Reborn: Billionaire in College

People can never obtain wealth beyond their knowledge. Bitcoin is so cheap, and in this era, how many people value it? If Chen Ping hadn't mentioned it, Wang Cong would never have thought of this thing.

If the two people will never have the chance to deal with each other again in the future, Chen Pingjiang revealing this news to Wang Cong and Qinfen is actually a bit of a trick on them.

Because Bitcoin has experienced so many ups and downs in the past 10 years, few people can withstand it and hold on to the end.

Putting this matter aside, Chen Pingjiang went to the Peace Hotel in a low-key manner the next day.

With the help of relevant departments, he met two people he had always dreamed of meeting here.

Zhang Rujing and Liang Mengsong.

If you ask who has made the greatest contribution to China's chips, you will definitely mention Zhang Rujing and Liang Mengsong.

As for some people talking about Chen Jin, Wang Yangyuan, Yan Xiaolang, Zou Shichang, and Xu Juyan, that is pure irony.

Chen Jin is the mastermind behind the Hanxin fraud and is suspected of embezzling state funds. The four people behind him are the four-member audit team who lifted Chen Jin up.

You should know that none of the four review members are simple, including the dean of Peking University Microelectronics Research Institute, the dean of Zhejiang University Information Engineering, academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

The plot that even novels dare not write about actually exists in reality.

The moment he saw Zhang Rujing and Liang Mengsong, Chen Pingjiang was so excited that he could not express it in words. He had only one thought in his mind: "Convince them to join the upcoming Huaxin project, and the chip will definitely be made."

At this time, Mr. Zhang and Mr. Liang were sitting together and sipping tea carefully. They were curious about Chen Pingjiang and wanted to see what he thought.

When talking about Mr. Zhang and Mr. Liang, we have to mention TSMC, Morris Chang, and SMIC.

Both of their life trajectories are inseparable from TSMC, Morris Chang and SMIC.

Who is Morris Chang? He is the guy who said that even if China spent 10 trillion yuan, it still couldn’t produce a high-end chip! ! !

Let’s talk about TSMC first.

2004 was the first year of 90 nanometers. That year, Pentium 4 adopted 90 nanometer process technology, and its performance was further improved.

At that time, there were many manufacturers that could achieve 90-nanometer manufacturing technology, such as Intel, Infineon, Texas Instruments, IBM, UMC and TSMC.

Eight years later, in 8, the process technology developed to 2012 nanometers. At this time, there are still many manufacturers in the world that can achieve 22 nanometers semiconductor process technology, including Intel, UMC, MediaTek, GlobalFoundries, Samsung, etc.

But starting from 22 nanometers, it became a watershed.

When the process technology entered 14 nanometers, UMC (Taiwan United Microelectronics Corporation) stopped there.

Taiwan's "UMC" and "TSMC" were once known as the world's two chip manufacturing giants. These two companies account for more than 60% of the global chip manufacturing share.

UMC was once the leader, but its process technology stopped at 14 nanometers.

In 2017, the process entered 10 nanometers, and Intel failed at 10 nanometers. Intel's chip process was once the only one in the world, and TSMC and Samsung were just catching up. However, when the process entered 10 nanometers, Intel's 10 nanometer chips could only be used in low-end models. Intel's main I5 and I7 processors were delayed in delivery due to yield issues.

In the 7-nanometer field, Intel has not been able to make a breakthrough so far, and GlobalFoundries, another American chip foundry giant, also failed at 7 nanometers.

America's own foundry giant Intel failed at 10 nanometers, GlobalFoundries failed at 7 nanometers, and only Samsung and TSMC are left to enter the more difficult 5 nanometers.

Samsung's 14nm yield is lower than TSMC's, its 10nm performance is lower than TSMC's, and its 7nm R&D process is lower than TSMC's.

You can only talk about success when you reach formal mass production with high yield. Later, TSMC became the only foundry in the world capable of mass production of 5 nanometers and even 3 nanometers.

Back to China, SMIC is the only semiconductor foundry company that can show off its strength. SMIC's 14nm process chips are supplied to Huawei.

Even by 2023, there will only be four companies in the world that can produce 7nm, namely SMIC, TSMC, Samsung, and Intel.

How did SMIC rise to prominence?

Yes, Zhang Rujing was the founder and Liang Mengsong was the flag bearer. But they also left SMIC for various reasons.

In 1977, Zhang joined the American semiconductor giant Texas Instruments. At that time, he was just a small engineer, while Morris Chang was the senior vice president.

The two men had very different positions, and no one could have imagined that they would become "enemies" many years later. One founded the world's most powerful chip foundry company in Taiwan, and the other helped lay the foundation for semiconductor foundry in mainland China.

Because Texas Instruments abandoned the DRAM industry, Zhang Rujing chose to retire early, returned to Taiwan to find investment, and used his connections to establish World Advanced Semiconductor.

The year was 1997. It is worth noting that Morris Chang returned to Taiwan in 85 and founded TSMC.

The year World Semiconductor was founded, TSMC was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

With the support of the Texas Instruments Alumni Association, World Advanced Semiconductor has considerable technical strength. It took only three years for World Advanced Semiconductor to achieve profitability, which is extremely fast.

In 2000, TSMC bought World Semiconductor, which was founded by Zhang Rujing only three years ago, for a high price of US$50 billion. Zhang Rujing did not want to sell, but the shareholders agreed, and he did not show up when the price was finally negotiated.

At that time, Zhang Rujing had already decided to leave. He chose to retire early from Texas Instruments in order to pursue his semiconductor dream outside. He founded World Advanced Semiconductor in Taiwan. Although it developed well in three years, in the semiconductor industry, there were always two big mountains blocking the way: TSMC and UMC.

After the completion of the acquisition of TSMC, Zhang Rujing proposed to Morris Chang many times to develop in mainland China, but Morris Chang always disagreed.

However, Zhang Rujing still made up his mind to sell TSMC shares, cross the Taiwan Strait and come to the mainland.

The then deputy director of the Shanghai Economic and Trade Commission and Zhang Rujing were old acquaintances. When he was inspecting in Shanghai, all the leaders were there, and a group of officials of all ranks accompanied Zhang Rujing to Zhangjiang to select a site. Any piece of land could be chosen and it would be decided on the spot.

In April 2004, SMIC was registered. In May, Zhang Rujing led a team of hundreds of engineers and technicians to Shanghai. In August, the construction started, which can be regarded as the fastest record of chip factory construction in the world. Among the first batch of investors were Shanghai Industrial, Beida Jade Bird, Goldman Sachs, and Singapore Temasek.

Thanks to Zhang Rujing's efforts, SMIC expanded rapidly. SMIC built three 3-inch chip factories in Shanghai and two 2-inch chip factories in Beijing. Later, it acquired an 12-inch chip factory of Motorola. You can't see a more turbulent investment than this. An 8-inch chip production line alone costs hundreds of millions of dollars, and a 8-inch one costs $12 billion.

The results of expanding with so much capital naturally enabled SMIC to quickly enter the top three in production capacity.

Faced with such an impact, TSMC also became anxious.

Put pressure on Zhang Rujing through other channels, first with a fine, and then with a wanted order!

On the other hand, because of the division into several factions, the internal differences of the company became increasingly serious. Foreign investors believed that Zhang Rujing was blindly expanding. From its founding in 2000 to 2009, SMIC did not make a profit in any of the nearly ten years. Facing the pressure, Zhang Rujing explained: Shareholders only saw that SMIC's performance was poor, but they did not understand that other peers started 20 years earlier than SMIC. SMIC was using its own continuous losses to drive the rapid upgrade of the entire Chinese semiconductor industry.

This is also the reason why Chen Pingjiang is unwilling to introduce capital!
For the subsequent financing, Zhang Rujing chose the state-owned enterprise, Datang Telecom. In November 2008, the state-owned enterprise Datang Telecom acquired a stake in SMIC and became the largest shareholder.

The good times did not last long. In 09, TSMC sued SMIC for infringement. SMIC lost the case and TSMC was asked to pay US$10 billion in compensation.

SMIC doesn’t have that much money, so it sought settlement with TSMC.

The first condition for TSMC to agree to the settlement is that Zhang Rujing must resign and leave SMIC. If Zhang Rujing is still in charge of SMIC, there will be no settlement. This is not difficult to understand. In the eyes of TSMC, Zhang Rujing may really be a thorn in the flesh. He and his team spent ten years helping the mainland to build its own semiconductor foundry foundation. Although there is still a considerable gap with TSMC, as long as the development momentum remains unchanged, one day it will be able to challenge TSMC.

In the end, Zhang Rujing took the initiative to resign and bid farewell to the stage after ten years.

The reason why Zhang Rujing was invited out this time was that the Shanghai Municipal Government made great efforts. They learned from senior management that Chen Pingjiang wanted to build a wafer factory, and they hoped that Chen Pingjiang would set up the factory in Shanghai.

Chen Pingjiang wanted people, so they asked Zhang Rujing to come out of retirement. Chen Pingjiang wanted land, and the Shanghai government said they would give you a map and you could circle any vacant land you wanted.

Only in this way could Chen Pingjiang meet Mr. Zhang at the Peace Hotel.

If Mr. Zhang is the founder of SMIC, then Mr. Liang is the future founder of SMIC. Coincidentally, at this point in time, Mr. Meng has already left TSMC but has not yet gone to Samsung.

Liang Mengsong was forced to leave TSMC's workplace. His biggest dream in life is to defeat TSMC.

Liang's amazing achievement is that after joining SMIC, he was responsible for technical research. In just 300 days, he successfully solved the 14nm technical problem that had long troubled SMIC, pushing the company's technical level to a new height. This outstanding technical boss only has an annual salary of 150 million US dollars, and it is said that he even donated all this money to an education fund to cultivate Chinese chip talents.

Unfortunately, the conflict between Liang and Jiang Shangyi, who was about to join the company as vice chairman, intensified in 20. Liang Mengsong wrote a letter of resignation to the board of directors, expressing his position that the relationship between him and Jiang Shangyi could only be "either me or him, or him or me".

Fortunately, I didn’t leave in the end!

The conflict between the two had already existed during the TSMC period. Both of them were core figures of TSMC. Liang Mengsong was good at technology research and development, while Jiang Shangyi was good at management. Because Jiang Shangyi did not support Liang Mengsong at a critical moment, he lost the opportunity for promotion, which made Liang Mengsong feel extremely humiliated and disappointed.

It was because of Chiang Shangyi that Liang Mengsong resigned from TSMC and then went to Samsung, helping Samsung achieve leapfrog development.

After discovering that Liang Mengsong had gone to Samsung, Morris Chang sued Liang Mengsong for leaking company secrets and forced him to leave Samsung.

Later, Liang went to SMIC, but TSMC also obtained SMIC's equity due to the settlement of the previous infringement lawsuit, and immediately sent Liang's arch-enemy to serve as vice chairman, with the purpose of disgusting Liang and forcing him to leave.

What Chen Pingjiang finds ridiculous is that SMIC’s biggest problem is that its arch-rival competitor is actually a major shareholder of the company. This is incredibly absurd.

Oh, and more!

According to SMIC's prospectus in 20, Liang Mengsong, as a director and CEO, actually has no equity! Liang Mengsong has no equity, while other directors have equity, just a pure worker. Of course, although SMIC later gave him options, three years had passed since Liang joined the company, and his arch-enemy Jiang Shangyi also came at this time.

What’s even funnier is that other executive directors’ salaries + equity are over 2019 million, and even independent directors have options; Liang Mengsong not only has no equity, but his salary was also reduced in 2018 compared to .

He really pushed the person to the ground and bullied him.

When Chen Pingjiang read the report on this incident, he also felt wronged for the old man.

Mr. Liang’s annual salary in his first year after joining SMIC was only US$20 after tax. Can you imagine this?

An annual salary of $20 isn’t enough to hire a senior vice president, let alone such a technical expert?
This also reflects that Liang came to SMIC not for the money, as he donated the 20 US dollars in the end.

SMIC really doesn't deserve to have such talents. Even Samsung respects people better than them.

According to Liang Mengsong's "Letter to the Board of Directors" circulating on the Internet, Liang Mengsong proposed a conditional resignation because: On December 12, last Wednesday morning, I received a phone call from the chairman informing me that Mr. Jiang would soon take up the position of vice chairman of the company. I was very surprised and puzzled by this, because I had no idea about this beforehand. I deeply felt that I was no longer respected and trusted. I felt that you no longer needed me to continue to work hard for the company's future. I can rest for a while.

Fortunately, after a series of internal confrontations within SMIC, Liang Mengsong stayed in office and Jiang Shangyi left.

Chen Pingjiang smiled with satisfaction when he saw the two elders. Mr. Zhang was 48 years old and Mr. Liang was 52 years old. One is 63 and the other is 59 this year, but they both looked energetic.

At the same time, Mr. Zhang and Mr. Liang were also looking at Chen Pingjiang curiously.

Although they are currently unemployed, they still have a natural mission to make chips.

"Mr. Zhang, Mr. Liang, I'm very happy to see you." Chen Pingjiang walked to the table and sat down with a smile.

Mr. Zhang also laughed and said, "I was just telling Lao Liang that I often see your news in the news. I never thought you also wanted to build a wafer fab. I was shocked when my old friend found me."

Elder Liang nodded and said, "Mr. Chen looks so young. It's true that every generation has its own talents. Seeing you makes me feel really old. You know, my son is almost ten years older than you."

"Haha, maybe being young is my advantage. It's because I'm young that I want to have a drink to fulfill my dream of making chips." Seeing that there was not much tea in the two people's cups, Chen Pingjiang stood up and was about to pour water for them.

Mr. Zhang and Mr. Liang were also startled and waved their hands quickly.

After pouring the water, Chen Pingjiang asked Liang Mengsong: "Mr. Liang, I heard that you were originally planning to go to Samsung, but you were persuaded to come and take a look?"

"Well, I want to meet you, and I also want to see your ambition."

At this time, Mr. Zhang on the side began to get to the point: "I heard what Lao Jiang said, and I also know about the country's ongoing support for the chip industry. Other wafer fabs require investment from multiple capital groups to bear the huge costs. Why do you want to do it alone? Have you really considered the hardships involved?"

It’s no wonder that the two elders are worried, because they are too familiar with the chip manufacturing industry and know how difficult it is to do it on their own.

Chen Pingjiang nodded and said, "I've been thinking about this for a few years. I'm doing the Internet just to make money quickly, and the ultimate goal of making money is to build a wafer fab and defeat TSMC. For this, I'm willing to go bankrupt."

Hearing this, the two elders' eyes lit up.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend! It is very important that the interests of the three of us are the same.

"I have learned about the difficulties of building a wafer fab. Funding is a problem, but it is not the biggest problem. I can cash out my shares in Renren Group and sell shares in other companies. I don't want capital because capital is profit-seeking by nature and will create constraints internally. I'm sure you also know why I don't want state-owned enterprises."

Hearing this, Zhang Rujing and Liang Mengsong smiled knowingly.

Of course they know.

Previously, Huahong, a state-owned enterprise, planned to build a 12-inch factory. However, many years have passed and the United States has blocked the technology and equipment from being shipped over, making it impossible to build the factory.

Only if Chen Pingjiang invests and builds it in his private name will it have the greatest chance of success.

Furthermore, it must be registered overseas.

Western countries are wary of China's development of high technology and have imposed an N-2 technology blockade on China, so they can only register in the Cayman Islands and invest in the mainland in the name of foreign capital. This allows them to conduct joint ventures, equity participation, reorganizations, mergers, etc. more flexibly.

That’s what SMIC did at the beginning.

In the same way, the soon-to-be-launched Huaxin International is a foreign-invested enterprise in China, rather than a Chinese state-owned enterprise that makes Western countries sensitive. This is more conducive to the influx of capital, technology, equipment, personnel, etc. into Huaxin.

Mr. Zhang sighed, "Mr. Chen, please don't think I'm asking too much. It's not that we don't know your strength, but we hope that you can see enough difficulties and make enough preparations. No one wants to give up halfway. We are also old. If we fail this time, we may not have the next chance to defeat TSMC."

Chen Pingjiang smiled and said, "I understand your feelings very well. In fact, I recruited many former employees from Texas Instruments and VIA Technologies through various channels two years ago. Now they are all working in my Daqin chip design company."

"I know that if you want to build a wafer fab, you need not only funds, but also talent, equipment, and supply chain. In the process, you may encounter insufficient funds, slow project progress, insufficient yield, inability to develop high-end chips, and inability to buy lithography machines. I have considered all of these." (End of this chapter)