Reinventing the Millennium.

Chapter 929 Service Alliance (4K)

On November 2008, 11, the Ice Core Wafer Manufacturing Service Alliance led an industry conference in Pingjiang, Jiangsu Province.

The reason why Pingjiang was chosen was not because there was any administrative or market implication, but because the work team of the service alliance had just progressed here, so they didn't move places, just shook people on the spot and carried out a phased preparation.

The industry market under the financial crisis is too bad.

Bingxin has already signed a joint name with SMIC, and hopes that the higher authorities will pay attention to the fragile industrial chain that has been cultivated with great difficulty, and have initially done a good job in the bank's credit granting work, but...

Everything has a process.

Seeing that many factories could no longer support that time, they really called here, and even dismantled the equipment there, so Liu Yangyang had to make a decision on the fly, and saved a somewhat hasty meeting.

After she reported the domestic industry situation to Mr. Fang, on the one hand, she had the record and permission, and on the other hand, she also received strong support.

On the 4th, in addition to the upstream and downstream manufacturers who called to invite, there were also many people who heard the news.

Meetings were moved from morning to afternoon and finally to evening.

At eight o'clock in the evening, there was some chaos in the conference room.

The economic situation is not good, and most of the people here have been hit. It is difficult to calm down and discuss the situation in an orderly manner. One side is complaining, and the other side is helpless. The expression in the middle is empty, which almost explains the current situation in the industry.

At a quarter past eight, Liu Yangyang and Changdian's vice president were still communicating, but the meeting room suddenly fell silent.

She looked up at the door, and saw Jiang Shangzhou, who is now the chairman of SMIC, slowly walked into the meeting room accompanied by several people.

Knowing that Dr. Jiang was in poor health, Liu Yangyang hurried forward to meet him.

"Mr. Fang didn't inform me of such a battle? Did he think that SMIC couldn't help?" Jiang Shangzhou stretched out his right hand and said with a smile to Secretary-General Liu of the service alliance.

Liu Yangyang's thoughts changed slightly. It is true that SMIC was not notified of the meeting. This was precisely decided by Mr. Fang, because the situation of SMIC is not very good. There is very definite news that SMIC's factory in Rongcheng is going to be sold. up.

Although there is no rumor of layoffs in SMIC, the suspension of overtime pay and a one-month rest at the end of the year are confirmed.

"Mr. Jiang, it's really that our preparations for this meeting are in a hurry, and I want to find out the bottom line before discussing with SMIC." Liu Yangyang led Dr. Jiang to the front row. This was a reason, but so was Dr. Jiang's physical condition.

Bingxin has cooperated with SMIC to provide suggestions, but the real situation on the front line also needs data support. The service alliance that has been in operation for more than a year just covers this aspect. This is also an important task of Liu Yangyang for more than two months. Work.

Jiang Shangzhou smiled and said, "Well, I thought Fang always disliked the old man and couldn't do it anymore."

Liu Yangyang said seriously: "Boss Fang really cares about Boss Jiang's body."

"What about the others, didn't come back?" Jiang Shangzhou restrained his smile a little, his physical condition recovered well, otherwise he wouldn't have taken over as the chairman of SMIC.

Liu Yangyang hesitated, lowered his voice, and used Mr. Fang's original words: "Mr. Fang said that he was making money outside."

Jiang Shangzhou wanted to laugh, and he could almost imagine Mr. Fang's tone. He nodded and said, "This is really important. We are just helping Mr. Fang."

He glanced left and right again, and asked, "Is the person from ICBC not here?"

"The banks that will arrive tomorrow are ICBC and Bank of China." Liu Yangyang replied.

Jiang Shangzhou heard the voices of discussions gradually sounding in the conference room, and he was unwilling to continue to take up Secretary-General Liu's time. He had previously talked with President Fang about the joint name of SMIC and Bingxin, and knew about the other party's series of efforts, one of which was about ICBC's loans are not only cut first, but also exchanged with each other.

When it comes to loans in the nature of industry assistance under the current circumstances, ICBC will not lend rashly without administrative motivation. However, as the time for lifting the ban on listed shares is approaching, continuing to hold shares under the financial turmoil has a certain symbolic significance.

It is said that UBS is likely to cash out the Bank of China shares it holds at the end of the year, because its losses in the financial turmoil need to be recovered urgently.

It is not surprising that similar logic appears in foreign capital such as Bank of America and Temasek. This is a hidden worry in the market.

Jiang Shangzhou clearly heard Mr. Fang mentioning this matter on the phone. He had already given a promise that he would not reduce his holdings and sell them. In exchange, he got an advance credit line of 20 billion from ICBC.

Can 20 billion solve the problem?
Definitely not.

But it may also be able to solve some urgent needs.

In addition, when it comes to international funds, Jiang Shangzhou doesn't know how Fang always operates.

The whispers in the conference room because of the presence of the chairman of SMIC turned into worries about the industry again.

When Liu Yangyang's temporary communication with Changdian, a listed company, was over, she picked up the microphone and formally talked about today's meeting aimed at integrating resources and reducing losses.

Since the establishment of the service alliance, it has been figuring out the domestic semiconductor situation, screening and supporting companies that are useful to ice core or useful in the future. This is a difficult task, but it is indeed going on, and the work of the past two months is another situation... …

It seems to expand the original network to try to hold more upstream and downstream of the domestic industrial chain.

However, are all the companies sitting in the conference room at this moment becoming critically ill because of the external economic crisis?

This is indeed a major factor and an accelerating factor, but some companies themselves do not pay attention to technology, neglect management, and are greedy for success.

The reason why Jiang Shangzhou is here today is because he is worried that Mr. Fang's service alliance will do bad things with good intentions. He is worried that in a critical situation, everyone will be difficult to agree. Everyone lacks money and help. No matter how you divide it, you will easily cause a commotion.

Soon, following Liu Yangyang's narration, different voices really appeared in the meeting room.

Some companies themselves are not members of the service alliance, and what they need to accept is discounted purchases, second-hand equipment prices, and factory relocation. Pay you back.

With such a voice, the atmosphere in the meeting room became weird.

Jiang Shangzhou was worried that Liu Yangyang would not be able to convince the crowd. After all, Mr. Fang was not here in person today, so he was going to stand up to support the service alliance.

"I know that many people have doubts and concerns, both about the state of the industry and our service alliance." Liu Yangyang was very calm, "What will happen to the state of the industry, let alone me, even the experts in our ice core will I don’t dare to say when it will be the bottom and when it will rebound, I will not say such things here to comfort everyone.”

"But for the Service Union, I ask everyone to read the full name with me."

Liu Yangyang said word by word: "Ice Core Wafer Manufacturing Service Alliance."

"This alliance is for companies to serve our wafer manufacturing of ice cores, not for ice cores to serve you!"

"Today's situation is special, special matters are handled on a special basis, and the matter is urgent. If you are willing, you can stay and accept the standard. If you are not willing, we will reimburse the travel expenses."

Liu Yangyang wasn't afraid of offending anyone at all, and didn't want to waste time at all.

She reiterated the nature of service unions and measures in exceptional circumstances.

The meeting room was quiet.

Jiang Shangzhou sat back steadily again, it's good, and the service alliance is also good.

……

On November 11, the snow in Washington became suitable for airliners after two days of cessation.

Fang Zhuo flew to Silicon Valley on a private jet.

This trip to Washington took longer than expected. In addition to meeting many local companies in Washington these days, he can only listen to the work of other cities online.

From arriving in the United States to the present, except for a few companies such as Texas Instruments that appeared unexpectedly during the financial turmoil, Fang Zhuo has seen almost all the key companies on the list that he paid attention to earlier.

The "key point" is not indicators such as enterprise scale and profitability, but whether it is beneficial or likely to be beneficial to the development of Yike and Bingxin.

As the head of Texas Instruments said, Yike is the lucky one who has grown against the trend in today's era with the development of smart phones, and consolidating this "lucky" requires more and better technical reserves.

Some technologies may really only be explored and will never be commercialized, but...

It's not expensive anyway, so buy it and play it in the company.

Fang Zhuo thought so, and he did the same.

His trip to Silicon Valley brought the two young founders of Vision with him.

In the afternoon when they arrived at Yike Silicon Valley R&D Center, the two followed to browse the future workplace.

With the expected growth of employees, Yike R&D Center has rented a similar building, and may consider building its own park in the future, but the main factor is to facilitate the absorption of talents.

"Mr. Fang, Mr. Fang, come and try our fingerprint unlocking."

The deputy director of technology, Elder, followed Mr. Fang all the way this time. The first thing he did when he came back was to let the boss try out the new gadgets in the R&D center. They wanted to install a fingerprint reader in every office.

Different from Yu Hong's previous description, the group of people smoothly unlocked the meeting room door with their fingerprints.

However, when Fang Zhuo tried to register his fingerprints, it didn't work again.

During the slightly embarrassing 15 minutes of waiting for rescue, Fang Zhuo asked Haydn about the application of their image sensor.

"Isn't the direction of your sensor capable of face recognition? In the future, you can also set up face recognition unlocking doors in the conference room on your floor. Just compare with this floor to see who has more people to close."

Haydn's eyes lit up at Fang Zhuo's teasing suggestion.

The depression of being acquired for $80 also faded a lot, and he had a hunch that the atmosphere in the Yike R&D Center might be pleasant.

Under the financial crisis, this may be an excellent situation.

Fang Zhuo doesn't know the mood of Haydn, a research talent, but he knows that both Yike and Bingxin need to digest the new employees, new departments, and new technologies that have been added one after another, and they must be organically integrated to form a reasonable driving force.

How to digest it?
This problem has been handed over to Xu Keden and others, and there is still an old method-rapid development.

As of November, Yike's new generation of Mars mobile phones released in June and released in July maintained an average monthly sales of 11 million units, which seems to have successfully continued and broken through the sales momentum of the previous generation. The minimum guarantee target is 6 million units.

This is without counting sales in the Chinese market.

China's local factors are special. Now no matter who asks, including the media and some leaders, the company's tone is: it's okay, not too much.

Whether it is Nokia that has been sprayed, LG that has been sued, HTC that has been sued, or Sony Ericsson that has kept the classics, Samsung that has deep learning, and Apple that has made up for its shortcomings, none of their mobile phone products have affected the development of Yike Mars too much. sales.

Or, possibly, Mars sales would have been higher without them, but it has now stabilized the first-class level of smartphones.

However, Fang Zhuo, who returned to Silicon Valley, also found that the innovation of mobile phone products is also a matter of great pressure. Last year, consumers were satisfied, and consumers are satisfied this year. What about next year?What about the year after?
Whenever Mars initially gets a good reputation, the next generation of products is put on the agenda.

Fang Zhuo felt that it was either to absorb talents to relieve the internal pressure of the company, or to create more pressure on friends and businessmen.

On the second day in Silicon Valley, an acquisition intention at the end of last month was passed back.

Founded in 07, Siri declined the acquisition of Yike. This text chat service company is cooperating with Nuance, the world's largest voice recognition manufacturer, to try to realize the voice recognition function.

Siri believes that this cooperation will help enhance the company's value, and is not in a hurry to be acquired now.

Fang Zhuo can understand that not all companies are short of money, so he is not very disappointed. He just keeps in touch. Is there any mystery here? Like the chip company last time, Apple can acquire it, but Yike cannot?

On this day, the employees of Texas Instruments who had previously chosen two-way confirmed their intentions one after another.

At present, more than 100 employees are willing to join Yike, which is about 70% of the previous list, while the proportion of ice core is average, only 25% of engineers are willing to join, or for the promised German factory.

However, considering the degree of fit between Texas Instruments engineers and the foundry, Ice Core has nearly 90 people in terms of number of people.

Faced with this situation, Fang Zhuo had no choice but to urge Qiu Ciyun again to let him go to Germany with him at the end of the year, and let him preside over the wafer foundry with a high probability of project approval.

In the first ten days of November, Fang Zhuo had a relaxed two days in Silicon Valley, but there was a steady stream of news that moved him in the market, such as Motorola, Credit Suisse, Dell, Nortel, HSBC, BMW, Nokia, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, AMD...

Some are completely irrelevant to him, but looking at the news of hundreds of layoffs, I always feel that it is a waste not to get some back, and some are extremely suitable for recruiting talents.

Like AMD, it plans to lay off 500 employees worldwide, and Micron Technology, which has 2.26 people worldwide, plans to lay off 15% of its employees in the next two years.

The most important thing is that Tai Ji has also started a large-scale layoff, which is the key new activity of Bingxin.

(End of this chapter)