Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 478 The future of smart terminals!
Xu Shenxue's convoy arrived in Guangcheng smoothly and then arrived at a cooperative hotel.

Here, Xu Shenxue had a simple working lunch with several local representatives and chatted about some issues that the other party was concerned about.

For example, Weiku Electronics is about to set up a new R&D center in Guangcheng.

Then they are also striving hard to obtain a new production base for Hailan Automobile.

At the same time, Zhiyun has previously revealed that it plans to build a new supercomputer center and is currently selecting a site. The other party is also very interested in this.

Finally, they have been striving for Zhiyun Microelectronics' new semiconductor project. Over the years, they have watched Shenzhen grow from scratch to become the world's top semiconductor manufacturing city.

Zhiyun Microelectronics' huge semiconductor production base in Shenzhen is enough to make anyone drool.

However, in Zhiyun Microelectronics' industrial layout, Tongcheng is basically determined as the headquarters, Shenzhen as the main logic chip manufacturing base, and Jiangcheng as the storage chip production base... These three bases account for more than 80% of Zhiyun Microelectronics' production capacity, and the rest of the production capacity is scattered in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other places.

As for the semiconductor projects in Guangcheng, there are very few of them. There is only one Factory 28, which mainly produces advanced running memory chips, but the overall scale is not large.

The other party has been actively seeking more semiconductor projects.

This time Xu Shenxue was coming to attend the science and technology summit, so they naturally would not miss this opportunity. They decided early on to have lunch together and chat about the local advantages and sincerity.

Xu Shenxue was used to this kind of thing. No matter where he went, he would inevitably encounter such things. However, industrial planning had a set plan and it was impossible to change it just because the other party said a few words or had a few meals with him.

Some small R&D centers and foundries are actually not that difficult to deal with, but if it is a semiconductor project, it becomes more complicated.

These days, building an advanced semiconductor factory requires an investment of at least tens of billions of dollars. If the production capacity is to be larger, for example, a logic chip factory with a monthly output of 50,000 pieces equivalent to a 7nm/5nm process, the investment will start at at least 15 billion US dollars.

This level of strategic investment requires comprehensive consideration of the pros and cons of all aspects, and Zhiyun Microelectronics has always been very cautious.

After all, you can’t just build a semiconductor factory wherever you want, because a semiconductor factory of this level requires a series of supporting facilities and supply chain companies to give full play to the advantages of industrial clusters.

As a world-class and domestically leading semiconductor manufacturing company, Zhiyun Microelectronics' investments are not made blindly.

Moreover, in Zhiyun Microelectronics' plan, Guangcheng's semiconductor investment plan will only cover the storage chip field, not the logic chip field.

The semiconductor investment plan recently launched by Zhiyun Microelectronics is for logic chips. It plans to build a top-level semiconductor factory for the equivalent of five-nanometer process in the future, with an estimated investment of more than 18 billion US dollars. The plan was finalized at the semiconductor base in Shenzhen from the beginning.

At the dinner table, Xu Shenxue also said this tactfully. The new factory this time is not feasible, but there may be a storage chip factory project next year, and they can talk about it then.

In fact, the other party did not think about snatching this new semiconductor factory at the beginning, as Shenzhen had already taken it. It is rumored that in order to snatch this top project, Shenzhen and Tongcheng had a big conflict, and the lawsuit was once brought to Beijing. It was not so easy for Guangzhou to snatch the food from the tiger's mouth.

The competition for such top projects has always been fierce. Every time Zhiyun Microelectronics launches a new logic chip project, cities such as Tongcheng, Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai will try their best to win it.

Among them, Shenzhen and Tongcheng, which have comparable comprehensive conditions in all aspects and complete basic supporting facilities in the semiconductor field, are the most competitive.

These two cities have been fighting tooth and nail for the title of the country's top semiconductor city!
Under such circumstances, this time's new project, let alone Guangzhou which has no foundation, even if Beijing and Shanghai come, they will have to stand aside, because the disadvantages of industrial supporting facilities are too great and they cannot compete.

Therefore, the purpose of these people today is just to play supporting roles as usual, and to try their best to get involved.

What if? Right!

Now Xu Shenxue said that there may be a new storage chip project next year, which is a pleasant surprise!

The advanced storage chip project is also not small. Although Jiangcheng has a huge advantage in this regard, Zhiyun Microelectronics has also increased its investment in Guangcheng in the past two years, trying to walk on two legs. So if we start preparing now, there may be hope of snatching this new project from Jiangcheng.

At the same time, Xu Shenxue also agreed to expand the scale of Weiku Electronics' new R&D center in Guangcheng.

It also promised to increase campus recruitment for some of its subsidiaries in Guangzhou, and to provide at least 5,000 jobs for fresh graduates in the local area this year.

After a working meal, Xu Shenxue said goodbye to the other party, took a short rest in the hotel, and then went downstairs again to prepare to attend the technology summit.

The scale of this technology summit in the field of smart terminals is not large, but the participants are all top domestic high-tech companies, including Zhiyun, Weiku Electronics, Dami, Huawei, OV and some leading supply chain companies in the industry.

As a leader in the domestic smart terminal field, Xu Shenxue will also attend and talk about the future of the smart terminal field.

On the way to the venue, Xu Shenxue also saw Xi Wanqing, but this time she did not come to get into Xu Shenxue's car, but got into other vehicles with other colleagues.

After arriving at the venue of the technology summit, Xi Wanqing, who was on her first business trip and her first time attending such a top technology summit, still felt a little uncomfortable.

The venue was not large and there were no media reporters. There were only a few dozen people attending the meeting.

But each of them is a well-known business leader in the industry, and all the CEOs came to attend the meeting in person.

Since Xu Shenxue attended the meeting in person, the CEOs of other companies would naturally not be arrogant and would come to attend the meeting in person.

Instead of sending subordinates to attend the meeting.

It’s not a question of respect or not, but there are too few opportunities to meet Xu Shenxue face to face... If there is a chance, they are also very willing to meet Xu Shenxue and see if there is any opportunity for cooperation.

It was a rare opportunity for Xu Shenxue to attend an industry summit, so they naturally would not miss this opportunity.

Xi Wanqing followed Head Wang and sat down at one side of the venue, while Xu Shenxue went forward to chat with the CEOs of other companies.

During the chat, someone from OV asked Xu Shenxue whether Zhiyun Microelectronics could take over the foundry business, saying that they were planning a chip project and wanted to design some SOC chips for smart terminals by themselves.

When asking this question, the man was still a little nervous...

In the SOC chip industry for smart terminals, Zhiyun Group is very strong.

Other companies have also tacitly chosen to purchase rather than develop and design chips on their own... On the one hand, they do not have the technology and talents, and on the other hand, they also want to avoid offending Zhiyun Group.

As time goes by, the domestic chip industry has developed and prospered, and a large number of professional talents have emerged in recent years. A large group of students graduating from semiconductor majors have begun to appear in the job market.

This has led many smart terminal companies to think about developing their own chips, although the communication baseband issue cannot be resolved as Zhiyun Group and Qualcomm are stuck with related patents, making it very difficult for other companies to break through.

However, it is still possible to learn from Apple and make a pure SOC chip, and then add an external communication baseband.

The only problem is that I don’t know whether Zhiyun Group will be angry... What if Zhiyun Group refuses to provide OEM services or sell communication basebands? Then we’ll be in trouble.

As for TSMC, it can also do foundry, and Qualcomm also has communication basebands, but how can I put it? I would rather offend Qualcomm and TSMC than offend Zhiyun Group.

Zhiyun Group has a strong say in the domestic smart terminal supply chain.

Xu Shenxue saw the other party's concerns and laughed: "We can do OEM. Zhiyun Microelectronics has good production capacity. This year we have the production capacity for the 10-nanometer process, and next year we should have surplus production capacity for the 7-nanometer process. Huawei's chips have always been manufactured by us!"

After Xu Shenxue said this, the person on the other side breathed a sigh of relief!

Xu Shenxue’s attitude has already made it clear, he has no objection... Since he has no objection, it will be easy, and it all depends on his own strength next.

As for the development of the domestic semiconductor design field, Xu Shenxue has always maintained an attitude of being happy to see success and even supportive.

After all, the semiconductor design field is only a part of his semiconductor business.

What he is playing with is the semiconductor industry chain, not a certain chip!
The more semiconductor design companies there are in China and the better they do, the stronger the driving effect on the entire semiconductor industry chain will be. This is also the reason why his factories have always been foundry chips for Huawei and never strangled them, because Zhiyun Microelectronics also needs foundry orders from Huawei.

Although Zhiyun Group's own chip shipments can support the survival of Zhiyun Microelectronics, it would be better if more manufacturers supported it.

Zhiyun Microelectronics' huge semiconductor production capacity requires orders from other semiconductor design manufacturers.

Besides, if other manufacturers develop SOC, they can earn part of the manufacturing fee, and then earn another part from the communication baseband, so the final profit will not be much less.

The most important thing is that Xu Shenxue has full confidence in the chip design department of Zhiyun Semiconductor under his command... As the world's top semiconductor design company, if it cannot compete with other manufacturers who have just started out, then it deserves to not be able to sell its chips.

When the heads of several other manufacturers saw Xu Shenxue, they agreed immediately. Many of them also came to join in the fun and said that they would also start a chip project in the future.

Even the people from Rice smiled and said: In this case, let’s try to make chips. If we can’t make high-end ones, we can make low-end ones to see if chip design is really that difficult!

Xu Shenxue naturally said that you are welcome to come to me for OEM when the time comes!

Having said that, Xu Shenxue knows that these manufacturers who want to make chips have little chance of success.

In the domestic semiconductor design industry, especially in the design of top-level SOC chips with advanced technology, apart from Zhiyun Group itself, only HiSilicon, a subsidiary of Huawei, can come up with such a product.

It is extremely difficult for other companies without much technical reserves to switch to SOC!
It is not easy to form a chip design team. It requires a lot of money to train. Not to mention the huge expenses of the design team. Once the chip is designed, we have to see if it works. If we want to try it, we have to tape it out!

However, tape-out is very expensive. Now the cost of a tape-out with an equivalent 7-nanometer process is about 30 to 40 million US dollars.

Even for Zhiyun Semiconductor, it is normal for tape-out failures to occur several times when developing a new generation of S-series chips...

It is almost impossible for these newcomers to succeed in taping out advanced chips at one go.

After several failed tape-outs and hundreds of millions of dollars were spent with nothing accomplished, they realized that this thing was not going to be easy to make.

As the casual chat ended, the technology summit officially began. The heads of various companies took turns to go on stage to give speeches. When Xu Shenxue gave his speech, everyone in the audience listened to him carefully.

This time, Xu Shenxue focused his speech on various smart terminals based on artificial intelligence technology, such as artificial intelligence home appliances, artificial intelligence glasses, watches or other types of artificial intelligence terminal devices.

There is nothing much to say about mobile phones, tablets and other things. They have become very mature now, and the market has generally reached its peak. The future will be a competition in the existing market.

In Xu Shenxue's view, the future of the smart terminal field lies in various smart terminal devices based on artificial intelligence technology, including but not limited to mobile phones, watches, glasses, home appliances, etc.

As artificial intelligence gradually matures, smart terminal devices based on artificial intelligence technology will be the main trend in the future!

And these are not random words, the purpose is to promote other manufacturers to develop in these fields, so that he can sell chips...

For example, for smart wearable devices, you need chips. The LC1 chip under Zhiyun Group is a very good one.

Various smart home devices also need chips, and the W series chips are very suitable!
There are also various types of storage chips, whether it is memory or flash memory, they are the main business of Zhiyun Group.

Although Zhiyun Group also makes wearable devices and smart homes, they are all in high-end fields and the chip shipments are actually very limited.

Although Weiku Electronics is also good, its market share is limited.

Xu Shenxue hopes that more manufacturers will join in, setting off a new wave of smart wearable devices and smart homes, and quickly popularizing them in the mid- and low-end fields.

Finally, no matter what kind of smart terminal is based on artificial intelligence technology, it needs computing power chips!
APO graphics cards are the new core business of Zhiyun Group!

So, on the surface, Xu Shenxue was bragging about various artificial intelligence terminal devices of the future, but in fact he was bragging about artificial intelligence and his own various chips.

A technology summit was turned into a chip promotion meeting by Xu Shenxue.

After the technology summit, Xu Shenxue had a brief chat with the heads of these companies and politely declined the invitation to have dinner together.

He set off for Guangcheng Zhiyun Technology Park and made a brief inspection... He doesn't come to Guangcheng very often, but since he is here today, he decided to take a quick look while he still has time.

The time is not long, mainly to express a sense of presence.

So we had to leave after staying for less than half an hour.

Then the convoy began to return to Shencheng.

On the way back, Xi Wanqing felt that she didn't seem to do anything on this day's business trip. She just answered and explained some issues in the field of smart terminals to Xu Shenxue in Mr. Xu's car when she came. The rest of the time had nothing to do with her.

After a day of driving...

However, we all rode in the Sea Blue SLC, a top-level large luxury sedan, which was extremely comfortable and people would not feel too tired after a whole day in the car.

As for her contact experience with Xu Shenxue in the middle, although she was a little dazed and even had some fantasies at first, she was not a silly woman and quickly gave up this unrealistic fantasy.

Of course, this did not prevent her from admiring Xu Shenxue's spirited speech to a group of business leaders.

After returning to Shenzhen, many staff members went back to their homes. Xu Shenxue also returned home in the evening. After chatting with Lin Yaxian and the children, he had dinner, took a bath, and returned to the study.

After getting the tablet for work, I saw a report on Galaxy Life, and it was marked as an important matter.

Xu Shenxue opened the report and just read it for a few minutes when his expression became serious.

Then I read the report carefully.

"HT197 project?"

"I didn't expect that Galaxy Life actually developed something to fight aging!"

Xu Shenxue was flipping through the report, but his mind was already thinking quickly.

If anti-aging products can be developed, even if they only have a slight effect, it would be a major technological breakthrough, at least proving that the technical direction has been found.

After thinking about it, he picked up a special confidential satellite phone and called someone from Galaxy Life.

“I’ve read the report on the HT197 project, and the prospects look very good!”

"We will increase investment in the future, allocate funds, manpower, and other resources, and then we will see what happens!"

After hanging up the phone, he made a confidential satellite call to Galaxy Security, asking them to cooperate with Galaxy Life to ensure the security of key projects in the near future!
After making the arrangements, Xu Shenxue looked through the report of the HT197 project again. The more he read, the more he felt that this thing had potential.

If the technical route is really feasible, and the technology is improved in the future, I will be able to do a lot of things with this HT197 drug.

For example, exchanging some benefits with those financial groups outside...

In addition, the anti-aging drug may also be considered for commercialization in the future.

After all, anti-aging drugs are not only needed by people in the consortium, but also by ordinary people!

Once it is really launched on the market, the business prospects will be very good!
(End of this chapter)