Reboot 2003

Chapter 322 103: Nerds and Petroleum Guys ( in )

This was something Chen Qin himself taught her. Ah Yue naturally thought of it. Chen Qin had a big reaction for some reason and seriously retorted to her: "It can't be generalized. They just want to find someone to fool the work, and in turn they can do it themselves." They will be fooled. Private companies have profitability as an indicator and can focus on user experience. As long as they appoint experts and establish common interests, they will definitely not reach this point."

"Oh……"

A-Yue looked at him strangely, but did not refute any more; after that, A-Yue continued to work, and quickly finished changing the website template that Principal Wen needed. The code of a good government information website was changed to be as abstract as a heavenly book. Wen The principal went out to say hello to the teacher. He originally wanted to occupy this computer class and subsequent extracurricular activities, and even find a few more days to let A Yue and the two do it. But he didn't expect to do it when he came back. It was almost done. I only saw Ayue typing on the web page. As for the structure of the web page, it was almost done.

At this moment, Principal Wen was still very happy: "It's very fast, you guys."

Xiao Chen was not modest at all: "How about it, is it awesome?"

"Then what about the server you're talking about?"

"This matter is simple, just leave it to us."

Chen Qin agreed immediately, and Principal Wen asked, "Do you need anything?"

"No need, let's go to the New Era Studio and find a computer to hang on. It doesn't cost anything."

"Can that guarantee stability? This needs to be accessible 24 hours a day..."

"Of course not, the studio computers need to rest."

"Then can I get a server myself and you can set it up?"

"This is not going to be easy..."

After a few entanglements, Principal Wen began to realize that something was wrong and looked at Xiao Chen, who had just entered the second grade of middle school this year, with some suspicion.

However, he was very pragmatic and stopped the topic temporarily. He sat in front of the computer and asked about the technical details of this website. Of course, he didn't understand technology. He just asked how the drop-down menu and the sliding picture block were made. He looked at it. It's the same thing as a large website, and it feels very technical.

He asked everything he could, and then said to the two students: "I'll ask others. Thank you for your hard work. The website will be ready in two days. I'll treat you two."

Then, with A Yue's sympathetic eyes, she took the USB flash drive and copied the code out. She didn't know whether to find another expert or to find his son who works in the Education Committee to accept the work...

However, she still didn't say much and kept suppressing her expression. When she went out, she couldn't wait to say to Chen Qin: "Tsk, tsk, I finally understand. I thought it was a bit unethical for you to be such a shady person. Now the code of this web page is so messed up." , and there is no background operation panel, if he wants to use it, he might be tricked into something."

Then he said: "But I guess he will definitely come back to you in two days. How much will you ask him for then?"

Chen Qin glanced at her while walking: "You have written half of it, and you will have your share when the time comes. What do you think we should want?"

Ah Yue didn't have any psychological burden at all: "Of course it costs 500,000 yuan. I think those two small functions are very powerful. Although it is open source, it is not a loss to sell it for 500,000 yuan!"

Chen Qin gave her little head a shock: "You are so young, are you crazy about money? This is public money. If you want so much, they really dare to give it to you, but can you afford it? "

"But this is not the first thing you want to do to trick people..."

"I don't ask for anything. Anyway, I just want him to outsource the website server to our studio. When there is an inspection from superiors in the future, we can also have a sword of Shang Fang, or recruit a brother to join their system as a temporary worker. We can do it easily. Do it as a favor.”

"Okay, I get it..." Ah Yue understood now, and after thinking about it, it was indeed true, "Okay, in this case, the people who did the inspection last time will definitely not be able to cause trouble..."

While talking, the two returned to the classroom. It was already time for extracurricular activities, and the students who had just finished their computer class were also back.

When he returned to his seat, he saw Song Ziyun sitting in Chen Qin's seat, leaning against the window sill and talking to Guo Yang in the front row. Seeing that the two of them had not given up their seats when they came back, he said, "Why did you two go? You haven't seen a single class."

Then he said excitedly: "There will be another competition in Pengcheng in two days. I will go on an expedition with the team again. Will you two go?"

This is probably a good thing, but Chen Qin made another sarcastic remark: "You play in some inexplicable competition every day, but you haven't gotten any results yet, and I don't care how many results you have."

"The important thing is to participate. Anyway, I haven't been holding back recently." Song Ziyun said proudly, "I even did a C during the National Day."

"But you were still able to get to the top eight at the beginning, but you just reached the top 16 on National Day and you were gone. You didn't get first place in the last Internet cafe competition."

"Hi……"

After being beaten once before, Song Ziyun was much more open-minded this time: "It's others who should win, just Xiaoshuai and the others. It is said that they have to practice for more than 6 hours a day. I can't beat them."

Speaking of this, Guo Yang nodded in agreement and said, "Yeah, I feel like those professionals are so awesome. They can practice twelve hours a day."

A Yue also said: "I also feel that I can't spend that much time writing a map in a day."

"That being said, playing games is definitely easier than making games."

"The main thing is to practice twelve hours a day, even if you play games, you have to throw up..."

"Hurry up and drive away! I have other things to do."

After chatting like this for a few words, Song Ziyun was thrown aside by Chen Qin. The middle school students were still chatting, and after a while Li Sitong also came over, talking about e-sports competitions, after-school activities, and the latest "Max Payne". It was almost the same stuff that ordinary middle school students would talk about on a daily basis. .

Xiao Chen was sitting there alone, pretending to be deep, holding a printed document and not knowing what he was reading. It was filled with things like semiconductors and company reorganization. Are all online novels written like this now? In short, it is something that ordinary middle school students will watch.

But after chatting like this for a while, the others went to the playground to watch the teachers play basketball. A Yue said, "You go first, I'll be right back."

After the others left, they came over and looked curiously: "What are you looking at? Aren't you going?"

"Go ahead, I have something to do today."

"A due diligence report..." Ah Yue muttered as she looked at it, "I thought you were looking at those lewd things again, hehe." As he spoke, Chen Qin grinned and didn't answer. Words: "Anyway, a few friends helped me write it, so I just took a look at it. I mainly asked third-party organizations for suggestions. After all, I'm not an expert."

A Yue inexplicably thought of what happened before: "It seems that you also have times when you are an amateur."

Chen Qin scratched his head, and for some reason he became very concerned about this matter: "Actually, you can't ask a layman to command an expert..."

"I know. Anyway, if you are so good at cheating people, you must be the only one cheating others. No one else is cheating you. If you need anything, just tell me."

She suddenly understood what Chen Qin was paying attention to before, but this time Chen Qin said seriously: "Actually...it shouldn't be an outsider or an expert."

As he spoke, he put down the paper and looked forward: "It should be said that they are nerds, problem solvers and geeks. They were such people in the earliest Silicon Valley. Venture capital came to them and funded them to start big businesses."

He said with a wry smile: "Although the current Internet industry still has the same model, the needs of Internet users are more important. Those people can't compare to us businessmen, so they will naturally fall to the second tier. But they are not their own people who want to be semiconductors." If so, it would be quite troublesome to deal with them forcefully..."

In short...this is probably the issue that Chen Qin cares about most now.

GlobalFoundries did fail in history, but it failed due to poor management after the integration of AMD. GlobalFoundries was dragged down because of this, and in the end it was only the second largest player in the industry.

GlobalFoundries has many problems now, but it is impossible to have no problems with the acquired assets. It is enough to have this starting point; Chen Qin himself is a reborn person, and he can naturally see more things than the nerds and investors of any era. More macroscopically, the next ten years will be the decade of mobile phone system-level chips, and ARM and TSMC are the beneficiaries of this trend.

Now I want risc-v and GlobalFoundries to replace ARM and TSMC, which rose up last time through the mobile Internet, or at least take part of the cake from their hands. Even if I can't eat the cake in the end, I will at least be independent. It's controllable, and there's a saying, 'It's more uncomfortable to watch others make money than to be owed something to me.' This is actually a reasonable choice on a competitive level, and that's what he is doing now.

However... although opportunities are important, after all, it is not enough to tie a dog. In companies in the Silicon Valley system, it is very difficult to lead a research and development company. As long as he has not reached the top level in the industry, he is an outsider, just like Ma Yun was fooled by a group of people in the project team before - not only Principal Wen just wanted to fool around with work, he would definitely be fooled by his subordinates, Ma Yun himself also worked in technology in the early days, but If the technology stack is not low-level enough, you will still be fooled in difficult development work.

And now...it's Chen Qin's turn.

The Internet is not all for nerds, but chips are a typical nerd industry, and chip manufacturing is the bottom of the bottom. Chen Qin’s previous plan was to acquire it, and then as an investor, he would hire a few future talents to take charge of it. This high-paying This means that a CEO has an annual salary of tens of millions of dollars or more, and he is responsible for the development and R&D of the entire factory. This is a common way for Silicon Valley venture capitalists to deal with nerds. Although cheaper ones can certainly be found, the so-called Basically, most of the research and development costs of semiconductors are used to pay these nerds. If you want to be the best in the world, this is the worst place to save money.

On the surface, this plan seems to have no problems, but now that due diligence is in hand, problems are starting to emerge...

Of course, it is said to be a problem, but at least on the surface, the problem still lies in money.

After all, for this wafer fab, although the biggest problem is still technology, he recently invited a few old friends - Shen Nanpeng and Peter Thiel to do the M&A business. Recently, they co-wrote a due diligence document with a third-party organization. Investigation is what Chen Qin has in his hands now.

The answer is that AMD's technology is indeed pretty good today. There is already a relatively mature 45nm foundry technology. In terms of manufacturing process, Intel is also at this stage and does not seem to be behind the times.

But Intel has four factories, and AMD only has one factory in Germany. It is small in scale and has a low yield. TSMC next door still uses 40nm, but the yield is too low and can only use 55nm.

Moreover, this industry itself is already quite a red ocean. Patent authorization is complicated. AMD has been developing its own process technology for more than ten years. Now it is really something. However, it has complicated cross-licensing with Intel and TSMC, which is different from what Chen Qin imagined. TSMC does not have much advantage in today's technology licensing. On the contrary, Intel, in order to cope with antitrust, gave AMD considerable profits in patent licensing.

Once GF becomes independent in the future, it is difficult to say whether this situation can continue.

The second is advanced process research and development... Moore's Law is moving very fast. Now TSMC and Intel are accelerating and moving forward. AMD is eager to get rid of the wafer fab. It turns out that it is not wearing any underwear at all—— Although it is 45nm now, the industry is already laying out the next generation of technology. Intel's 32nm is almost there, and four advanced process factories are already on the way. TSMC and Samsung, backed by state support, seem to be making every effort. Money chases.

At this time, AMD is like a poor student who failed in liberal arts and science before. It seems to work very hard, but since it doesn't care about the future, it has not studied a word of the next generation process.

It seems that he doesn't even think about the future of the foundry business that he wants to sell, or even more than that - although on the surface it is for everyone to work together to build an foundry platform, in fact there are dozens of people in the wafer factory. Billion, he will not invest another dime in process research and development.

Of course, they said they could provide orders to the fab in the future, and they could also promise to retain part of the fab's shares, if the investors were willing...

But even though he holds the shares, he says that he really doesn’t have the money on hand now. If he wants to invest in research and development in the future, he can only ask the investors to pay for it themselves. After all, we have provided the order...

Listen, is this human language? It’s no wonder that in the past, we could only find oil guys who were not short of money to take over the business.

Of course, this is not the biggest problem, but after buying this factory, he will definitely return to China. This is Chen Qin's own plan.

Capital relations are essentially contracts. A contract without consensus is just a piece of waste paper. Even if it wants to be an international high-end OEM, it must move some of its high-end production lines and R&D resources to China or Hong Kong, and it must be done before the trade war. It is Chen Qin's own need to cook raw rice into cooked rice.

But AMD is probably really short of money. It had previously received project funds from the Melician government, and had promised to open a factory in Melician to boost employment before the wafer fab was divested. It happened to be the recent economic crisis, and this matter can no longer be avoided. .

Of course, if you are in California, you should hold your nose and admit it. After all, California wages are very expensive, but there are also a large number of high-end talents available.

But the place they agreed to settle on turned out to be New York... It was the least cost-effective place to open a factory in the world.

Of course, after all, it is something that no one wants, and there is nothing that can be done about problems like this.

However, this wafer fab, which can be purchased for 3 to 4 billion, requires an unknown amount of investment in a blink of an eye. Now it has to bid with the oil guys from the Middle East, and at the same time, it has to accelerate the construction of the factory. In the blink of an eye, it seems that the investment amount has been reached. Ten billion level.

At this time, even the oil guys who had bid together before were probably a little bit unable to sit still. It seemed that they had a private chat with Shen Nanpeng and communicated with each other. We are all honest people from the third world, but we can't give this to this group of people. The Americans were deceived, and the information about the previous construction of the factory in New York was the information they revealed.

So what to do now? Do you want to continue bidding?

The answer is natural. The real-life problem is of course that it is the fundamental reason why it is a depreciating asset. But since we have to focus on the long term, it would be a good thing to have complete control of the wafer factory now.

But after all, Chen Qin's money didn't come from the strong wind. Now he not only has to consider leaving some margin, but the money he plans to invest now is only more than 10 billion. So much money is spent like running water, so he doesn't feel like it. impossible.

To resolve doubts now, it is natural to step up efforts to find industry insiders for evaluation, double down on due diligence, and discuss all solvable issues on the negotiation table in advance to avoid regrets later.

But after talking to A Yue, Chen Qin felt that he had a strange idea in his heart. Of course, he had not made a decision yet. He continued to go to school that day and went to the studio after school to visit their amateur team training. During the process, I also went to chat with Ice Frog about my views on game art...

But halfway through the conversation, an email came to the inbox of the mobile phone. It was from Shen Nanpeng, who was doing due diligence recently.

"Old Chen, something unexpected happened. The oil guy suddenly invited me to dinner. Although I haven't gone yet, they said they have thought about it and are interested in jointly investing with us and acting in concert to negotiate with the United States. What do you think?"

　cuckoo

　　

　

(End of this chapter)