The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 322 Joint R&D Institution
If it is just an investment, equity swap with Xinxin Lithography Machine is undoubtedly valuable.

At least it has kept up with advanced processes. The same logic applies to Intel's investment in ASML. It spent US$41 billion to only buy 15% of the shares, which is much more expensive than New Core.

But if it is just an equity swap, Xinxin lithography machine will not be able to enter the EUV alliance led by Amerikan. The people in Washington will never allow a Chinese company to enter the EUV alliance.

If Intel fully acquires Xinxin lithography machine, Barrett will be sure to send Xinxin into the EUV R&D alliance, and even kick out ASML, so that Xinxin's technical advantages can continue in the EUV era. Barrett believes that Intel can do it.

Because ASML from the Netherlands is at best a godson, and Intel is a direct descendant. Once Xinxin's lithography machine business is acquired, he can be regarded as a biological son even though he is related by relatives.

Spending 200 billion US dollars can buy the present and future of advanced manufacturing processes, and Barrett thinks it is worth it.

Equity swap is just to buy now, and buying 200 billion now is too expensive.

Equity swaps and acquisitions are completely different logics, and Barrett is familiar with this.

Zhou Xin recalled that when Xinxin was just starting out, they had to win Intel's support. In order to win Intel's support, Xiaomi's PC chips almost didn't make any money, and most of the profits were given to Intel.

Xinxin's factories are OEMs for Intel, and their profits are 20% lower than those of TSMC, and even in the beginning, they even absorbed the losses of high-quality products.

If you fall behind, you will be beaten. As a latecomer, you will have to pay a higher price. Hitachi, Toshiba, and Fujitsu were like this when they were catching up with Intel, IBM, and Texas Instruments. The same was true when Samsung, Hynix, and Micron were catching up with Neon manufacturers. In the past, The history that happened in the DRAM field is happening again.

Zhou Xin has a feeling that in the future, Southeast Asian semiconductor manufacturers will also adopt a low-price strategy to compete for the market after entering the semiconductor field.

To be able to reach this day and have a unique bargaining chip to negotiate with Intel is a rare opportunity. This journey has not been easy.

The outside world will think that Xinxin has risen at the speed of light and has encountered almost no setbacks. Compared with Huajing and Huahong, which were established by the whole country in the past, Xinxin has not made any detours.

But only Zhou Xin knows how lucky this is. When starting out, there is no need to worry about the source of funds, and during the development process, there is no need to worry about wrong directions. The management is all top talents who have experienced the test of time.

Only Zhou Xin can do this, no one else can do this.

Therefore, he cherishes this hard-won bargaining chip: "200 billion is indeed expensive."

After Zhou Xin finished speaking, Barrett was a little surprised. Zhou Xin was an old acquaintance. He often heard this name in Silicon Valley. Although toughness was not his label, Zhou Xin's label also never included compromise. Blackness is the norm when dealing with Zhou Xin.

Now that he proposed to lower the price, the other party followed his words without hesitation, which made Barrett more vigilant.

There must be something odd about it.

Sure enough, before Barrett could think about Zhou Xin’s true purpose, Zhou Xin was already saying: “We can unconditionally sell part of the shares in Xinxin lithography machines to Intel.

free. "

Free is the most expensive, a sentence came to Barrett's mind.

"Of course this is not free without conditions, there is only one requirement, let Xinxin join EUV LLC."

EUV LLC, an EUV lithography machine research and development alliance established under the leadership of Americen's Department of Energy, the second piece: ASML joined the "Lithography Machine Alliance".It is composed of companies such as Intel, Motorola, AMD, and IBM, the three major laboratories of Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, and Lawrence Berkeley, as well as a large number of universities.

At present, only ASML has joined this alliance, and Nikon has not been able to join. Neon has established an EUV R&D alliance of its own, as mentioned earlier, called EUVA.

After Zhou Xin finished speaking, Barrett had only one thought in his mind. He vaguely guessed that the other party would make this condition, and it was as expected.

This also made Barrett marvel at Zhou Xin's foresight and maturity, and did not get carried away because the new core broke through to the 40nm process.

Instead, he thought about EUV as the next step, and was willing to transfer a large amount of benefits to Intel just to squeeze into this alliance.

Barrett shook his head repeatedly: "Newman, you think too highly of me, and you think too highly of Intel.

Let Xinxin join EUV LLC. This is not something I can decide. You need to convince Washington.

This is almost an impossible task.Although you have a green card, you are Chinese, and Xinxin is a Chinese company.Lithography machines are very sensitive, and Xinxin has proven its strength on immersion lithography machines, so they are even more sensitive.

I know you have good relationships with many people in Washington, and I believe you can find lobbyists to help you do this, but it is still difficult, almost impossible.

I don’t say that it is impossible for Chinese companies to join EUV LLC. The probability is not more than [-]% at most. "

Zhou Xin said: "ASML joined EUV LLC."

Barrett said: "This is different, it is a Dutch company, Xinxin is a Chinese company, and we all understand the difference.

And even if ASML joined EUV LLC, they also paid a huge price.

In order to join EUV LLC, ASML made a guarantee that more than 55% of the parts of their equipment need to be purchased from American Enterprises, and at the same time, they will set up a R&D center and production factory in American. "

Zhou Xin did not give Barrett time to think, and said decisively: "Xinxin can also agree."

Barrett said, "Newman, you can try it."

Barrett knew this was a hot yam, and he didn't dare to take the job, even if he was given free shares, he wouldn't dare to take it.

But Zhou Xin knew that Intel was the best middleman, and having Intel as a lobbyist was much more useful than going to Washington to find a bunch of registered professional lobbyists.

Regarding EUV, that is, the application of extreme ultraviolet light in the field of lithography machines, the dawn of it first appeared in the Neon Laboratory in the mid-80s, and Hiroo Kinoshita projected the first batch of EUV images.

This technical route was not widely recognized at the time. Hiroo Kinoshita showed his results at the 1986 Neon Applied Optics Annual Conference. Most of the audience at the time were highly skeptical and, to put it bluntly, did not support it.

Almost at the same time, Andrew Haliluk, a researcher at Amerikan's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the consortium members of EUV LLC, also demonstrated EUV at the conference and found nothing.

But compared with Hiroo Kinoshita, Andrew was quickly approached by a professor sponsored by Intel and asked him to make a white paper on EUV lithography machines. This white paper focused on the feasibility of EUV application in the field of lithography machines. Later, under the operation of Intel, Andrew received sponsorship from the Americen Department of Energy, and the EUV lithography research project led by the national level was officially launched.

Intel is the earliest sponsor of EUV LLC, and they have provided substantial funding for EUV research since 1996.

There was even Intel first and EUV LLC later.First, three major laboratories started an EUV research project under the leadership of Amerikan's Department of Energy, and then Intel came in with capital to contribute money and efforts to the project. After a year, Intel found that this thing was burning money too fast, and it was totally different to me. A company could resist, so it approached Motorola the next year.

After recruiting Motorola, EUV LLC was officially launched, followed by AMD, IBM, Infineon, Micron, etc.

Barrett was the CEO of Intel when EUV LLC was established. He said that Zhou Xingao looked at Intel because he did not want to take on this job.

Zhou Xin said: "Craig, we need to be honest. Chenming Hu is my teacher. He has taught at Berkeley all his life. He knows the history of EUV LLC very well and what role Intel played in it.

I can even make a cross-border phone call to Nancy Garcia or Gordon Yano now and ask them if there would be no EUV LLC later established without Intel's support? "

Barrett felt nervous. The two names mentioned by Zhou Xin were both key figures in the EUV LLC project. Hu Zhengming, not to mention Zhou Xin, should not know these two names.

This shouldn't be something a Chinese tycoon should know, even if the Chinese tycoon has deep connections in Silicon Valley.

Barrett said helplessly: "Newman, you know this matter is too sensitive. I am an old man who came from the McKinsey era. Although the relationship between America and China is very good now, what about the future?
Will the relationship continue to be good?If there is any trouble in the future, the risk of this matter is too high.

I am just the chairman of Intel, and Intel is not my company. If Intel is to me what Xinxin is to you, then I may agree.

Newman, you chose to sell Weibo because you didn’t want to get involved in politics. I rejected you for the same reason. "

As Barrett spoke, he was thinking in his heart. He guessed that these two names were leaked to Zhou Xin by people in Washington. On the surface, Zhou Xin was not involved in politics, but in fact, how could he not be familiar with the people in Washington at this stage? .

Zhou Xin said: “I understand your worries.

But when China and America reach that point, we don’t know how far in the future it will be. At least for the first half century, we won’t see this scene.

After you die, will anyone continue to hold on to this matter?

Moreover, Xinxin Semiconductor is willing to accept the same conditions as ASML and even transfer 40.00% of its shares to Americen Enterprises.

Our determination is greater than ASML. "

For Zhou Xin, the shares sold here are only new core lithography machines. As long as he can obtain the technology and monopolize the entire market, he doesn't care at all who owns the shares.

Because Otellini was there, Zhou Xin did not say that he could give Barrett any personal benefits. He planned to tell the other party privately that he could give him a share of Xinxing's investment in return.

You must know that there are many emerging investment projects with an annual return rate of more than 30.00%. Someone like Barrett is not qualified to be exposed to such emerging products.

Unlike Madoff's financial products, there are almost all cases of emerging investments that can be traced. Among them, the operation during the bursting of the Nasdaq bubble has been regarded as a classic case by many business schools.

Zhou Xin is not afraid that the other party will not be moved.

He wants a chance to continue competing with ASML in the EUV era.

If Intel's path doesn't work, then Zhou Xin has a second option, which is to go to Yanjing to talk to the big guys:
“Xinxin has achieved a breakthrough in the field of lithography machines, but this technological breakthrough has a time limit.

For example, the wavelength of the Xinxin lithography machine is about 153nm, and the wavelength of the lithography machine developed by Nikon is 157nm. We have a slight advantage.

But the extreme ultraviolet lithography machine they are about to launch has a wavelength of 13.5nm. After the extreme ultraviolet lithography machine is successfully developed, the gap between us will be very wide.

This is almost a generation difference. "

After Zhou Xin finished chatting with Barrett, he went to Shen Hai and asked people from Shen Hai's tz department to help him contact the superiors. Yes, with an identity like Zhou Xin's, tz was responsible for communication and liaison.

Barrett did not give Zhou Xin an accurate yes or no answer. Barrett felt as if he came to find Xinxin himself, but was turned against him.

Regardless of whether Intel agrees or not, Zhou Xin wants to lead an EUV R&D alliance belonging to China, and he needs support from above.

This support cannot be just lip service and requires concrete resources.

"What you mean is that extreme ultraviolet light is the development direction of lithography machines in the future. Neon and Amerikan have formed R&D alliances to invest in this field. China has a temporary advantage in the field of lithography machines, but this kind of The advantages are limited, and we need to form similar R&D alliances to maintain our advantages." asked the boss.

Zhou Xin said: “No, we are not maintaining our advantage, we need to catch up.

Our current technical advantages are only advantages in the current technical system.

Extreme ultraviolet light is a completely different technical route, with a large number of completely different technical components. We are 20 years behind Neon and Amerikan in this field.

And this technology is not available for purchase. "

"Then why didn't we start doing this seven years ago? Xinxin was just established at that time. You could mention it to me at that time."

Zhou Xin replied: “We hadn’t even built a photolithography machine at that time, so making such a request was as unrealistic as saying I wanted to learn to fly a plane before I even learned to walk.

And now that we are world champions in walking, we want to learn to fly an airplane. "

The boss laughed: "That's the truth, just like our 193th Five-Year Plan goal is only to develop a 130nm dry lithography machine, to conquer the [-]nm process that Xinxin has already mastered.

We also have no intention of developing the latest lithography machine technology.

But is it too late now?Or is it not necessary? "

The boss’s problem is a very real one, that is, necessity.

Because the establishment of the EUV R&D alliance requires mobilizing the power of the entire state-owned assets system, not just semiconductor companies, and the final results will be exclusively enjoyed by Xinxin.

Although Shenhai Microelectronics is developing photolithography machines and the Institute of Optoelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is also developing photolithography machines, the products of these two institutions are still too far away from commercialization.

Xinxin is the company that is truly capable of enjoying the results of the EUV R&D alliance.

(End of this chapter)