The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 369 Acquisition of Baidu
Why would a certain congress in the future adopt the method of killing one thousand enemies and losing eight hundred to itself, and not allow the semiconductor companies of itself and its subordinates to sell equipment and raw materials, and not allow them to provide OEM services for advanced processes for their opponents?
It’s because of AI. In the competition, whoever achieves a breakthrough in AI technology first and usher in the moment of singularity in AI technology can be said to be the winner.

Therefore, the technological singularity of AI is so critical. Once whoever masters it first will be able to break through in this new era competition.

After realizing the power of AI, many people believe that artificial superintelligence caused by technological singularity will accelerate technological progress unimaginably.

It can accelerate all aspects of scientific and technological progress, including improvements in computer speed and storage, the development of artificial general intelligence, and the maturation of nanotechnology.This will enable astounding advances in technology.

The three elements of AI are computing power, algorithms and data.

Intentionally or unintentionally, China's GFW helped China keep data elements in the country. When the AI ​​era arrives and Europe realizes the importance of data, it will be impossible for them to kick Google, FB, and Apple out of the European market and create own data pool.

American hopes to use computing power to lock the upper limit of China's development in the field of AI and gain advantages for itself.

This is why Zhou Xin has not entered the AI ​​field. He only relied on emerging companies to invest in some AI-related companies in advance and conduct preliminary research internally.

The importance of AI is not highlighted, and the competition between America and China in the chip field is not as important as life and death.

Amerikan's methods will not be so drastic.

Like now, the fundamental reason behind Americen's move against Xinxin is that the smartphone pie is too big, and Chinese companies are eating too much.

This is competition in the commercial field. After Xinxin took a step back, the Donkey Party did not take any further measures.

Therefore, for Zhou Xin, the strategic space and time gained are far more important than money.

Now it's business competition. From the technology ASML released at the San Francisco Semiconductor Show, Zhou Xin got a sense of what the other party wanted to do.

Zhou Xin believes that this will be a set of combination punches, and ASML's production process is just their first move.

The smartphone market is their ultimate goal, knocking Matrix off the altar and creating a new high-end brand through technological leadership.

Zhou Xin feels that Intel and Microsoft are the ones who have the ability and willingness to lead all this. The wintel alliance in the old era hopes to continue their dominance in the new era.

"We can use multiple exposure technology to surpass ASML in terms of manufacturing process." Zhou Xin said.

The process of the photolithography machine is mainly divided into seven steps, preliminary oxidation, photoresist coating, exposure, development, etching, ion implantation and photoresist removal.

After purchasing photoresist technology from Sumitomo Chemical, there is no gap between new chips in the photoresist field and the international advanced level. Even because of their own large chip manufacturing volume, they have gradually accumulated technological advantages in the photoresist field. .

"Be prepared to adopt LELE technology. We cannot lag behind ASML in manufacturing processes."

Later, Huawei used a 28nm process lithography machine to manufacture 7nm chips, which benefited from multiple exposure technology. I don’t know which manufacturer accumulated multiple exposure technology to help Huawei achieve a breakthrough in the manufacturing process.

This technology can make up for the shortcomings of the lithography machine's lagging performance, but the price is a huge increase in cost. It requires repeated cleaning of the glue coating and development equipment. Repeated cleaning-gluing-photolithography-development-etching will increase the number of photolithography equipment. Glue, wet chemicals and equipment cleaning volumes.

Without Zhou Xin, this technology would have been proposed around 2008, and then Nikon, ASML, and Intel all started research and development, and began to try to use this technology in the 32nm process.

There are three main technology routes in the future, LELE, LFLE and SADP, all of which come from Intel.

LELE is the least difficult. Zhou Xin has communicated with Lin Benjian about this technology very early. Xinxin has started to develop this technology internally very early. Through this technology, the current 40nm chip manufacturing process can be instantly improved to 20nm, with The cost is the cost of the chip, which will increase by at least five times.

Of course, if you are determined to use this technology on a large scale, as the usage rate increases, the cost will naturally be reduced. However, the limitations of multiple exposures are there, and no matter how low it is, it cannot be compared with normal chip manufacturing.

Lin Benjian hesitated: "The generation difference between us and them is very small, just 5nm. Should we use LELE this time?"

Lin Benjian's hesitation is that he believes that this technology is not mature enough, and SADP is a better technical route. They have already achieved some results, and they can wait until the technology matures before bringing it out.

Zhou Xin said firmly: "Yes, I want to use 4nm chips in Mphone20."

Zhou Xin can guess that ASML's next move is to cooperate with Intel and Microsoft to launch the most advanced smartphones.

To produce a flagship model by piling up materials, European and American technology companies need to have iconic products to prove that they are still the rulers of the chip field.

"Boss, ASML's latest lithography machine is indeed restricted by the Wassenaar Agreement and cannot be sold to us."

"Intel claims that Matrix needs to schedule its 32nm production capacity on the grounds that the 32nm process needs to meet Intel's own needs first, and it may not be Matrix's turn next year."

All kinds of news came to Zhou Xin, and Zhou Xin read a signal that Microsoft and Intel were planning to cause trouble.

"This time it is divided into two parts. Americen's Matrix will equip it with a 40nm process chip according to the original plan, and the mainland Matrix uses a 20nm process chip made with new technology.

They are all A4, distinguished by suffixes on model numbers. "Zhou Xin said, "In addition, it happens that the Mphone sold by Amerikan uses a 40nm CPU, while the Mphone produced in other parts of the world uses a 20nm CPU.

This requires a high degree of confidentiality. Except for Lei Jun, no one in North America can know this news. "

Xinxin Technology can achieve this size, and the internal confidentiality mechanism is very complete. What they have experienced before, coupled with the background of the confrontation between Hua Guo and Amerikan, has made them more strict on confidentiality management.

If we only stock a small amount, we can start production in the second half of the year and have a half-year confidentiality period, which Xinxin can completely achieve.

"Mr. Xu, you are a Chinese, and I am also working for a Chinese. We are not polite. Xinxing Investment wants to fully acquire Baidu. What do you think?" Warren Johnson approached Baidu with Zhou Xin's will. CEO Xu Yong.

Xu Yong also graduated from Yanda, and studied in the United States on a Rockefeller scholarship. After getting his PhD in Texas, he worked as a postdoc at Berkeley, and later co-founded Baidu with Robin. Originally, he would have been kicked out or persuaded to leave by Robin on the eve of its listing. Board of Directors.

After Baidu went public, its only presence was participating in Baidu's bell-ringing ceremony.

In this time and space, due to the merger of Baidu and Google, Robin needs to keep "his own people" in the senior management team. In Silicon Valley, it is not easy to find his own people.

Therefore, Xu Yong has been working at Baidu. Baidu merged and was split up. After Robin was imprisoned, he became the CEO of Baidu after the split.After Baidu was split up, both its stock price and operating conditions were very sluggish. The financial crisis and Baidu's deep involvement in the Madoff case made it even more sluggish.

Not to mention, when Baidu and Google split up, Larry Page took away all the outstanding employees, and the rest were described as rotten fish and shrimp.

Baidu now has technology and products, but few users, and is barely surviving. Its market value is not even US$5 million.

You must know that Baidu's market value at its peak exceeded [-] billion US dollars.

When Robin heard the news about Baidu in a luxury prison in California, he would feel extremely regretful and regretful about why he cooperated with Madoff for the sake of quick gain.

After Xu Yong learned Robin's lesson, he became very conservative in business operations, causing Baidu to lose its sense of existence.

"Mr. Johnson, I'm curious about what Newman values ​​in Baidu and wants to acquire Baidu?

This is not ten years ago, and search engine technology is not uncommon. To be honest, Newman built his own search engine and relied on his reputation to develop better than Baidu, right? "Xu Yong was very curious.

With Baidu in such a dilemma, what did Zhou Xin focus on?
Warren Johnson said: “As an old Chinese saying goes, a camel is bigger than a horse, so the boss certainly has his reasons.

Baidu has a bad reputation because it is run by you. If it were run by the boss, Baidu could still become the Baidu of the past.

Moreover, Baidu still has a good market share in many countries around the world. Although these market shares are constantly being eroded by Google, it is different when we operate it. "

Zhou Xin needs Baidu to supplement Xiaomi’s software ecosystem.

Xiaomi's current software ecosystem is too dependent on Yahoo and Google when it is overseas. Once these two companies stop cooperating with Xiaomi, it will become very inconvenient for Xiaomi's overseas users to use maps, search engines, translation and other functions.

The cooperation between Baidu and Madoff affected Baidu Payment, and after Zhou Xin acquired Baidu, it repackaged it.

Change the logo, change the homepage design, tell users through media propaganda that the current Baidu is the new Baidu, and reshape Baidu's brand image.

After this combination is defeated, Baidu will be able to take on new vitality.

"Mr. Xu, don't think about it. After acquiring Baidu, all management will be purged. What we need is a clean Baidu.

We will not retain any of our senior executives, including you. "

Emerging Investments offered a 50.00% premium. Xu Yong could refuse this price, and neither could the remaining small shareholders behind Baidu.

Originally, when the remaining shareholders behind Baidu heard that Zhou Xin wanted to acquire the company, they didn't want to sell it all and wanted to keep some shares in their hands.

Everyone knows that just the news of changing the major shareholder is enough to cause a wave of speculation in Baidu's stock price. The major shareholder becomes Newman, Baidu's earliest investor returns to Baidu, and the story of the return of the king is staged. This is the true king of the Internet, Baidu The stock price can skyrocket.

Warren Johnson flatly refused. He not only rejected their request to hold shares, but also rejected their intention to raise the price. He directly made it clear that Xinxing was willing to pay this much, and if you don't want to, we will find another one.

Only half a month to think about it.

Under Warren Johnson's tough negotiating style, Baidu compromised, and Emerging Investments fully acquired Baidu for US$6.2 million.

This transaction has not been blocked in any way. Washington will not care if such a small business is acquired by an emerging investment. With Google here, Baidu is no exaggeration to describe it as scraps at this time.

Zhou Xin also made what he wanted. Baidu's snapshot function and the database accumulated over the years provided a wealth of data resources for Xinyun's AI research.

Baidu can also add an important part of Zhou Xin's global business map.

"Star companies in the past on Nasdaq will be fully acquired by Emerging Investments, a financial institution owned by Newman. After the acquisition was announced, Baidu's stock price soared 50.00% after the market opened.

Out of trust in Newman, Baidu's outstanding shares have become the most sought-after assets in recent times."

"A large number of old Baidu users have expressed their trust in Newman. Old employees within Baidu believe that Newman is the entrepreneur most likely to lead Baidu out of crisis." The media reported this incident one after another, and everyone believed that this incident was full of legend.

Baidu's earliest investors, after Baidu fell to the bottom after many hardships, became optimistic about Baidu again and bought Baidu.

This is like Qidian being defeated by Tomato and being reduced to scraps in the Internet literature market that are worse than Feilu, and then Shanda buys Qidian back again. It is full of epic feeling.

Robin had mixed feelings after seeing the news in prison, including sadness, complaint, doubt and joy.

He also believes that there is someone in the world who can save Baidu, and that person must be Zhou Xin.

After Zhou Xin acquired Baidu, he didn't do much. He just moved all Baidu's infrastructure to the new cloud, then optimized and streamlined personnel, laid off a large number of employees, and killed all the executives.

Then he set up a branch in China, where the salary of programmers is much lower than in Silicon Valley, and then started to develop a series of mobile applications.

Xinxing Investment also led Baidu's equity changes, with 60.00% of the shares traded to Xinyun and 40.00% of the shares traded to Xiaomi.

Baidu's application is still under development, and Zhou Xin's actions are more at the management level, so Baidu's news popularity has gradually passed.

It's because Zhou Xin took over Baidu that Baidu divested itself of its original sins to a certain extent and gained a firm foothold in the third position in Amerikan's market share.

The first and second largest market shares of Amerikan are Google and Bing respectively, and globally they are Sohu, Google and Baidu.

Even because of sentiment, Baidu's market share in Amerikan is still growing slowly.

(End of this chapter)