Mobile phones have a much larger audience than music players, not to mention that mobile phones can also have built-in music playback functions. Therefore, Zhou Xin generously asked Apple to make iPod Zero, instead of choosing to use his own brand to make this very futuristic product.

For enterprises, iPod Zero is a product that can build the brand recognition of users very well, and when Xiaomi makes the Mi Mix full screen, it is the time when they are most likely to stand firm in the high-end market, because the first generation of Xiaomi Mi Mix is very amazing as the first true full-screen mobile phone.

It's just that Xiaomi's later operation has played the MIX series alive, and it has lost its characteristics, recognition and user recognition in Xiaomi's various product lines.

After the release of iPod Zero, sales grew rapidly, and Apple's stock price rose by 30 percent in just two weeks, and investors began to refocus on Apple, an established company that was once able to wrestle with Microsoft.

Now Apple is far from being a giant, and Jobs actually wants to make smartphones similar to Mphone, but the first generation of iPods did not raise enough money for Apple, and if you choose to take Apple shares to finance, there are few financial institutions on the market that are willing to pay.

Zhou Xin's shares account for 40%, and then go to financing, it seems that only Zhou Xin is willing to pay money, and he will be close to the 51% control line if he increases his holdings of Apple shares, and other financial institutions will either offer harsh conditions, or they can't give a price code that satisfies Apple.

As a last resort, Apple will continue to develop music players, and the first generation of iPod can not be said to be unsuccessful, but it did not bring as much profit to Apple as Jobs expected.

The first-generation iPod sold 800,000 yuan a year and the price was $299, which means that the annual revenue of $240 million, after removing costs and marketing investment, the profit was limited.

This year, the situation is different again, and after the launch of the iPod Zero, financial institutions quickly raised their expectations for Apple, believing that the two new generation of iPod products could bring in more than $1 billion in revenue for Apple.

Under such expectations, Apple's stock price soared, becoming the fastest rising company in the past two weeks, and Zhou Xin, as Apple's largest shareholder, also became the biggest beneficiary.

The rise in Apple's market value alone brought Zhou Xin a floating profit of about 500 million US dollars, and it is so easy to make money in finance, whether you are doing short-term trading or long-term trading in the secondary market, it is fast money compared with industry.

In order to keep the business running, experience or belief tells entrepreneurs that they will stick to it if they can win excess profits one day in the future.

Samsung bucked the trend in the cycle of memory chip crash, further driving down the price of memory chips, forcing competitors to go out of business, and finally making excess profits as they expected.

The most important thing for the real industry is to maintain the operation, as long as it can be maintained, any miracle can happen. And the old Apple employees who have persisted from 95 years to the present have a feeling of persevering and clearing the clouds.

If Apple's old employees have a feeling of seeing through the clouds, then the employees of Xinxin (Huahong) feel like they have escaped.

In Huahong before, it is not too much to describe chip manufacturing as half-dead, and the overall chip environment is too poor, especially memory chips, the market price of memory chips has fallen by 90%.

Falling 90% is not terrible, falling 90% is not the bottom is terrible, in such an environment, Samsung is expanding against the trend, Samsung was not afraid of the Asian financial crisis in 97 years, not to mention that now the financial crisis has passed, Samsung maintains high capital expenditure, and continues to fight a price war in the field of memory chips.

The price of memory chips is more exaggerated than diving, and at this time, the neon companies that cooperate with Huahong have spun off the memory chip business and joined forces with Hitachi to establish Elpida Memory.

The neon semiconductor that Huahong relies on is still like this, not to mention that Huahong NEC, which is at best a halfway adopted son, NEC can't take care of it at all.

can only let Hua Hong Semiconductor self-destruct, the road of memory chips is obviously not going on, or it can't just take the road of memory chips.

The problem is that logic chips are not so easy, and it is not difficult to transform the production line of memory chips into the production line of logic chips, and there are few changes that need to be made.

The memory chip has a single function, it is just a stack of memory modules, and the design is easy to manufacture and easier. This was around 2000, when the chip manufacturing process was not as small as it was later, so it was easier to manufacture memory chips, and with the reduction of the manufacturing process, the difficulties of memory chips began to become prominent.

Logic chips, on the other hand, involve a variety of design rules, which makes the design complex and the production not so easy.

Huaguo lacks chip design enterprises, and there is a lack of chip design companies that can match Hua Hong semiconductor process, such as Hua Hong's most advanced 0.18 micron process.

Lab products don't need to consider cost and market, and it will be relatively easier.

When the mobile Internet broke out, Samsung did this, and did it in large quantities, and they transformed a memory chip production line into a logic chip production line in the first quarter of 2012. And in the second quarter of 2012, we started doing it on a large scale.

And in the chip industry, new chip factories generally start from memory, because this kind of product has a single variety, huge quantity, complex process, and strong dependence on equipment, which is conducive to the rapid completion of the run-in of each link of the new production line.

After mature chip manufacturing enterprises have reached a certain level of memory, the production line is opened, and the equipment is running normally, they will slowly shift from logic chips to logic chips with complex designs and diverse varieties.

The core product designed by Xinxin Technology, the A1E chip, involves a more advanced process than Hua Hong's, or more sophisticated, which leads to Hua Hong Semiconductor in an embarrassing situation.

Lack of market, to produce memory chips at the current price is a loss of money in production. This is unacceptable for a state-owned enterprise, the more I produce, the more I lose money, so why do I still produce memory chips?

At that time, the managers of state-owned enterprises in the chip industry like Huahong lacked the idea of contrarian expansion, and did not gain benefits in contrarian expansion.

From God's perspective or just looking at the information, you will feel that this is a matter of course, cyclical industries, you have to endure the losses brought by the downward cycle in order to enjoy the dividends of the rising cycle.

But when you really see that the losses on the books are getting bigger and bigger, and at the same time, your competitors are still expanding production, and the upward cycle is far away, few managers can have such determination and persistence.

Not to mention an enterprise of this nature like Huahong, it is not the manager who has the final say, there are too many things to consider, one is that no one dares to take responsibility, and the other is that the person who can make the decision can't manage it, and the person who wants to manage it does not have the ability.

In the first quarter of 01, in just two months, the unit price of 128M memory chips fell from $18 to $0.99, which is an exaggeration.

Even $0.99 is not the bottom, just a stage bottom, when the price of memory chips plummeted, Samsung continued to announce the expansion of the existing P series of foundries, 128m memory chips fell to about $0.7 at the lowest, which led to Huahong's chip production line in 2001 huge losses.

If it weren't for the collapse in chip prices, Xinxin Technology would not have been able to accept Motorola's two 8-inch chip production lines in Jinmen at ultra-low prices.

Of course, this is a good thing for consumer electronics companies and consumers, the collapse of memory chips has caused the price of logic chip foundry to fall, if Mphone packages all the chip production and screen production to Samsung to help do, the manufacturing cost can drop below $150.

It's just that Zhou Xin doesn't want to make Samsung bigger because of his existence, like Samsung's model, with the support of unlimited low-interest funds, can burst out with super potential, Zhou Xin doesn't want Samsung to be stronger than the original time and space.

Back to Huahong, Huahong completed cooperation with Xinxin Technology at the end of the first quarter, and the joint venture Xinxin (Huahong) fell into full load operation as soon as the commissioning was completed.

The full load here is based on the full load in the current situation, not the full load of the production line itself, and there needs to be an adaptation time from the production of memory chips to the production of logic chips, both for the machine and the operator.

The first batch of Bluetooth chip orders from Xinxin Technology is enough to ensure that the production line of Xinxin (Huahong) will be at full capacity for half a year.

After the release of iPod Zero and iPod2, Xinxin Technology internally assessed that Apple's Bluetooth chip order alone was enough for Xinxin's (Huahong) production line until the equipment loss of the entire production line was exhausted.

The majority of the annual cost of chip foundries lies in equipment loss, and the book value of general equipment will be cleared after seven years.

"Master Zhao, I finally know why I am busy and idle, since I was taken over by Xinxin, I feel that I have done more work in a day than in the previous month." At noon that day, Xiao Zhang and Master Zhao complained.

Originally, they had a lot of time to complain during the day, but now they can almost only have time to chat at noon.

As the technical director of Huahong, Master Zhao has much more to do than Xiao Zhang when the entire 8-inch production line is running at full capacity, and he has no time to talk to Xiao Zhang who came over to chat with him as much as before.

"Isn't it bad? Overtime wages are paid at three times, not to mention that the wages have at least doubled after the merger with Xinxin.

The management of Xinxin is indeed strict, but the treatment they open is also real. ”

Xiao Zhang sighed: "Boss Zhou is indeed wealthy, I finally know how cool it is to work in a foreign company, counting the overtime salary, the salary of our front-line engineers can almost have 10,000 yuan."

It's almost at the same level as IBM Research, and even if it's just an ordinary salary, we're on the same level as Intel. ”

Master Zhao asked curiously: "Come, come, tell me about the treatment of IBM and Intel in the China office?"

I do have classmates in IBM and Microsoft, but they are not recent college graduates, they have all worked for many years, because of the different circumstances and the treatment is very different, there is no way to use it as a reference factor.

In addition, to correct you, Xinxin is not a foreign company, but a pure Chinese enterprise. ”

Xiao Zhang pouted: "Why is it not a foreign company?" Although Boss Zhou is Chinese, his money comes from Ameriken, and from the perspective of the source of funds, it is not too much to say that Xinxin is a foreign company.

Not to mention that most of their management is Ameritian Chinese and Chinese with green cards. ”

Master Zhao waved his hand: "You don't understand." ”

Xiao Zhang saw that Master Zhao didn't mean to argue with him, so he answered the question mentioned by the other party just now: "Microsoft's research institute in Yanjing can get a monthly salary of 8k, and then IBM's monthly salary is 5400, and the sales will be linked to the sales commission and the number of business trip days, and the business trip commission can reach the level of 7 to 8k."

In addition, IBM's research institute can open more than 10,000, and Intel's is 7K, but Intel will pay double salaries at the end of the year, but it seems that Intel only recruits graduate students, IBM recruits undergraduates, and IBM Research only recruits graduate students.

Microsoft Research is recruiting undergraduates. ”

Master Zhao said, "You know very well. ”

Xiao Zhang was a little embarrassed: "When I graduated from college, my favorite high school girl was about to graduate from Fudan, and she wanted to go to a foreign company, and then I inquired about it." It's a pity that she didn't get into these companies, let alone my Second Polytechnic University.

However, now the treatment of Xinxin is comparable to that of large companies like Intel and Microsoft, and if it were now, I might not be able to come in. ”

Master Zhao complained in his heart, if it were now, you would definitely not be able to enter, and with the treatment of Xinxin, you would have been able to recruit graduates of Fudan University at this level.

"So sometimes fate is very important, and some people are born with good luck, such as Xiao Zhang."

The process of history is extremely important, under the leading role of the new chip, the semiconductor industry of the whole country is showing signs of prosperity, only in the first half of 2002, the total investment in the Pudong microelectronics industry belt planned by Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park has been close to 10 billion US dollars.

Of the 10 billion US dollars, Zhou Xin invested about 2 billion yuan, and the rest has Chinese official capital, foreign capital, and a small amount of private capital. It has gathered nearly 100 chip R&D, design, manufacturing, packaging and testing enterprises, as well as semiconductor materials, equipment, devices and other supporting enterprises, and the total investment accounts for half of Huaguo's chip industry.

In addition to Xinxin, there are 11 companies with an investment of more than 100 million US dollars, including: SMIC, Hongli, Huahong NEC, Intel, etc.

Pudong has become the main force of the chip industry in Chinese mainland. The leapfrog development of Pudong's chip industry has improved the manufacturing level of China's chips, so that domestic related industries initially have the ability to compete with global peers. At present, there are 5 8-inch chip production lines in Chinese mainland and 3 in Pudong.

However, these five 8-inch production lines, the two 8-inch production lines in Jinmen, are actually under the management of Shenhai Enterprise, which is headquartered in Zhangjiang.

Driven by Zhou Xin, the cluster effect has gradually shown results, and at the same time, Bluetooth chips have also allowed chip practitioners in Huaguo to see the power of innovation.

"Is it possible for Huahong to become the model of Xinxin Technology? That is, similar to Samsung's IDM vertical manufacturing, the chip industry from design to manufacturing to packaging and testing, all of which are contracted by Huahong. This is the question raised by the Chinese official when investigating Huahong.

Because the cooperation between Huahong and Xinxin Technology is the first domestic cooperation between a state-owned enterprise and a private enterprise to establish a subsidiary, the subsidiary adopts the structure of different rights of the same shares.

Hua Hong owns 80% of the equity of Xinxin (Hua Hong), but can only enjoy dividends and supervision rights, and has no actual management rights.

In the first quarter after its establishment, that is, in the second quarter of 2002, the data of Xinxin (Huahong) was quite bright, with a production capacity of more than 10,000 pieces in May and 30,000 pieces in June, and the monthly production capacity could reach 50,000 pieces when the production capacity was full.

Later, TSMC set up an 8-inch factory in Shenhai, with two production lines, one with a monthly production capacity of 35,000 pieces and the other with a monthly production capacity of 75,000 pieces.

In fact, when Huahong was in a good market before, the monthly production capacity could reach 50,000 pieces, but it was a memory chip, and the difficulty of the logic chip was greater than that of the memory chip.

The ex-factory price of the Bluetooth chip designed by Xinxin is $20, which means that Xinxin receives the Bluetooth chip from Huahong at a unit price of $20, and then sells it to Sony and Apple at a price of $50.

In 2002, Cambridge Silicon Radio, the world's major Bluetooth chip manufacturer, had a factory price of Bluetooth chips fluctuating between $8 and $10. Before the launch of Bluetooth chips by Xinxin Technology, the Bluetooth chips produced by Cambridge Silicon occupied 50% of the market share.

Sony is also one of Cambridge Silicon's investors. After the launch of Xinxin's Bluetooth chips, Cambridge Silicon's valuation plummeted by 70 percent, and several investors wanted to divest from Cambridge Silicon, including Sony.

Xinxin Technology can exclusively enjoy the dividends brought by the progress of Bluetooth technology and enjoy a high premium.

When you can't enjoy the premium, you can still rely on technology licensing to collect technology licensing fees, which is the Qualcomm model.

If you start purely from the perspective of profitability, the Qualcomm model is actually a more efficient money-making model.

"In fact, Huahong is a chip design company, and we designed it according to Samsung's IDM model when the 909 project was launched." The representative of Huahong replied.

"Then why did Huahong's chip design companies not play their due role, before cooperating with Xinxin, Huahong has always proposed to take the model of chip foundry, unable to achieve self-sufficiency, and carry out chip design by itself?" Huaguo's official investigator asked.

Hua Hong's representative found that the researchers from higher levels were completely ignorant of Hua Hong's business, and he explained: "Hua Hong has always been in the business of chip design.

Including last year, we cooperated with Huawei and Neon's Fujitsu to jointly develop the first communication chip in China.

Huahong will provide process technology and a full set of front-end and back-end design libraries, Huawei will complete the front-end system, code design, synthesis and simulation, and Fujitsu will complete the packaging design and test program development.

However, it has no market, because the cost performance is not high, the performance does not have advantages, and there is a lack of living space in the full market competition environment.

At present, only Huawei's communication equipment is purchasing this communication chip in small quantities. In addition, we are now also working on the chip to be used in the U shield.

Since its inception, Huahong has not given up its exploration in the field of chip design, but the chip we designed can only be said to be usable, it lacks technical advantages, and it lacks advantages at the market level.

Xinxin Technology has a large number of mature engineers, outstanding talents and mature R&D mechanisms, and they are more mature than us in all aspects.

Xinxin Technology can recruit people from all over the world, and they can put their R&D centers in Silicon Valley, the Lion City, Tokyo, and London, but we can't do it.

We can only poach people from the Lion City, from the Bend area, and even now, we are facing poaching from the Lion City.

The Lion City is home to a growing number of chip design companies, and last year the Lion City set up a dedicated incubation center specifically for chip design.

The treatment in the Lion City is similar to that of Ameriken, and the overall cultural environment is similar to that of China, and many engineers who come back from Silicon Valley choose to go to the Lion City after actually working.

Lack of funds, backward technology, disconnect between product thinking and market-oriented competition, these are all problems we face in reality. ”

There are very few Huaguo semiconductor companies that can give engineers a monthly salary of 10,000 yuan like Xinxin, like SMIC, whose salary is more than 3,000 yuan, and the overtime pay is only 4,000 yuan.

The Lion City also has a salary of 3,000 yuan, but the unit is lion yuan, which is equivalent to 15,000 yuan RMB.

Since its establishment, SMIC has faced a poaching crisis in the Lion City.

Not to mention that the treatment is not as good as SMIC's Huahong.

Opening a salary of 3,000 yuan requires employees to create a value of 30 million, which is unrealistic at all.

The researchers asked, "Is there any way we can circumvent this?"

I have heard that the brain drain of these domestic chip companies is very serious, and they often go abroad or go to foreign companies after two or three years of training.

Can we avoid similar risks by signing a non-compete agreement? ”

Representative Huahong smiled bitterly: "We have thought about it, but signing a non-compete agreement also requires an increase in costs, and after signing a non-compete agreement, we need to pay compensation for non-competition."

We can't sign this agreement with every engineer, unless it's a technician in a key position, we will sign a non-compete agreement with him.

This year, due to the poor overall environment of the chip industry, the phenomenon of poaching people has improved.

For the engineering community, they will think that going out to work is gilding, and it is easier to get a promotion and a salary increase when they come back.

For enterprises, the chip industry attaches great importance to work experience, and it is generally necessary to work for 2 to 3 years to master the work content, such as engineers in the front line of chip manufacturing, who can work for 2 to 3 years to ensure a relatively high yield rate.

During these 2 to 3 years, it is actually a free training period.

Therefore, we are also exploring how to manage employees to avoid cultivating one and poaching another. ”

Huahong's representative also knows that the best and most effective way is to add money, and there is no problem that cannot be solved by adding money.

None of the employees who were recruited by Xinxin wanted to leave.

The researcher then asked: "Has Huahong ever thought about benchmarking Xinxin Technology in chip design and learning from them?"

For example, appointing front-line R&D personnel to study in Xinxin Technology? With our good cooperative relationship with Xinxin, it should be possible to send a few people to study in Xinxin Technology. ”

The 6k promised yesterday has 200 more words today!

There are no pigeons today.

Last night, I could still withdraw halfway through the fight, and the crow, as a perennial keyboard political observer, couldn't understand the situation anymore.

(End of chapter)