Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 188 The Target is Five
After successfully taking over NTT, Masato Takeshita immediately took the next step.

I persuaded Senior Tarui to introduce me to professors from the information industry departments of three top universities.

"Well, let's start with East Industry."

Having made the decision, the young man did not delay and immediately called Professor Seiichi Iwai of Tokyo Institute of Technology.

A few minutes later, Masato Takeshita slowly put down the phone with some surprise.

"Hey, you're so easy to talk to?"

Professor Seiichi Iwai readily agreed to the young man's request for a visit, and even said that he could come anytime in the next few days.

There was kindness in his tone.

The young man thought about it for a while and soon figured out why.

“Is this the strength of the top bosses in the academic world?”

If Professor Yasuo Tarui's influence in the business and political circles is 2 points, then his influence in the academic world can at least reach 5 points.

His words can even determine the allocation of resources for professors in the information industry.

Even if Seiichi Iwai looks down on Xinghai Semiconductor, he has to give face to Senior Tarui.

"It seems that we need to speed up the process of giving senior the position of external director of Xinghai Group."

He doesn't want to be judged by the outside world for not knowing how to repay kindness.

Yasuo Tarui may not be interested in the position of external director, but Xinghai Group must make a statement.

After arriving at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Masato Takeshita discovered that the teaching laboratory of the information science department was very impressive.

"As expected during the heyday of Japan's semiconductor industry, even university-related disciplines can benefit from it."

The 20s was the most glorious era for Japan's semiconductor industry.

In the chip field, the CPU has just appeared, and there is no sign of the GPU yet.

Flash memory chip is just a little Camilla.

Only memory chips are the most profitable, and Japanese semiconductor companies almost monopolize this market.

Japan's NEC Corporation has surpassed American companies such as Intel and Texas Instruments to become the number one in the semiconductor industry.

Among the top ten companies in the industry, there are as many as six Japanese companies.

In addition, in the increasingly important lithography machine industry, Japan's Nikon has also successfully surpassed GCA, the leading lithography machine company in the United States.

Under strong pressure from Japanese lithography machine companies such as Nikon, GCA even fell on the brink of bankruptcy.

Of course, GCA’s failure is also related to the fact that there are too many players in this industry and the market is too small.

The current scale of the world's semiconductor industry is still relatively small, and the annual sales volume of lithography machines is only about dozens of units.

As a result, such a small industry has been squeezed into a large number of companies such as Nikon, Canon, Toshiba, and Intel.

With more people than meat, the expensive and technologically advanced GCA naturally had a hard time holding on.

Japanese semiconductor companies are developing rapidly, and universities, as part of industry-university-research cooperation, have naturally benefited from it.

It is very normal for a laboratory to be luxurious.

However, Seiichi Iwai is still a newcomer among professors.

So even if the R&D capabilities are strong, there are not many important projects.

This is also the main reason why Tarui Yasuo introduced him to Takeshita Masato.

If it were an experienced professor, he would be so busy that he would not have the time at all.

Just as Masato Takeshita was feeling deeply moved, a young man who was slightly older than him called out to him hesitantly.

"Excuse me, is this President Takeshita?"

Masato Takeshita had a vague idea of the young man's identity and answered very friendly: "Yes, I am Masato Takeshita, who are you?"

"Good afternoon, President Takeshita. I am Aso Shinji, a student of Mr. Iwai."

"Hello Mr. Aso, are you studying for a doctorate here with Professor Iwai?"

"um, yes."

"Amazing! A rising star in the field of scientific research."

"No, I don't have much talent in the field of scientific research."

After hearing the praise from Masato Takeshita, Shinji Aso couldn't help but smile bitterly. It was unknown what kind of blow he had suffered that caused him to have such an expression.

"Sorry." The young man apologized immediately, and then quickly changed the subject: "I wonder what Professor Iwai is busy with now?"

"Not busy, just some daily experiments."

"That's it."

On the way to Seiichi Iwai's office, Masato Takeshita was chatting with Shinji Aso while thinking about the scene just now.

He saw an opportunity, an opportunity to poach people.

Of course, all this must be done with Seiichi Iwai's permission.

He won't throw away the watermelon to pick up sesame seeds.

Seiichi Iwai is very young, and looks to be only about 36 or 37 years old. He was probably introduced to East Industry as a young talent.

It is precisely because of their youth that Xinghai Group was given the opportunity.

After politely introducing himself, Masato Takeshita spoke first.

"I think Professor Iwai has already known about the project we are planning to develop through Professor Tarui."

"Yes, Mr. Tarui has already introduced the project to me in detail. It's a mobile phone, right?"

"Yes, that's right. Motorola has been very successful in this field, and we in Japan don't have similar products yet. I want to be the first to try it."

At this time, Masato Takeshita was full of vigor and ambition, and was filled with the aura of daring to be the first in the world.

Iwai Seiichi's eyes were full of admiration, and he decisively agreed: "I can join the project, but I hope to gain a certain degree of leadership."

“No problem. If you can find enough developers, you can even lead the project.”

Masato Takeshita is now eager for talent and is willing to spend money to recruit people to support the project.

At worst, we can set up several independent mobile phone development project teams first, and then launch the mobile phones developed by each project team on NTT.

Then find the most suitable project team and carry out final integration.

By that time, I believe everyone will be more accepting of each other's positions.

Anyway, the initial development costs of a mobile phone are very low, so Xinghai Group is willing to invest more.

"Sure enough, he's just as smart as Tarui-senpai said. He actually wants to use the temptation of leading the project team to get me to take the initiative to help recruit talents."

Seiichi Iwai looked at Masato Takeshita and couldn't help but sigh secretly in his heart.

However, he also admitted that this move was indeed powerful.

He was moved and had the urge to find someone to cooperate with.

After leaving Tokyo Industrial University, Masato Takeshita met Professor Ohara Sawahei of the University of Tokyo and Professor Shibata Hiromori of the University of Kyoto.

Their situations are similar to that of Professor Seiichi Iwai. They are both relatively young and have fewer experimental projects in school.

After listening to Masato Takeshita's conditions, he made a similar decision.

No one wants to give up the opportunity to be the main person in charge of a project.

In addition to the cooperation with the same school, Xinghai Semiconductor also has a separate team within it.

One team is mainly composed of local Japanese talents, who were recruited by Xinghai Semiconductor through advertisements on television and newspapers.

Interestingly, when Xinghai Semiconductor first started advertising, it actually had no hope at all.

This is because the cutting-edge talent in Japan's semiconductor industry is currently monopolized by companies such as Hitachi and NEC.

But Japan is not the only country in the world.

Xinghai Semiconductor's high salaries eventually successfully attracted a large number of high-end talents returning from overseas.

They are accustomed to the corporate management systems in the United States and other places, and can't stand the high pressure of Japanese companies.

At present, Xinghai Semiconductor has a large number of returnees from well-known semiconductor companies such as Motorola and Texas Instruments.

Some of these people became members of the first development project team of the newly formed Xinghai mobile phone project.

It is amazing that Xinghai Semiconductor can recruit so many returnees.

Thanks to the strict hierarchy within Japanese semiconductor companies and American society, anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States was high at the time, even more serious than anti-China sentiment in the 21st century.

Smashing Japanese cars and beating Japanese people were common occurrences.

Influenced by this trend and the rise of Japanese semiconductors, many Japanese naturally chose to leave.

There are many similar scenes in China in the 21st century.

It can be said that the U.S. government is one of the keys to the rapid rise of Xinghai Semiconductor.

Of course, for now, only Masato Takeshita himself and a small number of Star Ocean Semiconductor employees think this is a rise.

There is no way. Xinghai Semiconductor is currently suffering from severe losses. Not to mention making money, it cannot even effectively balance its profits and losses.

In addition, venture capital is not very popular these days.

Naturally, not many people would agree that this is a rise.

As for the overseas group, it was mainly Lou Gerstner who completed the recruitment and formation.

It may not become mainstream in the future, but it will definitely be a very important R&D center for Xinghai Semiconductor.

The newly established Xinghai Mobile Department was thriving, and Masato Takeshita gradually turned his attention to Xinghai Foundry, a full-time chip foundry.

"Mr. Guo Shina, what do you think is the development direction of our Xinghai OEM?"

Gerstner quickly responded, "Chip foundry?"

“I think the first development direction is still the United States.”

"There are many small semiconductor companies in the United States, and only they will become our main customers."

The full industrial chain model is popular among large semiconductor companies.

Whether it is Intel, AMD, Texas Instruments in the United States, or Fujitsu, Toshiba, and Mitsubishi in Japan, they all have their own wafer factories.

Even if they find a foundry, they will only give the lowest-end chip orders that don't make much money to others.

If you want to make money, you can only target small businesses.

They don’t have the ability to build wafer fabs, and they only work on the most high-end projects. So as long as they attract enough small business users, they can make a lot of money.

There are basically not many small semiconductor companies in Japan, but they are numerous in the United States.

This is mainly related to the size of the market and national policies.

In terms of market,

The U.S. market is large and can allow for more competition in the early stages of semiconductors.

The Japanese market is small and small semiconductor companies lack a living environment.

In terms of policy,

Japan adopts a big government model, and its semiconductor industry is basically the result of state-driven development.

Except for a few large semiconductor companies, small-scale semiconductor companies find it difficult to find enough staff.

Although there is government promotion in the United States, it is still the freely developed enterprises that occupy a dominant position.

It can be said that in terms of innovation atmosphere, the United States is far ahead of Japan.

“Yes, America is the key.”

Masato Takeshita now envies TSMC, which will not be affected by the policies.

Xinghai will face many difficulties in outsourcing in the United States.

Of course, Xinghai OEM also has killer measures.

Xinghai Foundry can choose to cooperate and invest with medium-sized semiconductor companies in the United States.

In this way, you can keep the customers in your hands.

But now, this move is not suitable to appear.

Because of the current investment in wafer fabs, medium-sized semiconductor companies can still afford it.

"anything else?"

"Uh, I can't think of one."

Masato Takeshita didn't say anything about thinking about it anymore and just expressed his thoughts directly.

"I think improving the production process is also very important."

"Improve the production process?"

Gerstner blinked, hoping the president could explain further.

"Have you noticed? The computer industry is shifting from mainframe computers to minicomputers."

"Yeah, indeed."

Lou Gerstner thought about the information he had looked up and nodded in approval.

“This is our chance to overtake others.”

Masato Takeshita began to talk incessantly, explaining his own views.

Before the 90s, the semiconductor industry was dominated by mainframe computers.

The main application areas of these mainframes are banking, insurance and other places that attach great importance to data security.

Therefore, the storage industry has very high requirements for chip quality, and the longer the service life, the better.

Why did Japan's storage industry rise rapidly in the 80s?
This is because the service life of Japanese memory chips is as long as more than 25 years and the price is not very high.

But now, the market has begun to change and the sales of minicomputers are increasing.

Minicomputers are updated and replaced very quickly, and since they are mainly used by individual users, they don’t need such good chips at all.

Not to mention it's a 25-year-old antique, even 10 years from now it will be very outdated.

As long as the chip can be used for more than 5 years, the product is considered qualified.

Chips of this quality will definitely be cheaper.

No matter how skilled the Japanese are in craftsmanship, they cannot catch up in price with chips that are more than 25 years old.

As long as the price is low, there will always be companies that choose to outsource production to Xinghai.

And as time goes by, there will be more and more.

In the past, South Korea's Samsung defeated Japan's semiconductor storage industry, and this factor of change was also very important.

"Understood. I will ask Xiaochi-san to correct the production model as soon as possible."

Lou Gerstner has always had a quick mind and immediately realized that this was indeed a very good opportunity.

Since it's hard to beat Toshiba and the like in terms of quality, the answer is to beat them in terms of price.

The minicomputer market is developing rapidly, and time is on the side of Xinghai OEM.

“I just don’t know how many years we can have the first-mover advantage.”

"Don't worry, Japanese local companies will definitely last a long time."

Japan has been producing high-quality chips and has formed path dependence.

They simply don't realize that with the minicomputer trend, quality is no longer the top priority.

In the past life, in 2000, Japan’s semiconductor storage industry suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of South Korea.

Several giants had no choice but to merge and thus established Elpida.

As a result, they still refuse to repent and still attach more importance to quality rather than speed and price.

After the company went bankrupt, the main person in charge was still there saying,
"Our company's chips are of higher quality, far exceeding Samsung's."

But high quality means nothing in the minicomputer market. Under the same data, price is the most critical factor.

No one would think that a computer would last more than 25 years.

Not to mention 25 years, only a few have been in use for more than 10 years.

"Is that so? So our future competitors are Samsung and TSMC?"

"Yes."

Under the long-term influence of Masato Takeshita, Lou Gerstner also paid more and more attention to these two companies.

I have already regarded these two companies as my main competitors.

(End of this chapter)