Those Years When I Was Forced to Top the Forbes List

Chapter 147 The Chip Wars of 2004
A beautiful figure made everyone turn their heads as they left.

Chen Xuebing was feeling dizzy from the meeting, so he rubbed his eyes and turned to see a girl in a sailor uniform smiling at the entrance of the conference room.

—Not the kind of sailor outfit like the "pure and alluring cosplay set with super short sleeves".

(Don't search)
She wore a dark blue sailor uniform that slightly exposed her midriff, paired with a matching plaid skirt that reached her knees.

Dressed casually, Yang Qingyue picked up the white plastic bag in her hand and shook it.

"Spicy chicken, want some?"

Chen Xuebing stared blankly, stood up, picked up the phone on the table, and looked at it.

"It's only the 5th, why are you back already?"

Yang Qingyue: "I'm homeless now, my mom doesn't want me anymore..."

When Yang Qingyue pretends to be pitiful, her upper eyelids will show a cute downward curve.

Chen Xuebing (looking him up and down): "I don't believe it."

He usually falls for this. For example, back in school, whenever Yang Qingyue would tease him in a cheeky way, and when he was about to poke her waist, she would make this face, and he would let her off the hook.

However, Chen Xuebing is no longer the same Chen Xuebing he once was; even in this world, he has grown up.

This little bit of cuteness isn't enough to sway him.

But Yang Qingyue has grown up too.

These days, university is a true haven for love. During her month at Shenzhen University, she heard many love stories from her roommates, including but not limited to novels, movies, offline experiences, and gossip.

She's no longer that naive, straightforward young girl who's just experiencing first love.

"I didn't ask you to take me in. I'm leaving after I bring you the food. I have a classmate who wants to go to the movies with me."

She made up an excuse with her mother that Chen Xuebing wasn't very enthusiastic, walked up to him, put down the plastic bag, turned around and left, leaving behind a faint scent of Estée Lauder's "Pleasures" fragrance.

It has a light and pleasant fragrance.

When Chen Xuebing saw that she had really left, he was a little confused and called out, "Hey, hey, come back, come back."

He walked out of the conference room without looking back.

Seeing that she hadn't returned for a while, Chen Xuebing got up and followed her out, only to find Yang Qingyue whispering with Ren Ying in the large office outside.

I overheard a couple of sentences, as if they were inquiring about my recent work.

Ren Ying was honest and told her everything.

Chen Xuebing smiled, put his hands on his hips, and stood a few steps away to listen without interrupting her.

But when Ren Ying noticed him coming out and saw Chen Xuebing's strange smile, she quickly stopped talking and called out, "Chairman."

"Aren't you going to see a movie with your classmates? Aren't you in a hurry?"

Chen Xuebing made a joke.

Yang Qingyue knew Chen Xuebing was behind her, but she didn't turn around to look at him. Instead, she turned her head away and said, "Hmph, I'll be leaving soon."

Chen Xuebing then stepped forward and coaxed with a smile, "I just didn't want you to go through all that trouble. Why come to work when you should be resting at home during the holidays? You can come and go whenever you want in Shenzhen."

The reason for today's incident is that Yang Qingyue sent him a message on the 2nd, asking if he could come to his company for a few days during the holiday to learn something.

Chen Xuebing knew, of course, that she was coming for him.

Yang Qingyue and Xin Mengzhen both studied finance. Qidian Technology is not Changzheng Capital, and it is not related to her major. She is also a freshman. What is there for her to learn?
He was particularly busy on the 2nd, so he didn't beat around the bush with Yang Qingyue and replied that he was very busy at the company and didn't have time to spend with her, telling her to stay home and keep her mother company.

She came back early anyway.

As the old saying goes, since we're already here, we can't just put on a sour face.

Upon hearing this, Yang Qingyue's lips curled up slightly again.

"I bought this spicy chicken especially for you, from your favorite place on Nanhu Road!"

Little Yang tilted his head even further away, looking quite aggrieved.

Nanhu Road is the road outside the high school where Chen Xuebing escorted Yang Qingyue and Xin Mengzhen home.

Chen Xuebing doesn't remember when he said that the spicy chicken from that restaurant was his favorite. Even if he did say it, it wasn't the truth. His favorite spicy chicken is made by his mother, but he did drool over the aroma when he passed by that restaurant.

Like Dongpo pork, there are several versions of spicy chicken across the country.

Chongqing-style spicy chicken is marinated and then stir-fried with dried chili peppers. After that, green and red Sichuan peppercorns, ginger, and garlic are added. Once cooked, sesame seeds and chopped green onions are added before serving. It's dry and fragrant, and can be eaten as a snack.

It's very expensive.

Yang Qingyue bought the largest size bag, filling the entire bag and weighing at least several kilograms, clearly not just for him.

"Where are Ren Ying, Lu Yiwen, and Gou Hongyi?"

"They've gone out... It seems like General Manager Lu went to the investment promotion office, and General Manager Gou went to Huaqiangbei."

"Ask them when they're coming back, and tell them the imperial relief grain has arrived. Oh, and call Huang Jin along too."

The three of them are all staying in Shenzhen and probably won't be able to return to Chongqing for a long time, so it won't be easy for them to get a taste of this.

Yang Qingyue was finally happy when she heard about "disaster relief grain".

"How are we going to eat this? Do you have a microwave?"

Chen Xuebing smiled and waved his hand at the sparsely furnished office, which contained only a desk and a computer: "Isn't it obvious? You've been here once before, haven't you? Don't you know?"

"I've been here before, but there were only a few people last time."

Yang Qingyue looked around and pointed to several desks pushed together, saying, "Last time there were only... a few people over there, but now there are so many. I heard you rented all the other offices on this floor. It's only been half a month, and I don't even recognize this place anymore."

Chen Xuebing followed her finger and looked in that direction.

The entire office has been redesigned. The area by the window is the Taobao customer service workspace, and Gao Shu's desk is there too.

Gao Shu was stretching when he saw Yang Qingyue pointing at him, so he quickly withdrew his hand and lowered his head.

Chen Xuebing chuckled inwardly.

I'm not guilty at all, so why are you feeling guilty?

Yang Qingyue had been to this office before, as had Xin Mengzhen. Xin Mengzhen even stayed there for several days to sell goods. Of the people in the office at that time, Xin Mengzhen was more familiar with her.

Gao Shu is too honest. He got to know Xin Mengzhen and thought that Boss Xin was smart and beautiful. Then in mid-September, another Boss Yang came and stayed for a day. Everyone was very enthusiastic, but he was not used to it and did not talk to Yang Qingyue. He asked for leave after half an hour. Afterwards, he even complained to Chen Xuebing that he was a womanizer.

There was nothing that happened in this office that Chen Xuebing didn't know about.

He's incredibly calm now. He had already openly discussed his relationship with Yang Qingyue with Xin Mengzhen about the phone pendant incident, telling her that he knew Yang Qingyue liked him, and Xin Mengzhen didn't react much.

Xin Mengzhen appears to be emotionally stable, but she is actually very insecure. Yang Qingyue, although she has cried a few times, is actually very easy to coax.

As long as things don't go wrong in Shanghai, things shouldn't be too bad in Shenzhen. Middle-aged people have their own way of handling relationships. They may not have the energy to walk a tightrope like young scumbags, but they can wield the sword of cunning and manipulation.

While I haven't officially established relationships with either of them yet, I'll gradually desensitize them and lower their psychological threshold.

Deepen the relationship with brief enthusiasm, then use long-term busy work schedules as an excuse to become appropriately distant, thus reducing the other person's desire for control.

This is the path dependence of middle-aged people.

"You have so many employees here, why don't you buy them microwaves to heat their meals?"

Seeing that he didn't speak, Yang Qingyue asked again.

"Oh, everyone's been pretty busy lately, and there are some things we haven't had time to buy yet. By the way, I have a meeting this afternoon, so I don't have time to keep you company. Why don't you and Ren Ying go shopping and see if there's anything we need to buy, and we can buy it together, okay?"

Chen Xuebing started to use psychological manipulation on Yang Qingyue, saying he was very busy, and then took the opportunity to find her something she might be interested in.

Yang Qingyue would certainly not refuse to leave her mark on the company of someone she likes.

"Is it okay to buy a water dispenser?"

"can."

"Then... what about the refrigerator? It's so hot here, we can freeze ice water and refrigerate food." Yang Qingyue asked with great interest, letting her imagination run wild, as if she were decorating a small home.

“Sure, sure, you can buy whatever you think is suitable.” Chen Xuebing smiled indulgently. “We still need two projectors. If you have any, you can buy them too. Just sign the address and have the merchant deliver them.”

"Okay!" Yang Qingyue's delicate cheeks flushed slightly.

Ren Ying saw that Yang Qingyue looked very excited and wanted to say something.

This is not the same as New York 45.

According to the upcoming recruitment plan, the number of people in the ten offices on this floor will soon expand to about two hundred. If everyone has a workstation, it will be quite crowded. If we need to buy public household appliances, we will have to buy a lot, and we will need a place to put them and someone to manage them, which is not very economical.

But she also knew that this could not be regarded as work costs, but rather as the chairman's "living expenses".

To put it bluntly, it's the cost of picking up girls.

Chen Xuebing noticed Ren Ying's hesitation and chuckled.

"After you buy the things, have President Lu make the arrangements. Also, this floor is too noisy now. If the leader needs to meet with guests and discuss business, we need to set up a separate office. Have him arrange for someone to talk to the building management about renting two more offices upstairs as the president's offices. My office will also be arranged upstairs. Qingyue, if you have time tomorrow, go upstairs and take a look. Help me pick out a small, independent office. I'll leave the furniture purchase and arrangement to you as well."

"Really!"

Yang Qingyue's big eyes seemed to sparkle like stars.

Chen Xuebing hesitated for a moment.

"Uh... don't buy the pink one."

……

In the afternoon, Chen Xuebing quickly convened a long meeting to set the tone for all the initial collaborations and research directions in the research and development phase.

The inner screen is responsible for images and colors, and also has a touch layer. Compared to other inner screen materials and technologies, Sharp's TFT-LCD (TFT material, LCD display technology) is currently the most robust and undisputed.

Ultimately, four suppliers were proposed: Samsung, LG, JDI, and Sharp.

These four companies represent the highest level of TFT screen manufacturers currently available.

The outer screen is mainly responsible for providing protection and haptic feedback. There are currently no commercial mobile phone cases for capacitive screens, and they can only be specially customized. Special glass companies with a certain foundation in capacitive screen technology include Corning (USA), Schott (Germany), and NEG (Japan).

These three are all excellent choices, as they are all specialized glass companies with over a century of history.

Capacitive touchscreen technology has not been commercially used in mobile phones. Currently, there are only three OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) that may possess both capacitive touchscreen technology and the foundation for developing multi-touch technology. And that's just a possibility; whether it will actually work depends on further communication.

Finally, Chen Xuebing's opinion was that Samsung should be ruled out for the internal screen.

Because we may still have to use Samsung chips.

Integrated chip solutions are just starting out worldwide, and there are very few companies with SOC design experience.

MediaTek is not following the path of SoC; although it has an integrated design, it focuses on single-core processors.

Qualcomm is still a non-mainstream player in the chip industry. It has just released a custom CPU architecture called "Scorpion" but has not yet released any chip products.

Texas Instruments, the dominant player in feature phone chips, is currently partnering with Nokia and going further and further down the path of OMAP, without even having its own baseband chip.

Intel... is focused on desktop computing and hasn't yet had a chance to demonstrate their astonishing incompetence in the mobile chip field to the world.

Currently, there are only two companies developing mobile SoCs based on the Arm architecture: Broadcom and Samsung.

Broadcom, a company largely unknown to later generations, was the teacher of almost all chip companies. Its IP design capabilities were world-leading. Even Qualcomm, a giant in the industry, now receives several infringement lawyer's letters from Broadcom every year.

They are probably the only company currently capable of designing SOC chips through a combination of hardware and software design.

However, they are not currently making money in this field; there is no precedent, and the cost is unknown.

Samsung's solution is a system-on-a-chip (SoC) consisting of an ARM architecture chip and a GPU chip. Customized solutions are also priced transparently, making it more likely to reach a cooperation agreement.

The chip issue can only be negotiated with both sides simultaneously.

It takes at least a year from the customization of a chip to its production. If customization modifications are needed for their system, the supply contract must be finalized by the beginning of the year at the latest.

In addition, there is another unpleasant and speechless thing.

When everyone was discussing the cost of importing chips, Lu Weibing produced a document.

On November 1, 2004, following a complaint from the United States and after four months of consultations, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding. The country officially adjusted the value-added tax refund policy for domestically produced integrated circuit products, abolishing the "immediate refund upon collection" provision in the "Several Policies for Encouraging the Development of the Software Industry and the Integrated Circuit Industry" (Document No. 18), which officially came into effect on April 1, 2005.

The specific content of this document No. 18 is as follows: For domestic enterprises selling their own chips in China, a value-added tax of 17% will be levied, and the portion of the actual tax burden exceeding 3% will be refunded immediately.

To put it bluntly, the country wanted to attract foreign semiconductor companies to build factories in the country to produce and sell to domestic companies, and offered a 14% tax rebate. The United States refused, citing WTO rules as an excuse.

This was the first time Chen Xuebing had heard about this, and it made his blood boil.

If this advantageous policy were still in effect, he was confident that he could secure the establishment of an internationally advanced factory within two years to produce cheap and stable chips for him!
The timing and content of this chip standoff were originally intended as a major blow to SMIC's listing, but in this life, it has hit Chen Xuebing even more precisely in the face.

This incident also served as a wake-up call for him.

Even now, Americans are highly vigilant. If his mobile phone significantly captures a share of the high-end market in the United States, the US sanctions list might be released ahead of schedule.

While seizing market share, we must also mitigate any potential impacts and avoid prematurely triggering a chip war.

His previous idea of ​​leveraging overseas capital markets gradually solidified and began to take shape.

Once the private equity fund is doing well, we'll establish an overseas dollar fund.

The best opportunities are all in 2008.

……

(End of this chapter)