The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 344 you come and I go
When the financial crisis comes, a large number of semiconductor companies choose to lay off employees and choose strategic contraction. Nvidia is not the first and will not be the last.

Previously, there was the largest layoff in TSMC's history, with thousands of employees to be laid off. Later, Samsung's massive layoff plan was even more shocking.

Texas Instruments, Intel, and AMD are all shrinking their strategies. AMD, which just acquired ATI, is even facing extremely tight cash flow.

Semiconductor companies are all learning from geckos to survive by cutting off their tails.

Of course, in these precarious days, Samsung chose to expand against the trend, and it was bound to kill Elpida, the last glory of neon semiconductor manufacturing.

Samsung's layoffs are layoffs, and production expansion and price reductions are production expansion and price reductions. There is no conflict between the two.

Samsung announced a production capacity expansion plan of up to US$19 billion at the beginning of this year. As the financial crisis intensified, Samsung once again increased its investment and invested another US$20 billion.

Next year, Samsung will continue to expand production capacity.

Why Samsung has the confidence to expand production aggressively? First, because they have a relatively strong blood. With the popularity of smartphones, the consumer electronics industry has an increasing demand for memory chips; second, the Mphone 3 has just been launched. The sales of Mphone 3 have given Samsung more confidence. .

Matrix is ​​a major customer of Samsung's memory chips. The long-term cooperative relationship with Matrix gives Samsung a place to absorb its production capacity.

Xinxin does not make memory chips because this industry is a cyclical industry and there are already several fixed players on the market.

Xinxin now has more than [-] employees in its semiconductor business alone. If it wants to enter memory chips, the number of employees must at least double. They are not ready for such expansion.

For a company, blind expansion requires payment of tuition fees, and Xinxin Technology is not yet ready for this.

Under the premise of knowing the historical trend, it is naturally most cost-effective to wait for Elpida to collapse and directly buy the assets of Elpida's bankruptcy and liquidation. Even because of the financial crisis, these assets only need a very low price.

In addition, everyone is in danger of the financial crisis, and assets that would not otherwise be sold are not unnegotiable at this point in time.

Not to mention products with huge losses like Elpida, even Nikon lithography machines are not beyond negotiation.

"Our thinking was still too simple. It is difficult to choose between power consumption and performance in mobile chips. We overestimated our capabilities in chip design."

Huang has experienced many failures since he founded Nvidia, but the most dangerous one in history must be the one from 2007 to 2008.

After AMD acquired ATI, it made a big move in the field of independent graphics cards. In just one year, it occupied 40.7% of the market share of independent graphics cards. AMD's CEO even claimed that he would capture more than half of the market share by the end of 2008.

Nvidia is facing a severe test. Coupled with the sluggish overall market demand, market share is constantly being eroded, and they have to increase revenue and reduce expenditure.

Nvidia currently has about 5500 employees worldwide. This time it is expected to lay off more than 1000 people at one time. It will lay off 500 people first. If the situation does not improve, it will continue to lay off. This can be said to be the determination of a strong man to cut off his wrist.

Of course, NVIDIA is doing well, but Motorola is even more exaggerated. In the mobile business segment alone, it plans to lay off more than 4000 people at one time and close one-third of its 94 offices around the world.

Zhou Xin said: “I understand that life is difficult for all companies now. The impact of the financial crisis is spreading. It is like a bomb thrown into the water, and the ripples will spread and affect the entire water.

Have you ever considered moving the core R&D center to Zhangjiang? With the development of the chip industry in the past decade, Huaguo has become increasingly mature in terms of talent reserves.

Compared with Silicon Valley, the cost will be much lower in every aspect.

Do you know that Motorola has its chip testing and assembly department in Xiangjiang, and now it plans to lay off all Motorola branches in Xiangjiang. In order to reduce costs, Motorola plans to transfer this business to Tianjin and Kuala Lumpur. "

Motorola has a team of about 700 to 800 people in Xiangjiang, specializing in chip testing and assembly.

Of course, Motorola's layoffs also involve China. Thousands of people will be laid off at the Yanjing office. Some employees of Motorola's Yanjing branch have already gone to the company gate to hold banners in protest.

Due to the excessively high land rent in Hong Kong, most manufacturing industries cannot stay in Hong Kong, even manufacturing industries with relatively high return rates such as semiconductors.

Land rent is even more exaggerated than in the Lion City.

Huang Renxun said: "I have thought about it. We used to have three departments of R&D, marketing and sales in China, with a total of about 400 employees.

Of course, R&D is mainly about non-core functional design, which involves many difficulties. It is impossible for us to move the entire R&D department to China at once, or to use local Chinese engineers.

The second is if we try to set up an R&D team in China, is this method of cross-border cooperation suitable?

Therefore, we have never made up our mind to adjust our research and development to China.

You mentioned that we can make further attempts. "

What Zhou Xin thinks is that NVIDIA will move more of its R&D departments to China, and then use NVIDIA's branch in China as a training center, find some employees to work for a period of time, and then come out to develop domestic graphics cards.

Today's Nvidia is far less powerful than later generations. In the entire field of graphics cards, the strongest one is Intel, which occupies 62% of the market share. This includes integrated graphics. Intel dominates the integrated graphics market, followed by AMD, which occupies 22.6%. %, and the third place is Nvidia, whose market share has dropped by 5 points this year.

There are rumors on Wall Street that Nvidia was the only business that Newman misjudged. Counting interest costs, Zhou Xin has probably lost more than 20 billion on this transaction so far.

Lao Huang admires Zhou Xin for being able to succeed as quickly in the chip field as in the Internet field. Everyone is engaged in technology, and he knows very well that success is not that easy.

It has been 1993 years since he founded NVIDIA in 15. Over the years, NVIDIA has still been a pursuer in both the independent and integrated graphics fields, while Zhou Xinneng has few achievements in mobile chips, Bluetooth chips, lithography machines and other fields. If you become number one in two or three years or five or six years, it's very difficult.

It was hard for him to even think about it.

Mobile chips and Bluetooth chips are okay. They have no direct competitors and are a demand created by Zhou Xin. However, lithography machines are not. Lithography machines have a history of 60 years since the 50s. Xinxin Semiconductor can actually catch up from behind. Huang thinks this is a rare miracle.

As long as Zhou Xin knows that Nvidia will move some core R&D operations to China in the future, this will achieve his goal for him.

"Before we start the show, let us first mourn the deaths of those who died in the shooting not long ago." Bill Maher said.

Bill Maher is the host of HBO. This talk show called "Real Time Interaction with Bill Maher" is nicknamed the Puma Show by Chinese audiences.

When he hosted the show, he had gray hair, wore a suit and tie, and wore a bow tie instead of a tie. He had the style of a CNN newscast host.

Before hosting the Puma Show, Maher also hosted a program called "Politically Incorrect". As you can tell from the name, politics is the core topic.Similar to "Politically Incorrect", the Puma Show's guests are mostly professors, journalists and politicians, and they mainly discuss politics and current affairs.

Zhou Xin was also in a suit and tie, with a sad look on his face. He had no sadness in his heart. This was not because he was indifferent or felt that the Americans deserved what they deserved, but because he himself was an emotionally indifferent person.

And Zhou Xin didn't think there was anything to be happy about. He felt sorry for the people who lost their lives in this shooting. They lost their lives in this way.

"Okay, the condolences are over, let's welcome Newman with a warm round of applause, the damn guy we love and hate!" Maher smiled, but his smile gave the audience a feeling of contempt and arrogance.

Zhou Xin nodded: "Hello."

Maher said: “This is the first time that such a big-name person has appeared on our show since its inception, so my heart trembled when the director told me.

When I watched the Charlie Rose Show before, I found it incredible that the guy actually had the opportunity to interview Newman. His interview skills were obviously not as good as mine, and the topics he asked were too inoffensive.

If it were my turn, I would have been able to find a more explosive topic, and now I finally got what I wanted, and I also had the opportunity to interview Newman.

Why are you dressed so formally today?It’s different from all the shows you’ve done before.

This is the first time I see you wearing a suit. "

Zhou Xin said: “To be honest, as the founder of Matrix, I came to this show to do crisis public relations.

Because the shooting caused a lot of bad public opinion in Matrix, I hope to give some explanations. I think this is a very formal occasion and I need formal attire to express my importance. "

Sincerity is the nirvana.

Puma shows are usually recorded and broadcast, but because of Zhou Xin's request, this show was specially changed to a live broadcast.

If Wallace hadn't been too old, already 90 years old, he would have even wanted to appear on Wallace's "60 Minutes" show.

Wallace announced last year that he would no longer be participating in the show due to health reasons.

Ma He thought that he was indeed a difficult guy to deal with. In fact, he received a hint from HBO to make it as difficult as possible for Zhou Xin to step down.

As a result, Zhou Xin directly said that he was here to do crisis public relations, which suddenly disrupted the offensive routine he had prepared.

"Yes, I have seen a lot of discussion about the Matrix on the Internet and in the media. They believe that the Matrix caused the financial crisis."

Zhou Xin shook his head: "Matrix is ​​not a financial institution, it does not have such power."

Maher said: “The media’s logic is that Matrix has brought about the mobile Internet era, and mobile Internet has allowed more people to have access to Internet finance. Internet finance has further increased leverage, and the financial crisis broke out after the bubble was inflated. "

Zhou Xin asked: "Without Matrix, wouldn't there be mobile Internet?

It is the product of technological development to a certain stage. If there is no Mphone, there will be Aphone, and there will also be Bphone.

This is like the Nasdaq bubble bursting in 2000. Can the scientists who invented computers during World War II be blamed?

I think this is a crime forced on Matrix by the media. "

Maher felt that he had fallen behind: "Newman, we all know that you are the most powerful product manager in history and the richest person in the world. When you were doing NewPay, did you expect that you would be beaten by people like Madoff? exploited.”

Zhou Xin said: "No, when I was working on NewPay, I just used it as a tool. People can move books, shopping, music playback, etc. online, so why can't I move payment online?"

"Then did you expect it when you made Yu'e Bao?" Ma He realized that his previous question could not penetrate Zhou Xin's defense.

It would be too hypocritical to answer no at this time, because you have said before that you strictly control risks because you are afraid that users will not be able to identify the risks of financial products.

"Yes." Zhou Xin said, and then quickly added: "So NewPay has strictly adopted a financial product access policy.

We conduct strict risk reviews for every financial product sold through NewPay, and will clearly indicate in the product introduction what the underlying assets of the product consist of. We will update the underlying assets and NewPay internal employees every quarter. Prepare a risk review report and make the information as open and transparent as possible. "

It is their business to mess around with other electronic payment software, but NewPay has always strictly adhered to the bottom line.

At this time, the viewers watching the live broadcast in front of the TV have been convinced that NewPay is still reliable.

Ma He thought that the other party was really difficult to deal with: "Then why don't other electronic payment software adopt the same strict risk control measures?"

Zhou Xin said: "I am aware of the risks. Other electronic payment software may not be aware of the risks, or even if they are aware of the risks, they deliberately ignore them in order to attract users with high profits."

I’m talking about Baidu.

"But this is the business strategy of other companies. It is impossible for me to interfere with the business strategies of other companies. It is impossible for me to say that the risk is too great and you cannot do this."

Maher asked: "Newman, what you said is very good and almost convinced me, but aren't you Baidu's major shareholder?
I remember when Baidu went public, you made the news because you were Baidu’s largest shareholder and the biggest beneficiary of Baidu’s listing. "

After this was revealed, the viewers in front of the TV had a bad association.

Zhou Xin is confident: "You can check Baidu's public financial reports. I have withdrawn from the ranks of Baidu's major shareholders in the first quarter of 2006, and my shareholding has dropped to less than 1%.

Before the Madoff incident broke out this year, my shareholding was less than 0.5%. I am no longer Baidu’s largest shareholder.

Furthermore, I returned to China in 2003, and I have never been to Amerikan again since I returned to China. My time is very precious. I am someone who wants to retire before I turn 30. I have no idea that Baidu Pay has done this kind of thing. . "

Zhou Xin's strategy is nine points true and one point false. If you can find public information, it must be true. If you can't find it, then I will use it freely.

"But as far as I know, you and Robin are senior brothers, and you have a very good personal relationship."

(End of this chapter)