Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 280 New Plan
The laboratory will be responsible for the research and development of communication technology and operating systems, so the decision cannot be made hastily and requires on-site observation.

So the next morning, Masato Takeshita took a bus to Sendai City, where Tohoku University is located.

"Is this it? Not bad, it looks even more beautiful than in the videos and photos."

The young man got out of the car and looked at the beautiful tree-lined landscape in front of him, and couldn't help nodding again and again.

The environment is so good, it feels comparable to the sanatorium in Karuizawa.

“The scenery is charming and the air is very fresh.”

"The environment is so good, I feel like I can live 10 more years here."

"It's really good and very suitable for scientific research and office."

……

The technical management talents from Xinghai Semiconductor who were traveling with them also nodded in satisfaction.

They are representatives who are preparing to come to Sendai Laboratory, which is the company's Laboratory No. 5, for scientific research and office.

Only when they are satisfied can the real location be chosen.

After briefly appreciating the scenery outside, Masato Takeshita turned his head and looked at Shota Okada.

"Come on, let's go inside and take a look."

"Hi, President Takeshita, please come in."

Shota Okada is the representative of the laboratory transaction and the head of Industrial Bank in Sendai.

After the collapse of the Japanese real estate market, land prices plummeted, and a large number of people who speculated in land with leverage went bankrupt and owed a lot of debts.

This laboratory was originally a newly built research institute of a company, but the boss of the company became obsessed with the stock and property markets.

After the crisis, the entire company was insolvent, and the laboratory built with loans was forcibly taken back by Industrial Bank.

Therefore, the bank that does business with young people will become Industrial Bank.

Speaking of which, after the bubble burst, Industrial Bank and China Changxin Bank should be the two banks that suffered the most losses.

Before the bubble burst, Industrial Bank was either the number one or number two bank in Japan, and was the world's largest bank for a long time.

However, after the bubble burst, its scale plummeted, and at times it could not even make it into the top ten in Japan.

As for Changxin Bank, the outcome will be even bleaker.

A giant that was once among the top ten in the Fortune 500 at its peak has now fallen to the point of needing bankruptcy and restructuring.

"This is the reception hall. The entire hall is built with the finest marble."

“This is the lounge, with plenty of air conditioning and floor heating.”

"This is the conference room. It can hold meetings with up to 2000 people."

……

Although Shota Okada is not a professional real estate salesman, in order to recover the company's losses, he has memorized every aspect of the laboratory.

Along the way, he followed closely beside Takeshita Masato, and basically talked about whatever the young man looked at.

Have it at your fingertips!

After a rough walk, Masato Takeshita looked at Taichi Ishidate, the 40 core technical representatives selected.

"Shi Lisang, what do you think?"

“Very good, nice environment, spacious room.”

"Yeah, that's it."

The young man smiled and then looked at the management representative, Daishi Ogihara.

"What do you think?"

"I like it here very much. If possible, I would like to work here."

"OK, got it."

Since everyone thought it was good, Masato Takeshita chose this place directly.

"Let's go, Okada-san. Someone will negotiate with you tomorrow."

"Hi, thank you very much, President Takeshita, for your help to our company."

After determining the location of the laboratory, the young man did not continue to get involved. The rest were just details that did not require him to pay too much attention.

Sendai is not too far from Hitachi City. After thinking about it, the young man decided to stop by and take a look.

"Sakai, go to Xinghai to do the work."

"Yes."

Because there was no prior notice, Atsushi Koike was not able to receive him immediately.

"Sorry, I'm late."

Junyi Koike rushed back and immediately apologized to the young man.

"No, we are the ones who should apologize. I hope my sudden visit did not disturb your work."

"Fortunately, I'm done."

Today, Junyoshi Koike mainly played golf with the leaders of Tohoku University to enhance their mutual interests.

But now that the president is here, everything naturally takes priority.

"Ah That's good."

The young man nodded, then asked solemnly.

"What is the progress of our fifth lithography plant?"

“We are still working on the most basic part and it will take until next year to be completed.”

Chip manufacturing attaches great importance to environmental factors. Even a little bit of moisture in the air is not acceptable, so the requirements for construction are very high.

With high requirements, the construction period will naturally be longer.

"No rush, as long as it can be completed in 93."

In 1993, Microsoft will release a revised new version of the operating system, and the market demand for chips will reach a new level.

If the new factory could be put into production in 93, we would have the opportunity to win a large number of orders.

"Please rest assured, President. It is more than enough."

Atsushi Koike has already overseen the construction of three wafer fabs and is very familiar with the construction schedule.

Although the new wafer factory is the company's first 8-inch wafer factory and the construction of the factory is more complicated, the difficulty is not much more than that of a 6-inch wafer factory.

There are still nearly 2 years left to complete the project, so there is plenty of time.

"Of course I trust what Xiaochi-san does."

The young man naturally praised his general and then gave an order casually.

"Xinghai Foundry needs to maintain the momentum of building a wafer fab every six months. In the second half of this year, it needs to build another 8-inch wafer fab."

"One every six months?"

Koike Junyi was shocked. He didn't expect that the president had such ambitions.

"Yes, at least one wafer fab every six months until the number of wafer fabs reaches 10."

The global demand for chips is growing, and 10 wafer fabs may not be enough in the future.

By then, Xinghai OEM will expand further.

The company's goal is to always maintain its number one position in the foundry field and win 50% of the world's foundry orders.

"Hey, I see."

Atsushi Koike was very excited that the company could expand again.

"Also, the factories cannot be too concentrated. They need to be dispersed throughout Japan to avoid any unexpected situation that would wipe out the company."

When Nokia mobile phones were rising, Sweden's Ericsson mobile phones were also a tough competitor in the beginning.

As a result, one day, a fire suddenly broke out at Philips' wafer factory in Europe.

Ericsson was in trouble at this time.

Since Ericsson relies on this foundry for all the chips it needs, it has been facing chip shortages for several months. Its share of mobile phones in the global market has been declining.

Nokia is fine.

Because Nokia pursued a supplier diversification route, it found a new partner to meet its own production requirements within three days.

In the end, almost all of the mobile phone market share lost by Ericsson was eaten up by Nokia.

It can be said that not putting all your eggs in one basket will never go out of style. "Please rest assured, President, the company has always considered this aspect."

Japan suffers from frequent geological disasters. Even if Masato Takeshita wants to build the wafer factories together, Atsushi Koike will firmly oppose it.

Doing this is no different from committing suicide, it's just a matter of one being faster and the other being slower.

"Also, the company should consider establishing joint ventures overseas. The more big partners we have overseas, the more markets we can have."

China, the United States, and Europe are all great places.

The investment in an 8-inch wafer fab easily exceeds US$10 billion.

Such a large scale cannot be easily handled by a medium chip attack speed.

At this time, if Xinghai OEM is willing to establish a joint venture to build a factory, it can easily attract enough medium-sized customers.

This was UMC's secret weapon, which almost dethroned TSMC.

Unfortunately, faced with more advanced copper process technology, UMC took the "capitulation path".

In the end, TSMC, which chose the path of "self-reliance", was left further and further behind, until its taillights could no longer be seen.

"Cooperate with overseas companies to build factories?"

Koike Junyi frowned and said hesitantly, "Will this cause the company's decision-making to be dispersed and affect the company's development?"

The entry of outsiders will inevitably affect the development of the company.

The five semiconductor companies in China are already annoying enough. If there are a few more, he feels his head will explode and it will seriously affect the company's development direction.

"We can set up a separate subsidiary, so there won't be much impact."

Masato Takeshita easily gave a solution and then warned again.

"But we must note that the joint venture must be controlled by us, which means our stake cannot be less than 51%."

When it comes to wafer production, Xinghai Foundry is the only one that is professional. We cannot cooperate just for the sake of cooperation, we must take control of the company.

"Understood. I'll think it over carefully."

After talking about the wafer factory, the young man took the initiative to talk about chip packaging and testing.

"The company currently does not have a chip packaging and testing plant and needs to invest in two in Japan."

“One in the Tokyo area and one in Niigata.”

Niigata was Kakuei Tanaka's constituency, and building a packaging plant in Niigata was a gift he brought to the former prime minister.

This way, when the two sides meet formally in a few days, there will be more topics to discuss.

"Hi!"

In fact, Masato Takeshita would like to invest in a chip packaging and testing factory in China.

Because the technical capabilities of chip packaging and testing are relatively low, salary issues need to be considered more.

Therefore, in the future, the global chip packaging and testing business will be almost divided among China, South Korea and Taiwan.

Japan does not have the ability to make money in this area.

But China is still confused at the moment, and it is not the time to invest in building factories.

Next year, wait until next year.

He will not only build a chip packaging factory in China, but also learn from Motorola to build an 8-inch wafer factory.

The location is in Shencheng, where Xinghai Group has invested the most.

While enhancing the company's influence in Shanghai, it avoids direct competition with Motorola.

After inspecting the wafer factory in Hitachi City, the young man walked towards the cafeteria as usual.

"Boss, one serving of pork bone ramen, two pieces of daikon, a piece of fried tofu, and a bunch of meatballs..."

Masato Takeshita did not eat rice this time, but chose a combination of ramen and oden.

I haven’t had malatang for a long time, and suddenly I missed it, so I simply ordered some oden which is very similar to malatang.

After ordering, the young man turned his head and asked, "Xiao Chi-san, what are you going to eat?"

"Well, I'm going to order some fried rice and some oden as well."

"It's pretty good. It should be delicious."

The fast food was served very quickly, and within 10 minutes the two of them had found a suitable seat to sit down with their food trays.

"Hmm, it tastes even better. It seems that Xiaochi-san has put a lot of effort into this."

The young man was already familiar with the cafeteria of Hitachi Foundry, but this time, it felt very different.

"Hehe, the canteen held a new round of bidding after the New Year. The chefs' skills have improved a lot."

"That's right, but don't be too harsh. We are a factory, not a food competition."

"Don't worry, President. We have arranged for those who tasted good but were unfortunately eliminated in other places in the company."

There are a limited number of good chefs, so if you come across a good one like Junyoshi Koike, you will keep him.

"That's good."

In addition to chatting in a low voice with Junyoshi Koike, he was also quietly eavesdropping on the expressions and conversations of the employees.

The cafeteria and the toilet are the easiest places to get fresh information, and many people like to brag and chat in these two places.

One is too happy, the other is too boring.

However, in the era of mobile Internet, the role of toilets will gradually disappear.

At that time, people preferred to play with their mobile phones while squatting in the toilet rather than chatting with each other.

It's pretty good, everyone is more bragging and chatting instead of complaining about work.

As for the occasional complaints that reach his ears, that is perfectly normal.

The most terrifying thing is to have no complaints.

Because it is impossible for a company to satisfy everyone.

If every employee does not complain, it means that someone above him has absolute control over everything in the company.

If it really comes to this, the factory needs to be thoroughly rectified, all the company's management must be dismissed, and then new people must be selected immediately.

Apart from the young man himself, no one in Xinghai Group can be the emperor.

"The factory is well managed, keep it up."

The current Xinghai OEM business is already very good, so the young man didn't say anything about the pressure of continuing to work hard.

It is enough to maintain the current level.

"Hey, please rest assured, President."

After dinner, the two of them walked around to digest their food.

Masato Takeshita casually asked, "Are there any problems with the schooling of employees' children?"

"If there is bullying or something like that, we will set up our own separate school."

It was very easy for Xinghai Group to set up a school. Just by collecting tuition fees, they could easily recruit excellent teachers.

“Well, I haven’t paid attention to these things.”

Koike Junyi scratched his head in embarrassment.

His child is only 3 years old and he has never thought about these issues.

"Bullying in schools is very serious in China, and this problem must be taken seriously. I just suddenly thought of this incident, and the company has been too negligent in this regard."

After the young man prepared to return, he convened a high-level meeting to discuss the establishment of company schools for children of employees in various places.

As for places with smaller populations, we cooperate with local private schools and do our best to avoid issues such as bullying.

If you want employees to actively support the company, salary alone is not enough, humanistic care must also be provided.

If there is only salary but no passion, top employees can be easily poached.

"Forehead."

Koike Junyi was at a loss for words, so he simply changed the subject and said, "President, I will start looking for someone to investigate this tomorrow. If a case comes up, we will solve it."

"Well, make this a top priority for the company."

"Hi!"

At this moment, Koike Junyi's heart trembled, and he finally realized the seriousness of the matter.

(End of this chapter)