Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 502: Making robots part of the family
Early April, Shenzhen, Shenzhen base of Zhiyun Microelectronics.

Xu Shenxue once again appeared in this huge semiconductor manufacturing base.

Ding Chengjun of Zhiyun Microelectronics accompanied Xu Shenxue on the inspection and introduction.

"Our Shenzhen base is very large, with a total of six branches, each with multiple production lines to produce various logic chips with processes ranging from 45 nanometers to 7 nanometers."

"The third and fourth plants are mainly used to produce advanced processes from 28 nanometers to 45 nanometers. After several expansions, the combined production capacity of the two plants has reached 80,000 pieces per month." (The semiconductor production capacity in this article refers to the equivalent of eight-inch silicon wafers.)
"It is mainly used to produce various mature process chips and special process chips for the group or customers, and is used for various radio frequency, high voltage, embedded chips and various industrial chips. Many products in our group and Hailan Automobile use a large number of chips produced by this factory."

"The sixth plant is an eight-inch plant, which mainly produces various mature processes above 65 nanometers. The chips are mainly used in the industrial field. The production capacity is also relatively large, with a monthly output of 100,000 pieces."

"Factory No. 3 is our company's first factory to use D transistor technology. It used to produce -nanometer technology, but has now switched to -nanometer technology. It can also be used for the second-generation -nanometer process, that is, the -nanometer process. The factory's comprehensive production capacity has reached pieces per month!"

"This factory is still one of our main factories, and its production capacity is basically used for the production of various 12-nanometer process chips!"

When Xu Shenxue heard this, he nodded slightly!

He is not unfamiliar with the 3th Factory. He has visited it many times from the beginning of its construction to its production, because this factory is the first one in China to adopt 3D transistor technology. The 3D 22-nanometer process launched by the factory in its early stage is an advanced process comparable to Intel's D -nanometer process!
At that time, TSMC and Quadcore were still working on traditional 2D transistor technology and -nanometer process.

It was also from that time that Zhiyun Group began to surpass Apple and Qualcomm in the field of mobile phone SOC, and continued to lead the world for many years.

Ding Chengjun continued: "In the early days, the ninth factory produced 28 nanometer processes. Later, we carried out large-scale equipment upgrades and technological transformations and began to produce 14 nanometer processes here. At the same time, we have the ability to produce 12 nanometer processes. The factory's comprehensive monthly production capacity is 20,000 pieces!"

"The factory in front is the 803th factory. Its process node is nanometers to nanometers, with a monthly production capacity of pieces. It is also the only factory we use to produce -nanometer process chips. The S chip is produced here."

"The plant uses the most advanced HDUV-600B immersion DUV lithography machine. With the gradual transition to the -nanometer process, we will focus the plant on the manufacturing of the -nanometer process in the future!"

Finally, Ding Chengjun pointed to the new factory in front and said, "And right in front is our 300th factory, which is also our company's most technologically advanced chip manufacturing factory. It uses the world's first commercial mass-produced HEUV-B lithography machine, which can be used for the production of chips with equivalent -nanometer process and future -nanometer process... That is, the EUV lithography machine single exposure process!"

"This factory is our future main factory. It is designed to have a relatively large production capacity. We plan to build three production lines in total. Currently, the first production line has been put into mass production, which is used to produce 7-nanometer technology, with a monthly production capacity of 30,000 pieces!"

"By this autumn, the second production line will also be put into mass production, and by then the production capacity will increase by another 20,000 pieces!"

"By around February next year, our third production line will be completed and put into production, and we expect to increase the production capacity by another 10,000 pieces!"

"With the three production lines together, the combined monthly production capacity of the entire factory can reach 60,000 pieces!"

"At the same time, we are also planning the fourth production line, preparing to increase the production capacity of the entire factory to 80,000 pieces per month!"

"In this way, combined with the formal planning and the expected monthly production capacity of 70,000 pieces of the 30th plant in the Tongcheng base under construction, we will be able to reach a monthly production capacity of 150,000 7nm/5nm pieces!"

"And this does not include the production capacity of the first-generation 7-nanometer process in the 25th plant. Because the 25th plant uses DUV immersion lithography to produce equivalent 7-nanometer process, its manufacturing cost is too high and the yield is low. We will wait for the 7-nanometer production capacity of EUV lithography machines in the future. At the same time, if the external foundry market order demand is insufficient, we may gradually transfer the production capacity of the 25th plant to the 12-nanometer process!"

The 7-nanometer process capacity of the 25th plant is a special product of a special era... It is a special product of the competition between Zhiyun Group and the Apple/Qualcomm/TSMC alliance for the world's first 7-nanometer process.

Both parties spared no expense, spent a lot of money, and ignored the expensive manufacturing costs, and forced the use of NXT1980 lithography machines or HDUV-600B lithography machines, using a quadruple exposure process to manufacture chips equivalent to a seven-nanometer process!
But it is conceivable that for the same chip, the manufacturing of its core layer transistors can be done with just one exposure using an EUV lithography machine like the HEUV-300B, but with an HDUV-600B immersion lithography machine, it has to be exposed four times... a full four times!

You can tell with your toes that the yield rate is definitely not going to be very good and the production efficiency will be very low!

Now that the HEUV-300B lithography machine has appeared, Zhiyun Group has begun to use EUV lithography machines on a large scale to produce second-generation seven-nanometer process chips. Therefore, the technology of using DUV immersion lithography machines to produce seven-nanometer process chips can naturally be abandoned.

But... in the early stage, there was a surplus of the second-generation seven-nanometer process of EUV lithography machines... If the EUV seven-nanometer process is in short supply, the first-generation seven-nanometer process produced by DUV immersion lithography machines will still be retained and continued to be produced.

This period of time is estimated to take several years, at least until the 30th Tongcheng Factory is completed and can be put into mass production.

In the next few years, the 25th Factory of Tongcheng Base will continue to produce the first-generation 7-nanometer process chips, bringing huge revenue and profits to Zhiyun Group.

There are a total of six branches of various sizes mentioned above, which is the layout of Zhiyun Microelectronics in its base in Shenzhen.

The third and fourth plants are 28-45 nanometer processes, and their combined production capacity is pieces. (DUV immersion lithography machine single exposure)

The sixth plant is a mature process above 65 nanometers, with a production capacity of pieces. (DUV is a single exposure of the lithography machine)
The ninth plant uses 12-18 nanometer technology and has a production capacity of wafers. (DUV immersion lithography machine double exposure)

The 12th plant uses 18- nanometer technology and has a production capacity of wafers. (DUV immersion lithography machine double exposure)

The 10th plant is a 18- nanometer process with a production capacity of wafers. (DUV immersion lithography machine double exposure)

The 7th plant is using 5nm and future nm processes, with a current production capacity of pieces and an expected future production capacity of pieces (single exposure of EUV lithography machine).

The combined logic chip production capacity of the entire base has reached 320,000 pieces per month, and will be further expanded to 350,000 pieces per month after next year!
其中的7七纳米产能现在是三万片，预计八万片；10-18纳米工艺是十一万片；28-45纳米工艺是八万片；65纳米工艺以上是十万片。

Its huge production capacity makes this base the second largest logic chip production base in China. As for the even larger one, there is also a Zhiyun Microelectronics Tongcheng Headquarters Base, which has an even larger logic chip production capacity.

However, if we are talking about a pure semiconductor manufacturing base, then Zhiyun Microelectronics Jiangcheng Base can beat these two bases... because Zhiyun Microelectronics Jiangcheng Base is the world's largest semiconductor storage chip production base, with extremely large production capacity, and its monthly production capacity can reach more than 600,000 pieces.

Little-known fact: the largest production capacity of the global semiconductor manufacturing industry is not the commonly known logic chips such as CPUs, but various memory, flash memory and other storage chips.

Zhiyun Microelectronics has become the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer, and it actually relies on more than just logic chips.

Just talking about the production capacity of logic chips, the combined production capacity of logic chips at Zhiyun Microelectronics' various bases is about one million pieces per month. This number is actually not as much as TSMC, which has more than two million pieces... However, most of TSMC's production capacity is mature chip production capacity, which is the production capacity of investments in early years.

As for advanced chips, that is, the 7-18 process chips, Zhiyun Microelectronics' advanced logic chip production capacity is greater than that of TSMC!

At the same time, Zhiyun Microelectronics also has a very large storage chip production capacity, two million pieces per month, mainly used for the production of memory chips and flash memory chips. This is actually even more terrifying, but it has been overlooked by many people.

Adding the two together, Zhiyun Microelectronics' monthly production capacity reaches nearly three million, ahead of Sixin's more than two million and TSMC's more than two million. Its share of global semiconductor production capacity is approximately 14%, firmly sitting on the throne of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer!

Zhiyun Microelectronics not only has large production capacity and advanced technology in the field of chip lithography, but is also a top-tier player in the world in the field of packaging.

The Shenzhen base also has a very complete supporting packaging factory, especially the 5000D packaging factory used to produce APO4600 and APO3 graphics cards.

Using this 3D packaging factory, the base can produce APO4600 graphics cards as well as APO4500 graphics cards.

As for the AI6000/APO5000 graphics cards, they are currently produced at the Tongcheng base because they use the first-generation seven-nanometer process and more advanced 3D packaging technology.

Although the huge logic chip production capacity of Zhiyun Microelectronics Shenzhen Base is not as good as that of Zhiyun Microelectronics' headquarters Tongcheng Base, it is also among the top sequences in the world.

And technically, it is top-notch!
Factory No. 29 is the best proof of this!

"Factory 29 is the world's first factory to use EUV lithography to manufacture equivalent to 7-nanometer process, and we have also increased the yield rate to 88%, which has greatly reduced the manufacturing cost of 7-nanometer logic chips!" "In terms of production capacity, it is also the largest. Our planned production capacity is 80,000 pieces. According to the information we have obtained from TSMC, their first EUV lithography factory has an initial planned production capacity of only 50,000 pieces!"

Ji Chenghe, who was accompanying Xu Shenxue on the inspection, said with a smile: "With hundreds of billions of investment, how can the production capacity not be large!"

Modern chip factories are becoming more and more expensive!

In the past, it would cost several billion dollars to build a small 14-nanometer process factory.

However, after reaching the 7nm/5nm process node, the investment has increased several times. Currently, the first phase of the 29th plant has a monthly production capacity of 30,000 wafers, and the investment has exceeded more than 10 billion US dollars.

There will be the second and third phases of the project, and the investment in each phase will start from hundreds of billions of dollars.

In the past three years, Zhiyun Microelectronics has invested more than 50 billion US dollars in expanding production capacity of advanced processes!

Fifty billion dollars burned in three years!
This is modern semiconductor!
Of course, Zhiyun Microelectronics has spent so much money, and the return is huge enough... Just the OEM production of various mobile phone SOCs, various memories and flash memories, in addition to storage chips, computer CPUs and GPUs, and various computing chips, especially the AI/APO series of server GPUs, for the group is enough for Zhiyun Microelectronics to recover its huge investment and make huge profits!

In addition, Zhiyun Microelectronics also provides various chip foundry services at various process nodes to hundreds of customers at home and abroad, and these foundry businesses are pure profit for Zhiyun Microelectronics...so Zhiyun Microelectronics is also very active in external foundry business.

Moreover, the semiconductor industry has another characteristic, that is, the more advanced the technology, the more money it costs, but also the more money it makes.

Zhiyun Microelectronics' production capacity seems to be extremely large, but the advanced process nodes of 10nm to nm, plus the advanced A/B/process in the memory field and the advanced process in the flash memory field, these advanced processes contribute more than % of Zhiyun Microelectronics' revenue, and the proportion of profit is even greater.

This is also the reason why Zhiyun Microelectronics is now focusing on advanced technology and has basically given up on expanding production of mature processes above 28 nanometers.

Although mature technology can make money, and a lot of it, it is far less profitable than advanced technology!

If there are no huge profits, how can we support the huge investment in R&D and advanced process production capacity in the future?
Xu Shenxue was quite satisfied with Zhiyun Microelectronics' development plan. He didn't care what Ding Chengjun and others did. He just wanted to see the most advanced semiconductor technology.

Now it is seven nanometers, and next year or the year after will be five nanometers.

The future will be three nanometers or even two nanometers.

Because behind this, there are various computing chips represented by the AI/APO series and mobile phone SOCs represented by the S series, which all need to use these advanced technologies.

During the inspection, Xu Shenxue also saw for the first time the S300 chip produced using the second-generation seven-nanometer process, namely the EUV lithography machine HEUV-1003B.

Various performance parameters are much stronger than the S903 which uses the first-generation seven-nanometer process.

According to Ding Chengjun, the second-generation seven-nanometer process can improve performance by 30% compared to the first-generation seven-nanometer process.

If the performance is maintained, the power consumption can be reduced by 20 percent.

In terms of manufacturing cost, the second-generation 7-nanometer process is even lower than the first-generation nanometer process...

Because the second-generation nano-process uses EUV lithography equipment, it has higher production efficiency and higher yield.

When Xu Shenxue left Factory 28, he was in a good mood and praised the management of Zhiyun Microelectronics headed by Ding Chengjun.

Of course, he did not just praise people verbally, he also gave a lot of incentive shares to relevant management and technical developers.

As long as his employees achieve results, Xu Shenxue never hesitates to give them rewards!

So everyone is very happy!
Mr. Xu is well-known worldwide for his generosity with money. Not only do Chinese technical personnel want to enter Xu Shenxue's companies, but many top foreign talents are also scrambling to enter Zhiyun Group's R&D centers around the world!

After leaving the semiconductor factory, Xu Shenxue returned to the headquarters of Zhiyun Group and held a meeting on the robotics business at around 3:00 p.m.

In May of this year, which is next month, Zhiyun Group will launch a new generation of flagship intelligent robot Yun Robot X4 to the market.

Although the sales of the flagship robot, which costs more than one million yuan, have not been very good, this robot represents Zhiyun Group's highest technological achievement in the field of commercial robots.

This thing is not for sale, but for showing off, to demonstrate Zhiyun Group's strong technical strength, to show the powerful capabilities of intelligent robots, and to establish people's trust and admiration for intelligent robots.

Finally, it boosted the sales of a large number of ordinary robots priced at more than 100,000, 200,000 or 300,000 yuan!
It is a typical high-end brand building and mid- and low-end volume sales business strategy!
So even though the sales of the flagship robot are not very good, Zhiyun Group attaches great importance to it every year and the press conference is also quite grand.

And this year, Zhiyun Group plans to show more!

The world's first bionic robot!
It is not as simple as just covering the robot with a layer of silicone skin as in the past, but relies on a newly developed robot-specific anthropomorphic artificial intelligence algorithm to allow this flagship robot to imitate humans in language, body movements and expressions to a certain extent.

To put it simply, it makes robots look more like humans!
Of course, it only looks slightly similar. It is impossible to make people unable to tell the real from the fake. The technology has not reached that level yet.

Today's robots are, in essence, still weak artificial intelligence automated devices that rely on underlying artificial intelligence algorithms.

Today’s robots can do some work, but they are still far from the strong artificial intelligence robots in science fiction novels.

Moreover, Xu Shenxue felt that there was a high probability that he would never be able to see a robot with strong artificial intelligence in his lifetime.

However, even this kind of weak artificial intelligence robot is already amazing enough and can perform quite a lot of work.

At least it shouldn't be a problem to do housework, and it can also assist humans in doing some work, such as helping to tighten screws, move things, etc.

As Zhiyun robots continue to be sold globally, they have already established a preliminary foothold in home application scenarios. Next, Zhiyun Group will further strengthen its home application scenarios so that Zhiyun robots can truly enter thousands of households.

Help people with housework, tutor children with homework, help people with some simple auxiliary work, etc.

Zhiyun Group's Intelligent Machinery Division is responsible for consumer robots, industrial robots and other types of mechanical equipment based on artificial intelligence technology. The head of this department is Tao Yuanlin, senior vice president of Zhiyun Group. He reported to Xu Shenxue: "We will strive to make robots a part of the family!"

Making robots a part of the family is the grand ambition of Zhiyun Group’s Intelligent Machinery Division!
Becoming part of the family means huge sales and inventory!
Just imagine, if every family in the world buys an intelligent robot from Zhiyun Group, how huge the sales volume will be?

Just thinking about it can make people so excited that they can’t sleep!
What was the previous similar industrial product?
It's a car!
The global annual sales volume of automobiles is about 70 to 80 million units!
Zhiyun Group’s ambitions are not big. It is not pursuing annual sales of 70 or 80 million units now. But even if it is 10 million units, that is still an enormous market!
This level of market will bring in revenue of three to four hundred billion US dollars in the future, and with the increase in production and sales, the increase in hardware profits, and the increase in software revenue from existing software, its gross profit may even reach one hundred billion US dollars.

And this is just 10 million units!
What if the number is 20 million? 30 million? Wouldn't the revenue be over a trillion dollars?
Just thinking about that scene made the senior executives of Zhiyun Group extremely excited.

This is also the reason why Zhiyun Group would rather not make money or make less money in its robotics business in the past two years in order to cultivate the market.

They are planning to make a big move and aim for a trillion-dollar market in the future.

(End of this chapter)