"Mr. Yano, I'm glad that we were able to make a deal with NEC this time, and we will take care of ASPLA."

After the day's interview, Kaoru Yano was in charge of receiving Hu Zhengming, and the two were about the same age, Yano was the president of NEC, and he was also a technical engineer before becoming president.

After Hu Zhengming finished speaking, Yano had the illusion of receiving the US military stationed in Japan in Tokyo, why did he sell ASPLA so easily?

When ASPLA was founded, he was still in charge of NEC's network communication business at Ameriken, and when he returned to Tokyo to attend the inaugural meeting of ASPLA, his colleagues at that time were full of confidence that under the leadership of the Ministry of Industry and Economic Affairs, the 11 neon semiconductor companies would be the future of neon chip foundry.

Kaoru Yano remembers the sake that night, and the smug appearance of the president of NEC and other executives of semiconductor companies, as if it was also in this shop.

As a result, Xinxin wanted to buy ASPLA this time, and the faces of these people made him feel disgusted.

Because there are 11 shareholders of ASPLA, coupled with the economic recession, everyone is not confident in running ASPLA well, and the economic environment has deteriorated further, and it is a waste of money to continue to maintain this stall, and the longer it drags on, the more it will lose.

The unjust boss who is willing to pay for the acquisition misses the future of Xinxin, but I don't know when it will be.

Yano can understand everyone's mood of wanting to sell ASPLA, but he wants to keep a little share, for example, 20%, or even 49% of the shares, it is best to send managers to continue to stay in ASPLA, as a senior executive does not expect, it is always okay to be a middle manager, just to learn the business model and business philosophy of Xinxin.

As a result, other companies wanted to get the money quickly, and at his insistence, they put this request and Xinxin forward, and after being refused, these guys didn't even want to struggle, they just wanted to get rid of this burden as soon as possible.

Even Xinxin made a humiliating offer of $200 million, which is Neon Semiconductor's last hope.

As a result, these guys actually agreed, and the NEC family couldn't turn the situation around, including the sound of a large number of sales within NEC.

Kaoru Yano has a feeling that he wants to fight to the death, but he can't return to the sky, and then he thinks about everyone's ambition when ASPLA was founded, and his heart is even more uncomfortable.

Yano silently took a sip of the sake in front of him and said, "Professor Hu, I believe in Xinxin's ability to operate, and I also believe that you can bring new vitality to ASPLA.

Actually, we shouldn't be talking about work today, but I'm still curious about some questions and would like you to answer them for me. ”

Hu Zhengming raised his glass: "Please speak." ”

Kaoru Yano asked: "Xinxin's positioning of ASPLA is to pack all the technology and high-end talents away, as for the original two wafer fabs, is it okay to continue to operate?" ”

They did think about it this way, the technology and talents were taken away, and the rest was left to Neon, but when the other party said it directly, Hu Zhengming still felt embarrassed.

"Of course, ASPLA's good process will be applied to Xinxin's wafer fabs all over the world, and we will also let ASPLA's excellent talents get more training."

Yano said it too bluntly, and it was much better for Hu Zhengming to cover it up.

Yano's eyebrows plummeted, and Hu continued: "We will also consider expanding production capacity in Neon, just as we did with the new core Lion City branch.

Expansion of advanced production capacity in Neon.

But that may require a neon government willing to cooperate. Our branch in the Lion City has received strong support from the Lion City government, such as land, water, electricity, capital, talent visas, etc. ”

As a practitioner, Kaoru Yano is well aware of the operation model of the new core Lion City, and if it can work like that, it will be good for ASPLA.

The light in his eyes reappeared: "Professor Hu, the relationship between NEC and the neon government is very good, and we will help Xinxin to obtain preferential policies." ”

He held the idea that one day in the future, when NEC had gasped and Xinxin was declining, he would buy ASPLA back from Xinxin.

This kind of thing was not uncommon in the history of business in the past.

Yano continued, "Professor Hu, what do you think is the problem with Neon Semiconductor?" Please don't prevaricate me with the grounds of prevarication of the media.

I'd like to hear what you really think. ”

Hu Zhengming said: "The comprehensive cost is too high and there is no technical advantage, and the consumer electronics industry, which needs to use a large number of chips, is also shrinking. ”

Hu Zhengming didn't finish speaking, but the meaning has been expressed in place, if you don't die, who will die?

Kaoru Yano sighed, "Yes, there is no essential difference between the way we fell and the way America fell.

If it is for this reason, Ameriken will sooner or later withdraw from the competition in the chip manufacturing industry.

The unit cost is too high for the short-term advantage of government subsidies to compensate for the disadvantage of long-term competition. ”

After chatting for a while, Hu Zhengming asked, "Do Renesas and Elpida have any ideas for sale?"

If there is, I kindly ask President Yano to inform Xinxin as soon as possible, and we will definitely give the best price. ”

Yano was speechless, what's the matter, it's addictive to picking up leaks, right: "Professor Hu, these are the core assets of Neon Semiconductor, and we can't sell them." ”

If Zhou Xin knew, he would definitely want to pretend to be something, Erpida would go bankrupt in less than two years, and the technology was later packaged and sold to Yangtze River Storage, so it was better not to struggle to sell it to Xinxin.

Hu Zhengming didn't know, so he just smiled and raised his glass: "Drink and drink." ”

Elpida and Renesas are two companies established after the spin-off of NEC, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Semiconductor's businesses, of which Elpida inherited the DRAM business of these three companies, that is, memory chips, while Renesas inherited other business segments, mainly automotive and consumer electronics chips.

Because of the strength of the neon automotive industry, Renesas did not go bankrupt like Elpida, but has survived until now.

In addition, because Renesas is related to automobiles and consumer electronics, they have received much more support than Elpida, and after the financial crisis, Elpida received 30 billion yen from the Ministry of Industry and Economic Affairs, and Renesas received 140 billion yen.

Of course, once Neon's automobile industry is crushed, Renesas will not escape the fate of bankruptcy.

Not for a moment was happy that ASPLA was acquired, and the next target, Elpida, was on the way.

With the help of the financial crisis, Xinxin is getting closer and closer to the day when neon will be purchased.

"TSMC's competitors are on the rise at an accelerated pace"

After the completion of Xinxin's acquisition of ASPLA, the most anxious are the semiconductor practitioners and media in the bend-and-bend area.

"TSMC used to be the absolute king in the field of chip foundry, but after the recent rapid development of the chip foundry industry from China, TSMC's leading edge in the field of chip foundry has been lost.

The chip process has been overtaken by competitors Xinxin, chip customers have been dispersed by SMIC, Xinxin, Huahong, etc., and the demand for chips has weakened, all kinds of factors have combined to make TSMC face unprecedented challenges.

Recently, Xinxin Technology completed the wholly-owned acquisition of ASPLA, a neon chip manufacturing company, and TSMC passed the largest layoff plan since the 21st century.

For TSMC, they need to face up to the change from challenged to challenger. ”

This is a cover article published in a business magazine, and they believe that TSMC's disadvantages are already obvious and need to be vigilant.

The question is that TSMC itself doesn't know? The reversal of the offensive and defensive trend between TSMC and Xinxin cannot be changed by subjective will.

If Neon Media looks at this matter from the perspective of the acquisition of the last glory of Neon Semiconductor Manufacturing, then Wanwan Media looks at this matter from the perspective of TSMC facing an unprecedented crisis.

Of course, it is not 2018, but 2008, and the advantageous industries other than semiconductors have not been swallowed up by the mainland one by one, and semiconductors are only one of the advantageous technology industries in Wanwan.

Therefore, their sense of crisis is not so strong.

If ten years later, SMIC surpasses TSMC in both revenue and process, I am afraid that the whole island will not be able to sleep well.

Xinxin's acquisition of ASPLA has been widely reported by Wanwan, and the degree of attention is even more exaggerated than that of Neon Media.

The attitude of the blogger is more pessimistic:

"TSMC's share price in January last year had a little relatively strong trend, but after January 17, it fell all the way, compared with the high point at that time, it has been cut in half, and after the news of Xinxin Technology's acquisition of ASPLA came out today, I think that after the U.S. stock market opens tonight, TSMC's stock price will usher in a large low open, hitting a historic low.

I'm a business blogger and often talk about some stock market-related content, which leads to my PO articles Readers often ask me if TSMC has fallen so much and whether it has reached a trading point where I can start.

Of course, due to the recent financial crisis becoming more and more exaggerated, even in January, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 75 bps at one time, the largest decline in nearly 25 years, did not make the U.S. stock market improve, and Bear Stearns, which has assets of up to $400 billion, even rumors that it is going to go bankrupt and liquidate.

But I would like to take advantage of the timing of Xinxin's acquisition of ASPLA to talk to you about when TSMC will be considered the bottom and when it will reach the point where it can be traded.

To be honest, Xinxin is very powerful, from the company's own operating strength to R&D strength to capital operation, it is very powerful, TSMC and Xinxin are poor in capital operation.

Everyone knows that Xinxin was established later than TSMC, but he achieved rapid expansion of production capacity through cooperation with wafer factories founded by Huaguo state-owned capital, and after the success of this model, Xinxin began to cooperate with Temasek, Sequoia, Goldman Sachs and other international capital to continue to expand production capacity.

The cost of building a wafer factory is $1 billion, and Xinxin itself only needs to pay $100 million, and in the last two years it has even less, only tens of millions of dollars, and this is not leverage, these funds are zero-cost, this is an investment.

TSMC also relies on bank money to build a wafer factory, but the bank's money has a cost, even if our government gives TSMC preferential policies, the lowest cost is 4 points, Xinxin takes the investment money, and the investment money is zero cost.

There is repayment pressure and interest pressure on the loan money, and there are disadvantages to the investment money, and the disadvantage is that you have to pay dividends to the shareholders, and of course the risk is also shared.

With the help of this model, Xinxin has achieved rapid expansion, and it only took three years to catch up with TSMC in terms of production capacity.

I've talked to a lot of people in the chip industry, can they expand in a similar way? Why can only Xinxin play this mode?

It seems that the risk is shared among everyone, and then I built a lot of wafer fabs, and the production capacity has formed a scale effect, which can reduce operating costs, and the process iteration is faster.

Their answer is that this is a game that only Xinxin can play and is willing to play.

Because Xinxin controls two giants in the field of consumer electronics: Matrix and Xiaomi, its three brands Mphone, Apple and Xiaomi, covering the whole range of high, medium and low-end products of computers and mobile phones.

And they all sell very well, how many chips are made by Xinxin, they are sure how many chips they sell.

Coupled with the mobile phone chips and Bluetooth chips of the Yanque and Honghu series of Xinxin, these advantages allow Xinxin to expand production on a large scale, without worrying about the production capacity going up and the chips not being sold.

TSMC also wants to expand production in this way, first, capital does not trust TSMC as much as it trusts Xinxin, of course, Xinxin did not gain the trust of capital from the beginning, Xinxin initially cooperated with enterprises controlled by the Chinese state in this way, and after the cooperation was successful, it was able to cooperate with international capital in this way.

The second reason is that TSMC's current problem is not insufficient production capacity, but insufficient high-end production capacity, and there are no orders for low-end production capacity. The lack of high-end capacity is due to the fact that the lithography machine of the 40nm process is produced by Xinxin, and the annual orders allocated to TSMC are limited.

There are no orders for low-end production capacity because TSMC is not like Xinxin, there are Matrix and Xiaomi that can help them digest production capacity, and Huaguo's mobile phone brands to help them digest production capacity.

Why did TSMC reduce production in China and expand production in China in the past two years? ”

(Considering this is a blog written by a bend, so the words are used this way.) ）

"A very important reason is that Huaguo's mobile chip design industry is developing rapidly, and at the same time, Huaguo's mobile phone brand is also developing rapidly, Huaguo has a large number of chip demand, TSMC continues to produce in a bend, the cost will be higher than the new chip, and the situation that is already difficult to compete will become more difficult.

Therefore, Xinxin's whole industry chain and large-scale expansion make it difficult for TSMC to parry.

And this time, Xinxin's acquisition of ASPLA will be another landmark event, and TSMC's market share will be further eroded.

Because ASPLA has the essence of Neon's technology in the past decades, it has a large number of unique technologies in the production of low-end chips, which can help Xinxin further improve the yield rate of low-end production capacity.

This will further exacerbate TSMC's problem of insufficient orders in the middle and low ends. Because of the emergence of new chips, the capital market has very pessimistic expectations for TSMC.

This is also the most important reason why TSMC's stock price has been falling, and unfortunately, this pessimistic expectation will not end in the short term. ”

What a cool weekend, a whole day in a daze.

(End of chapter)