidden enough.

The lack of concealment here means that this solution is easy to leak, and after the leakage, others can follow our plan, and they can also catch up in the process.

If there is a Cymer, we can use the Cymer to interfere with their judgment.

Nikon, Canon, and ASML mistakenly thought we were using Cymer's state-of-the-art technology and had them focus on the light source. ”

After listening to it, Zhou Xin guessed that Lin Benjian should have thought of the immersion method, that is, using water as a layer of medium between the lens and the light source to reduce the wavelength.

The refractive ratio of water is 1.44, and the original wavelength of 193nm is reduced to 134nm after refraction, and the corresponding process is greatly reduced.

Relying on the immersion method, the chip manufacturing process has evolved from 45nm to 7nm in just ten years.

But it's true that once the immersion method is leaked, others can quickly catch up.

In addition, Ameriken will naturally support ASML, which is backed by Wall Street capital, instead of Xinxin lithography machines that are both R&D and production in Huaguo.

If there is no technical advantage, or the advantage is not obvious enough, the chip foundry will not switch from the previous lithography machine to the new core lithography machine.

Even the purchase is in small quantities.

Lin Benjian continued: "However, using Cymer as a trick will not last long, at most a month or two, and Nikon will be able to discover this secret sooner or later."

However, this is not important, the acquisition of Cymer will allow us to use Cymer's most advanced technology in the subsequent research and development process, which will help us catch up with Nikon in the field of lithography machines. ”

Zhou Xin said: "Everyone competes fairly, I am not so anxious to make the lithography machine reach any level, as long as it can be used, it is good to slowly catch up with the advanced process."

However, there are companies like Cymer that you can tell me, and if they are within my means, tell me as soon as possible, that the capital market has not yet recovered, and it is cheaper to buy.

It was the end of 1999, and buying Cymer was definitely going to hurt me. ”

(End of chapter)