It is now the first decade of the 21st century, and Intel is not the former giant whose market value was overtaken by Nvidia in the future, and the PC market was constantly eroded by AMD, and it had nothing to gain in the field of mobile Internet.

At this time, Intel is the absolute king in the PC field, and it is also an existence that cannot be ignored in the chip field.

Intel is definitely a big buyout of other companies, starting in 1988 and buying more than 30 companies in the almost two decades to 2006.

In particular, between 1999 and 2002, they spent a total of $11 billion to acquire companies, triggering a wave of acquisitions in the communications industry.

Especially after the bursting of the NASDAQ bubble, Intel relied on a huge amount of cash flow, and their management believed that these communications companies were affected by the bursting of the Internet bubble, which was simply too cheap.

Barrett is the direct driving force behind most of Intel's acquisitions, and he likes to make acquisitions and expand Intel's business through acquisitions.

Even if these acquisitions are reduced to chicken feathers, the employees of these companies who are sucked into their bodies are reduced to wandering samurai, with no work to do.

It doesn't matter to Intel, they can feed so many engineers, and some acquisitions are simply to reduce competitors.

But Intel, or Barrett, is really interested in the new chip.

To be precise, I am interested in the new core lithography machine.

As mentioned earlier, Intel also has a chip manufacturing sector, and their business model is similar to Samsung's, from chip design to chip manufacturing, to direct-to-consumer product sales, all roads are available.

Even because the product sells too well and can't produce it by itself, Intel wants to hand over part of the order to TSMC, and they hold a large number of TSMC shares.

Therefore, in the field of chip manufacturing, before the rise of Xinxin, the main players in the market were Intel, Samsung, TSMC, Texas Instruments and IBM.

As we all know, IBM is a very profit-oriented company, and they will gradually lose unimportant business one after another, so they gradually began to fall behind at the turn of the century, and they went from going from being a personal player to selling patents to a few other companies that remained on the track.

Later, Texas Instruments also slowly fell behind in the advanced manufacturing process, and of course, Texas Instruments has not fallen behind now.

So now exploring the limits of Moore's Law, there are only five players at the advanced process table, Intel, Samsung, TSMC, Texas Instruments, and Xinxin.

Intel is the absolute hegemon, and before this Tokyo Semiconductor Equipment Show, they never thought that Xinxin could pose a threat to them.

Xinxin's lithography machine will change everything, and Barrett keenly perceived at the venue that Xinxin's lithography machine will bring them a huge advantage, unless Intel does not produce 40nm chips and ignores the majority of users who have a demand for advanced processes.

But this is not possible, because Intel has another competitor, AMD, and they can't watch AMD use Xinxin's 40nm process to create chips with better performance than Intel.

This is a huge blow to Intel.

Therefore, they thought of another trick, that is, to acquire new chips, or only one of the sectors, that is, lithography machines.

The world is always changing, and Xinxin is an important rival of Intel, acquiring Apple, entering the computer field, launching a new Apple computer chip based on ARM architecture, smartphone chips, etc., they have a competitive relationship in so many fields.

This does not prevent everyone from cooperating, just like TSMC and Intel compete, but TSMC will also help Intel foundry to compete and business to business.

After receiving Zhou's agreed-to-reply reply, Barrett did not make too many stops in Tokyo and embarked on a flight to Pudong International Airport that night.

Time is of the essence, and the bigger the business, the more important it is to meet in person.

Telephone, email, WeChat and other means of communication make it easier to communicate with people, but face-to-face chat will always have a status that he cannot be replaced, and only face-to-face chat can you know the other party's true thoughts.

"I don't think it's realistic for Xinxin to accept our acquisition, and they just made a breakthrough in their lithography machine business and sold it to us.

Newman is not short of money, you know, Newman has always been known for not being short of money. Otellan said.

He is the CEO of Intel, and this year led the largest round of layoffs in Intel's history, laying off tens of thousands of people, so foreign companies will also be at risk of graduation.

Ou Dening is also an alumnus of Zhou Xin, graduated from Berkeley, he likes Apple's operating system very much, and the standard for evaluating the quality of the windows system is how similar it is to Mac OS.

On the private jet, Berry nodded: "I know Newman is a very difficult person to convince, he is very difficult to deal with, and he is very discerning.

But he has the advantage that as long as we can offer the right price, he never hesitates to sell the business, from Quora to Weibo. ”

Barrett continued, "So we're going to talk about how we can work together even if we can't make an acquisition. ”

In Barrett's heart, it is best to acquire Xinxin, and it is the second choice not to acquire shares, which can ensure that Intel will not lag behind in the next advanced manufacturing process.

He believes that in the long run, Nikon and ASML still have an advantage, and they will regain the initiative in the EUV space, but that will take time, and Intel needs technology that can be used right now.

Barrett seemed to think of something: "Paul, isn't the Shenhai Zhangjiang we are going to this time, that is, the area where the headquarters of Xinxin is located, gather a large number of semiconductor companies?"

I read that Quora Encyclopedia says that it is similar to Silicon Valley, full of semiconductor companies, why is Intel's semiconductor factory not located here, but in Dalian? ”

Under his leadership, Intel will invest $3 billion in China to build a semiconductor factory in Dalian.

Clustering in the semiconductor industry is important because it can effectively reduce costs.

"Because Dalian has an outlet to the sea, it is convenient for us to transport the chips we produce to where it needs to go."

The factory that Intel will build in Dalian is a memory chip manufacturing plant, which is not so demanding on the process, and was packaged by Intel in 2020 and integrated into its memory chip business and sold to Hynix.

Barrett asked rhetorically: "Doesn't Shenhai also have a port?" ”

"Because we plan to build a factory in Dalian, which mainly produces memory chips, this needs to cooperate more with Korean semiconductor companies, while Shenhai's semiconductor industry is more about logic chips than memory chips," O'Dening said. ”

This is the perfect explanation, since Ameriken sold memory chip technology to Korean companies, Korean companies have been very strong on this.

By now, Neon's memory chip manufacturers are almost bankrupt, and the upcoming financial crisis will kick all Neon's semiconductor manufacturing companies into the dustbin of history, and they will never return to their original positions.

Barrett didn't ask again, this answer was okay, and he closed his eyes and thought about how to negotiate with Zhou Xin tomorrow.

Zhou Xin needs Intel's support, to be precise, he needs time, and Xinxin needs time.

Barrett thinks that the development of an EUV lithography machine will only take two or three years to complete, because Nikon has already built a prototype in the lab, and ASML has also created a laboratory sample.

Zhou Xin knows that there are still five years left at the earliest, and five years is enough time for Xinxin to advance the process of the immersion lithography machine to 7nm.

Zhou Xin is ready to be surpassed in the field of EUV lithography machines, because whether it is Nikon or ASML, behind them is a consortium of government-led enterprises, research institutions, and universities, and it took more than ten years to get the technology.

The reason why Nikon didn't win is not only because ASML is behind the alliance of European and American research institutions, and the accumulation of technology is deeper than theirs, but more importantly, because Neon has all disappeared after the 08 financial crisis, and the equipment they have built cannot enter the production environment for actual verification, and they have stayed in the laboratory forever.

Xinxin has advantages in chip manufacturing, but Xinxin also has a disadvantage, that is, they have almost zero accumulation in EUV, and even if they have Zhou Xin's guidance in six years, they can't get it.

So it's important to get some benefits from Intel this time.

It wasn't until 2012, when Intel took a $4.1 billion stake in ASML, acquiring a 15 percent stake in ASML, that they had more of a say.

After this round of investment, ASML's shareholding structure has become 15% for Intel, 5% for TSMC, and 3% for Samsung. Intel is not yet a major shareholder in ASML, and they only have a tiny stake at this time.

At this point, Intel is just a partner with a strong reach.

TSMC and ASML are more closely linked.

It's also interesting to say that when EUV stayed in the lab stage, TSMC said they would never use EUV.

Why did TSMC start using EUV technology again, because Apple is coming, Apple is coming with a check, and we need EUV technology to make chips with better performance.

ASML reached a deal after negotiations with TSMC management, and TSMC went from a company that didn't believe in EUV almost overnight to a company that absolutely supported EUV, and became the largest customer and user of EUV lithography machines.

"Craig, I didn't expect you to come to see me, it seems that Xinxin's immersion lithography machine has a good effect in Tokyo, and it has attracted you." Zhou Xin said with a smile.

He knew the two men in front of him well, Craig Barrett had met him a few times when he was in Silicon Valley, at the donkey party's fundraising dinner, at Microsoft's celebration dinner, and in business negotiations.

Paul O'Tellening seems to be unfamiliar, but he is actually very familiar, in Zhou Xin's previous life, O'Denine retired in 12 years, and after retirement, he often went to Berkeley to give lectures, Zhou Xin listened to it and talked with Odenning for a long time.

Barrett said: "Newman, is this the low-key of the Chinese people?

Xinxin always inadvertently gives us a huge shock, when the industry is thinking about how to cross the 65nm process, Xinxin suddenly gave its own answer.

Xinxin has a group of outstanding engineers, which has helped the semiconductor industry take a big step forward again.

This is fortunate for the chip industry, we are not trapped by 65nm. ”

Zhou Xin said: "Indeed, this is the credit of the engineers.

We were lucky enough to discover the infiltration method and stuck with it. ”

Barrett was helpless: "We have been supporting ASML, hoping that they can achieve technological progress, but even with the support of us and TSMC, ASML still lags behind Nikon in technology research and development."

Now it's behind Xinxin and Nikon. ”

After a brief greeting between the two sides, Barrett went straight to the topic: "Newman, Intel wants to acquire Xinxin's lithography machine business.

We will give you a price that is enough to satisfy you.

Two billion dollars, half stock and half cash, what do you think? ”

Barrett didn't want to go around the bend and directly showed the price.

If this price is for Internet companies, it is too low, if it is for semiconductor companies, it is no problem at all, how much lithography machines are sold in a year, a business with a revenue of less than five billion US dollars a year, low profits, and an astonishing amount of R&D investment.

(Here, the annual revenue of the lithography machine in 2006 is estimated from ASML's annual revenue of 5.245 billion euros in 2012.)

Lithography machines are not good business.

Or that semiconductor equipment has never been a good business, and the only good thing about this business is that once you do it at the top level, the moat is deep enough that unless an extreme event happens, you can keep it all the time.

Nikon's technological superiority has been maintained for 25 years, and ASML's technological superiority has also been maintained for 20 years, and their superiority can be maintained for a longer period of time unless there is a technological dimensionality reduction strike or off-field forces.

ASML defeated Nikon by off-court power and EUV technology to reduce the dimensionality, both of which.

Zhou Xin said: "Craig, you know, I'm not short of money, and this money can't impress me."

Let's change the price, share swap, with $20 billion as the valuation of the new chip lithography machine, I take 30% of the shares, that is, the value of $6 billion, in exchange for Intel's shares.

I know your intentions, and Xinxin also hopes to reach a closer cooperative relationship with Intel.

I think you also know that I will not sell the lithography machine business of Xinxin, not before the successful development of the immersion lithography machine, and even less so after the success.

Equity swaps, this is the most reasonable way. ”

After Zhou Xin finished speaking, Barrett and Otellens both fell into thought.

He didn't speak, and after about two minutes, Zhou Xin continued: "Under the management team of Xinxin, Xinxin Lithography Machine has done a good job and achieved a surpass of Nikon.

Since the new core tube is good, continue to let the new core tube, not like those companies acquired by Intel, most of them are unknown after being absorbed into Intel, and there is no such person.

Intel is too bloated, and it's not conducive to teams outside of Intel's core business going in. ”

Zhou Xin will not say the real reason why he doesn't want to sell Xinxin lithography machines, he has found a good excuse.

Barrett shook his head: "If it is an equity swap, then the scarcity of Xinxin's lithography machine business will be lost."

It is impossible for us to give such a high valuation to the new chip lithography machine. ”

(End of chapter)