The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 132
Zhang Zhongbo had a lot of dealings with Zhou Xin, and he witnessed Zhou Xin's transformation from a poor student in Huaguo with a schoolbag and a suitcase to a famous entrepreneur now.

Therefore, he can still maintain a calm mind when facing Zhou Xin, and some jokes can be said directly and naturally.

After Zhou Xin listened to it, he laughed: "Brother, for the professor, he certainly doesn't mind that you have a better place to go.

You come to help me, I am very short of talents, and the price I can offer must be more than that of the professor.

This is a win-win situation. As for the professor, if Silue Electronics cannot function normally without you, then you will not be able to go to Texas Instruments. "

Only after Zhou Xin started running a semiconductor company did he realize how profitable companies like Texas Instruments and Qualcomm are.

You can live well even if you rely entirely on patent licensing fees.

Although in the process from 2G to 4G, Texas Instruments' mobile phone chipset was killed by Qualcomm, the patents accumulated by Texas Instruments in the long era of functional phones are still continuously creating value for them.

Texas Instruments collects more than US$7 million in royalties from Freescale Semiconductor, Samsung Electronics, Sony and other companies for chip packaging technology alone.

In the mobile Internet era, Texas Instruments' patent prosecutions focused on chips such as computers, digital cameras and mobile phones.

Therefore, Xiaomi is not willing to pay patent fees to Huawei. It is actually a very common business practice. Only Sony and Siemens have paid the patent fees of Texas Instruments honestly. Other companies have to wait until they are sued before they are willing to pay.

This is also one of the important reasons why Nokia can survive well after selling its mobile phone brand and mobile phone production capacity to Microsoft, because they hold a large number of patents and communication business.

Whether it is now or 20 years later, being an engineer at Texas Instruments is definitely a good place for a Ph.D. in the field of integrated circuits.

Zhang Zhongbo put down the mouse in his hand and looked at Zhou Xin: "For me, the treatment is second, and being able to do interesting things is more important.

I don't have much interest in EDA. This direction is more biased towards computers. It just requires you to have experience in analog ICs. The EDA functions designed can meet the needs of actual engineers.

Most of the software developers with computer majors, when they are engaged in EDA development, from understanding the function to developing it in computer language, they are always a little bit less interesting.

Because they have not made analog ICs themselves.

For me, I still prefer to do chip design work. I went to Texas Instruments mainly to do DSP. They have done a good job in this direction recently, and the market recognition is very high.

This can be regarded as one of their main strategic directions recently, and there are many things I can do after I pass. "

Zhou Xin retrieved the DSP-related information from his memory, and quickly dismissed the idea of ​​asking Zhang Zhongbo to work for him after the retrieval.

"You should go to Texas Instruments to work for a few years and then help me." Zhou Xin thought.

DSP refers to a digital signal processor. Texas Instruments' TMS320 series digital signal processors are widely used in mobile phones and communication devices, providing audio and video processing capabilities for subsequent functional machines.

Including the current OMAP processor platform launched by Texas Instruments, the core of the platform is composed of a processor based on the ARM architecture and a DSP core.

Matrix's first mobile phone cannot be completely developed by itself. The processor core inside must still need to find a supplier, and there is a high probability that it will choose Texas Instruments.

But this does not mean that their processors will always use processors from other companies. Huawei also used chips from other companies in the early days.

It is even more difficult to find talents in mobile phone chip processors. This field is basically monopolized by major manufacturers, such as Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, Sony, etc. It is even more difficult to find core design talents from these companies.

Zhou Xin realized that Zhang Zhongbo could be the right candidate.

For mobile phone chip design, Zhou Xin has a complete idea, including the technology obtained from Samsung, including the S series chips designed by Samsung in the feature phone era.

Because later entered the era of smart phones, Samsung mobile phones turned to Exynos series chips, so the S series chips in the traditional feature phone era lost their value.

There are still some markets for feature phones in underdeveloped regions, so Samsung chose to package and transfer all the S-series chip technology to other companies at that time.

After careful research, Zhou Xin found that this series of technologies also includes three chips designed by Samsung but not mass-produced after losing the market in the era of smart phones.

But these three chips are all 90nm process and 45nm process. In 2000, the most advanced semiconductor process was only 130nm.

Empty chip design, no manufacturing capacity.

In addition to these three chips, the value of the S-series chips is also incalculable at the moment.

包括应用在首代iPhone上的S5L8900，基于ARMv6架构的90nm制程芯片；应用在第五代iPod nano上的S5L8730等等。

It's just that with so many chip solutions in hand, we still need to have independent research and development capabilities.

It is impossible for him to rely on S-series chips to conquer the world. The advantages of Samsung's S-series chips will be maintained until around 2010 at most, and the follow-up will lag behind the times.

How to keep the current technological advantages on SOC in the future still requires continuous investment in research and development.

This also requires talents, a large number of talents, continuous investment and the right direction are indispensable.

After the accumulation of capital to a certain level, there is no need for the right direction, because no one knows what is the right direction.

The development of science and technology is not a straight line, it is a tree, and each branch may bear rich fruits.

Human intervention may not be more rewarding than letting him grow naturally.

Whether it is Bell Labs or the later IBM R&D Center, although they may not have enjoyed a large number of achievements, the derived technologies have created the prosperity of Silicon Valley.

"Well, it sounds good. Texas Instruments' DSP technology is really good. According to the feedback I got from the enterprise side, Texas Instruments' DSP performance and power consumption have reached a good balance.

Brother, if you don't go to Texas Instruments, you can consider helping me work.

Of course, even if you go to Texas Instruments, you can still consider helping me if you are not doing well there. "

From Zhang Zhongmou, the founder of TSMC, to Zhang Rujing, the founder of SMIC, both have a history of working in Texas Instruments.

Among them, Zhang Zhongmou became the deputy general manager of Texas Instruments.

Zhang Rujing helped Texas Instruments build 10 chip processing plants, mainly producing DRAM chips.

In the 80s, in the face of neon competition, Texas Instruments gradually withdrew from the DRAM manufacturing industry and turned to selling technology patents for profit.

In 1997, Texas Instruments packaged and sold all the chip factories established by overseas joint ventures.

This year Zhang Rujing left Texas Instruments and returned to Wanwan to build a factory and established Shida Semiconductor.

Zhou Xin thought about this period of history, and then wondered whether Zhang Zhongbo would follow the same path as Zhang Zhongbo in the future.

However, with his financial support, Zhang Zhongbo can go further in the field of chip semiconductors.

After chatting with Zhang Zhongbo, Zhou Xin went to Hu Zhengming's office and sat on the double sofa to wait for him.

Hu Zhengming usually comes to the office after having breakfast at Crossroads next to the residential area.

"Zhou Xin, why are you here so early today? Before, you would arrive half an hour later than this time."

Hu Zhengming did not wait for Zhou Xin to answer and continued: "The relevant approvals for CAAS are expected to come down next month, and we will organize an inauguration ceremony in San Francisco.

After the establishment ceremony, our initial members will use their influence to promote to various universities.

Remember to participate when you are the executive director. "

Finally, after the establishment of CAAS, the first president was Hu Zhengming, and then Ding Zhaozhong and Li Zhengdao were the honorary chairman and permanent honorary members.The two Nobel Prize winners are old and just help out on the platform.

The others are the first batch of board members, and because most of the funds for the establishment of CAAS came from Zhou Xin, he is also an executive director.

Because of the establishment of CAAS, Hu Zhengming felt that he was overwhelmed. He also had to teach at Berkeley and start a business there, so he had to take care of all the affairs of CAAS.

Zhou Xin nodded: "After Riot Games goes public, I won't have too many things to do recently. I will definitely attend the establishment ceremony of CAAS."

Hu Zhengming continued: "You asked me before if I knew Lin Benjian, and you wanted to get to know him.

I recently spoke with him on the phone, and he is coming to San Francisco to attend the International Imaging Technology Symposium hosted by SPIE.

I have already contacted you, and he will come to see you when the time comes.Including that he is also very interested in joining CAAS”

SPIE refers to the International Society of Optical Engineers, and every year SPIE holds an international impact technology seminar.

"But it's impossible for you to poach Ben Jian. Unlike the Internet, you don't have much reputation in the field of integrated circuits.

It is difficult to convince other engineers of you, and it is difficult to transplant your achievements on the Internet to the field of integrated circuits.

Linchuang, founded by Ben Jian, is doing well in Tampa, Florida.

You want to dig him, the difficulty is too high. "

When Zhou Xin troubled Hu Zhengming to find Lin Benjian for help, he told Hu Zhengming why.

In Hu Zhengming's view, it is too difficult to start a lithography machine from scratch.

To put it bluntly, at the moment, ASML is far away from monopolizing lithography machines, and the field of lithography machines is a field with great competition and low returns.

Except for ASML, Nikon and Canon, which entered the market early, no other company thought about doing this.

ASML's annual R&D investment starts at 10 billion euros, and its profit is less than 1 million euros. Once the chip foundry falls into a contraction cycle, lithography machine manufacturers will still lose money.

In order to remain competitive, large investments in research and development are constantly required.

No matter from which point of view, lithography machines are not a good business.

　There are still more today, plus what I need to make up yesterday, today I plan to write [-] words!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)