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

In the chip industry, many people have already assumed that Chen Yiran is the absolute hegemon, having already created a substantial technological monopoly.

When there were three EDA companies, they could check and balance each other. Now there are only two left, and the core framework belongs to Aurora Group. This means that the right to interpret the technology has been completely monopolized.

For many companies, this isn't necessarily unacceptable. The AI ​​craze brought about by Chen Yiran is clearly a major trend. They don't necessarily need to take that small piece of chicken; chicken breast, though dry, can still provide enough for the company to thrive. Therefore, most companies adopted an appeasement policy, directly flattering and pleasing Aurora from top to bottom.

However, this is unacceptable for companies like Google and Nvidia, which have higher aspirations. After TSMC was infiltrated, most shareholders directly supported Chen Yi-hou.

Google and Nvidia made a direct choice; they needed to make tough decisions. Fighting within TSMC was pointless; they needed a factory that could work with them on the same page.

Chen Yiran's involvement with TSMC is something Taiwan desperately wants to avoid. Therefore, they gained a rather special ally, whose intervention has essentially given Taiwanese capital the green light.

The man in yellow leather jacket personally went to Taiwan and desperately tried to acquire shares of UMC, one of the four major chip foundries, from many Taiwanese shareholders.

UMC is very strong; without TSMC, they would be the brightest star in Taiwan's chip industry.

They were actually Taiwan's first semiconductor company, a spin-off from the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). They built Taiwan's first 4-inch wafer production line in 1982 and became the first semiconductor company to be listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1985.

In 1995, then-chairman Robert Tsao made a bold gamble, transforming the company from an IDM (Integrated Device Manufacturer) to a pure-play foundry. It's worth noting that at the time, foundry business only accounted for 30% of UMC's total revenue.

They established joint ventures with 11 chip design companies in the United States, Canada, and other countries, forming several foundries such as Liancheng, Lianrui, and Lianjia. In 1999, they merged their five best-performing wafer fabs into one, bringing their scale close to that of TSMC.

This directly led to TSMC's need for aggressive expansion, culminating in the acquisition of World Semiconductor and Deji Semiconductor in 2000.

That was the era of Taiwan's two semiconductor giants, UMC and TSMC, who were on equal footing.

However, UMC has a bad run of luck, and it always seems to encounter some major problems.

In 1997, just two months after UMC's 8-inch fab started trial production, its output surged to more than 30,000 wafers per month. When interviewed, UMC's general manager made a bold statement that UMC would definitely defeat TSMC within two years!

Two days later, a fire caused by human negligence destroyed the brand-new factory. The $5 million investment vanished, and the $2 million in orders received were lost, with the company even facing breach of contract penalties.

Even more alarming, this directly caused them to lose production capacity during the peak of the semiconductor boom, miss the opportunity to accumulate strength, lose a large number of customers, and severely damage the company's momentum.

In 2000, they made another strategic mistake. At that time, IBM announced a new 0.13-micron copper manufacturing process and Low-K materials technology and approached TSMC and UMC to sell it. TSMC refused and chose to develop its own copper manufacturing technology.

UMC was tricked. They directly bought the technology from IBM for collaborative development, only to find that IBM's technological strengths were limited to the laboratory. In actual factory manufacturing, the yield rate was too low, and it could not meet the requirements for mass production at all.

This battle directly widened the gap between TSMC and UMC in terms of scale. From then on, UMC could no longer be compared with TSMC, and TSMC rose all the way to become the wafer foundry leader, which UMC could never catch up with.

Then in 2005, UMC received the final blow. At that time, Taiwan's top leadership directly intervened politically. The Hsinchu District Prosecutors Office directed investigators to conduct searches at nine locations, including the residence of UMC Vice Chairman Hsuan Ming-chih.

A large number of documents and accounting books were seized, and UMC Chairman Robert Tsao was also summoned for questioning.

The core issue is that UMC, through a specific network server, allowed Suzhou Hejian Technology to access UMC's database to download wafer technology. Although Suzhou Hejian Technology is a subsidiary of UMC, this matter has been tainted with political implications.

Twenty-four senior employees and engineers from UMC and Hosen were placed under long-term surveillance as key targets. Tsao Hsing-cheng resigned to avoid implicating UMC.

Ironically, Tsao Hsing-cheng is actually a complete chameleon businessman. In the 1990s, he was a very well-known pro-unification businessman who heavily invested in business ventures in Suzhou and other places.

However, after being purged, his business in mainland China suffered repeated setbacks due to various political reasons, and he eventually immigrated to Singapore. He eventually became a radical separatist, the kind who would even donate money to strengthen military defenses.

UMC's trajectory is similar. Due to previous liquidation and the failure of various plans, it has been infiltrated by the government in many ways. Although many of their shares have been bought by foreign investors, they are mainly held by Taiwanese locals. The yellow-skinned men easily acquired these shares.

Overseas, Google, through Goldman Sachs, also began acquiring shares of UMC. Finally, before Christmas, they confirmed that they held a majority stake.

Yellow Jacket wasn't satisfied. He knew that having only UMC as a bargaining chip wasn't enough. He needed a super commander, someone who could convince everyone that UMC was still a force to be reckoned with.

There was no better candidate than Morris Chang, and his relationship with Morris Chang was really good. He stayed in Taiwan for two weeks, basically chatting with Morris Chang every day and asking him to come out of retirement.

The results weren't very good. Morris Chang was getting old, and if he went to UMC, he wouldn't be able to do it without suitable people under him. But he didn't want to bring people from TSMC, since that was the company he had built from scratch.

But an unexpected thing happened. When Liu Deyin told him that he had been dismissed, Zhang Zhongmou was a little confused.

"I'm already gone, what are you doing? What good will it do to coordinate with the aurora?"

With red eyes, Liu Deyin said, "Old Zhang, I'm not reconciled! I didn't say I wouldn't cooperate with him; I just put them in the lower priority. Google's maze project is already halfway done. Just because he's a shareholder and a director doesn't mean he can be so domineering and cut in line."

We are a foundry, not their private factory owned by Aurora Group! Don't we have the right to choose freely? To be honest, I just want to teach them a lesson, to let them know that TSMC isn't something they can just mess with at will. We still have autonomy.

I didn't expect him to fire me so suddenly. "Old Zhang, come back! There are many dissatisfied people. I can immediately pull out five hundred key R&D personnel to follow me."

The man in the yellow jacket chimed in, "We at United Microelectronics can offer you better treatment."

Morris Chang remained silent, letting the two men try to persuade him for a long time before finally sighing and asking, "The Night Hawk unit is the key. They are specifically responsible for advanced process technology research and mass production, and they all have non-compete agreements. Besides, they might not be willing to leave."

Liu Deyin confidently declared, "Don't worry, with your reputation, I can easily bring over half of them, if not all of them."

The man in the yellow jacket added, "We can pretend we don't see the non-compete agreement for now and let them sue. The judge will definitely be on our side."

Morris Chang remained silent for a moment, then revealed the ruthlessness of an old-generation businessman. He looked at the man in the yellow jacket and said, "Google and Nvidia want us old guys to compete, that's fine. But the money has to be plentiful!"

Our technology will be inferior to theirs in the future. The vote at the shareholders' meeting already proved this. Even with my influence, we might not be able to poach many people. We'll have to rely on Google and Nvidia to inject capital and throw money at them!

If we're going to poach them, we have to go all the way. TSMC has 5,000 core R&D personnel, more than 2,000 of whom are PhDs. Our goal is to poach all 2,000 of them! I'll call each member of the Night Hawk team one by one.

Also, TSMC hasn't announced Liu Deyin's dismissal yet, they're saying it has to wait until after Christmas. We're not waiting any longer! Liu Deyin, you should just announce your resignation internally and that you're joining UMC. And I'll also announce my joining. Let's start digging like crazy right now!

The man in the yellow jacket felt much more at ease. As long as Morris Chang was still willing to fight, he still had the confidence to try for a few more years.

That evening, Liu Deyin directly issued a letter to all employees in TSMC's backstage area, stating that the existing shareholder group disregarded the company's interests and that he would resign to join UMC and join his former boss.

Google and Nvidia also announced that they have jointly acquired UMC, and UMC will no longer support any FlowEDA chip manufacturing business.

The major reshuffling of the chip industry officially began on Christmas Day.