The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide.

Chapter 137 The Urgent Matters of Xinxin Semiconductor

Now it is unrealistic to think that all the upstream and downstream manufacturers of the semiconductor industry chain will choose domestic manufacturers and form their own system.

There are too many equipments involved in semiconductors, just air filtration equipment and water production equipment, currently no domestic manufacturer is doing this.

The chip factory has high requirements on the environment, and the dust concentration in the air needs to be reduced to zero through air filtration equipment.When the line width of the chip is less than 0 mm, chemical contamination will be the main factor affecting the yield.

Therefore, for chip foundries, they need to be equipped with specialized precision instruments to filter substances in the air.

Zhou Xin didn't even think that the entire supply chain could catch up with the international advanced level within ten years, and the upstream semiconductor materials were the bigger difficulty.

In the field of semiconductors, technology is not the biggest difficulty. The most important thing is that products can enter the production environment and be continuously updated and iterated.

Therefore, if American hadn't banned the export of semiconductors, it would be almost impossible for Huaguo's semiconductors to catch up with the most advanced technology. Of course, the chances after being banned are not great, but the chances are much greater than before.

This kind of software is a bit similar to industrial software. If you don't actually run it, you will never be able to make industrial software that can be used.

After listening, Guan Jianying said: "Newman, I roughly understand what you mean. You only want to make lithography machines and analog ICs, these two technology nodes. At the same time, their upstream and downstream do not rule out cooperation with other companies."

Zhou Xin said: "Now we don't have the condition to do it all by ourselves, nor do we have the condition to find a company in Huaguo to do it all.

My investment company in Huaguo has investigated the development of integrated circuits in Huaguo, and it is not ideal. There are very few companies doing this, and most of them are concentrated in the relatively low-tech packaging and testing process.

On the basis of ensuring our own survival, we think about taking care of Huaguo semiconductor companies in the upstream and downstream of the supply chain.

After listening, do you feel that my goal is not harsh. "

Guan Jianying thought about it. He has worked in analog ICs for more than 20 years. He has also been involved in the process from analog ICs to chip production, so he has a deep understanding of the entire semiconductor industry chain.

"Newman, the goals you set are not demanding, but they are not easy to achieve.

We need to respect objective facts. Huaguo lacks talents in the field of integrated circuits, let alone engineers who have actually worked in advanced integrated circuit companies.

In order to enter the production stage as soon as possible, we need to find engineers with mature experience.

The field of analog IC is good. There are many engineers who have rich experience in the analog IC industry, and they are not opposed to working in Shenhai.

But for engineers in the field of lithography machines, we can only find experienced engineers from a few limited lithography machine manufacturers such as Nikon, Canon, and ASML.

They are foreigners and it is difficult to dig them. "

Now Nikon and Canon are still the leaders in the industry, while ASML is a rising star.It is precisely because Nikon is the leader in the field of lithography machines that it is difficult for Nikon engineers to dig.

After 20 years, Nikon's lithography machine talents will not be difficult at all.

Of course, at that time, what Nikon's technicians could poach had been poached by ASML, and the rest were either mediocre or not poached at all.

Zhou Xin also understood Guan Jianying's meaning, he said: "You don't need to worry too much about these issues.

The technical director I am looking for for the lithography machine is Lin Benjian. He will find some engineers he knows. We will build the framework first, and then recruit a small number of experienced engineers from Huaguo. Huaguo still has talents who have worked on lithography machines before. , but their lithography machine is a laboratory product.

But I believe they will adapt very quickly.

As for the field of analog ICs, I don't need to find too many experienced engineers. Only the team leader can find experienced engineers. We all look for postgraduates and doctors in related majors from Huaguo.

We give them high treatment, and then choose the best among the best, adopting the model of one old man leading many newcomers. "

After hearing this, Guan Jianying immediately objected: "Newman, I have worked in the field of analog ICs for many years, so this is absolutely not acceptable.

We need to get an analog IC company up and running as soon as possible. We need to create a blockbuster product. After this product is designed, it will be produced by TSMC or Zhang Rujing's chip foundry, and then it will have good sales results and be recognized by the market.

This is the top priority of Xinxin Semiconductor.

Then slowly iteratively optimize around this blockbuster product, from the first generation to the second generation, and slowly develop new chip lines.

So we can survive.

There is only one old man in a group, and all the others are fresh graduates, and high-quality products will never be produced.

Because technology is advancing, products designed this year may not have an advantage next year.

Time is too important.

I don't rule out recruiting newcomers, recruiting Chinese graduates. Firstly, the number is limited. Secondly, they have to come in with a learning attitude. They have to get used to it for at least two years before they can truly become relatively proficient.

Fresh graduates, if not majoring in microelectronics.

They have never even used Cadence Virtuoso. To teach them to use Cadence Virtuoso, they just know how to operate, know what is analog circuit design, and how to do layout viewing and circuit simulation. It takes at least three months to half a year to teach them.

Even for a PhD in microelectronics, the research and development of the industry and the research and development of the laboratory are completely two concepts.

Their understanding of basic concepts in analog IC design needs to be corrected.Many novices tend to ignore some basic concepts in circuit design, such as noise, distortion, linearity, bandwidth, etc.

Because of their lack of practical experience, they will ignore the influence of layout and layout design on circuit performance, the processing of power and ground planes in the design, and pay too much attention to the performance advantages of a certain aspect while ignoring other important performance indicators.

They will be overly concerned with the speed of the circuit which may lead to performance degradation in terms of power consumption, noise, etc.

These problems are very common for newcomers. 20 years ago, we were still using SPICE developed by Dr. Lawrence Nagel.

Lawrence Nagel is also your alumnus, Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.

I still remember using SPICE in the earliest days, then Calma GDS, and recently Cadence Virtuoso.

I also made many similar mistakes when I was still using SPICE.Everyone is slowly growing from a rookie to a mature engineer

But at that time, I was in a mature analog IC company. They had mature products, a mature team, a talent echelon training, and a complete training mechanism.

In other words, they have the capital to be fault-tolerant.

But we don't, I know you have a lot of money, a lot of money, an amount I can't imagine.

But a company cannot rely on your single blood transfusion. Such a company is matured, and it is difficult for it to have vitality and future.

Therefore, we need to find mature engineers in the early stage to create a high-quality product, and then recruit new people to train reserve forces.

Instead of doing reserve strength training at the beginning. "

The SPICE, Calma GDS, and Cadence Virtuoso mentioned by Guan Jianying are all EDA tools for designing analog circuits.There is a chronological order between them.

Among them, Cadence Virtuoso is still the mainstream EDA tool until today, but Cadence has packaged a thing called Cadence Design System, which covers this and realizes richer functions.

Zhou Xin said: "Okay, I understand what you mean, I know Uncle Guan, you have worked in the field of analog IC for many years, from front-line staff to chief engineer to vice president, you have your own ideas on the operation of analog IC companies .

We haven't recruited people so fast yet, let's build the company and framework first, would you like to help me? "

Compared with Lin Benjian, Guan Jianying has just been kicked out of the company he co-founded. Simply put, when he was frustrated, he promised very quickly:
"It's okay for me to help you, but I have a more direct personality. As a boss, it's okay for you to have your own ideas, but I will also have my own ideas and my persistence.

If our ideas don't agree, we need to have sufficient communication between us to reach some kind of agreement. "

Guan Jianying went on to say: "I never thought that my thoughts and experiences would always be right.

I entered the integrated circuit industry more than 20 years ago, starting with analog ICs. At that time, the industry still adopted the IDM model, that is, vertically integrated manufacturing.

Enterprises such as Intel, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and Infineon all handle chip design, chip manufacturing, packaging and testing, and product sales by themselves.

Only upstream materials, equipment, EDA and IP cores are products of other companies.

This model is so good. In my opinion at the time, it was a perfect model. From product design to manufacturing, everything was done by one hand, and the product iteration cycle was shorter.

At the same time, it is also conducive to research and development, and the response time for back-end research and development results to be verified is very fast.

At that time, no one ever thought of substituting chip manufacturing to other companies.

Until Zhang Zhongmou showed up with TSMC, he told the manufacturers that you design chips and we will do the chip manufacturing for you.

We help you bear this part of the risk, you just need to tell us your needs.

Just give me the chip design, I will never make my own chip brand.

You know that the risk of the IDM model lies in heavy assets, a 12-inch production line, and a production line costs 20 billion US dollars.

This requires that the chips you manufacture must be able to sell.

This places very high requirements on design, manufacturing, management and operation.

Because the production line is depreciated, with the advancement of technology, the original advanced production line will be gradually eliminated. The production line built at 20 billion US dollars may be scrapped within five years under the influence of Moore's Law.

The IDM model has extremely high requirements on your utilization rate, yield rate and product profit.

That's why TSMC's model can be successful, and they help manufacturers bear a large part of the risk.

In this way, the risk is lower and the profit is also lower. "

　Today's Chapter 1, asking for a monthly pass, is there too much recent semiconductor content?
　　But the next episode is about to start
　　
　
(End of this chapter)