The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 352
Xinxin Technology did not stop its acquisitions after acquiring ASPLA. From Americen to Europa to China, Xinxin and emerging investments frequently attacked.

From investments or acquisitions of upstream and downstream companies in the semiconductor industry chain to acquisitions of semiconductor-related technologies, Zhou Xin did not miss this rare opportunity.

Some technologies that would not have been sold originally will be sold at this point in time.

If we had not seized this moment, it would have been an impossible task for Xinxin Technology to join EUV LLC.

Although Xinxin is cooperating with Americen, it has not given up its support for the domestic EUV R&D alliance because he knows that Xinxin may be kicked out of EUV LLC at any time.

The domestic EUV R&D alliance is ostensibly hosted by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, but in fact Xinxin is also deeply involved.

Americen also knows this, and they don’t mind Xinxin’s behavior, because in their view, China’s technological level in the EUV field determines that they cannot produce anything valuable.

Instead, EUV LLC needs to rely on Xinxin. Because of Zhou Xin's memory and Xinxin's huge annual chip manufacturing output, Xinxin has accumulated a lot of experience in the field of chip manufacturing. After joining EUV LLC, Xinxin's overall research and development progress has accelerated.

Compared with ASML, Xinxin is undoubtedly a better partner. Therefore, for this purpose and its contempt for Chinese scientific research, EUV LLC did not take Xinxin's bets seriously.

What's more important is that at this point in time, two things have involved American's energy. One is the financial crisis, and the other is the general election held at the end of the year. The election has no results, and no one wants to take advantage of Zhou Xin, who has a lot of resources.

So now Zhou Xin is facing the best external environment ever.

“It was the Elephant Party’s overly loose credit policy in the past that led to the current collapse of the entire financial market.

If I become president, I will take a series of measures to make the entire market prosperous and implement stricter regulatory policies on the financial market.

To avoid further spread of the crisis by injecting capital into financial institutions or providing low-interest loans, the party acted too slowly. "Obama said in an interview.

This is what he did later. As soon as he came to power, he passed an economic stimulus package with a total amount of nearly 8000 billion US dollars.

At the same time, it gave the market confidence by injecting capital and purchasing stocks. At most, the Federal Reserve held 36% of Citibank's shares, which is an astonishing figure.

America's total government debt skyrocketed during Obama's term. When he came to power in 2009, the debt exploded to US$11 trillion.

Then in 2013, Obama and congressional Republicans reached a permanent tax cut deal, agreeing to retain the previous tax cuts in exchange for Congress agreeing to extend some economic stimulus measures.The debt scale has been raised to 16.8 trillion US dollars.

Simply put, in the eight years he was in the White House, the debt doubled to $9.3 trillion, which later became an important attack point for his rivals in 2016.

After entering September, the landmark event of Lehman Brothers bankruptcy still occurred. Neither Amerikan nor Barclays wanted to acquire Lehman Brothers, even with the government's promotion.

The Fed took over Amerikan International Group for $850 billion, which caused the price of the Fed's Reserve Junior Fund to plummet due to its holdings of Lehman Brothers securities.

The financial crisis has officially reached its climax, and opportunities are also emerging for Xinxin.

"Professor, the Sumitomo is willing to talk to us, and they finally let us know.

I have been communicating with Yuji Hirama frequently recently. He said that we can talk about the patents held by Sumitomo Chemical. He needs to communicate with the group about the specific price. "

After Xinxin acquired ASPLA, Liang Mengsong was sent to Neon as the chairman of ASPLA. One of his most important tasks after going there was to deal with Yuji Hirama.

Yuji Hirama is the vice president and director representative of Sumitomo Chemical who just took office in April this year. He is also the target specially selected by Xinxin.

Sumitomo Chemical is a giant in the field of semiconductor materials. It holds a large number of patents related to semiconductor materials and belongs to the Sumitomo Group.

For functional single crystal substrate materials such as SiC and GaN, Sumitomo is unparalleled.At this time, GaNg single crystal is mainly used in blue-violet semiconductor laser panels for DVDs. Demand has grown rapidly since 2006, and 90.00% of the supply of this material comes from Sumitomo.

Until 2020, in the GaN raw material market, three Japanese companies, including Sumitomo Chemical, Mitsubishi Chemical and Sumitomo Electric, together accounted for more than 85% of the GaN substrate market share.

For ZNO single crystal substrates, the hydrothermal method jointly developed by Sumitomo and Neon's Tohoku University has the characteristics of growing a large number of crystals at the same time, and can produce substrates that are cheaper than SiC and GaN.

Later, it was widely used in photovoltaics, touch screens and other fields. Now it is still a laboratory product. Sumitomo Chemical is also in a leading position in this field.

Including photoresist, Sumitomo is also an established giant in the field of photoresist.

Of course, Neon's strong position in the field of semiconductor materials is not limited to Sumitomo Chemical.

Mitsubishi Chemical, Fuji Chemical, Tokyo Electronics, etc. all have strong accumulation in the field of semiconductor materials. The problem is that only Sumitomo has the opportunity.

Xinxing Investment's branch in Neon began investigating this issue in 2007, and finally decided that Sumitomo was the most likely target.

Because Sumitomo Chemical is a subsidiary of Sumitomo Group, and Sumitomo Group's main businesses are insurance and real estate. During the financial crisis, in order to ensure the stability and safety of their other businesses, they may conduct transactions with Xinxin.

Although it is not expected that Sumitomo will package Sumitomo Chemical and sell it to New Chip. This is unrealistic and the Neon government will not agree, but it is still possible to just buy some technology.

This is especially true after Yuji Hirama became the vice president. Yuji Hirama, who was born in the Waseda First Faculty of Literature, is very likely to sell Sumitomo Chemical's semiconductor material-related technologies.

Hu Zhengming said on the phone: "Okay, you continue to keep in touch with him. Now that he has revealed this, Sumitomo will definitely not be able to handle it.

The price is good. If they are willing to sell the entire Sumitomo to Xinxin, we can accept a higher price. "Hu Zhengming is very angry.

The financial crisis is so serious that it has not affected the sales of Mphone3. As the core supplier of Matrix, Xinxin has also made a lot of money from the global sales of Mphone3. The most important thing is cash.

Sumitomo Chemical's photoresist technology is still very attractive.

Liang Mengsong replied on the other end of the phone: "Okay, I also want to continue to communicate with Hirama Yuji.

I guess he will make an offer during this time. "

"Mr. Liang, this is a list of technologies that Sumitomo Chemical is willing to sell. You can tick off the ones you are interested in.

We plan to package and sell it to Xinxin. "In the ASPLA office, Hirama Yuji took out a piece of paper from his briefcase and handed it to Liang Mengsong.

Liang Mengsong took a cursory glance: "It seems that some core key technologies are not here.

Things like the preparation of ITO targets and Sumitomo's latest generation photoresist technology are not included in this list.

To be honest, I wasn't very interested in this list.Because Sumitomo has not shown sincerity. "

Liang Mengsong knew that it was not New Core that was anxious. Purchasing these technologies was just the icing on the cake for New Core, and it might be a timely help for Sumitomo.

The financial crisis brought Lehman Brothers into the financial crisis. Isn’t Sumitomo Group afraid?With so many companies in Neon to be saved, it is impossible for the government to give Sumitomo an unconditional blood transfusion.

At this time, cash flow from the outside world becomes particularly important.

Xinxin can increase his net worth at will.

Yuji Hirama said helplessly: "Mr. Liang, those you mentioned are the key technologies that Sumitomo Chemical has accumulated over the past decades.

I believe that if Nikon wanted to buy the objective lens system of the immersion lithography machine of Xinxin lithography machine, Xinxin would not sell it to them. "

Liang Mengsong shook his head: "Mr. Hirama, this is one thing, but with the current financial crisis, Sumitomo needs cash flow to help you survive the crisis.

If Xinxin wants to purchase technology, Sumitomo is not our only option.

You should know very well that in the past two years, Xinxin's revenue exceeded US$200 billion and its profits were as high as US$50 billion. Only Xinxin can bring cash flow to Sumitomo.

Sumitomo itself also faces competition from Mitsubishi Chemical, Fuji Chemical, DuPont Chemical, and Applied Materials. These technologies are sold to New Core. New Core is not Sumitomo’s competitor. We mainly use them internally.

Think about it again. "Liang Mengsong is very tough.

In other words, Xinxin's rapid development and strong strength have given him the confidence, and now Sumitomo is the weak side.

Because of the hot sales of Mphone 3, Xinxin has attracted media attention. It is estimated that Xinxin's annual profit will be at least US$50 billion. After this figure was exposed, Xinxin was hailed as Intel in the field of mobile chips.

The status of the new core series of smartphone chips is like Intel's status in personal computer processors.

Coupled with Xinxin's aggressive acquisitions, the common impression among the outside world is that Xinxin is not short of money.

About a week later, Hirama Yuji came over with another list.

Taking over the technology list from Hiruma Yuji, Liang Mengsong found that the other party was obviously more sincere this time, and the core technologies of semiconductor materials were all written down.

And there is a price behind each technology. Liang Mengsong made a rough estimate in his mind, and the total was about 3000 billion yen, which is about 205 billion RMB, or about 30 billion US dollars.

Liang Mengsong thought to himself, it’s a bit expensive. This was US$2008 billion in 30.

Although Sumitomo Chemical has strong technology, it will not be able to recover its US$30 billion in ten years.

This business couldn't be done. Yuji Hirama saw Liang Mengsong's expression change and said quickly: "Mr. Liang, this price is actually not expensive at all. Sumitomo Chemical's annual revenue is about 100 billion U.S. dollars, and the annual revenue contribution of semiconductor materials is 30 billion U.S. dollars." One hundred million U.S. dollars.

If it were not for the current financial crisis, Sumitomo would not be able to sell these technologies. "

Liang Mengsong said: "I don't deny the revenue of 30 billion U.S. dollars, but with 30 billion U.S. dollars of revenue, excluding the operating costs and R&D investment, the final profit is not even 1 million U.S. dollars. What's more, we acquired the technology, from technology to implementation Production takes time.

After production, the technology has lagged behind when it comes to manufacturing finished products.

This is purely a trap. "

Yuji Hirama said: "Build two more factories and a research institute, one is a photoresist production factory built in Osaka two years ago, and the other is also a research institute for GaN materials in Osaka. These are packaged and traded together, and based on this total price Come."

In this case, the price is more appropriate. Liang Mengsong said: "I need to report to the president of Xinxin. We need to make internal decisions.

30 billion US dollars is not a small number. Even if we make a decision, it may take at least three months of full research. "

Yuji Hirama shook his head: "You need to decide as soon as possible. The final deadline for this transaction is early December this year. If it is later, Sumitomo will not sell it."

Liang Mengsong didn't say anything more. He said he would communicate with the bosses as soon as possible.

After the news returned to China, the investment managers of Xinxing Neon Branch used their personal connections to inquire why Sumitomo was willing to sell and what was going on at this time.

"Mr. Wu, according to our investigation results, Sumitomo Group's aggressive trading strategies in Amerikan's financial derivatives market have caused them to face unprecedented losses."

Sumitomo is an old radical. They caused a scandal that shocked the global market in 1996. Yasuo Hamanaka, the director of Sumitomo Group’s nonferrous metals trading department, led Sumitomo and controlled 5% of the global copper trading volume. His buying and selling decisions can It has had a huge impact on the international copper trading market.

He later used the name of the company to trade copper futures with his personal account, and at the same time colluded with JPMorgan Chase and copper producers. After buying a large amount of copper himself, he then asked Morgan to cooperate with the copper producers to artificially reduce the supply of copper, thereby promoting High copper prices.

This obvious illegal operation brought unprecedented losses to Sumitomo. A large number of copper smelters claimed that they were forced to buy high-priced copper and asked JPMorgan Chase to compensate US$10 billion in losses.

Sumitomo also had to lose money to Americen, England, Merrill Lynch, UBS, etc., a bunch of governments and financial institutions, totaling US$40 billion. This was US$90 billion in the 40s.

Therefore, Sumitomo has a tradition of radical operations in the financial field. This time it is also radical. It was originally thought that the financial crisis would not extend beyond the new year at most, and even if it crossed the new year of 2008, the crisis would gradually become smaller.

As a result, the financial crisis intensified after entering 2008, and even large-scale companies with long histories such as Lehman Brothers and Americen International Group went bankrupt.

Sumitomo also suffered huge losses.

“Originally, Sumitomo reported at this year’s mid-year financial report disclosure meeting that they would make a profit of 1800 billion yen this year, claiming that they would become the first neon comprehensive group to emerge from the financial crisis.

As a result, it seems that due to aggressive operations, they not only failed to make a profit, but also faced huge losses, which is unacceptable to Sumitomo.

They have never had a loss since fiscal year 04 until now, even last year.

Therefore, we expect Sumitomo Chemical to sell these patents because they hope to fill the hole in their losses after facing huge losses.”

　Just wait for the new group to be posted in the introduction. I will add a one-click group addition when the time comes.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)