The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 327 Advantages
Zhang Peng felt that he had really found the right person. After chatting for only 5 minutes, he captured the key information.

There are many future technical routes for lithography machines, and currently no one dares to judge which technical route will be feasible.

Because Neon and American have money, they can promote the research and development of multiple technology routes at the same time. American’s EUV lithography machine route led by the Department of Energy, and IBM’s X-ray lithography machine route. Neon is also promoting multiple technology routes. A technical route.

It is precisely because innovation requires a lot of resource investment. When you reach the end of a road and there is no road ahead for you, you have to go through it and explore it to find the relatively correct direction. Finding the most correct direction is an ideal situation and an extreme situation. Small probability event.

The biggest advantage of being a latecomer is that you don’t have to find the direction, you can just follow the correct route given by others.

As for Xinxin, under the leadership of Zhou Xin, it has both first-mover and late-mover advantages and is already in an invincible position.

Zhang Peng believes that this round of financing from Xinxin Lithography Machine will most likely be used for research and development. As for whether the direction of research and development is EUV, he is not sure.

Just because Chen Bo mentioned EUV, Zhang Peng paid more attention to the technical direction of EUV.

“I watched CCTV’s [-] o’clock news broadcast, and later Channel [-] even produced a documentary to promote it.

Honestly, to what extent do you think the immersion lithography machine is a technological breakthrough? "Zhang Peng asked.

Zhang Peng had a preliminary understanding of the immersion lithography machine through information obtained from the Internet and from professors. After listening to it, he felt that this thing was a breakthrough in materials. Xinxin had successfully found a suitable medium to refract light.

But he felt that it was not that simple, because if the immersion lithography machine was that simple, Intel would not pay a high price of US$200 billion to acquire it.

The underlying purpose of his asking this question is to understand how long Xinxin can maintain its technical advantage in immersion lithography machines, which determines how long Xinxin can reap its technological dividends.

Chen Bo didn't expect this level, and he didn't need to think so much. Before answering, he would simply judge whether the content was within the scope of internal confidentiality. If confidentiality was not required, he would tell Zhang Peng.

We have been roommates for five years, so we still have this bit of trust.

And even if you say something you shouldn't say, the consequences may not be serious.

The suspicious anonymous section has been filled with various revelations from Xinxin employees all year round. When Xiaomi smartphones were not yet released, Xinxin’s internal employees went to reveal the launch price. At the Xiaomi mobile phone launch conference, Yu Da The price of 1999 was split behind his mouth. When the new price of 1599 appeared, the audience was not excited at all.

Later, during Xinxin's internal investigation, we found out that an employee had been anonymously exposed for a long time, which made Big Mouth furious to death.

Xinxin wanted to investigate who made the post, and asked Sohu to cooperate in finding the anonymous respondent's information, but Sohu declined.Xinxin’s CEO is pretty much the same, but Xiaomi’s executives are not worthy enough to let us violate our principles.

The matter ultimately came to an end.

Therefore, there is a lot of internal emphasis on confidentiality, but employees really pay little attention to it.

Chen Bo said: “It’s not as easy as the outside world says.

They have been working on the immersion lithography machine for two years, and we also asked Zeiss to fully cooperate.

It's not that simple. There is a medium in the middle that can indeed shorten the wavelength of light, but at the same time, light will cause temperature changes, and temperature changes will also cause changes in the refractive index. If the temperature is uneven, photolithography will not be accurate at all.

The outside world describes this matter from a theoretical level. It sounds easy, but in fact it is not that simple.

According to the information I got, it will take at least a year for AMSL to catch up, and at least two years for Nikon. "

This is just like the photolithography factory. It's too difficult to aim at a target 100 meters away. Then I will lengthen the scope to 100 meters so that the aiming distance is only one millimeter. It's too difficult to make a 5mm ball. I just made it casually, and after making the balls, I screened out 5mm balls."

From the perspective of technical principles, photolithography factories are indeed feasible, but in terms of actual implementation, it will take at least ten years to start, and it will take another three years to enter the commercial stage.

Taking EUV as an example, it took more than 80 years from its proposal in the 2010s to commercial mass production around 20, even excluding the preliminary preparation work.

The implementation difficulty of the lithography factory is slightly lower than that of EUV, but it is definitely not the three-year verification and five-year launch promoted by the self-media. This also requires long-term investment in 10-year time units.

It is already a very optimistic estimate that the photolithography factory plan can be successfully implemented in 13 years.

After listening to this, Zhang Peng had a preliminary estimate of the lead of immersion lithography machines. It was not as short as the outside world thought, but if the advantage was only one year, Zhang Peng still couldn't figure it out.

Is the advantage of just one year worth Intel's high price of US$200 billion?
However, Zhang Peng would not ask such a sensitive question directly, because he estimated that none of his old classmates knew that Intel had offered a high price of US$200 billion to acquire Xinxin lithography machines: "I understand.

Immersion lithography machines are still relatively obvious technological progress, and catching up is not as easy as online media and suspicions say. "

Chen Bo nodded: "That's for sure."

Zhang Peng said: “We came to Shenhai personally led by the top leaders of our department this time, just to take over the IPO project of the new core lithography machine.

I hope to become the IPO sponsor of this project and take over this project single-handedly. Because I studied at Shenhai, I was selected to follow.

Yesterday, our leaders met with Mr. Guan of your company. "

Chen Bo asked: "Mr. Guan? Guan Jianying?"

Zhang Peng said: "That should be the case. He is not the only one with the surname Guan in Xinxin's senior management team."

Chen Bo said: "That's it, Guan is the earliest senior executive of Xinxinli and Boss Zhou, and he came earlier than Professor Hu.

He is now in charge of chip design and is my direct boss. I have only met him at new employee training and annual meetings, but have never dealt with him directly.

However, I heard from old colleagues in the department that Mr. Guan is a nice person. Although he has strict management, he is very considerate of the long-term development of his employees and has a good reputation. "

Zhang Peng doesn't care much about this, because he is not Guan Jianying's employee, and it has nothing to do with him. The information that deserves his attention is that Guan Jianying is Zhou Xin's confidant and the veteran of Xinxin.

"Later, when Professor Hu came, he gave up his seat to Professor Hu?" Zhang Peng asked, Professor Hu was referring to Hu Zhengming, who also gave lectures at Jiaotong University.

Zhang Peng went to listen to it, but Chen Bo didn't.

"Yes, compared with Mr. Guan, Professor Hu is definitely better. Whether it is qualifications, Boss Zhou's earliest career, or academic attainments, Professor Hu is better." Chen Bo said, "But Professor Hu and My rank is too far away and I have no specific contact.

I also just heard that he is not that "passionate" and hopes that employees can maintain a balance between work and life, unlike some middle managers who wish that the people below would work for the company 24 hours a day, except for sleeping and eating.

I said earlier that Mr. Guan cares about the long-term development of his employees, and that also means something like that. Mr. Guan is very pushy and is afraid that employees are not good enough. Of course, if your skills are good enough to make things that meet the standards, he will not force you to leave work.Mr. Guan is result-oriented, Mr. Hu is process-oriented. If you work hard and work hard, it doesn’t matter if you don’t get any results. "

Chen Bo paused for a moment and said: "I personally think this is also related to the background of the two of them.

Mr. Guan first worked in a large company, and then started a business with his friends. He will pay more attention to the ability of employees, because starting a business is a high-risk, high-yield thing. Start-up companies generally do not recruit on-campus recruitment but only social recruitment. They want to see results and employees’ contributions are worthy of the job. Benefits of remuneration.

Therefore, Mr. Guan attaches great importance to results. He made it clear during internal meetings that everyone should study more when they are not capable enough. They should also maintain a high-intensity learning state when they go home after working in the company.

Because Professor Hu has been teaching Ph.D.s in colleges and universities, he started five years after graduating from Ph.D., so there is no pressure on efficiency, and he is still more theoretical.

There will be more emphasis on maintaining a state of mind and persevering to produce some results. "

Zhang Peng nodded repeatedly after listening. These are valuable information. The outside world can only see the results of Xinxin and the resumes of the big bosses, but it is difficult to see the personality characteristics of the big bosses.

We can only get a glimpse of it through interviews and public speeches, which have little authenticity given the performative nature of these public speeches.

Take Lei Jun as an example. He is very down-to-earth when speaking in public and can mingle with consumers. He was very strict and even strict with his employees in the early stages of Xiaomi's business.

Chen Bo’s news will be closer to the real character traits, but Zhang Peng does not intend to extract this information and record it in CICC’s customer management system. This is my information asset, why should I share it with company?
This valuable information must be used to realize its value. Zhang Peng is familiar with this. Valuable information cannot be shared with superiors through public channels. This does not reflect your credit at all.

Zhang Peng said: "Yes, just like the professors of Jiaotong University, those who have studied all the way to a prestigious school are relatively less pushy. If they have climbed up to the second level, they will be more strict.

Then it also has something to do with the professor's teaching style of teaching students.

It is normal for people's experiences to determine their behavior.

Didn't I just mention that our leader went to meet Mr. Guan?Then Mr. Guan asked our leaders to value the Xinxin lithography machine business. Our leaders valued it at US$30 billion, which was much lower than Mr. Guan’s psychological price.

Our leader was probably very embarrassed at the time, and then asked us to write a report when he came back.

I just thought I could consult you by the way. You happen to be working at Xinxin, and you also learned this aspect before. "

When he heard the valuation of US$30 billion, Chen Bo was dumbfounded. Who could be fooled by such a low valuation?

“The valuation of US$30 billion is indeed too low. This valuation would have been possible a year ago.

Now Xinxin lithography machine is definitely the leader in this industry technically, and at the same time, the first-mover advantage in this industry will be particularly obvious.

Didn’t I just tell you that we are one year ahead of ASML and two years ahead of Nikon?

In fact, the technology is one year ahead. ASML's immersion lithography machine also takes time from development to production verification. We have already completed production verification.

After the production verification is passed, Xinxin's immersion lithography machine enters the production process, and then the yield rate slowly increases, and the entire system is optimized and upgraded.

For example, after ASML's immersion lithography machine came out, the yield rate was about 90%, and then slowly climbed to 95%. At that time, the yield rate of Xinxin's immersion lithography machine was already 99%.

The cost advantage alone is enough for manufacturers to continue to choose new chips, and unless ASML significantly reduces its price, it has a clear price advantage.

But they produce in the Netherlands and we produce in China. The cost determines that it is impossible for them to enter into a price war with us.

This leading advantage is definitely not as simple as one year. It is not a matter of time, but that the new core lithography machine has achieved a strategic lead.

Whether it's Nikon or ASML, if they want to catch up, they need a technical reshuffle, and it's hard to estimate how long it will take.

US$30 billion is a very exaggerated figure, and we may not earn even [-]% of this figure in our lifetime, but for a unicorn in a niche field like Xinxin Lithography Machine, it is indeed an underestimate.

However, I am not sure about the specific valuation. I think it can be estimated according to Nikon. How much Nikon's photolithography machine business is worth is how much the new core photolithography machine is worth. "

This is too specific. Nikon is now at its peak, with photolithography machines ranking first and cameras ranking second.

Zhang Peng asked: "Nikon? Okay, I generally understand."

He planned to go back and analyze Nikon's financial report. Although he remembered the market value of Nikon, he did not remember the specific composition of Nikon's market value.

Chen Bo nodded: "That's right.

The longer you stay in the Xinxin system, the more gigantic it becomes.

I see that our internal job numbers have reached over [-].

Our chip manufacturing plant in Malaysia is already under construction. I took a trip to Malaysia when I was on a business trip to the Lion City last month.

Xinxin occupies a large industrial park in the Lion City. I heard from my colleagues in the Lion City that the treatment given to Xinxin by the Lion City is unprecedented. Even if Texas Instruments or Intel invests in building a factory in the Lion City, the Lion City will not be satisfied. I have never received such good treatment.

This includes Xiaomi. Xiaomi launched its Southeast Asia strategy at the beginning of this year. I went to Lion City last month and saw many Xiaomi stores in the streets and alleys of Lion City.

It’s ridiculous to say that Xiaomi implements a strict self-operated strategy in China, but in Southeast Asia, it opens up large-scale franchises.

As long as you meet the conditions, you can join Xiaomi. I took my colleague there on a business trip, and he invested in a Xiaomi offline store.

It is said that Xiaomi has become the most well-known Chinese brand in the Lion City in just half a year. "

Zhang Peng works in the financial industry and has a better understanding of business operations: "Of course, Xiaomi's basic market is domestic, and he has no rival worthy of his attention in the field of cost-effectiveness.

He can work steadily and gradually develop his own business. Anyway, Lenovo, HP, and Dell will not make any waves, and Xiaomi is not in a hurry at all.

But abroad, especially in Southeast Asia, Xiaomi needs to expand as soon as possible, and it must share interests with local forces. "

　Today is actually only Thursday, and Crow can't believe that he has already been working for six days this week.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)