The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 211 Establishment of Xinxin (Hua Hong)

"Master Zhao, have you heard?" Xiao Zhang, who just graduated from Shenhai Second Industrial University and came to the company not long ago, said to Master Zhao with joy.

As a local state-owned enterprise in Shenhai, Huahong's 8-inch production line can be said to be one of the most advanced production lines in Huahong and even in Huaguo. Even so, the first-line engineers can only be recruited from Shenhai Second Polytechnic University.

Huahong's front-line manufacturing department also wanted to recruit people from places like Fudan University, Jiaotong University, and Tongji University, or at least from Shenhai University.The result is that Huahong can indeed recruit people from these places, but as long as they want to come to the front-line manufacturing department, graduates from these universities are not willing to come.

In the current era when academic qualifications have not depreciated, Fudan Jiaotong University graduates with corresponding majors can go to the offices of foreign semiconductor companies in China.Second-class college graduates can also stay in Hua Hong headquarters, and even doing chip design is better than going to the first-line manufacturing department.

Therefore, only Shenhai Second Polytechnic University was at the level of Huahong's first-line manufacturing department.Shenhai Second Polytechnic University had a Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering in the 80s, and a major corresponding to the integrated circuit major.Although those things taught in school are not so corresponding.

Master Zhao is more than ten years older than Xiao Zhang. He is a college student who graduated from the School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering of Jiaotong University. At the time he graduated, the School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering was also called the School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering.

Master Zhao worked in Huajing Group when he just graduated, and Huajing Group at that time was equivalent to Huahong now. In 78, Huaguo spent 2.65 million yuan to establish the largest bipolar integrated circuit production line in Wuxi at that time, with the most complete introduction of industrial chain nodes.

Master Zhao heard the excitement in Xiao Zhang's tone. He is nominally the technical director of the entire 8-inch production line, technically managing the entire front-line engineers, but to put it bluntly, he is the highest-ranking engineer.Because he is kind and easy-going, Xiao Zhang got acquainted with Master Zhao shortly after he arrived.

"Keep your voice down, in case others don't hear you? Let's find a remote place when we have lunch at noon. You can tell me what's going on."

After finishing speaking, Master Zhao looked at his nose, nose, mouth, and heart, pretending that he didn't hear anything, and continued to do the work at hand.

This is also what Xiao Zhang admires Master Zhao, because compared with last year, they didn't have so much work this year.

In the current general environment, when the machine starts up, it is to make a chip and pay for a chip, and there is no profit at all.

The dot-com bubble caused the bubble burst in the semiconductor industry to be far from over. Adding the American black swan incident, it can be said that Hua Hong's 8-inch production line will not be profitable until next year at the earliest.

And Master Zhao can pretend to be very busy even when there is no work to do. When the leader asks, he can break down a job in his hand into 10 parts to report.

After finishing the foreign work in the morning, Master Zhao and Xiao Zhang sat in a remote corner of the Huahong cafeteria, and then Master Zhao asked: "Tell me, what did you hear when you went to the group this time? Speak up!"

Because Xiao Zhang has just graduated and is a new college student, he is often sent to the headquarters to report some transactional handover work.To put it nicely is to report, to put it badly is to run errands.

Xiao Zhang lowered his voice and said: "I heard the chairman of Huahong NEC call on the phone today when I was in the toilet. I don't know who he is calling, and it mentioned whether the group wants to cooperate with Xinxin Technology.

Xinxin Technology has chip design and lithography machines. Our previous cooperation with Xinxin Technology was on lithography machines. We have been helping Xinxin Technology to test their lithography machines for a long time.

This was also a cooperation before. If the group wants to cooperate with Xinxin, there is a high probability that it will be cooperation in other fields. Do you think Xinxin Technology will give us some orders?
Hua Hong NEC can't do it, so it's our turn? "

Master Zhao asked, "How do you know it's Xia Zhongrui?"

Xia Zhongrui is the chairman of Hua Hong NEC. He used to be the director of Shenhai Integrated Circuit Office. Before the establishment of Hua Hong NEC, he was sent to Silicon Valley for investigation. .

He is also a rubber stamp in Huahong NEC now, and all the management rights are in the hands of the vice chairman and general manager Keiichi Shimakura.

Xiao Zhang said: "After I graduated and joined Huahong last year, he came to give us lectures during the training of new employees. His voice is more recognizable, so we can recognize it as soon as we hear it."

Master Zhao thought for a while and then said: "It is possible that Xinxin Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Xinxin Technology, focuses on chip design.

You know the Mphone that American sells very well now, and the ipod recently launched by Apple. The chips on these devices are all designed by Xinxin Semiconductor.

At the end of last year, Jiaotong University asked the Ministry of Science and Technology to make a breakthrough in deep submicron integrated circuit design technology. Have you heard of it?
Xinxin Technology has achieved technological breakthroughs long ago, and the designed 0.13-micron chips have been mass-produced commercially.I really don't know what Jiaotong University has to brag about, and even specially organized a celebration banquet. "

Deep submicron integrated circuits, usually 0.35-0.8 micron and below are called submicron level, 0.25 micron and below are called deep submicron level, and 0.05 micron and below are called nanoscale.

Shenhai Jiaotong University broke through the difficulty of 2000-micron integrated circuit design technology in 0.35, and conquered the 0.25-micron integrated circuit design technology.

Later, Chen Jin made a big deal of Hanxin, a 0.18-micron semiconductor chip, which was considered to be close to the international advanced technology and was touted.

Up to now, Xinxin Technology has produced large-scale commercial 0.13-micron chips. Although the positioning of Xinxin is relatively vague, Huaguo officials have not touted it.

To be more precise, I can’t find an angle to blow. Huaguo has been engaged in more than ten years to break through the 0.25-micron chip design. When others launch it directly, it is 0.13-micron, which is still a large-scale commercial version. The gap between them is too big. I didn't find a mountain top in the country.

Therefore, the technological breakthrough achieved by Xinxin Technology is not as influential as the technological breakthrough caused by Hanxin, but it was only mentioned in the news.

Xiao Zhang said: "It is not easy for Jiaotong University to handle deep sub-micron chip design. Master Zhao, you are good at everything, but sometimes you are too cynical, and you don't like this or that."

Master Zhao retorted: "It's not that I don't like everything. I think Xinxin Technology is very good. Others can design chips that amaze both Neon people and Korean people.

The chip itself is okay, and the laboratory products of Korea and Neon can also achieve a frequency of 0.13 microns and 500MHz, but it is too difficult to achieve large-scale commercialization.

Including the new core lithography machine is also very powerful, it is really too difficult to understand Nikon's technology thoroughly, and even be better than Nikon in some aspects.

Engineer Lin is the most skilled person I have ever met. He is even better than the most powerful engineer I saw when I went to Toshiba to study. "

Xiao Zhang opened his mouth slightly: "How powerful is that?"

Master Zhao has witnessed the process of semiconductor companies invested at the national level from Huajing to Huahong.

When he first joined Huajing, he was sent to Nihong to study because of his high academic qualifications.He was the youngest among a group of engineers who went to Nihong to study at that time.

At that time, they went to Toshiba. During the days of studying in Toshiba, they could only read but not memorize, and they could not take any notes. They could only memorize them with their brains.

It is precisely because of this that it is Master Zhao's turn to study at Nihong: he is highly educated and young, and his memory is at its peak.

Master Zhao said: "I don't know. Anyway, I am much better than me. I think that I am not much different from the engineer who taught me at the technical level. But I still can't see how high the level of Engineer Lin is. I just know it's very high."

Xiao Zhang said: "That's it. Almost all the experienced engineers of Xinxin Technology come from Silicon Valley. They have very high requirements for recruiting people from China. The school recruiting is relatively better. The social recruiting requires Master Zhao to enter in this way.

I have high school classmates in Xinxin, Huaguo engineers are working on marginal projects, and the chip designs you just mentioned are all done by engineers in Silicon Valley.Chip design is inherently weak in China, and it is not easy for Jiaotong University to achieve this level. "

Xiao Zhang is from Shenhai. Although he is in the Second Industrial University, he has many classmates from Jiaotong University and Fudan University.

Master Zhao originally wanted to refute a few words, as if thinking of something, he smiled and changed the topic: "It is indeed possible to design the chip and hand it over to Huahong for OEM. After all, we are currently the only one in China that can undertake large-scale production capacity. chip manufacturing companies.

But if Hua Hong NEC is not included, it is just us, and the production capacity is only 1 pieces per month.For the volume of Xinxin Semiconductor, it is far from enough. "

Xiao Zhang said: "It would be great if Xinxin Technology could acquire us."

Master Zhao seemed to have been hit by something, "Don't tell me, it's really possible.

With Zhou Xin's strategic vision and personality, he now only lacks chip manufacturing in the upstream and downstream of the entire industrial chain.

Other companies will not try IDM vertical manufacturing, but it does not mean that Zhouxin will not, and it does not mean that Xinxin Technology will not.

If Xinxin Technology wants to acquire a chip production line, then one is us and the other is Hua Hong NEC.

Compared with Hua Hong NEC, we are obviously the best choice without historical problems. "

Xiao Zhang showed an excited expression: "Is it true? Xinxin's salary is at least three times higher than ours.

Please, Boss Zhou hastened to buy us. "

Master Zhao made a silent gesture: "Hold down.

Afraid that others will not know?This is all just speculation on our part right now.

Moreover, the salary of Xinxinkai is high, and the requirements are also high.Moreover, if a state-owned enterprise becomes a private enterprise, the private enterprise does not care so much, and will fire you.

Young people should take advantage of their youth to learn more skills, so that even if Xinxin Technology comes to acquire our production line, you will still have the skills to gain a foothold. "

Xiao Zhang quickly flattered: "I still have to rely on Master Zhao, you usually take care of me more."

The matter of cooperating with Huahong is complicated and complicated, and simple and simple. After the above-mentioned speech, the progress is very fast.

After ventilation at the end of 2001, the contract was signed in March 2002.

Hua Hong packaged the latest 8-inch production line it has built and the 8-inch production line under construction into the newly established Xinxin (Hua Hong) chip manufacturing company.

Hua Hong only has the rights to dividends and supervision, but no decision-making and control rights.

The cooperation between Hua Hong and Xinxin Technology was hyped as a model for the reform of technology-based state-owned enterprises.

"Master Lin, I didn't expect that we could be colleagues." After Xinxin (Huahong) was established, Lin Benjian ran more frequently here.

He knows that since Xinxin Technology has started to do chip manufacturing business, Xinxin Technology's manufacturing business will definitely use Xinxin lithography machines in large numbers.

There is not much time left for his test-question adjustments.

Lin Benjian and Master Zhao are very familiar: "Yes, the follow-up development of Xinxin Technology still depends on our joint efforts.

I still feel that our lithography machine is not stable enough, and it still has some problems in the process of throughput.

When I asked you before, you always said no problem, no problem.

Now that we are a family, you can tell the truth.

I know that you have been using Nikon's lithography machine, and Xinxin lithography machine also bought Nikon's I Line lithography machine technology.

What is the difference between our lithography machine and Nikon's lithography machine? "

Master Zhao thought for a while and then said: "Master Lin, you are technically stronger than me, and the lithography machine also belongs to your field, and I am just a front-line worker.

I will talk about my opinion from my point of view. In fact, I always think that Nikon has gone the wrong way.

So if you buy Nikon's technology and then want to follow Nikon's road, it is a mistake.

This is just my personal opinion, and it is a perception. Nikon is the number one player in the field of lithography machines. When I say this about them, it seems that I am a little overwhelmed.

I always thought so.

Including you just asked me, originally I didn't want to talk about it, but I still want to give you some inspiration.

Whether it is Nikon or Xinxin's lithography machine, the most critical problem is that it is too pursuing the yield rate.

The yield rate is very important, but it is only one of the indicators. It is enough to reach a yield rate of more than 95%, and there is no need to pursue the limit.

Nikon’s technical route is to insist on pursuing a 100% yield rate of mature technology, which is unrealistic, and even if it is achieved, it will cause problems in many places.”

Master Zhao's words made Lin Benjian think why Neon pursues a 100% good product rate, because Neon is a conservative country, and Japanese-style enterprise management emphasizes quality first.

The corporate culture determines that they must constantly pursue the yield rate.

Sometimes technical advantages of chip technology are more important than quality.

In the early years, Neon’s Nikon and Canon were able to defeat American’s GCA and occupy the top two positions in the field of lithography machines because the technology was not as difficult as it is now.

I can take care of both ends, both of which are needed, both technological breakthroughs and quality management, and the pursuit of yield rate.

With the development of technology, technology research and development is becoming more and more difficult. For enterprises, especially technologies such as lithography machines, it is impossible to achieve both.

If you want rapid technological iteration, you will inevitably give up the yield rate.

(End of this chapter)