Reborn in 2010, the AI ​​in my mind is too powerful.

Paul Jacobs graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering.

He started his first business at the age of 16 by selling scooters on campus. After graduating with a doctorate in 1989, he joined Qualcomm as a technical research and development staff member.

In 2001, he spearheaded the launch of the BREW software platform and facilitated collaborations with companies such as Microsoft and Ford. In July 2005, he became Qualcomm's CEO, and on March 3, 2009, he was elected as Qualcomm's Chairman.

The main reason he was able to wield such influence at Qualcomm was his own considerable ability, with a minor secondary reason being that Qualcomm founder Irving Jacobs was his father.

In 2012, Qualcomm's business lines began to become somewhat unstable. Although its current revenue is still very high, at over 10 billion US dollars, and its net profit is also several billion US dollars, it still looks very strong.

But in reality, their most important business now is no longer chips, but patent walls and communication basebands.

Qualcomm takes a 3% to 5% royalty from each phone sold, commonly known as the Qualcomm tax, which brings in substantial profits for the company.

However, Samsung has now started developing its own LTE baseband. Given the current relationship between Samsung and Apple, it is possible that the world's first and second largest manufacturers will no longer provide Qualcomm with any profits in the future.

In the chip industry, Samsung and Apple have long been independent entities. Aurora Group didn't offer Samsung and Apple any special treatment because of the three-way alliance. Qualcomm can also use FLowEDA software to design chips, but they've always felt insecure about it.

After all, their partner TSMC is in dire straits right now, forcing them to send some orders to Samsung, which makes them feel very insecure.

Qualcomm's previous plan to invest in Xiaomi was also aimed at gaining a certain degree of influence among Chinese mobile phone manufacturers.

They want to ensure that the Chinese market can continue to use Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips.

However, Chen Yiran's sudden appearance prompted Paul Jacobs to drop everything and come to Beijing immediately.

He had to come and ensure that Qualcomm wouldn't be kicked out of Xiaomi's business.

If Qualcomm establishes its own Android branch in China, it must ensure it can join the game and prevent Samsung's Exynos from taking away all its market share.

At the wafer fab in Wanguoyuan, Qualcomm met Chen Yiran.

Paul Jacobs was surprised to find that Chen Yiran was very enthusiastic towards him, but did not mention a word about Xiaomi or Qualcomm's future, and instead took him on a tour.

First, we went to the briefing room, where Chief Technology Officer Ji Minghua and Process Director Zhao Yuanzheng gave a PPT presentation.

The 40nm production line was completed at the end of last year and started running test wafers in the first quarter of this year. The yield rate has reached 75%. The daily wafer input is 200 wafers, and the monthly production capacity is 5000 300mm wafers.

The list also included key equipment: ASML's 193nm immersion lithography machine, Applied Materials' etching and deposition equipment, and KLA's defect detection equipment.

Afterwards, through a combination of coaxing and deception, Chen Yiran took Paul Jacob to the locker room to change into a full set of cleanroom suits.

They were covered in white from head to toe, with gloves, shoe covers, a head covering, a mask, and goggles—nothing was omitted, leaving only their eyes exposed.

This was commonly known as the "rabbit suit" at Intel, and it later spread to the rest of the world. Now, the industry calls it the "rabbit suit."

Paul Jacobs is a PhD in electrical engineering and has worn the bunny suit countless times; his movements are much more skillful than Chen Yiran's.

This was actually Chen Yiran's first time visiting the interior of a wafer fab. After getting dressed, the two of them, led by Zhao Yuanzheng and Ji Minghua, entered the clean corridor.

Afterwards, we took a closer look at the photolithography area illuminated by yellow light, the etching area that kept emitting a low hum due to plasma bombardment of the wafer, the thin film deposition area, and the chemical mechanical polishing area.

Above them, there is an automated material handling system, with wafer transfer boxes floating back and forth on rails.

Next is ASML's immersion lithography machine, which is the most expensive single item on the production line and the core of the entire production line.

Finally, there was the CMP polishing station. Ji Minghua took out a batch of defect distribution diagrams for the test wafers. Several wafers were covered with bright spots, while some areas were relatively clean.

After the tour was completed, Chen Yiran asked directly in the conference room: "I can get Qualcomm to continue investing in Xiaomi, and I can even guarantee you that I will absolutely not interfere in your struggle with Samsung."

However, you'll need to outsource your future manufacturing to me. We can only do low-end products right now, so please take care of your low-end work.

This statement sounded a bit domineering, but Paul Jacobs didn't think about it for long. He realized that for Qualcomm at this point, there wasn't much to hesitate about; it was just a matter of changing a foundry.

Anyway, Wanguoyuan can only produce relatively low-end products at present. He just checked the production line and it should be fine.

After a quick mental calculation, Paul Jacobs nodded and said, "I can agree that Qualcomm will outsource the manufacturing of its low-end chips to them from now on."

Our MSM7225A and 7625A are single-core Cortex-A5 processors, ranging from 800MHz to 1GHz. We also have the Adreno 200, a mobile graphics processor that just started mass production in the first quarter, and the MSM8225 dual-core processor expected to launch in September—all 45nm.

Based on our production volume in the first half of the year, we will need at least another 100 million chips in the second half. Of course, the unit price of these chips is relatively low.

How about I just charge TSMC's price, $3000 per 40nm 12-inch silicon wafer? Of course, we need to guarantee a yield rate of at least 85%.

Chen Yiran knew that this price was definitely giving him face.

The business model of wafer fabs is to place the risk of yield rate on the customers.

Foundry services charge per wafer. A 12-inch silicon wafer with a 90% yield rate can produce 2500 chips. However, if the wafer fab's yield rate is only 70%, the number of usable chips will decrease sharply, and the yield per chip will increase.

Wanguoyuan currently cannot achieve the same yield rate of over 90% as TSMC, but he has previously confirmed that 85% is still achievable.

They are also the first wafer fab in China to truly have the capability to mass-produce 40- and 45-nanometer wafers.

All I can say is, thank you for the gifts from all sides; Chen Yiran has had a really good time poaching talent.

Chen Yiran nodded: "No problem, this price is very reasonable. Let's talk about something else. As you probably know, after I invest in Xiaomi, I will have him develop the Android branch."

In China, there are no various bundled software packages to restrain us. We need to get all companies to use our system, which requires some means.

Currently, I can influence Samsung and LG by temporarily sharing some of the profits from domestic Android app stores with them in exchange for their technical support.

Most importantly, we need to have a tacit understanding and consensus among our various parties.

Companies that don't use our system are at the very bottom of the supply chain. Whether it's various components from Samsung or LG, or chips from Qualcomm, it's not that we won't sell to them, but we'll prioritize supplying companies that use our system.

Paul Jacobs laughed: "Don't worry, as long as Samsung doesn't cause trouble, we won't either. The chips I mentioned before are basically used in Chinese budget phones. Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, and Coolpad's low-end Android phones all use our chips; they have no choice but to support us!"

"Okay, it's settled then. Call Qualcomm's legal department over, and we'll get all the contracts signed as soon as possible. We also need to get things settled with Xiaomi quickly."

By the way, when does your contract with TSMC expire? When can you sign the order?

"It will be ready soon! TSMC offended you at the trade show back then, and now none of our companies dare to completely trust them. We're afraid that you might cut off our EDA supply at any time, so we're signing contracts with TSMC every month now."

Chen Yiran patted Paul Jacob on the shoulder: "Well done! Don't worry, Aurora Group might acquire some more companies in the future. If you want, we can probably negotiate!"