Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 228 Selling Data Cables and Photolithography Light Sources

In Jiangcheng Semiconductor, Xu Shenxue inspected the local memory and flash memory businesses, and visited an eight-inch wafer fab and a twelve-inch wafer fab under construction.

Although the mainstream semiconductor industry seems to be developing 12-inch wafer fabs, 8-inch wafer fabs still have very strong market potential.

The difference between a 12-inch wafer fab and an 8-inch wafer fab is not actually the difference in manufacturing process. The core difference between the two is that one uses 12-inch diameter silicon wafers for production, while the other uses 8-inch diameter silicon wafers for production.

In theory, eight-inch silicon wafers can be used to use the most advanced process technology to produce the most advanced chips.

The problem is that this is too inefficient, wasteful, and the final cost of the manufactured chips is relatively high.

However, an eight-inch wafer fab requires small investment and has a short construction period, so it still has quite good application prospects in the low-process field. Even after more than ten years, there are still many companies investing in the construction of eight-inch wafer fabs for semiconductor production.

In its wafer fab layout, Zhiyun Microelectronics uses 12-inch wafer fabs for advanced processes and 8-inch wafer fabs for low-process or special process products.

The two types of wafer fabs were invested and built together.

The newly built eight-inch wafer factory by Jiangcheng Semiconductor will be mainly used for the future production of low-process memory or memory with special requirements, such as DDR2 memory used in conventional PCs, DDR2 memory used in low-end smartphones, and DDR2 memory used in low-end smart terminal products.

Although they seem to be lagging behind, the market demand is still very large, and a lot of money can be made.

Even if these memories are no longer profitable in the future, the production lines can be adjusted and the production of other chip products can be switched.

Jiangcheng Semiconductor's 31600-inch wafer factory mainly uses -nanometer process to produce advanced memory, such as DDR.

The current DDR3 memory is also the mainstream memory in the market, and the market demand is huge. Not only is the demand large within the group, but the demand in the external market is also very large.

At the same time, there are flash memory products that are in very high demand and are also mainly produced by Jiangcheng Semiconductor.

Therefore, Jiangcheng Semiconductor is also investing in the construction of a new 12-inch wafer factory.

Jiangcheng is an important storage product production base in Zhiyun Microelectronics' industrial layout. The initial layout is two 12-inch wafer fabs and two 8-inch wafer fabs. The overall plan is actually the same as the semiconductor production base in Shenzhen, or even larger, because there is also a large-scale storage product research and development center here.

After visiting Jiangcheng Semiconductor, Xu Shenxue took a special plane south, but did not return to Shenzhen. Instead, he went to Guangzhou to inspect several important companies under Xiannvshan Holdings.

Among them is Southern Optics, which develops and produces optical systems. It is currently the only company in China that can supply mature lithography machine light source systems in large quantities.

Its mature and marketable product lines include the 365-nanometer I-line light source system and the 248-nanometer krf light source system.

In addition, there is a 193-nanometer ARF light source system that is under development and has made great progress recently... This is the light source system of the DUV lithography machine. Whether it is DUV dry or DUV immersion, they actually use the same type of light source.

Xu Shenxue came here mainly to see the ARF light source system.

After looking at and understanding the R&D progress, Xu Shenxue encouraged your R&D personnel and then went to Nanjiang Technology not far away.

Nanjiang Technology is the supplier of objective lenses in the lithography machine supply chain, and they produce all kinds of mirrors.

At the beginning, the predecessor of Nanjiang Technology was a private enterprise that produced mid- and low-end civilian camera equipment lenses. Because of its good technology, Zhiyun Technology later made a strategic investment to see if it could be supported.

Later, when Xiannvshan Holdings was laying out the entire semiconductor industry chain, it looked through all domestic optical lens companies and acquired a small objective lens company with a research institute background.

However, although this objective lens company has some technology, it is extremely poor and has no self-sustaining ability at all.

Finally, Xu Shenxue simply acquired Nanjiang Technology in full and merged the acquired objective lens company into it.

The merged company was renamed Nanjiang Technology, and its main focus is on the research and development of various types of optical lenses, including civilian consumer-grade lenses, high-tech lithography machine lenses, and even aerospace lenses. In short, it's all about mirrors.

Of course, simply acquiring these companies is not enough. If you want to obtain high-quality civilian consumer lenses or lithography machine lenses, you must inject large amounts of capital into research and development.

Xiannvshan Holdings and Zhiyun Technology have jointly invested more than 500 million US dollars in various research and development projects.

Therefore, Nanjiang Technology is actually a joint venture company controlled by Xiannvshan Holdings, with Zhiyun Technology also holding a portion of strategic shares. At the same time, the management team and the R&D team also hold certain shares.

Nanjiang Technology, which has a lot of cash in hand, quickly acquired a number of upstream companies and eventually integrated them into a comprehensive optical company. Its commercial products mainly include various types of cameras and lithography machine lenses.

Its main source of revenue is naturally various camera modules, which are mainly supplied to Zhiyun C series and A series, PCs, tablets, various smart terminal products under Weiku, as well as mobile phones of a large number of domestic mobile phone manufacturers. It is the number one camera module company in China.

With Zhiyun Technology and Weiku Electronics backing it up, it would be hard for it not to be number one... As long as the product is produced, Weiku Electronics will directly adopt it, and there is no need to worry about market issues at all.

After Weiku Electronics purchased in large quantities and brought down the cost, other domestic mobile phone manufacturers would naturally follow suit because of their low prices and good quality. Finally, after a period of accumulation, the product quality and performance were also improved, and they naturally entered the C series supply chain under Zhiyun, and now have entered the A series supply chain.

Only the S series of high-end mobile phones continue to purchase high-end cameras from Japanese manufacturers in order to pursue the ultimate.

Under such circumstances, Nanjiang Technology's development speed is actually very fast.

In addition to civilian consumer-grade optical components, one of Nanjiang Technology's major strategic tasks is to develop and supply lenses used in lithography machines.

This thing is truly high-tech, with extremely high content!
That is, it had previously acquired a startup company that originally belonged to a certain research institute and had a certain amount of technical accumulation. It then spent a lot of money to recruit people to form a large-scale R&D team, and finally developed commercially viable lenses for use in existing I-line lithography machines and KRF lithography machines.

Now, the lenses they developed for use in DUV lithography machines, which are more precise and more difficult to process, have completed various tests and met the technical standards.

This alone is enough to make them the top optical company in China.

Because in the country, there is no other company that can commercially produce such ultra-high-purity lenses...

"In order to manufacture the lenses for these lithography machines, our investment in various advanced equipment alone has reached more than 100 million US dollars."

Cao Xingchen, R&D Director of Nanjiang Technology, was quite emotional: "In addition to the equipment, there is also a R&D team. The R&D team alone has more than 500 people, many of whom are top domestic optical material experts. Many of them are not here for the salary, but purely for their ideals!"

"Even so, the R&D cost of lithography lenses is higher than that of consumer-grade lenses in our company!"

"At the same time, the production process of lithography machine lenses is extremely high, and the cost is also very high!"

"Although the lithography machine lenses have extremely high technical content and a high unit price, the shipment volume is too small."

"So far, we have only one customer for our lithography lenses, which is Gulf Technology. We have only shipped more than 200 sets in total, mainly for I-line lithography machines and KRF lithography machines, including front-end and back-end lithography machines."

"In the end, this is a losing business!"

"To be honest, if it weren't for the special nature of the lithography machine, from a commercial perspective, I'm afraid no one would be willing to make this kind of lithography mirror."

“The investment is too big and the market is too small!”

Cao Xingchen sighed as he spoke: "But it is precisely because we know the particularity of this field that many experts in our R&D department are willing to accept our invitation to come and work together on research and development."

"We still need a photolithography machine after all!"

"Although this business has been losing money, we still tried our best and finally developed this lens set used for deep ultraviolet light sources."

Speaking of this, Cao Xingchen couldn't help but curl up the corners of his mouth... Although he complained a lot, he was still quite proud when it came to the results!
As a senior practitioner in the field of optics in China, Cao Xingchen knows better than anyone the backwardness of the domestic optical field and has the ambition to catch up with the optical technology of advanced countries.

Otherwise, he would not have accepted Xu Shenxue's invitation and resolutely resigned from the position of vice president of a research institute, becoming the deputy general manager and senior R&D director of Nanjiang Technology, taking overall responsibility for the R&D of lithography machine lenses.

By the way, under the arrangement of Nanjiang Technology, he accepted the invitation of the neighboring Guangcheng University to serve as a visiting professor and teach in the field of optics.

Now, under his leadership, the domestic optical field has made such a major technological breakthrough. Even when he is old and dying, he will say to people with his last breath: The first domestically produced DUV lithography machine lens was made by me and my team... I made it!

I have to finish what I have to say before I can die! Xu Shenxue said: "Thank you for your hard work, Professor Cao. It's not easy to make a photolithography machine!"

"Not only does the lens require a large investment, high costs, and difficulty in making a profit, but the other subsystems are also similar, with basically only a small profit or even a loss!"

"But there is nothing we can do about it. If we raise the prices of each subsystem, Gulf Technology will not be able to hold on. Finally, if the price of the terminal lithography machine goes up, chip manufacturers will be even less likely to purchase it!"

"In this situation, in addition to the orders from Zhiyun Microelectronics, our external orders have also gradually increased. A few days ago, Gulf Technology gave me good news that it had won an order for three KRF lithography machines from SMIC!"

"In addition to the previous orders for six KRF lithography machines and thirteen I-line lithography machines, there are a total of twenty-five back-end lithography machine orders!"

"In the field of lithography machines, we have already received orders for a total of 19 front-end lithography machines and 25 back-end lithography machines."

"These are orders from domestic manufacturers now. We are still trying to get orders from foreign manufacturers in the future!"

"As the orders gradually increase, the costs are diluted, and the technology matures, we can make money later!"

Among all the businesses I have done, the most difficult one is this broken lithography machine and a large number of other related equipment on the semiconductor production line!
Because their technology is not as good as similar foreign products, they can only rely on price advantages to win orders. At the same time, a large number of chip manufacturers have great concerns about domestic equipment... That is, with Zhiyun Microelectronics as a guinea pig, and when Zhiyun Microelectronics has used it well and there are no problems, these external chip manufacturers will try to buy a few units to give it a try.

This is a real hassle, and as for making money... this crap doesn't make any money at all.

Compared with Xu Shenxue's investment of more than 10 billion US dollars in the field of chip equipment and raw materials, only God knows when the current revenue in the semiconductor equipment field can recover this huge investment cost.

But even so, we have to grit our teeth and keep going.

There is no hope of recovering the huge initial cost of tens of billions of dollars. Xu Shenxue only hopes that the subsequent semiconductor equipment and raw material businesses can be self-reliant, support themselves, and obtain a certain amount of revenue to maintain research and development.

This is the price of catching up!
Of course, Xu Shenxue actually took into account the problem of high investment and low profit in the lithography machine business from the very beginning, so he deliberately combined the subsystem businesses of many lithography machines with the supply chain business of Zhiyun/Weiku.

As an optical technology company, Nanjiang Technology makes money from various civilian consumer cameras for smart terminals... and uses this business to provide capital transfusion for the lithography machine lens business.

There is also Southern Optics, which is engaged in light sources. In addition to the light source business for lithography machines, it also has a side business of charging heads and cables... Yes, it is a data cable that looks very low-end and has no technical content.

Although this thing seems to have no technical content, the supply volume is large. It is directly supplied to Weiku Electronics and Zhiyun Technology, and the annual revenue is not small. In addition, it also supplies some data/charging cables/charging heads to other manufacturers.

The profits from this business are used to support Southern Optics's lithography machine light source system, which has a large investment but is not very profitable.

Everyone who sees this will be silent: You sell data cables, but you are also engaged in light sources for lithography machines?

Then there was Longke Precision, which made workbenches. Although the workbenches for lithography machines seemed high-tech, they were really not profitable. In order to give Longke Precision a transfusion, Xu Shenxue handed over the vibration motor business to them... He directly let Xiannvshan Holdings acquire a strategically invested supply chain company specializing in vibration motors, and then merged it into Longke Precision.

There are many similar situations!

Therefore, a considerable number of semiconductor equipment and raw material companies under the Xiannvshan Holdings system have merged with Zhiyun/Weiku Electronics' supply chain companies.

Therefore, if someone carefully looks through the huge supply chain companies under Zhiyun/Weiku, they will often find that some inconspicuous and non-core component suppliers are all under Xiannvshan Holdings. At the same time, these supply chain companies often have particularly high-end semiconductor equipment or raw material businesses.

After visiting Nanjiang Technology, Xu Shenxue went to the joint R&D center near Guangcheng University, which was jointly established by Zhiyun Technology and Guangcheng University.

Zhiyun provides the money and Guangcheng University provides the people.

After the research and development results are obtained, Zhiyun obtains the patent of the research and development results, and Guangcheng University obtains the name of the research and development results. Of course, what is more important for Guangcheng University is to use the sufficient research and development funds provided by Zhiyun Technology to carry out various scientific research projects to maintain the scientific research level of its own university and the resources to cultivate doctoral and master's students.

Similarly, these trained masters and doctoral talents have basically been recruited by Zhiyun Technology.

The admissions office of Guangcheng University has already put forward a non-public promotional slogan for the admissions of various advantageous majors: as long as you enter the corresponding major of our Guangcheng University, you will be able to enter the laboratory of the joint center to accumulate academic experience and qualifications after graduation, and you can directly join the top R&D department of a world-class leading enterprise after graduation.

Who is the world-class leading enterprise? It is naturally Zhiyun Technology!
And this is not an exaggerated slogan. In fact, as long as your academic performance is acceptable and you can join a joint laboratory while in school, you can basically get a job invitation from Zhiyun Technology's R&D department before you graduate.

During your doctoral studies, you can work while studying, without affecting your studies and making money.

The establishment of this joint laboratory is beneficial to both parties. Zhiyun Technology can obtain a large number of high-quality talents and customized talent training channels.

Some cutting-edge majors newly opened by Guangcheng University last year, such as big data, robotics, materials and other professional disciplines, were basically established in accordance with the requirements of Zhiyun Technology, and even many of the teaching staff were provided by Zhiyun Technology...

Many senior engineers at Zhiyun Technology serve as visiting professors at nearby universities, specializing in a certain subject.

For example, Liang Song is a visiting professor at a 985 university near Tongcheng, teaching advanced process technology... and other senior professors in this major are all engineers from Zhiyun Microelectronics.

It can be said that the engineers of Zhiyun Microelectronics, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Technology, directly support the microelectronics major of this local 985 university.

Then there is another weird one, which is Shenzhen, where Zhiyun’s headquarters is located.

There are no good universities in Shenzhen, only one second-tier university, but Zhiyun’s headquarters happens to be here. Zhiyun needs to cultivate some highly targeted talents and can provide some senior top engineers to serve as visiting professors at the university.

As a result, Shenzhen Qianshan University, a second-tier university, has a large number of visiting professors who are R&D leaders from Zhiyun Technology Headquarters. It has established a joint college of artificial intelligence and also set up some new majors with very high professionalism.

It is just a second-tier university, but it has established a large number of majors that sound high-sounding just by looking at the names, such as artificial intelligence, big data materials, computer mathematics, chip design, information communications, etc., and has top domestic scientific research leaders serving as visiting professors.

How can this be possible...

This makes many universities jealous. In terms of educational capabilities, school examples, faculty strength, etc., we are much better than Shenzhen Qianshan University.

But people from Qianshan University in Shenzhen said, haha, your strong history is useless... The most important thing is to have more high-tech companies in your city.

As for hardware, apart from the top few companies, who dares to say that their hardware is better than mine? We have never lacked money. The locals are rich, and companies represented by Zhiyun are even richer. The equipment in various joint laboratories is top-notch.

Then, in terms of teaching staff, not only do we spend money to recruit people from all over, but we also have a large number of visiting professors supported by Zhiyun Technology... These visiting professors are real top-notch scientific research giants, who are at the forefront of the high-tech field, and are much better than those who stay in schools all year round.

By the way, in the application industry, the most advanced and even slightly cutting-edge technologies are not in schools, but in major companies.

Even if students get a doctorate in school, they won’t actually learn any truly cutting-edge technology… Those are the hidden talents of major companies, so how can you learn them easily?

For example, the deep learning algorithm in the field of artificial intelligence is Zhiyun Technology’s top corporate secret. It is even a state secret to some extent. It is impossible to make it public, let alone let it be put in schools for people to learn publicly.

If you want to learn this stuff, you can only enter the Zhiyun Research Institute first, then sign a lot of stringent confidentiality agreements and non-compete agreements, and then pass the review of a special agency... before you can get access to the most advanced and cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology of the time.

Therefore, the value of many scientific research leaders in Zhiyun Technology is actually very high. Even if these people only serve as visiting professors or teach classes occasionally, they can still play a very important role.

This means that Shenzhen Qianshan University, a second-tier university, actually has a large number of teaching staff and advantageous majors that can provide abundant practical opportunities.

In addition, with the reputation of Zhiyun as an endorsement, and the advantage of artificial intelligence in the hottest high-tech field in the past year, the Joint School of Artificial Intelligence at Qianshan University in Shenzhen has just been established, but its reputation is so great that it attracted a large number of outstanding students to apply for the first enrollment last year, and the admission scores soared directly to the level of 985 colleges.

To get into this Joint College of Artificial Intelligence, one must have a score of 985. So many people think that Shenzhen Qianshan University is just a second-tier university, and it would be easy to get into a second-tier major with their scores of 211.

When the score line came out... I was dumbfounded.

Damn, where do all these idiots come from!

This is a relatively special case. In most cases, Zhiyun Technology cooperates with famous 985 universities to carry out production and research cooperation, set up joint laboratories, etc.

The rapid rise of Zhiyun Technology and its ability to gather so many high-quality talents is closely related to China's continuous training of high-quality talents over the past few decades.

It is precisely because of these talented people and the support of the scientific research system that a beautiful flower like Zhiyun Technology can be produced!
There is one more chapter, tonight

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(End of this chapter)