Reinventing the Millennium

In mid-June, Shencheng Yike passed several resolutions.

The product department was split into two, and the hardware team established a product center, with Xu Keden still serving as product director.

The software team is set up as the IM center, with Chen Ming, the former deputy technical director of the Medical Group, as the technical director - iMusic software was jointly developed by the technical teams of Guahao.com and Yike, and the transfer channels for both parties are very smooth.

At the same time, the company established a music center, spinning off the team that originally followed Sony Music cooperation. The main office is located in New York, and domestic department personnel are responsible for providing timely feedback and support for music and software.

In addition, the marketing department is divided into two areas, the Chinese area and the overseas area. In the former, Yang Wan was promoted two levels to the position of marketing director, and in the latter, vice president Yu Hong served as the overseas marketing director.

Other departments have also made slight adjustments, mainly the merger of similar functions, and the authority of Vice President Su Wei has been further clarified. A chief financial officer will also be recruited from the outside to promote the company's listing process.

Yike held meetings for three consecutive days, clearly sending out signals that it was seeking listing opportunities. After releasing such signals, it announced at the last meeting that three middle managers would be dismissed from their positions and brought to justice.

This time it's still an economic issue.

The salary set by Yike is among the best in the industry, but we still can't bear the temptation of some people who want more and take advantage of Yike's extensive management during its rapid development period to make profits.

Fang Zhuo didn't show any mercy, even though one of them was transferred during the policy changes of the Registration Network, but he had previously used Tang Shangde's case as a warning, and he really couldn't find a reason not to deal with it seriously.

After three days of sweetness and then bitterness, the atmosphere in Yike's management became clear. Everyone read a message that the boss would personally take charge of Yike's listing.

Following the Sina, Real Estate, and Hanxin incidents, the boss finally remembered that his biological son was still waiting to be fed.

However, Su Wei expressed doubts about everyone's optimistic statement. Mr. Fang, it's not that he doesn't care about Yike and doesn't pay attention to Yike. He flies back and forth to the United States the most in the company. He just always pushes the company forward at key nodes.

Even, it cannot be said to be a step, it should be said to be a leap.

The transition from hardware to digital music copyright is such a breathtaking leap.

Market reaction takes time. Although it seems that it is just a supplement to the product at the moment, and although the domestic environment does not realize its significance due to environmental conditions, Su Wei believes that the importance of this node can be assessed within the next year or even half a year.

On June 21, Yike’s internal adjustments were completed, and only one CFO candidate was still being identified.

On this day, exactly one week after the "6.14 Hanxin" incident, the conclusion of the official investigation team was finally released - Hanxin was a fraud.

What followed was the handling of the parties involved, the revocation of various honorary titles, the recovery of scientific research funds, and the dissolution of large and small projects.

Considering that Chen Jin is still being investigated by the police for financial issues, this handling can be regarded as a formal explanation in the academic field.

At the very least, the public is somewhat satisfied with this, and everyone knows that the judicial process will take time.

As for the experts and leaders involved in the Hanxin project, this does not fall within the scope of the investigation team's remit, and the official announcement did not provide a response.

The news media are still tracking this, and a series of analysis reports and criticisms will continue for a period of time, but such a project that deceived the world and stole its reputation through such a clumsy fake method has finally come to an end.

On this day, Su Wei returned to the company after finishing her afternoon work. When she wanted to talk to her boss about something, she learned from the president's assistant that he would receive guests in the conference room.

"Xiao Chen, where's the guest? The boss?" she asked.

"It's not the leader. It seems that he was invited by Director Xu. He hasn't arrived yet, and Mr. Fang is reading information in the conference room." The assistant replied.

Su Wei looked at her watch. It was now a quarter past two in the afternoon: "When will the guests arrive?"

"Two thirty." The assistant replied.

Su Wei nodded, packed up the documents for a while, and then walked to the conference room.

The conference room in Hang Lung 23 is very large, with a projection screen in the front, and the long table is often full of seats on both sides. The signal here supports telephone conferences very well, and also ensures the smooth flow of online conferences to the greatest extent.

Unfortunately, the foreign conferencing software I have been using is sometimes not very effective.

At this moment, there were only two people in the conference room, Mr. Fang and his biographer Liang Mu.

Both of them were reading the information, and the latter would occasionally ask a question in a chat-like manner.

Su Wei came in and said hello. Listening to Liang Mu's questions and the boss's answers, she was surprised. Mr. Fang seemed to be talking nonsense. Does Liang Mu really believe this?

"Mr. Fang, who are you going to receive today? Is it related to new models?" She waited for two minutes and asked curiously.

"Oh, no, no, I asked Teacher Xu to find teachers and practitioners in the IC industry to hear what is going on in this industry." Fang Zhuo pondered for a while, mentioning the new product, "The M2 they are making now is a bit conservative. I’m not satisfied and have called back.”

Su Wei knew that the M2 submitted by the product department was to further increase the storage and optimize the sound quality. She thought it was just okay because the previous improved model only increased the storage.

"I don't have anything to do this afternoon, why don't I listen?" the vice president said tentatively.

"Okay, where is Teacher Liang?" Fang Zhuo looked at Liang Mu. He didn't feel comfortable calling this former reporter and current author who claimed to have left after two years, so he simply called him teacher as a sign of respect.

Liang Mu knew the identity of the guests and the time of the meeting earlier than Su Wei. He nodded and said, "Listen and see if there is anything worth writing."

The tea was replaced in the conference room, and the guests arrived.

Introduced by product director Xu Keden, two are associate professor Yu Jun and lecturer Zeng Xiaoyang from Fudan University majoring in microelectronics and solid-state electronics, and one is Lu Ronghui, a PIE semiconductor engineer from Shencheng Huahong.

Fudan does not have a school of microelectronics, and Jiaotong University was just established this year through the Hanxin project, but...the latter cannot be said to be overshadowed, and they were directly confused by the sack. Therefore, these two are already senior leaders in the industry. Intellectuals and authorities, PIE engineers are responsible for the process integration of the entire process and are indeed the backbone of the industry.

After receiving the invitation on this trip, the three of them were also very curious about the richest man in Shanghai who had become famous recently. It can be said that the entire domestic industry was very familiar with this rich man who revealed the truth about Hanxin.

After some polite remarks, Fang Zhuo did not mention anything about Hanxin, but only expressed an outsider’s curiosity about semiconductors.

This is not surprising, after all, many people know that President Fang and Professor Chen have a business cooperation on the chip project - some people even lamented that if Professor Chen had not approached President Fang, he might have continued to cheat.

The 2+1 guest lineup did not make the afternoon meeting very interesting. Su Wei and Liang Mu were both dizzy and confused by the abbreviations and professional terms that popped up from time to time.

However, those who are advanced and professional do not understand, but at least they know some common sense.

IC industry is the abbreviation of Integrated Circuit. The entire industry chain is divided into IC design, IC manufacturing, and IC packaging and testing, followed by upstream, midstream, and downstream links.

Among them, IC manufacturing is the core link, with the highest value, and the gross profit margin is also at a high level in the industry.

At present, these three links in China are lagging behind compared with the world.

"The country is paying more attention to it. There is a gap between us and the international community, but SMIC has developed very well in the past two years." Lecturer Zeng Xiaoyang is 31 years old. He is always concerned about the development of the industry and knows the domestic situation very well. He is also quite excited when talking about it, " It only took 13 months for SMIC’s first production line to be completed and put into production. In the past three years since its establishment in 2000, it has already had four 8-inch production lines and one 12-inch production line.”

Fang Zhuo rubbed his chin. It sounded good. He thought about it and asked, "Is SMIC's technical level far different from the international level?"

Zeng Xiaoyang silently evaluated and hesitated to give an answer.

Associate Professor Yu Jun has been supplementing the content. When faced with this question, he slowly spoke: "Just compare it with TSMC. I heard from a friend that he had heard an internal statement from SMIC's founder Zhang Rujing. He said, The gap between SMIC and TSMC is only one or two years, and it would take even nine months for him to catch up."

It was the first time Fang Zhuo heard this statement. He knew that Zhang Rujing was the founder of SMIC. He was once a colleague of TSMC founder Zhang Zhongmou at Texas Instruments. Later, the company he worked for in Baodao was acquired by TSMC. He came here because he did not want to join. Mainland China founded SMIC.

What such a person said is certainly not empty talk. Then...why didn't SMIC catch up with this gap later?

Fang Zhuo stood at the current moment and looked back, feeling a little lost for a moment.

As a competitor in the industry, Lu Ronghui, an engineer at Huahong PIE, couldn't help but praise: "SMIC is really powerful, and its development speed is so fast. We can look forward to the future, and we can look forward to the future."

Fang Zhuo came to his senses, took a sip of tea, and asked a more personal question: "What is the approximate budget for building a production line?"

The three people looked at each other. Although they had certain psychological expectations, it still felt quite extraordinary to hear these words from the richest man in Shanghai. Forget about others, this one was wealthy.

Fang Zhuo smiled: "I'll just ask."

Zeng Xiaoyang said directly: "Mr. Fang, SMIC built a wafer fab in Beijing at the end of last year, and the announced investment amount was 1.25 billion."

He paused before saying the unit at the end: "US dollars."

Fang Zhuo couldn't help but take a breath when he heard this number: "One factory is nearly one wave."

Zeng Xiaoyang: "?"

Su Wei, who was originally quite bored, suddenly became alert when her boss asked about the budget. She glanced at him when she heard this and realized that Sina's market value was indeed only about US$1.5 billion.

She expressed the most intuitive feeling in her heart: "It's so expensive!"

"It is indeed expensive, and from a global perspective, the entire IC industry is now at a low ebb." Zeng Xiaoyang added information.

At this time, Huahong's Lu Ronghui suddenly expressed a different opinion: "The factory in Beijing has the latest 12-inch production line. In fact, many international manufacturers like to buy second-hand equipment, and the cost will be reduced a lot. The industry as a whole is in a slump this year. There must be a lot of second-hand equipment on the market."

He continued: "Equipment is one thing. What really needs to be paid attention to is the process and yield rate. This is not simple. It is also a matter of life and death for a production line."

The perspective of practitioners is somewhat different from that of teachers in schools, and it sounds more down-to-earth.

Zeng Xiaoyang frowned, glanced at Professor Yu, and refuted the content of the equipment. It took time for the production line to go from project establishment to production, and second-hand equipment on the market tended to lag behind.

The two argued for a while.

Fang Zhuo didn't speak, just silently absorbing information.

At 4:30 in the afternoon, a small meeting that combined science popularization, debate, industry latest information, and industry development forecasts ended.

Fang Zhuo also had a conference call with New York, so he made an appointment to have dinner together to express his gratitude. In addition, he also casually chatted about Fudan's semiconductor-related scholarships.

He hasn't thought about the production line yet, but it doesn't prevent him from supporting the cultivation of talents.

This is much cheaper than budgeting based on “waves”.

When all three of them left, Liang Mu, who was dazed, also stood up to say goodbye.

"This afternoon's stuff is so boring. I think Teacher Liang was so bored that he drew a few pandas in his notebook." Su Wei had some thoughts in mind and joked first.

"Really? He was quite energetic when he left." Fang Zhuo said.

"That was the last time I heard you ask about the budget, and I felt that something worth writing about was about to happen." Su Wei stared at the boss's expression, trying to read more accurate information, "You don't have the idea of ​​​​entering an unfamiliar field rashly, do you?"

Fang Zhuo rarely hesitated and said nothing.

"Are you so shocked by Professor Chen's cooperation that you decided to invest money in semiconductors out of anger?" Su Wei asked again.

Fang Zhuo said: "It's reasonable to think this way."

Su Wei said calmly: "It is indeed very reasonable. This Hanxin, you are a victim no matter how you look at it, but I think you have never been a loser..."

Fang Zhuo said quickly: "What you say next is starting to be unreasonable."

"Then tell me something reasonable." Su Wei stared at the boss.

"The only reasonable thing is for an enthusiastic onlooker to look into the semiconductor industry." Fang Zhuo positioned himself and shrugged, "There are three problems with this long-distance look. There is no money, no one, no experience."

Su Wei complained: "Three realistic questions, then I want to ask this enthusiastic onlooker, if this is the case, what else do you hope for?"

"The three questions seem difficult, but I am thinking about whether it is harder to do something now or later." Fang Zhuo said seriously.

Su Wei didn't quite understand: "What do you mean?"

Fang Zhuo explained: "For example, if you can do something with 1 billion now, it will cost 3 billion, 5 billion, or 10 billion in ten or twenty years, and you may also face changes in the environment."

Make up 1 billion...

Forget it for others. Although Su Wei is not completely aware of the money in the boss's hands, she can vaguely guess. For the MIGA fund alone, it previously held more than 5% of the shares of NetEase and Sohu. Although it is now unable to reduce its holdings, It appears on the list, and it must also rise with the current rise in stock prices.

She thought for a while: "Be careful, Mr. Fang, you have to be careful."

"Yes, be careful. We are short of a core talent in this area. Money can think of ways and experience can be accumulated. Without someone, it will be difficult." Fang Zhuo frowned, like Zhang Rujing of SMIC, who is known as He is the "Godfather of Chinese Semiconductors".

"You are missing someone." Su Wei didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Let's do this. SMIC is in Shanghai. Let's go visit President Zhang Rujing together another day." Fang Zhuo thought about it again and decided to listen to such a person's opinion.