Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 313 Semiconductor Giant

As the New Year approaches, Japanese society becomes more active.

Ordinary people are busy preparing for the New Year, middle-level leaders are busy building relationships, and the upper class is busy making friends.

As the founder of Xinghai Group, Masato Takeshita also had to attend parties frequently.

"Good evening, Takeshita-san. I'm sorry to bother you by inviting me here during such a busy time."

In response to the polite words of NEC President Tadahiro Sekimoto, Masato Takeshita waved his hands repeatedly.

"No, as representatives of Japanese semiconductors, we should communicate more."

Japan is still the world's top half conductor country, but the hidden dangers are huge.

In the field of microprocessors, Intel is the only dominant company, and Japanese companies can only get some scraps.

The DRAM memory industry, which once monopolized the world, has also been surpassed by Samsung Electronics, which has been madly expanding its production capacity.

It can be said that Japan's semiconductor industry is already on the brink of a cliff.

The heads of several major Japanese semiconductor companies also noticed this, which is why this semiconductor conference was held.

This is why young people have to participate.

"Yeah, we really need to communicate more. Xinghai Electronics' growth is really enviable."

Compared with the slow growth of semiconductor giants such as NEC, Xinghai Electronics is like a clockwork bull.

The annual revenue of the semiconductor chip R&D business alone has exceeded US$15 billion this year.

Although it is still not as good as companies like NEC, everything should be compared with the past.

Last year, Xinghai Electronics' semiconductor chip industry had revenue of less than US$5 million.

Such an exaggerated increase is mostly due to the development of the mobile phone industry.

Not only its own Xinghai mobile phones, but also Nokia's Asian chip business is in the hands of Xinghai Electronics.

Other companies want to copy, either by developing popular mobile phones or finding potential stocks in the mobile phone industry.

For example, Motorola and Ericsson are very good targets.

"President Sekimoto is overpraising us. We just happened to be in a good time. Relatively speaking, Intel is growing faster."

Intel does not have the same growth rate as Xinghai Electronics, but the amount is much higher. It has surpassed the former overlord NEC and ranked first in the semiconductor chip field.

Moreover, its advantages are still expanding, and it is expected that in a few years the rest of the companies will be left far behind.

The same will be true for Xinghai Electronics.

Because at present, Xinghai Electronics only has flash memory technology that is relatively impressive, and the rest of its areas are just scraps, and it is heavily dependent on the domestic market.

The most typical example is the microprocessor project. There is currently very little demand in Asian countries except Japan.

Even with the support of the Xinghai operating system, most of them can only be sold in Japan.

"Yeah, Intel is a real enemy, eh."

Tadahiro Sekimoto also knew the problem, but during the competition for microprocessor dominance, companies such as NEC did not dare to enter the market due to the US-Japan semiconductor agreement.

It is too late to enter now, as the European and American markets are dominated by the alliance of Intel and Microsoft.

The Asian market has the Xinghai operating system and the Xinghai microprocessor alliance.

It can be said that they have no chance of gaining a foothold in this market.

Tadahiro Sekimoto began to lose interest in the personal computer business and decided to transform the company.

There is no other way. The capital scale is limited and we still need to compete fiercely with Toshiba, Fujitsu, Sony and Star Ocean.

He felt it would be difficult for his company to make a profit from selling personal computers.

It can only be said that the emergence of the bubble economy caused serious short-sightedness among the Japanese.

Originally, the company relied on large-scale investment and the integration of industry, academia and research to defeat the United States in the memory field. However, due to relatively low profits, it immediately chose to reduce the scale of investment.

In 1985 alone, investment in the semiconductor industry shrank by 40%.

Pretty scary numbers.

After talking for more than ten minutes, Tadahiro Sekimoto finally ended the topic.

"Sorry, I've gotten so talkative all of a sudden. The party is about to start, please come in, Takeshita-kun."

"Thank you. I'll go in first and not disturb Mr. Guan's busy work."

The gathering place is elegant and unique, full of Zen of oriental culture.

This is a characteristic inherent in most Japanese people. No matter how much they admire Western culture, they will eventually return to the East.

Masato Takeshita was the second company president to enter the private room. When he saw Hitachi's president, Tsutomu Kanai, sitting there leisurely listening to music, he hurriedly stepped forward respectfully.

"Good evening, President Kanai. I didn't expect you to be the first one here."

"Hello, Takeshita-kun. I told you there's no need to be so polite. We're old acquaintances."

"That won't do. Etiquette cannot be abolished."

The rapid growth of Xinghai Electronics is largely due to the efforts of Masato Takeshita and the employees of Xinghai Group, but the outside world cannot be ignored.

The advanced wafer fab sold by Hitachi to Xinghai Group can be regarded as the most important event in the early days of Xinghai Electronics.

With this wafer fab, young people can realize their various plans early.

Although Kaneimu appears distressed, he is actually very happy inside.

He took Masato Takeshita's hand and sat down, then started talking about semiconductors.

"We originally thought that we could take advantage of the boom in the personal computer industry and sell more memory chips."

"I didn't expect Samsung Electronics to emerge as an outlier. They're constantly engaging in a price war with us even at a loss. It's really frustrating."

Samsung Electronics is now the Japanese company it once was, aiming to dominate the entire semiconductor memory industry.

As for spending money, there is no need to worry because the whole of South Korea will back you up.

This was also the biggest factor in the past life, why South Korea, as an Asian country with a good economy, collapsed at the slightest touch.

Large companies borrowed money in an extremely exaggerated manner to develop their companies, almost consuming all their foreign exchange assets. Later, it became the menu of the United States, and only then did they recover.

"Yes, it is really annoying, but we have no choice but to keep investing and hold on. Samsung Electronics is expanding so recklessly that it could easily stall and go bankrupt."

Having said this, the young man added something in his heart.

“The premise is that the United States does not interfere.”

But this is impossible. Targeting the development of semiconductors in Japan was a basic national policy of the United States in the 90s.

Whether it is Samsung Electronics in South Korea or TSMC in Taiwan, they are all products of this national policy.

South Korea and Taiwan are small in scale, so even if they develop, the United States will not care and can easily dismember and split them up.

Japan is different. Its population at that time is about half of that of the United States, which seriously threatens the United States' layout in the field of science and technology.

If the international peace forces were not too powerful and the United States was not worried about its allies becoming disloyal, it would have been willing to send out its military to directly eliminate Japanese semiconductor companies.

"I really envy you. With so much funding, it's hard for our company to make a larger investment."

Hitachi has money, but as a member of the chaebol, it also has to invest in rescue loss-making companies, and it can no longer afford to spend much money. Maintaining normal research and development progress is already the limit for Hitachi.

As for going as crazy as Samsung Electronics, it is no longer an option for Hitachi.

This may also be the difference between people who go barefoot and those who wear shoes.

In the 70s, Japan's semiconductor industry was in its infancy, and everyone had very little, so it was easy to go all in. But the 90s were different. Companies like Hitachi had grown and were becoming more cautious, losing their former aggressiveness.

Insufficient support from the government is also the key reason for the decline of Japan's semiconductor industry.

In order to avoid a chain reaction in the market caused by falling real estate prices, the Japanese government has spent almost all of its funds on maintaining employment.

As for support for science and technology, it's basically all talk and no action. They just introduce various policies but no funding.

It's a complete blank check.

"If Hitachi is short of money, our Xinghai Group is still willing to invest."

"That's not the case, but funds are a bit tight."

Several major Japanese chaebols are very wary of the rapid expansion of the Xinghai Group.

If it had not been for the economic crisis and if the Xinghai Group had not entered the banking industry, perhaps several major chaebols would have joined forces to suppress it.

It can be said that Masato Takeshita has finally waited for a godsend opportunity for development.

As time went by, Toshiba President Fumio Sato, Fujitsu President Takuma Yamamoto, and Sony President Norio Ohga arrived one after another, and the party officially began.

Everyone didn't talk about business right away, but chatted first, and then enjoyed the delicious food and the beautiful women's hospitality.

When they were almost done eating, Guan Benzhongyang started eating, and the receptionist tactfully took small steps and left quickly.

The following conversation may involve company secrets and is not suitable for outsiders to be present.

"Takeshita-san, has your company decided to enter the personal computer industry?"

"No, we are just setting up a prototype for the Xinghai operating system and will not expand it on a larger scale in Japan."

Competition in Japan's personal computer market is extremely fierce, even far exceeding that in the United States, and Xinghai Group does not want to get involved.

Besides, if both software and hardware are exclusive, the sales share is bound to be low.

It may make a lot of money like the future Apple phone, but it is very unfavorable for increasing market share.

The fact that Google phones have not been able to develop in later generations is also due to this consideration.

If you are a giant mobile phone hardware manufacturer and find that open source software and operating system companies are also planning to enter the mobile phone hardware market, the end result will definitely be disunity.

In the past, Microsoft was so powerful that it finally had to succumb to the computer hardware alliance.

The only hardware R&D product that can be shown off is a mouse that is said to have cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build.

In desperation, Microsoft simply entered the gaming industry to satisfy its own layout in the hardware field.

The situation faced by Xinghai Group is even more severe than that of Microsoft, so it naturally dares not easily break the existing pattern.

However, in the future, Xinghai Computer will definitely appear in the Japanese market on a large scale.

It’s all because of the disappointment of later Japanese computer companies that they were crushed by Lenovo.

NEC computers and Fujitsu computers, which once dominated Japan by keeping IBM computers out, have become the others.

It just takes a long time to wait until the mobile Internet era to find the right opportunity.

"Oh, so that's the case. No wonder Xinghai computers are only available in a few electronics malls."

Hearing the young man say this, Tadahiro Sekimoto's eyes lit up.

Even without the Japanese version of Winter League, NEC Computer can still continue to make money.

Takuma Yamamoto of Fujitsu, who had just asked the question, was also very happy. With one less strong competitor, the company could make its plans more calmly.

As for Toshiba's Sato Fumio and Sony's Ohga Norio, it doesn't matter.

Toshiba doesn't have desktop computers, and the majority of its laptop sales are in the US. Even if the Japanese market were to be lost, it wouldn't be affected at all.

Sony mainly focuses on the entertainment field. It has personal computers, but they are not large-scale and can be abandoned at any time.

Of course, Masato Takeshita will not abandon all the hardware benefits.

For example, the microprocessor is a powerful tool for young people to control the computer hardware market.

The CPU produced by Xinghai Technology will be more suitable for the Xinghai operating system.

If you want to sell computers in Asia, Australia, and the CIS countries, you cannot do without Xinghai Technology's microprocessors.

The topic of personal computers was quickly concluded with Xinghai Group's concession.

As the host of today's gathering, Tadahiro Sekimoto began to talk about what his company was most interested in.

"We want to invest in the gaming industry, and I wonder if Takeshita-kun can help."

The speed at which Nintendo and Sega make money has obsessed all Japanese.

NEC tried to enter the gaming field as early as 1987, but never achieved much success.

Now NEC is making a comeback and is preparing to launch a new game console again.

However, due to the failure of previous products, Tadahiro Sekimoto realized that the most important thing in the gaming industry is to have sufficient software support.

The main reason why he invited everyone to the party this time was for this.

Of course, the year-on-year decline of Japan's semiconductor sector is also an issue he takes very seriously.

However, these other companies will say that there is no need for him to take the initiative to jump out.

Of course, this is also related to the most important topic today, memory chips, which Xinghai Group produces in small quantities.

If Xinghai Group also makes a large-scale layout in the memory chip industry, Tadahiro Sekimoto will definitely be the first to ask this question.

NEC was once the semiconductor giant with the largest sales of memory chips, but has now been surpassed by Samsung.

In the memory chip field, NEC is the most anxious, followed closely by Toshiba and Hitachi.

Only Sony is doing relatively well because, like Panasonic, it focuses on the consumer market.

"Sorry, we have a three-year exclusivity agreement with Nintendo."

"Oh, I'm sorry I made things difficult for you just now."

Tadahiro Sekimoto was a little disappointed. He was really coveting Street Fighter 2. If this game were released on the NEC game console, it would drive at least a million sales.

In fact, it's not just NEC. There's no other game console company that doesn't covet Street Fighter 2.

Sega tried to poach the talent many times and even offered to help pay the penalty for breach of contract.

Nintendo was also jealous and came to persuade them again and again.

Even the company's president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, communicated with Rogers several times, wanting to take over Street Fighter 2.

Although the two are very good friends, Rogers will naturally not sacrifice the interests of the company for others and keep playing Tai Chi.

But these days will soon be over.

The European and American markets are close to saturation, and the Asian and African markets are swept by pirated products from South Korea and Taiwan.

Although the game console platform has little meat, we can’t let it go like this.

Besides, the game console platform is conducive to expanding the popularity of the game.

Maybe a boss will see the booming sales of consoles and open a store selling genuine Street Fighter 2 machines.

"I should be the one apologizing for not being able to help."

Although the start was not good, Tadahiro Sekimoto quickly calmed down and talked about the communication system problem again.

(End of this chapter)