Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 181 Born at the Wrong Time S103
Zhiyun Technology previously purchased top-level memory products from Sixin, and the two parties have also been negotiating on the possibility of cooperation in the field of high-end top-level screens... and the chip foundry field is also under discussion.

When it comes to business competition, especially for multinational companies like Four Star and Zhiyun that are huge in size and have many subsidiaries, it is actually difficult to say that the relationship between them is a one-size-fits-all approach. Basically, there is a certain degree of cooperation in the competition.

Even between Zhiyun and Fruit, they are not in a completely hostile competitive relationship... These two companies share many supply chain companies, and have also invested in many supply chain companies together.

The same is true in the chip foundry field. Everyone knows that Zhiyun Technology wants to independently develop the chip manufacturing industry, but TSMC in the chip foundry field is still unlikely to give up Zhiyun Technology's chip foundry orders!
Because if they don't accept this foundry order, the next door Sixing will take it... and there are also many chip manufacturing companies that are constantly vying for Zhiyun Technology's chip foundry orders.

TSMC is able to win most of the orders because of its cost and technological advantages.

Therefore, in business, competition and cooperation coexist; that is the norm. We cannot simply say that there is only competition and no cooperation at all.

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According to Zhiyun Microelectronics' layout, Jiangcheng Semiconductor will focus on the fields of advanced process memory and flash memory chips in the future.
The main production base in Tongcheng and the Shenzhen base under construction are mainly used for foundry production of traditional chips such as advanced process CPU/GPU.

Before acquiring Jiangcheng Semiconductor, Zhiyun Microelectronics had already reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Shenzhen, planning to build two large-scale 12-inch wafer fabs and two 8-inch wafer fabs in Shenzhen, and to introduce a series of core equipment such as DUV immersion lithography machines.

It is a highly integrated comprehensive chip manufacturing factory, covering all areas of chip foundry such as front-end lithography and back-end packaging.

This is also the highest-level investment agreement that Zhiyun Technology has recently reached with the local government in its hometown. The initial investment will reach an astonishing 3 billion US dollars, and the later investment will reach tens of billions of US dollars.

Zhiyun Technology itself hasn't promoted this project yet, but the local authorities have already hyped it up and even given it a special project code name.

2+2 project!

Why blow?

Because this is the largest investment in the semiconductor manufacturing field in the country so far. As long as this project is implemented, Shenzhen will instantly leap from a semiconductor manufacturing depression to a semiconductor manufacturing powerhouse.

Of course, this 2+2 project is only a complete plan. In fact, only one -inch and one -inch were under construction at the same time in the early stage.

Zhiyun Microelectronics' wafer factory investment plan is quite large. In addition to the factory under construction in Shenzhen, there is a 12-inch wafer factory under construction in Tongcheng.

After the successful acquisition of Jiangcheng, we will invest in construction and expansion here and build another eight-inch one.

In addition, negotiations are underway with Shanghai and some other cities to find a location to build another 12-inch tower.

According to Zhiyun Microelectronics' plan, it will acquire or build at least five 12-inch wafer fabs in the next few years, with a monthly production capacity of 12-inch wafers reaching 150,000 pieces. At the same time, it will also have several 8-inch wafer fabs for foundry production of chips with a process of 65 nanometers and above.

Compared to the 12-inch wafer fabs which are difficult to acquire and can only be built by oneself, there are slightly more 8-inch wafer fabs in China, so you can acquire one or two appropriately.

Today, Zhiyun Microelectronics has a huge demand for chip production capacity... There is no way, as we have too many orders to take.

The two terminal companies, Zhiyun Technology and Wecoo Electronics, almost threw all the chip foundry tasks with medium and low process technology to Zhiyun Microelectronics.

Although they are all foundry businesses with a process of 65 nanometers and above, the number of orders is too large!
In addition, many domestic chip design companies also come here to seek foundry services due to their reputation!

Because Zhiyun Microelectronics is currently one of the few chip foundries in China that has 65-nanometer technology.

Although the 65-nanometer process may not seem very good, it is still a first-class process technology in the country.

In addition to Zhiyun Microelectronics, there is also SMIC, as well as some factories of other companies in China, such as TSMC's factories, Intel's factories, etc.

In fact, many foreign-funded enterprises have invested in and set up chip factories in the country.

The predecessor of Zhiyun Microelectronics was actually an eight-inch wafer factory of a foreign-funded company in China. It was sold to Zhiyun Technology due to poor management, which led to the establishment of Zhiyun Microelectronics.

Considering the current situation of the domestic chip manufacturing field, Zhiyun Microelectronics' 65-nanometer process is still quite competitive in the market. Therefore, in addition to undertaking business within the group, it also accepts a large number of external foundry orders.

Even the fruit supply chain expects Zhiyun Microelectronics to manufacture some of its low-process chips... Why? Because Zhiyun Microelectronics's foundry prices are relatively cheap, and its quality management is very strict, and its tape-out speed is also fast.

Furthermore, Zhiyun Microelectronics is backed by Zhiyun Group, which makes it much more reliable than any second- or third-rate chip foundry companies.

Relying on the rare 65-nanometer process in China, plus group orders and external orders, Zhiyun Microelectronics' business is very busy... Although the process technology is low, the unit price is low, and the profit margin is relatively low, unlike those 45-nanometer process technologies, the lithography machine can make money faster than a printing press can directly print money, but it still has considerable profits.

Therefore, it is very necessary to continue to expand the scale, not only to have advanced and expensive 12-inch wafer fabs, but also cheap and affordable 8-inch wafer fabs.

After Xu Shenxue completed the acquisition of Jiangcheng Semiconductor in Jiangcheng, he was not in a hurry to leave, but was invited to attend a meeting... However, it was all the same old stuff, nothing more than wanting Xu Shenxue to invest more in the local area.

But whether it is Zhiyun Technology or Wecoo Electronics, in fact, except for the chip manufacturing business, all other businesses are light asset models... they don’t even have a factory.

All of Zhiyun Technology’s terminal production business is outsourced to OEM factories.

As for chip investment, we have just made some investments here, and there is nothing much to invest in other areas. We already have R&D centers, and they are expanding in scale.

But after chatting for a while, Xu Shenxue found out that the other party's target was not Zhiyun Technology or Wecoo Electronics, but still Wecoo Industrial, a less well-known OEM company under his control... They tried their best to win it last time, but failed in the end.

I want to fight for it again this time.

Xu Shenxue could understand that Weiku Industry seemed to be just a low-end, inconspicuous labor-intensive industry... but it was a giant that could really create a large number of jobs and provide tax revenue...

A large-scale OEM production base can employ tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people.

The other party took a fancy to this point.

However, Xu Shenxue still declined!

It’s not that he dislikes this place. In fact, Xu Shenxue feels very good about this place.

But at present, Weiku Industry does not have the need for large-scale external expansion. The external expansion to Dongguan City is already the limit. This is an early layout made in consideration of the industrial transformation in a few years.

Today, the main production base of Weiku Industrial is still in Shenzhen, and the production base in Anhua is getting bigger and bigger.

Especially after the completion of the third phase of the project, the large area where the factory is located was directly called "Weiku Industrial Park", which is home to Weiku Industrial's factories and more than 100 companies from Zhiyun and Weiku Supply Chain.

The total number of employees of Weiku Industrial and its supply chain companies in the entire industrial park exceeds 200,000.

The local authorities couldn't wait to open up the fourth and fifth phases of land use planning... The land is given for free, and the three-in-one infrastructure is built for you, and you are also provided with construction loans.

In order to prevent the children raised by their families from being abducted by others, the local government is still very attentive and has always provided great support. Zhiyun Technology, considering various factors such as supply chain, transportation, recruitment, and business environment, still tends to continue its industrial layout in its hometown of Shenzhen.

This is their base camp, and many things can be done more smoothly here. This would not be so convenient in other places.

Not only did Wecoo Industrial continue to stay, Zhiyun Technology also set up a chip factory in its hometown. The investment of several billion dollars and the resulting chip manufacturing industrial base made many local people very happy.

Enterprises and localities complement each other!
In the short term, Zhiyun Technology's various investments are still focused on its hometown of Shenzhen. At most, it will make some investments in surrounding cities, and will basically not go to cities that are too far away.

As for the future, considering the continued rise in labor costs and the need for industrial layout, it is possible to go abroad, but it will take several years.

By then, we can set up a production base here.

After finishing the business in Jiangcheng, Xu Shenxue returned to Shenzhen on a special plane.

But he didn't stay in Shenzhen for too long. After a few days, he left again on a special plane...but this time he was not going to work, but to take Lin Yaxian to another province for vacation.

He had already promised Lin Yaxian that he would take her out for a walk when he was free. The girl had been looking forward to it for a long time, and even prepared a lot of clothes for travel and vacation, as well as some small accessories in advance.

But Xu Shenxue has always been very busy and has little time, so this time, when he is not so busy and has some free time, he takes Lin Yaxian out.

In addition to taking Lin Yaxian out and fulfilling her little wish, I also wanted to relax myself.

After more than two years of high-intensity work, despite systematic physical training, my body is still healthy and has no problems, and is even getting stronger.

But mentally I am still exhausted.

Xu Shenxue also needs to relax occasionally, temporarily get rid of the many affairs of the company, enjoy the scenery and enjoy life with peace of mind.

After traveling to many places and sightseeing for more than ten days, Xu Shenxue's private plane finally landed at Shenzhen Airport again.

Lin Yaxian returned home contentedly and continued to work on her big villa decoration business, while Xu Shenxue resumed his daily work.

Not long after he returned to Shenzhen, Zhiyun Semiconductor brought him good news.

After the winter press conference of Vicoo Electronics, the sales performance of the Bluemi T100, which uses the self-developed S20 chip, and the Vicoo P85 with a different shell were good after they were launched on the market.

With its relatively mature and stable appearance design style and four-inch large screen.

In addition, the price is relatively low... As market competition becomes increasingly fierce, many manufacturers have launched 800MHZ mid- and low-end mobile phones.

In order to gain a competitive advantage, Weiku Electronics directly lowered the selling price of T20/P85 to yuan!

Coupled with the powerful offline channels of Weiku Trading and the brand reputation of Xiaolan/Weiku in the mid- and low-end markets, the sales performance of T20/P85 is quite good, with monthly sales reaching more than units.

At the same time, no clear feedback from consumers about chip defects has been received. Based on this situation, Weiku Electronics has stepped up its pace in adopting self-developed chips.

The version of the S100 chip with integrated communication baseband will be used in the Bluegogo M series in the future to further compete in the low-end market.

而S101芯片，也将会取代预定的高通MSM7X30芯片组以及德州仪器的OMAP36系列芯片组，成为小蓝3/威酷K80的芯片。

Although there was a delay in the first tape-out of the S101 chip, it was successful at the first try, and mass production is now going smoothly.

After various tests, this SOC chip integrated with Zhiyun's own communication baseband has met the design requirements. The single-core chip with a main frequency of 1GHZ is still competitive in the current mid-range market.

The Little Blue 3 equipped with this chip and the re-shelled version of the Vicoo K80 are scheduled to be released at the spring conference in March after the New Year.

At the same time, Zhiyun Semiconductor is also working on S103, a single-core 100GHZ chip in the S1.5 series. Its performance can be said to be quite good, directly comparable to the 8X55 chip.

It is estimated that it will be successfully taped out next month, that is, in March. Moreover, it is a mature S100 series architecture, so the tape-out is not difficult and it can basically be regarded as having a high probability of being successfully taped out.

The performance of this chip is actually very good, but it was born at the wrong time...

Because the S series in Zhiyun mobile phones cannot use this. Even the C series directly skipped the single-core 1.5GHZ chip and adopted a mid-range dual-core chip...

C4 has even completed the prototype design. The next step is to carefully polish and perfect it and then start preparing for production. It is impossible to change the chip in the middle.

Otherwise, a single-core 1.5ZGHZ one is also very good.

So although the S103 has good design and performance, it can only be used by Weiku Electronics. It will most likely be used on the Xiaolan MAX3 and the Xiaolan T series PRO version, which is expected to be released in autumn.

But there are pros and cons. While the S100 series cannot be installed on Zhiyun mobile phones, at least Weiku Electronics does not have to worry about running out of chips... Zhiyun Semiconductor's three S100 series single-core chips cover three levels: 800MHZ, 1GHZ, and 1.5GHZ, which are enough for their entire series.

Especially the 1.5GHZ single-core chip, which is still very good.

As for Zhiyun Mobile, it also has a self-developed chip mobile phone plan, but it is a dual-core mobile phone plan.

Zhiyun’s C4 series and S11 series this year have both been confirmed to continue using dual-core chips from Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.

However, in order to avoid the situation, the S200 dual-core chip designed and developed by Zhiyun Semiconductor went smoothly and was successfully taped out on time in the summer, but ended up losing the target for installation.

Zhiyun Mobile has specially launched Plan A. This A series of mobile phones will be aiming for self-developed dual-core chips from the very beginning. Even if the self-developed dual-core chips are delayed, the design will continue to be modified to delay the release.

This A series mobile phone is specially designed to be equipped with self-developed dual-core chip!
It even has a very flexible market positioning for this purpose. If everything goes well, it may be positioned in the quasi-high-end market of three thousand to four thousand yuan.

But if things don’t go smoothly and the schedule is significantly delayed, by the time it is launched on the market, the market will already be flooded with dual-core mobile phones, and the market positioning may only be around two to three thousand yuan.

Because of the flexible market positioning, Plan A also has several versions, which are designed specifically for different situations, targeting the high-end and mid-end markets respectively... The various materials and processes used are actually different.

But no matter what, after the S200 series chips are developed, Zhiyun Technology will prepare a carrier for it: the A series mobile phones.

Then bring it to market!

If that doesn’t work… there are still low- and mid-end mobile phones from Weiku Electronics to fall back on!

(End of this chapter)