If it is just an investment, there is no doubt that it is also valuable to swap equity with Xinxin lithography machine.

At least to keep up with the advanced process, Intel will invest in ASML with the same logic, spending $4.1 billion to buy only 15% of the shares, which is much more expensive than the new chip.

But if it is only an equity swap, the new chip lithography machine will not be able to enter the EUV alliance led by Ameriken, and the Washington gang will never allow a Chinese company to enter the EUV alliance.

If Intel wholly acquires the new chip lithography machine, Barrett is sure to send the new chip into the EUV R&D alliance, and even kick ASML out, so that the technical advantages of the new chip will continue in the EUV era, and Barrett believes that Intel can do it.

Because ASML from the Netherlands is at best a godson, Intel is a descendant of the lineage, and once Xinxin's lithography machine business is acquired, it will be regarded as a son.

Spending $20 billion to buy the present and future of advanced manufacturing processes is worth it.

Equity swap is just to buy now, and 20 billion is too expensive to buy now.

Equity swaps and acquisitions are very different logics, and Barrett knows it well.

Zhou Xin recalled that when Xinxin first started, they had to win the support of Intel, in order to win the support of Intel, Xiaomi's PC chips almost really did not make money, and most of the profits were given to Intel.

Xinxin's factory is for Intel foundry, and the profit is 20% lower than that of TSMC, and even at the beginning, it will take the loss of good products.

Hitachi, Toshiba, and Fujitsu are catching up with Intel, IBM, and Texas Instruments, and Samsung, Hynix, and Micron are the same when they are catching up with neon manufacturers, and the history that has happened in the DRAM field in the past is repeated.

Zhou Xin has a feeling that in the future, semiconductor manufacturers in Southeast Asia will also adopt a low-price strategy to compete for the market after entering the semiconductor field.

It is a rare opportunity to get to this day, with unique chips in hand and negotiate with Intel, and it is not easy to come along the way.

The outside world will think that Xinxin is rising at the speed of light, and has hardly encountered twists and turns, compared with Huajing and Huahong, which were invested and established by Huaguo in the past, Xinxin has not taken a detour.

But only Zhou Xin knows how lucky he is, he doesn't have to worry about the source of funds when he starts, and he doesn't have to worry about the wrong direction in the process of development, and the management is a top talent who has experienced the test of time.

This can only be done by Zhou Xin, and no one else can do this.

Therefore, he cherishes this hard-won bargaining chip: "Two tens of billions is indeed expensive." ”

After Zhou Xin finished speaking, Barrett was a little surprised, Zhou Xin belonged to an old acquaintance, he often heard this name in Silicon Valley, although tough is not his label, but Zhou Xin's label has never been compromised, but the black heart is the norm when dealing with Zhou Xin.

Now that he proposed to reduce the price, the other party did not hesitate to follow his words, which made Barrett more vigilant.

There must be something strange in it.

Sure enough, before Barrett could think about Zhou Xin's true purpose, Zhou Xin was already saying: "We can unconditionally sell a part of the shares of Xinxin lithography machine to Intel."

Gratis. ”

The free ones are the most expensive, a phrase crossed Bratt's mind.

"Of course, this is not unconditional free, there is only one requirement, let Xinxin join EUV LLC."

EUV LLC, the EUV Lithography Machine R&D Alliance established under the leadership of the Americon Department of Energy, the second piece: ASML joined the "Lithography Machine Alliance". Intel, Motorola, AMD, IBM and other companies, Lawrence Livermore, Sandia and Lawrence Berkeley, as well as a large number of universities.

At present, only ASML has joined this alliance, Nikon has not been able to join, and Neon has made its own EUV R&D alliance, which was mentioned earlier, called EUVA.

After Zhou Xin finished speaking, Barrett had only one thought in his heart, he vaguely guessed that the other party would mention this condition, and it was as he expected.

This also made Barrett marvel at Zhouxin's foresight and maturity, and did not get carried away because of Xinxin's breakthrough to the 40nm process.

Instead, he thought of the next step of EUV, and was willing to give up a lot of benefits to Intel, just to squeeze into this alliance.

Barrett shook his head repeatedly: "Newman, you think too highly of me, too high of Intel."

Let Xinxin join EUV LLC, this is not something I can decide, you need to convince Washington.

It's almost an impossible task. Although you have a green card, you are a Chinese, and Xinxin is a Chinese enterprise. The lithography machine is very sensitive, and Xinxin has proved its strength on the immersion lithography machine, which is even more sensitive.

I know you have a good relationship with a lot of people in Washington, and I'm sure you can find lobbyists to help you with that, but it's still hard, almost impossible.

I don't say that it is impossible for a Chinese company to join an EUV LLC, and this probability will not exceed 1% at most. ”

"ASML joins EUV LLC," Zhou said. ”

Barrett said: "This is different, it is a Dutch company, Xinxin is a Chinese company, we all understand the difference."

And even if ASML joins EUV LLC, they also pay a huge price.

In order to join EUV LLC, ASML pledged to source more than 55% of the components of its equipment from Americon and to set up a local R&D center and manufacturing plant in Americacan. ”

Zhou Xin didn't give Barrett time to think, and said decisively: "Xinxin can also agree." ”

Barrett said, "Newman, you can try." ”

Barrett knew that this was a hot yam, and he didn't dare to take this job, even if he was given shares for nothing, he didn't dare to take it.

But Zhou Xin knows that Intel is the best middleman, and it is much more useful to have Intel as a lobbyist in the middle than to go to Washington to find a group of registered professional lobbyists.

Regarding EUV, that is, the application of extreme ultraviolet light in the field of lithography machines, Dawning first appeared in the neon laboratory in the mid-eighties of the last century, and Hiroo Kinoshita projected the first EUV images.

This technical route was not widely accepted at the time, and Hiroo Kinoshita presented his results at the 1986 Neon Applied Optics Annual Conference, and the vast majority of the audience at the time was highly skeptical and to put it bluntly, they did not support it.

Around the same time, Andrew Harryluke, a researcher at Americ Ken Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the consortium members of EUV LLC, also presented EUV at the conference and found nothing.

But compared with Kinoshita Hirofu, Andrew was soon approached by a professor sponsored by Intel and asked him to make a white paper on EUV lithography machines, which focused on the feasibility of EUV application in the field of lithography machines.

Intel was the earliest sponsor of EUV LLC, and they have been providing significant funding for EUV research since 1996.

Even Intel first, and EUV LLC later.

First, three major laboratories started the EUV research project under the leadership of the Ameritian Ken Department of Energy, and then Intel brought money into the field to contribute money to the project, and after a year, Intel found that this thing burned money too quickly, and Nima was not something that my company could resist at all, so it approached Motorola the following year.

After finding Motorola, EUV LLC was officially launched, and AMD, IBM, Infineon, Micron and so on were found one after another.

When Barrett was established in EUV LLC, he was the CEO of Intel, and he said that Zhou Xingao didn't want to take on this job at all.

"Craig, we need to be honest, Chenming Hu is my teacher, he has taught at Berkeley all his life, and he is well aware of the history of EUV LLC and what role Intel has played in it," Zhou said.

I could even make a cross-border call to Nancy Garcia, or Gordon Arnold, right now, and ask them if they would have formed EUV LLC without Intel's support. ”

Barrit's heart tightened, the two names mentioned by Zhou Xin are the key people in the EUV LLC project, not to mention Zhou Xin, these two names should not be known by Hu Zhengming.

This shouldn't be something that a wealthy Chinese man should know, even if he has deep connections in Silicon Valley.

Barrett said helplessly: "Newman, you know this matter is too sensitive, I am an old man from the McKinsey era, although the relationship between Ameriken and Huaguo is very good now, but what about the future?"

Will the relationship always get better? If there is a storm in the future, the risk of this matter is too great.

I'm just the chairman of Intel, Intel is not my company, if Intel is to me, like Xinxin to you, then I may agree.

Newman, you chose to sell Weibo because you didn't want to get involved in politics, and I rejected you for the same reason. ”

Barrett said while thinking inwardly, he guessed that these two names were leaked to Zhou Xin by Washington people, Zhou Xin is not involved in politics on the surface, but in fact, how can he not be familiar with Washington's gang at this point.

Zhou Xin said: "I understand your concern.

But when Hua Guo and Ameriken get to that point, I don't know how far away it will be in the future, at least for the first half century, we will not see this scene.

After you die, will anyone continue to hold on to it?

Moreover, Xinxin Semiconductor is willing to accept the same conditions as ASML, and even sold 49% of its shares to Ameriken Enterprises.

Our resolve is greater than that of ASML. ”

For Zhou Xin, the shares sold here are just Xinxin lithography machines, as long as the technology can be obtained, and then monopolize the entire market, he doesn't care who the equity is in whose hands.

Because Ou Dening was there, Zhou Xin did not say that he could give Barrett personal benefits, and he planned to tell the other party privately that he could give him a share of Xinxing's investment in return.

You must know that there are many projects with an annual return rate of more than 30% on emerging investment, and the identity of Barrett is not qualified to contact such products as Xinxing.

Unlike Madoff's financial products, almost all of the cases of emerging investments can be traced, and the operation in the bursting of the NASDAQ bubble is regarded as a classic case by many business schools.

Zhou Xin is not afraid that the other party will not be moved.

He wanted a chance, a chance to continue competing with ASML in the EUV era.

If Intel's path doesn't work, then Zhou Xin has a second option, which is to go to Yanjing to talk to the big guy:

"Xinxin has achieved a breakthrough in the field of lithography machines, but this technological breakthrough has a time limit.

For example, the wavelength of the new chip lithography machine is about 153nm, and the wavelength of the lithography machine developed by Nikon is 157nm, which has a slight advantage.

But their upcoming extreme ultraviolet lithography machine, the wavelength is 13.5nm, and after the development of the extreme ultraviolet lithography machine is successful, the gap between us will be very large.

It's almost a generational difference. ”

Zhou Xin found Shenhai after chatting with Barrett and asked someone from Shenhai's TZ department to help him contact the above, yes, TZ is responsible for communication and liaison with Zhou Xin's identity.

Barrett did not give Zhou Xin an exact yes or no answer, and Barrett had a feeling that he came to find Xinxin by himself, but was countered by the general.

Zhou Xin Regardless of whether Intel agrees or not, he will lead an EUV R&D alliance belonging to Huaguo, and he needs to get support from above.

Such support cannot be merely lip service, but requires concrete resources.

"It is equivalent to what you mean that extreme ultraviolet light is the development direction of the future lithography machine, Neon and Ameriken have formed a research and development alliance to invest in this field, Huaguo has a temporary advantage in the field of lithography machine, but this advantage is limited, we need to form a similar research and development alliance to maintain the advantage." The big guy asked.

Zhou Xin said: "No, we are not maintaining an advantage, we need to catch up."

Our current technological advantage is only an advantage in the current technical system.

Extreme ultraviolet light is a completely different technical route, there are a large number of completely different technical components, and we are 20 years behind Neon and Ameriken in this field.

And this technology is not available. ”

"Then why didn't we start doing it seven years ago? Xinxin had just been established at that time, so you could mention it to me at that time. ”

Zhou Xin replied: "At that time, we didn't even build a lithography machine, and making such a request was like not even learning to walk, and it was unrealistic for me to say that I wanted to learn to fly an airplane."

And now that we're world champions in walking, we want to learn how to fly. ”

The big guy laughed: "That's the reason, just like our Tenth Five-Year Plan, the goal is only a 193nm dry lithography machine, and we must overcome the 130nm process that Xinxin has long mastered."

We also don't have a talk about developing the latest lithography machine technology today.

But will it be too late now? Or is it not necessary? ”

The problem of the big guy is a very real problem, and that is the necessity.

Because the establishment of the EUV R&D alliance needs to mobilize the strength of the entire state-owned assets system, not only semiconductor companies, and the final results are exclusively enjoyed by Xinxin.

Although Shenhai Microelectronics is engaged in lithography machines, and the Institute of Optoelectronics of the Huaguo Academy of Sciences is also engaged in lithography machines, the products of these two institutions are still too far from commercialization.

Xinxin is the company that is truly capable of enjoying the results of the EUV R&D alliance.

(End of chapter)