In the past, when Hu Zhengming and Guan Jianying were both working in Silicon Valley, Hu Zhengming could mobilize no more social resources than Guan Jianying. The reason why Hu Zhengming knows many bigwigs is because of the professional characteristics of professors.

If you use a hexagon to measure the different attributes of the profession of professor, the influence attribute will be particularly long.

Hu Zhengming: "This is because UMC only has a chance to defeat TSMC when it comes to the mainland, and they have been developing in a bend and it is almost impossible to surpass TSMC." ”

Guan Jianying thought to himself that it is no wonder that the potential of the mainland is recognized, and the biggest advantage is the vast market, stable and low-cost water and electricity supply, and a large number of labor force with enough basic education, which are all elements needed for the development of the chip industry.

The only flaw in the mainland is the Wassenaar Agreement, but the chip industry is not only advanced processes, but also has many aspects that can be developed in the mainland, even if it is a backward generation of processes.

Guan Jianying shook his head: "Cao Xingcheng thinks simply, if he wants to surpass TSMC, he has to rely on closer cooperation with Intel, and TSMC's biggest partner is Intel." ”

Hu Zhengming said helplessly: "Then I think it is better to come to the mainland, and if you want to break the cooperative relationship between TSMC and Intel for more than ten years, it is far more difficult to break this balance than to make a career in the chip industry in the mainland."

Without us, UMC's mobile phone integrated chips are entirely possible to unify the mainland's mobile phone market, and their revenue alone can surpass that of the mainland. ”

Guan Jianying thought for a while and said with a smile: "Sometimes you surpass your competitors, and you don't have to rely on how good you are.

It doesn't have to depend on how fast you rise, but it can also depend on how fast your competitors are falling. ”

Hu Zhengming knew what the other party meant, he nodded and said: "That's right, SMIC has put too much pressure on TSMC, if it weren't for the rapid development of SMIC in the past three years, TSMC would not have been able to connect electric hands." ”

Hu Zhengming continued: "This year, SMIC grabbed two big orders from TSMC one after another, first Infineon's DRAM foundry was robbed by SMIC, and then Texas Instruments' 90nm chip foundry was also snatched away by SMIC, TSMC has a feeling of being thorned in the back. ”

Guan Jianying agreed: "Zhang Rujing is indeed very courageous, no wonder Zhang Zhongmou has always regarded Zhang Rujing as a thorn in his side.

At that time, TSMC acquired Shida Semiconductor at a price five times more than the market price, which can also be seen how jealous Zhang Zhongmou is of Zhang Rujing. I always had the feeling that he thought Zhang Rujing was a bigger threat than UMC. ”

"This is because compared with Zhang Rujing, Cao Xingcheng is a pure businessman, and businessmen in this field are the best to deal with, and they attach too much importance to short-term interests, which makes it difficult for them to have the determination to expand against the trend." Hu Zhengming explained: "Zhang Rujing is a more pure idealist, similar to Lao Zhang to some extent. ”

"Lao Zhang believes that only idealists can cross the cycle to become a strong player in the field of chip foundry, and businessmen who only value short-term interests may be able to achieve temporary success, but the chip industry is a long-distance race."

I have to say that Zhang Zhongmou sees it very accurately, SMIC under Zhang Rujing's management is not only ruthless to its opponents, but also ruthless to itself, and the semiconductor market after two thousand years is not good because of the bursting of the NASDAQ bubble.

Under such a premise, SMIC can continue to reduce prices, which is to order orders without considering profits at all.

You must know that under the premise of having a new chip, SMIC is far from receiving as much support as the original time and space, Zhang Rujing is famous in the industry, and it depends on who to compare, compared with the entrepreneurial combination of Zhou Xin, who is rich in Xinxin, and Hu Zhengming, who is full of professionalism, SMIC is not attractive in China.

SMIC can only rely on Zhang Rujing's personal connections and a small amount of official capital, and Zhang Rujing has the courage to break the boat.

Guan Jianying said: "Zhang Rujing is really ruthless, if I change my position in his position, I will definitely not be able to make this determination, when will I be able to return to my original capital."

In fact, the Chinese market is very large, although the global chip industry is at a low point, but the Chinese market is a rare bright spot, whether it is foreign trade or domestic demand, there is a strong demand for chips.

Judging from our internal statistics, in terms of amount, the chips produced in China only account for 3% of the total demand, and in terms of quantity, this figure will be higher, 12%.

In fact, SMIC doesn't have to fight so hard at all, and there is room for survival, compared with Shenhai Beiling, Huahong, Huajing, and Hongli Semiconductor, SMIC's technology still has merit. ”

If there is no Xinxin Technology, SMIC's main shareholders are Zhangjiang Hi-Tech, Yanda Jade Bird Huanyu and Shenhai Industrial from Shenhai, mainly Shenhai Capital.

The current major shareholders of SMIC are also Shenhai, but they have been replaced by Shenhai Jiaotong University, MH District Investment Platform and a state-owned enterprise in the Yangtze River Delta region.

The original major shareholder, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech, was sold to the school-run enterprise of Jiaotong University at the original price.

Hu Zhengming said: "These are two strategic directions, the kind of solution you mentioned is to do the low-end market, build a large enough sales team, and sell products to local enterprises in China."

Their demand for chips is not so high, and SMIC's mainstream 0.18 micron and 0.25 micron process processes can fully meet their needs. ”

Guan Jianying nodded: "That's right, Shenhai Beiling, Hongli Semiconductor and even Huahong NEC have all adopted this plan." In fact, it is more secure, and it can achieve breakeven as soon as possible, giving investors confidence. ”

Achieving breakeven is on the right track for a chip foundry company, and it will be much easier to continue financing in the future, whether it is valuation or continued financing.

Hu Zhengming said: "Yes, the first way is very simple, most Chinese enterprises do this, import production lines from abroad that are one or two generations behind, and then find the demand side to sell the products to them to achieve breakeven."

There will be several problems in this way, first of all, your revenue depends on the sales team, and there is no obvious advantage from yield rate to price, then your core competitiveness is the sales ability of the enterprise, that is to say, it completely depends on the sales team.

For a chip production enterprise, the core competitiveness lies in the sales team, so the resources and support obtained by R&D are destined to be very limited. ”

The example here can refer to Xiaomi, a company whose core competitiveness is in supply chain management, and R&D is destined to become a shortcoming, and Lenovo is the same.

"The second is that they need to spend a lot of effort to maintain different customers, because the chips you produce belong to low-end chips, and the customers are found by the sales team, whether it is the stability of the other company's company or the stability of the cooperative relationship between you is relatively low, these companies have the risk of poor management or reduced demand, and there is a risk of being snatched away by other chip manufacturers.

So what seems stable is actually not that stable.

Third, the most important thing is that there will be a lack of motivation to follow up on cutting-edge technology, because their needs may not change for several years, and they have always asked for chips with 0.18 or even 0.25 micron processes. Obviously not, because it is thankless, path dependence will form, and then gradually lose competitiveness.

So what seems safe is actually risky. ”

This is also why the chip foundry companies in Huaguo in later generations only have SMIC who is short and tall, and they can barely get their hands on it, and the others are either not large enough or lack of technology, which is determined by their initial business strategy.

Guan Jianying seemed to remember something, and as an industry veteran, he could understand Hu Zhengming's description very well, "You are right, there is indeed a risk in this regard."

When we were in Silicon Valley, we saw that many companies in the chip field died too comfortably, ignoring industry changes, and finally being eliminated by technological progress. ”

"Yes, I also know a lot of similar cases, so Zhang Rujing's strategic planning, the demand side he chooses is mainly large companies such as Texas Instruments, Infineon, and Qualcomm.

They can not only provide orders, but also help SMIC optimize their production processes from a technical point of view, and in order to maintain a long-term and stable relationship, these giants will force SMIC to advance in technology.

Whether it is Infineon's transfer of more advanced chip production lines to SMIC, or Texas Instruments' transfer of the second half of the 90nm process to SMIC, all prove this logic. Hu Zhengming said.

Hu Zhengming concluded: "It is precisely because of the cooperation with these companies that SMIC has a certain reputation in the eyes of chip design companies.

Like Huahong NEC, Huajing, Shenhai Beiling, and Hongli Semiconductor, they are mainly making memory chips, and few are making logic chips, and only SMIC has the ability to produce logic chips on a large scale.

I also talked to the bosses of some chip design companies in Zhangjiang Park, they were all looking for TSMC foundry at the beginning, TSMC is expensive, and then they began to look for SMIC tape-out, and finally went to TSMC for mass production, and now they are even looking for SMIC for mass production.

This strategic route does not need to focus too much on sales, according to my understanding and understanding, so that it is in line with the long-term development of chip production enterprises. ”

Guan Jianying nodded and said, "We are taking the third path. ”

Hu Zhengming said with a smile: "Because we have deep pockets and can open up several fronts at the same time, we take the third way."

And this is the only way we have walked this way. ”

Hu Zhengming is very proud, because this set of strategies was built by him, giving full play to the advantages of Xinxin Technology: money and good reputation.

After the success of Xiaomi Electronics, Chinese state-owned media summarized the success of Xinxin Technology and wrote:

"Xinxin Technology has two pillars of both the semiconductor industry and the consumer electronics industry, among which the representative product of the consumer electronics industry, Xiaomi computer, has cut down more than 20% of the market share of Huaguo's personal PC in just half a year, which undoubtedly proves that Zhou Xin has succeeded again.

Success is as readily available to Zhou Xin as weeds on the side of the road, but this success is still different, because the success of Xinxin Technology has gradually shown its demeanor against Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, Nikon and other giants across the two major fields of semiconductors and consumer electronics.

However, unlike several other giants that start with personal electronic products and then gradually develop to the upstream of the industrial chain, Xinxin Technology is one of the few companies that first does the upstream industrial chain and then develops personal electronic products.

Xinxin Technology first has more upstream industrial chain links such as chip foundry, chip design and even chip equipment, and then designs computers and mobile phones for individuals."

Hu Zhengming said: "It is precisely because our current chip foundry business is almost to meet our internal needs, so we don't actually have much to worry about.

When I was chatting with the bosses of chip design companies in Zhangjiang Park, they generally said that they wanted to come to Xinxin Technology for tape-out and mass production, because they believed in the technical strength of Xinxin Technology.

There is no shortage of companies that can throw out million-level chip orders, which is a trust in the stability of our product quality, and I can't repay this trust, because our production capacity is limited, and we can't even meet our own internal capacity needs.

We even have to give a lot of orders to other chip foundry companies to do, where is the capacity to receive orders from other companies.

What I mean by this is that I hope you can calm down, we are developing very well, and for the B series chips, it is much more important to do well than to do it quickly. ”

Hu Zhengming and Guan Jianying discussed the future development strategy of Xinxin Technology in Zhangjiang, and at this time, the video of Zhou Xin's participation in the Charlie Rose Show was widely circulated, and both the video version and the text version can be easily found on the Internet.

One of the most concerned is what are the opportunities of mobile Internet, whether it is entrepreneurs or ordinary people, everyone is very concerned.

The myth of wealth creation in the Internet era is still vivid, and now the upgraded version of the Internet, the mobile Internet, has come, and how to follow the trend and become a pig on the tuyere, this is a question that everyone is very curious about.

This also led to a large number of startups in Silicon Valley talking to venture capital institutions for a while, and they opened their mouths and closed their mouths:

"We are a company that focuses on mobile Internet."

"Sir, can you tell me exactly what you do?"

"We mainly serve users of different smartphones such as Mphone, iphone, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, etc., and our applications have been released on the above platforms, and the number of customers is currently growing rapidly."

Investors want to sound very potential, now everyone is making smartphone applications, can release applications on these major platforms at the same time not many companies, one is because of the review mechanism to lead to a long queue, they issued instructions to do this at least for a while, the other is to be able to release so many platforms at the same time, the technical specifications between the platforms are different, proving that this company still has technical strength.

"Sounds good, how many customers do you have?"

"Our customers are growing at a rate of 100 percent every month."

I wish you all a happy Chinese Valentine's Day, the crow Tanabata has not forgotten the code word, and it is not too much to ask for a monthly pass!

(End of chapter)