Hu Zhengming is not only good at scientific research in the field of integrated circuits, but also a top scientist in this field, and also has a deep understanding and his own thinking about the chip industry.

Because Hu Zhengming studied for a doctorate at Berkeley in 69 and went to MIT as an assistant professor for just three or four years before returning to Berkeley, it can be said that half of his life has been in Berkeley and witnessed the development of Silicon Valley.

Fairchild Semiconductor, which could not be bypassed in the early history of Silicon Valley, was once the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer, and all eight scientists in the founding team of Fairchild Semiconductor left Fairchild a year ago, 69 years ago, which started the entrepreneurial boom in Silicon Valley.

In the year Hu Zhengming arrived at Berkeley, at the Sunnyvale Conference of Semiconductor Engineers, fewer than 24 of the 400 attendees had not worked for Fairchild.

Hu Zhengming has watched Silicon Valley go from the semiconductor boom to the rise of personal PCs to the Internet wave of the recent decade, but his focus is more on the changes brought about by the progress of underlying technology.

Zhou Xin said: "I know that Dr. Yu Youcheng joined CAAS after the establishment of CAAS, and I have been in contact with him all the time.

I have an understanding of TSMC's development path, and if Huaguo's semiconductor industry wants to catch up, cooperation with Intel is the fastest and most convenient way. ”

Youcheng Yu is a vice president at Intel and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Stanford, where he joined Intel in 1972. Yu Youcheng was recruited by the aforementioned Intel Chairman Andy Grove.

Yu Youcheng left Intel in 1977 to form a company called Video Brain, which focused on the manufacture of home computers. At that time, Video Brain was founded because he thought that computers would sooner or later enter the family, but because the timing of the launch was wrong, it eventually collapsed, and Yu Youcheng returned to Intel.

Yu Youcheng, like Hu Zhengming, was born in the mainland, grew up, and then went to study in Ameriken and stayed in Ameriken. If the mainland can have the same conditions, the mainland can also emerge a large number of talents in the field of integrated circuits in that era.

Hu Zhengming: "Unlike the Internet industry, the development of the integrated circuit field cannot rely on the wisdom of a few people, it requires many talented engineers to burst out the spark of inspiration in each subdivision, and then finally promote the progress of technology through hard work."

Even if Huaguo is a catch-up, there is a clear path ahead, and all technical principles can be found on public information, but it is still not so simple to achieve something in the field of integrated circuits.

In fact, I have never been worried about your talent, I am just worried that you will succeed too easily and too quickly, and underestimate the difficulty of development in the field of integrated circuits.

Do you know why I haven't said yes to you? I know that I will work for you, but in the end I won't succeed, and you must not bear to see me, a teacher, starve to death. ”

Hu Zhengming showed a sly smile when he said the last sentence, Zhou Xin thought for a while and then said, "Is it because the difficulty is too high?" ”

Hu Zhengming nodded: "That's right, the difficulty in this is far beyond your imagination."

Integrated circuits, that is, the chip industry, are different from all previous industries, because the chip industry is a civilian industry, and the most important thing is profitability.

Technical feasibility is secondary, and commercial profitability is the essence of this matter.

And this kind of profit not only means that the company wants to make a profit, but also means that the company sells its products to other companies, and other companies can also make a profit by using your products.

Why is Nikon willing to package and sell you the lithography machine technology that is two generations behind, because Nikon knows that even if you build a lithography machine, no manufacturer will choose to use the new core lithography machine products.

The first commercial lithography machine was Americacan's GCA, which was still an exposure machine to be precise, and in the sixties GCA was able to sell dozens of lithography machines a year.

Later, GCA began to ask Nikon for help, and Nikon became GCA's lens supplier, while Philips Physics Labs, the predecessor of ASML, hired Zeiss as their lens supplier. By the early 80s, Philips' lithography machine was still in its infancy, and GCA's annual sales had exceeded $100 million, a tenfold increase in three years.

Philips Physics Lab did not sell a single lithography machine, and then the board of directors of Philips Semiconductors planned to sell Philips Physics Lab, originally ASM wanted to buy, but Philips thought that ASM was too small to afford the price.

Finally, under the leadership of Cruyff, the technical director in charge of the lithography machine business, Philips and ASM jointly established the current ASML, and Cruyff and I usually talk about it at the IEEE every year.

Nikon was originally a supplier of GCA, but later found that there was a way in the field of lithography machines, and they began to enter this field. Backed by the neon chip industry chain, Nikon took off quickly, and it only took five years to compete with GCA in the lithography machine market from zero.

Nikon and Canon, which are backed by the neon chip industry chain, can develop by relying on the neon chip industry chain.

However, ASML has a technical advantage, Nikon and GCA's lithography machines have an accuracy of more than 1 micron, they move the wafer stage through the lead screw rod, and the accuracy of image detail positioning will be greater than 1 micron, and ASML can achieve less than 1 micron. With this technological advantage, ASML was able to overtake in corners and catch up. But even so, in the early days, ASML survived on R&D grants and subsidies from the Dutch government.

Later, it was not until TSMC, IBM, and Samsung made ASML their suppliers that ASML's technical advantages began to play a role.

As for how GCA was surpassed by Nikon and Canon, the strength of the neon semiconductor industry chain is one reason, GCA after Nikon entered the field of lithography machines, they changed the lens supplier to Zeiss, Zeiss lens problems are another reason, the combination of the two, GCA was quickly squeezed by Nikon market, and finally went bankrupt.

Nikon is now facing the same dilemma as GCA at the time, and their market for lithography machines is constantly being squeezed by ASML, and profits and revenues are declining. Nikon will sell you their outdated technology, also because ASML puts too much pressure on them.

Selling backward technology to Xinxin can make the financial report of the lithography machine business better, and the more important reason is that Nikon does not believe that Chinese companies can pose any threat to them in the field of lithography machines.

From the market level, Huaguo's chip industry chain is extremely weak, and it is impossible to support Huaguo's lithography machine to enter the production process, and not entering the production link means that there will never be room for progress, nor can it produce technological progress.

From a technical point of view, Huaguo does not have enough talent reserves, and Nikon does not believe that Huaguo has a unique technology similar to ASML's breakthrough back then.

Lithography machine is only one part of the chip industry chain, what about other links? Huaguo has too many lessons to make up.

I promise you, but I need time to think about what I need to start with after I go to form a positive cycle as soon as possible.

Profitability is too important for the chip industry, and SMIC, which is also a Chinese enterprise, will not use Xinxin lithography machines, and I will not consider it if I am the head of SMIC.

Why? With Nikon or ASML equipment, the yield rate is above 95%, and the original engineer of the lithography machine on any equipment can help me complete the repair in three days or even less time, while if the new core lithography machine is used, the yield rate may only be 80%, and the yield rate will be increased to 95% after slow running-in and adjustment. Once the equipment fails, the time required to repair it is much longer than that of mature manufacturers.

This is then related to the profitability of chip foundries, with Nikon's lithography machine, the profit margin is 50%, counting product depreciation and capital costs, the profit of chip foundry is very thin, only less than 10%. Why is TSMC's market value so high, because they have formed a scale effect, even if equipment depreciation and capital costs are counted, the profit margin can be 14%, not last year, it seemed to be only 10% last year.

However, the use of new core lithography machines, removing product depreciation and capital costs, manufacturers even have to lose money, which is obviously unacceptable to them. ”

This is also the fundamental reason why if Ameriken does not take a series of measures to stop it, Huaguo's semiconductor industry will never develop.

Foreign equipment is too easy to use, who will use domestic equipment? Not to mention that the semiconductor field is a private enterprise, not a state-owned enterprise, and there is no political task, everyone is pursuing profits.

Ameriken's means have given the domestic semiconductor industry chain a glimmer of life.

Zhou Xin said: "I know that now the Xinxin lithography machine is doing prototype testing in Hua Hong Semiconductor, and they are a state-owned chip manufacturing company in China. Testing the new core lithography machine is a political task for them, so they can promote it.

But there is also an exchange of interests, because Hua Hong Semiconductor's chip production line was built with the help of Neon, and they originally used Nikon's lithography machine, so it is very difficult to get started when testing the new core lithography machine.

Therefore, the cooperation between Xinxin Lithography Machine and Hua Hong Semiconductor has a natural advantage. Moreover, the process of Xinxin lithography machine is 220nm, while the most advanced process of Hua Hong Semiconductor is only 0.35 microns, which means that Hua Hong can help us test the lithography machine while promoting its technological progress.

Moreover, the cooperation between Xinxin Technology and Huahong as a whole also has natural advantages.

Professor, do you know the 908 Project and the 909 Project in Huaguo? ”

Hu Zhengming fell into a memory, he was ten years older than Yang Chonghe, Yang Chonghe had a long chat with him before returning to China, talking about why the 908 project failed and how to promote the development of chips in China after returning to China.

(Yang Chonghe mentioned in Chapter 60, the founder of Xintao Technology and Montage Technology)

Hu Zhengming has been in Silicon Valley for so many years, and Yang Chonghe is one of the first semiconductor people to return to China. In this era, it is difficult to get a doctorate degree with a lot of gold content, and returning to China is pure and pure wasteland, and there are not many people who are willing to go back, and most of them return to China and finally come back.

So Hu Zhengming was very impressed by Yang Chonghe.

"I know that the final result of the 908 project is not very satisfactory, it can be said that it is a failure, it seems to have lost 240 million yuan in the first year, they are too slow, it took seven years from the project to the production, the seven years of the chip industry have changed, and the situation during the pre-research period is completely different.

Later, the 909 project was launched, and the 909 project did not adopt the same vertically integrated manufacturing model as the 908, but adopted a spin-off model, that is, the chip foundry and chip design were disassembled. The reason why he chose such a model was precisely because Yang Chonghe persuaded the other party after a long talk with the minister of the Ministry of Electronics Industry at that time.

Yang Chonghe seems to have set up a chip design company and received investment from Silicon Valley, Neon and Wanwan. ”

The company established by Yang Chonghe is called Xintao, which is the first chip design company in China to get orders from developed countries, and they got orders from Panasonic in 1999.

Zhou Xin said: "The company he founded has been acquired, because there are too many investors behind it, the founder team lost control, and finally it was acquired by Americ Ken IDT." ”

IDT's purchase price was $85 million, and venture capitalists made a lot of money.

Zhou Xin continued: "When Xintao was acquired, Uncle Guan wanted to dig Yang Chonghe, and Uncle Guan thought that Yang Chonghe was very capable and was a rare talent in Huaguo who understood both technology and management.

Unfortunately, the agreement signed by Yang Chonghe requires him to work for IDT for three years, which means that he can only join Xinxin Technology after three years. ”

Hu Zhengming sighed after listening: "So venture capital is good and bad, this is a double-edged sword."

Sometimes taking too much money from venture capital is not necessarily a good thing.

Now that I think about it, it was because I took too much money from your investment company that I had to go to Shenhai for the rest of my career. Hu Zhengming finally joked.

Zhou Xin said: "Professor, if you don't want to, I can't force you."

Or back to the 909 project, the 909 project is like you just said, Hua Hong Semiconductor is a chip foundry, that is, a manufacturer, and they mainly did memory chips before.

You know that from the second half of last year to the first half of this year, as the Nasdaq bubble burst, it led to a depression in the semiconductor industry.

This led to the dumping of chips from Americacan, Neon and Koryo at low prices, and the price of memory chips was less than one-tenth of the previous one. Hua Hong Semiconductor lost 700 million yuan in the first half of this year. ”

The loss of 700 million yuan in half a year is obviously unacceptable for Hua Hong Semiconductor, and the 909 project, which is a national investment of 10 billion yuan, has failed, which is even more unacceptable.

Later, Huahong withdrew from the field of memory chips, and then YMTC returned to the field of memory chips. This is a reincarnation, and if you don't stick to it back then, you will have to pay a greater price later.

Hua Hong Semiconductor's huge loss, to be honest, there are also reasons for neon digging holes. Neon took Huaguo's foreign exchange to help build a chip production line, and then guaranteed to underwrite the product.

However, Neon's underwriting product conditions are to underwrite the product at the market price, and because of the cooperation with Neon, the memory chip has become the only product of Hua Hong Semiconductor, and the price of the memory chip has fallen from $20 to $2, and it is too late for Hua Hong to regret it.

(End of chapter)