Rebirth 99 to become a car giant.

Chapter 626 Domestic leadership, international first-class influence

A large investment of 200 billion yuan is a very important investment even in 2023, let alone 2010.

Therefore, the groundbreaking ceremony for Nanshan Semiconductor’s new factory was quite grand.

The dean of the Government Affairs Council also attended the ceremony in person, and even visited the nearby Nanshan Semiconductor factory.

Basically I spent the whole day at Nanshan Semiconductor, which is very rare.

After all, Nanshan Semiconductor now has signs of being the number one chip company in the country.

Especially after the new factory was put into production this time, although there is still a gap with SMIC in terms of production capacity, it has achieved a technological overtake.

The most critical thing is that all major equipment of Nanshan Semiconductor are purchased from domestic equipment manufacturers.

This is something no other chip company can do.

"Mr. Cao, I feel it is necessary to strengthen confidentiality education for company employees during this period. People from all walks of life seem to be inquiring about the construction status of our new factory and the purchase of production equipment."

"Some of these people may be just curious, and some of them definitely have bad intentions."

Zhang Jing now feels a lot of pressure on his shoulders.

This is China’s first 28-nanometer chip factory, which is of extraordinary significance.

If something goes wrong during the construction process, the impact will definitely be huge.

"Mr. Pan from Nanshan Equipment also mentioned this topic to me. It seems that those evil people are nervous about our technological breakthrough."

"Otherwise, they won't care about our changes at all."

Showing off his plan to build a 28-nanometer chip factory, Cao Yang knew that this time it would cause quite a stir.

But there is no way to change the situation by hiding it.

The enemy will not stop thinking of ways to deal with you just because you are hiding it.

The Nanshan Group has a big business, and they have many ways to deal with you.

Instead of doing this, it is better to do the opposite.

Show your strength directly and let everyone know that you are not someone to be trifled with.

Even letting the chip giants and equipment giants know that restrictions and blockades are no way to suppress Nanshan Semiconductor, it is better for everyone to let go and compete properly.

After all, the current international environment is not as intense as that of later generations, and everything is still negotiable.

"28nm technology is considered the mainstream chip technology now, and TSMC has just achieved mass production at the beginning of this year. We have caught up so quickly, and they will definitely be very nervous."

"Even in their view, this change of Nanshan Semiconductor has harmed their interests."

Zhang Jing knows the thoughts of those chip giants very well.

Although it usually appears in the eyes of the people as a high-tech enterprise.

In fact, many of the practices of these companies are not honorable at all.

In order to monopolize technology and obtain high profits, people will do anything.

"Although many people are trying to find ways to plug nails into Nanshan Semiconductor, we still need to recruit the people we should recruit."

"Our current development speed is so fast, domestic talents can no longer keep up with the demand."

"Even if we have close cooperation with the School of Semiconductor, Lingnan University of Technology, it is far from being able to meet this demand."

"I originally wanted to build a new factory in Yangcheng at the same time, but there simply weren't that many manpower."

There is still a shortage of personnel in China's chip industry.

In recent years, due to the development of Nanshan Semiconductor, basically all the people who can be poached have been poached.

The two exclusive communities in Magic City and Yangcheng are also filled with technicians poached from all over the world.

But still not enough.

A large chip company may have tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of employees.

Compared with those large chip companies, Nanshan Semiconductor is still very weak.

So far, Nanshan Semiconductor has only more than 10,000 employees.

Although it is growing rapidly every month, there is still a relatively large gap compared with the chip giants.

"This is a problem. Our human resources department has tried its best. The Semiconductor School of Lingnan University of Technology is also expanding its enrollment every year. Even Guangzhou University of Technology has opened a special Semiconductor School, but there is still no way to meet the demand."

"Next step, we will find a way to select a group of professional employees related to chips from fresh college students and send them to various factories to accelerate training to see if we can speed up the training of talents by bringing in the old and bringing in the new."

"At the same time, we will further increase our plans to recruit talents from overseas."

"Considering that some people are unwilling to come to work in China, I plan to set up branches in the United States, Japan and Germany to be responsible for chip design-related business."

"As for chip packaging and testing, I specially arranged personnel to go to Southeast Asia to recruit people. There are quite a lot of talents related to packaging and testing there."

“And the salary of these people is not particularly high, so we don’t have much pressure to recruit them.”

Zhang Jing has naturally considered the issue of talent training.

Especially since the foundation of the new factory has been laid, various staffing arrangements need to be considered in advance.

For young Nanshan Semiconductor, this pressure is quite high.

"I will also communicate with BYD Semiconductor and Warwick HiSilicon to see if they can support a group of our technical personnel."

As a partner of Nanshan Semiconductor, Cao Yang felt it was necessary to utilize the power of BYD Semiconductor and Warwick HiSilicon.

These companies started engaging in semiconductors earlier than Nanshan Semiconductor, and the talent shortage situation is much better.

"If they have the opportunity to learn about 28-nanometer chip technology, I think they should be interested."

"Whether it is for BYD Semiconductor, Warwick HiSilicon, or their employees, this is a good learning opportunity and a win-win opportunity."

Zhang Jing is not worried that BYD Semiconductor and Huawei HiSilicon will take away Nanshan Semiconductor's technology.

Having mastered the chip equipment industry chain, Zhang Jing is not worried that other domestic semiconductor companies will become his opponents.

Even the current industry leader SMIC no longer considers him to be his opponent.

Nanshan Semiconductor has begun to target competitors such as TSMC, Samsung, MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Infineon.

Cao Yang no longer paid much attention to other domestic competitors.

"This is a good idea. You can try it as soon as possible."

Zhang Jing obviously also felt that Cao Yang's idea was still feasible.

Although we are competitors to a certain extent, we are more often partners.

Help each other and it should be hard for the other person to say no.

The most important thing is to learn new technologies.

The temptation is still great.

Sure enough, after hearing Cao Yang's request, Wang Fu agreed without much hesitation.

Of course, consent is consent, and how to arrange personnel to support it is another topic.

It is impossible for Cao Yang and Wang Fu to discuss such specific matters on the phone.

"Mr. Wang, if we arrange for the company's elite employees to help, I'm worried that these employees will be like 'meat buns beating dogs, and they will never come back'."

The matter of arranging personnel to support Nanshan Semiconductor was handed over by Wang Fu to Liang Chuanqing, who was in charge of research and development.

Regarding this somewhat difficult matter, Liang Chuanqing also struggled with many things.

You have to do things beautifully without suffering losses, which is not easy to do.

"This is a good learning opportunity for everyone to see how the 28nm process chip factory is designed, how the chips are processed, and what precautions are taken."

"If the technical level of employees is not good, they will not learn any skills."

"As for the issue you are worried about, it actually has nothing to do with whether we arrange for them to go over to provide support."

"Nanshan Semiconductor has been poaching people from various companies in the past two years, and some people from our company have also switched jobs."

"It's raining. My mother wants to get married. I can't stop it."

"Of course, in order to prevent employees from actually changing jobs, we can also sign a non-competition agreement with the main technical staff at that time."

"Even if they change jobs, they still have no way to go to work at Nanshan Semiconductor."

Wang Fu is not a soft-hearted person.

The semiconductor industry is also an industry that he attaches great importance to.

Therefore, opportunities for technological improvement must be seized.

Nanshan Semiconductor allows BYD Semiconductor employees to provide support, which is also a learning opportunity to a certain extent. This is a rare opportunity.

Wang Fu definitely doesn’t want to miss it.

"Competition agreement?"

When Liang Chuanqing heard this, he immediately became interested.

In 2010, non-competition agreements were not yet popular in China.

But it’s not like there aren’t companies involved.

It would be completely feasible for BYD Semiconductor to use this tool on its key employees.

"Mr. Wang, this thing is great. I will arrange it now and get everyone to sign it."

"Only employees who have signed a non-competition agreement can arrange to go to Nanshan Semiconductor for support."

Liang Chuanqing was ready to implement Wang Fu's proposal without any hesitation.

BYD Semiconductor's strength cannot be compared to Nanshan Semiconductor. If you want to truly retain employees, you must use a combination of soft and hard methods.

With a non-competition agreement, employees can work with all their heart.

After all, not every talent is worthy of Nanshan Semiconductor’s aggressive efforts to poach.

……

The construction of Nanshan Semiconductor's 28-nanometer factory has brought up the topic of chips. Whether it is mainstream media or professional IT websites, articles related to chips are constantly being published.

Even some of the more professional articles introducing the chip production process have a high number of views.

This naturally makes various media become more active in writing relevant articles.

"Editor Wu, Nanshan Semiconductor has launched such a large satellite this time, which can be regarded as completely activating the domestic chip industry."

"Ministries and commissions have successively announced new industrial support policies, and various venture capital funds are also ready to enter the semiconductor industry."

"Even the number of newly registered chip companies in the past month has more than doubled compared to the same period last year."

"I feel that the spring for the development of China's semiconductor industry has arrived."

"In the future, we can arrange relevant personnel to track and report chip-related news."

As a veteran employee of Zhongguancun Online, Xie Min naturally has a clear understanding of the changes in news popularity.

Smartphones and chips are now the two new traffic pools for their website.

Xie Min definitely hopes that the website can seize this opportunity.

"It is indeed necessary. We even need to recruit a professional chip-related technician."

"Otherwise, the articles written by people who don't understand chip technology may have some low-level errors in the eyes of professionals, which will directly affect the credibility of our website."

Wu Xuebin considered the problem quite comprehensively.

The development of the website is necessary, and with the development of the website, the recruitment of fresh blood is naturally necessary.

There are so many colleges and universities in the imperial capital, so it is not that difficult to recruit a few people who understand chip technology.

After all, Zhongguancun Online is also a good employment unit in the eyes of many college students.

Not to mention Qingbei, at least there is no problem in recruiting students from 985 universities.

"I have a suggestion on this matter. Doesn't our website have a forum?"

"There are some relatively active users on it, and some of them often post about chip-related topics."

"I think one or two suitable people can be selected from these people."

Xie Min's suggestion made the Zhongguancun Online forum a little more interesting.

Posting in the forum, I became an employee of Zhongguancun Online.

This thing is somewhat magical.

……

Compared with the people at Zhongguancun Online who are in a good mood, the people at SMIC are in a more complicated mood.

"Mr. Wang, from what we know so far, Nanshan equipment may really have the production capacity of photolithography machines and can produce the photolithography machines required for 28nm chip processing."

"And the technical route of their lithography machine is indeed different from that of ASML, and the volume is much larger."

"Some of the other production equipment that Nanshan Semiconductor plans to purchase are also purchased from manufacturers of Nanshan Equipment or the Chip Equipment Alliance, and are basically domestically produced."

"There are some voices from the ministries and commissions asking why we can't consider purchasing chip processing equipment from China?"

Yang Bingning specifically mentioned this topic when reporting SMIC's next production capacity plan to Wang Anguo.

The purchase of chip production equipment accounts for a large proportion of the investment in new factories.

As the largest chip foundry in China, SMIC invests a very large amount in equipment procurement every year.

The most critical thing is that more than 90% of these equipment are imported from overseas.

Not to mention the consumption of foreign exchange, this risk alone is very uncontrollable.

In the past, no equipment manufacturer in China could produce suitable chip equipment, so everyone naturally tolerated it.

First, Nanshan Semiconductor can use domestic equipment to process 28-nanometer chips. This technology is more advanced than SMIC.

Under such circumstances, if SMIC continues to import equipment from overseas, it will definitely attract some criticism.

"Can the chip processing equipment produced by Nanshan Equipment manufacturers really produce 28-nanometer chips that meet mass production requirements?"

"They made all their plans and spent no more than five years researching chip production equipment, but they were able to reach such a high level?"

Wang Anguo's question should be shared by many people.

Anyone who knows how to make chip production equipment, especially photolithography machines, understand how difficult it is.

If people can choke you, it's because the threshold for this thing is really high. Otherwise, how could it get stuck?

Although Wang Anguo had read the previous papers published by Cao Yang word for word, he did not think that Nanshan Equipment could easily produce lithography machines.

Especially the kind of photolithography machine that can process 28nm chips.

"Although I don't really believe this, the groundbreaking ceremony of Nanshan Semiconductor's new factory was attended by the dean of the Government Affairs Council."

"I think Nanshan Group should not have the courage to lie in front of the Government Affairs Council. Besides, with Nanshan Group's current status, there is no need to use such lies to further enhance its influence."

When Yang Bingning said this, Wang Anguo also thought it made sense.

Nanshan Group is already the number one private enterprise in the country. Except for a few central enterprises that exceed it in scale, it has no more powerful rivals in the country.

In terms of high-tech, Nanshan Group is unique and has achieved remarkable results.

In this case, steady progress is the most appropriate solution.

Since Nanshan Semiconductor dares to officially declare that it has mastered 28-nanometer chip processing technology, it should really have mastered it.

At most, the technology may not be mature enough, but it is certainly capable.

"In this case, we will ask equipment experts to go to Nanshan Equipment to inspect it and express our intention to purchase lithography machines and other equipment from Nanshan Equipment."

"During this inspection process, we will also make sure to see if they really have the technology in this area."

"If this is the case, then it is not impossible to purchase some photolithography machines and other equipment from Nanshan Equipment in the future."

Naturally, Wang Anguo does not want to buy all lithography machines from ASML, as he would have no say in that case.

The status of Party A and Party B is sometimes not easily determined based on who is the buyer and who is the seller.

Instead, a comprehensive judgment must be made based on their respective strengths and substitutability.

Obviously, ASML has absolutely no awareness of Party B when it comes to purchasing photolithography machines.

SMIC has never felt that it, the Party A, is respected by others.

"Well, you can indeed go and investigate."

"It's a donkey or a horse. You'll know if you pull it out and run around."

Yang Bingning naturally supported Wang Anguo's instruction.

Soon, SMIC's inspection team went to Nanshan Equipment and was warmly received by Cao Yang and Pan Jinxing.

Regardless of SMIC's technical level, it is still the largest chip foundry in the country, and its production capacity ranks among the best in the world.

Such a big customer deserves respect!

Although such a major equipment procurement project cannot be decided on the spot during the visit, Nanshan Equipment gave good answers to the questions raised by SMIC experts during the visit.

At the same time, everyone also saw the first prototype produced by Nanshan Equipment.

The relevant technical parameters make it impossible for SMIC people to find any faults.

Immediately afterwards, Cao Yang and Pan Jinxing also recommended people from SMIC to visit Magic City Microelectronics and China Microelectronics.

Let SMIC know that domestic equipment manufacturers really have the production capacity of chip equipment.

Even if it has not reached the level of surpassing its international counterparts, it has at least caught up with others.

SMIC's chip technology is not the world's leading, and is even two generations behind companies such as TSMC and Samsung.

In this case, these domestic chip equipment can already meet the relevant requirements.

The most important thing is that according to the preliminary exchange of information, domestic equipment is at least half cheaper than imported equipment.

Even if the price is half the price, it is still the preliminary price after the equipment manufacturer has included relatively reasonable profits and R&D expenses.

One can imagine how shady those international equipment giants are.

"Mr. Cao, I think the people at SMIC are a little moved, and they can consider using the power of ministries and commissions to push it further."

"After all, they are also companies with state-owned shareholders. As long as they are reasonable requests, the management cannot completely ignore them."

"The equipment produced by our own domestic equipment manufacturers is definitely not comparable to imported equipment in terms of after-sales service."

"The most important thing is that this is also related to the equipment stability of domestic chip processing companies in the future, and even to the security of chip supply."

Pan Jinxing definitely hopes to fulfill SMIC's equipment orders.

Although Nanshan Equipment is currently busy producing chip processing equipment for Nanshan Semiconductor, there is no particularly large spare capacity in a short period of time.

However, customers within the group and customers outside the group have completely different meanings.

If Nanshan Equipment wants to open up the market, it certainly cannot rely solely on users within the group.

In China's semiconductor market, SMIC's choice is very representative and will serve as a reference for many other small and medium-sized chip processing companies.

"During this period, many people have applied to visit our chip processing equipment, and many are interested."

“Not only SMIC, but also other customers must pay full attention to it.”

"We have asked ministries and commissions to put pressure on SMIC before. Now we can slow down appropriately and let them think about it. Otherwise, it will easily have the opposite effect."

Using special influence to suppress the management of Zhongxin must have a certain effect.

But if this kind of thing is done too often, the side effects will definitely be huge.

Cao Yang himself understands this very well, so he has no intention of pushing SMIC too hard.

As long as Nanshan Semiconductor's new factory is built and it really masters the 28-nanometer chip processing technology, SMIC itself will take the initiative to purchase chip processing equipment from Nanshan Equipment without being forced by ministries and commissions.

After all, looking around the world, it is estimated that only Nanshan Equipment will sincerely provide SMIC with lithography machines that can process 28 nanometers.

There is no need to do anything like drinking poison to quench thirst!

However, Nanshan Equipment received so many visiting customers, but the side effects soon appeared.

(End of this chapter)