Reinventing the Millennium

January 29, 2005, the first day of the Lunar New Year.

It didn't snow in Luzhou, and the weather was cold and dry. The Spring Festival Gala was replayed on the TV screen in the breakfast canteen, and the word "福" posted upside down on the wall still filled the atmosphere with a festive atmosphere, but the atmosphere in the entire ice core was already solemn.

SMIC's expert team is here to solve problems, not to celebrate the New Year - although the chef's food is delicious, so they consciously devote themselves to their work.

Originally, Fang Zhuo was wearing clean clothes and followed him into the clean room. However, he found that being here seemed to affect the normal work of the experts, so he had to stay for only half an hour before walking out.

The facts in the technical field are helpless. This is the job of Qiu Ciyun and others.

What Fang Zhuo can do is weave the business ecosystem around ice core technology, which is what he is good at.

In the morning, he didn't go anywhere. He just sat wrapped in his coat at the door of the ice core factory, smoking and replying to various blessings that he had not dealt with yesterday.

Beijing, Shencheng, Lin'an, and Luzhou all have concise text messages with their leaders. For example, Zheng Danrui and Qiu Di also have habitual phone calls. This is also the exchange they have had during the Chinese New Year in the past few years. In addition to the administrative level, business level friends, There are more acquaintances.

For SMIC's immediate help, Mr. Rujing and Zhang must give him a call to express his sincere blessings. Fang Zhuo still has some small plans for the cooperation between the two companies, and maintaining the relationship between them is a more important part.

The senior officials of the Yi Ke Department, including but not limited to Zhou Xin, Du Yuhu, Pan Ben, and Wang Yan, are in various places. Some of them have made special calls from overseas. Forget it at other times. This is the Chinese New Year, and Fang Zhuo also You can't help but understand your thoughts.

People like Sohu Zhang, NetEase Ding, Alima, Penguin Ma and others are all working on the Internet. Although there is a competitive relationship, today you stab me, and I will stab you tomorrow, but everyone has generally gone through the stage of the Internet bubble bursting and re-starting. After all, there is some tacit understanding that I don’t know if it is a tacit understanding.

I smoked half a pack of cigarettes and haven’t finished all the New Year’s calls and text messages.

At noon, the TV in the Bingxin cafeteria began to broadcast the NBA game between the Houston Rockets and the New York Knicks.

The owner of the Rockets is a Chinese. It's the New Year, and the venue layout and atmosphere are particularly Chinese-style.

The team's coach has improved significantly since it was replaced by Nelson after the All-Star Game. Nelson lived up to his nickname of "Mad Scientist". As soon as he took over the lineup, he asked Yao Ming not to continue to gain weight and to start trying new tactical ideas.

Shaquille O'Neal went to the Eastern Conference. Duncan in the Western Conference team plays an orthodox power forward style. Nowitzki has comprehensive skills but rarely goes to the basket. Chris Webber is suffering from injuries. Kevin Garnett is currently playing as a power forward. The body is strong enough to resist...

Therefore, Nelson is more thinking about how to make Nash, Carter, and Yao Ming have a better combination effect.

After several games of experimentation, Yao Ming was given more organizational rights. He and Carter performed well in high-post pick-and-rolls, and Nash's threat from beyond the three-point line was also very powerful.

In addition, in the second half of January, the Rockets played a game where Yao Ming grabbed a rebound in the backcourt, passed forward and directly assisted Carter to score a dunk.

Carter was unhappy with the Raptors last season. After coming to Houston and getting along with the mild-mannered Nash and Yao Ming, the team's record gradually improved. His enthusiasm for playing was restored, and his performance on the court lived up to his reputation as the All-Star vote-winner. Style.

The team's playing style, improved record, and arrival of star players have allowed Houston's fan attendance to hit a new high this season.

Many fans thought of the team owner who had not shown up for a while, and thought of his championship declaration, and suddenly felt that it was really possible.

"Give this ball to Yao Ming, give it to him, give it to him, hey, this is a good ball, he deserves to be Nash."

"Play with him, play with him, Yao Ming's steps are even better!"

"Carter is bang bang bang, he's... oh, he scored! What a goal!"

During lunch time in the Bingxin Canteen, basketball guest Zhang Weiping's commentary sounded on the TV screen. Regardless of whether the employees played basketball or not, Yao Ming was always happy to see him.

In particular, during halftime, the Rockets players were taught by Yao Ming and talked about the "New Pure Quick Le" with a southern accent and a northern accent, which made the audience in front of the TV feel happy.

The game ended with a huge win for the Rockets.

"Mr. Fang, Mr. Fang, can you get me an autograph from Yao Ming?" A young engineer approached Mr. Fang and made a request.

"No problem. I'll ask him to put his name tag on the basketball later. Do you count if anyone else wants it, and I'll ask the team to send it back together." Fang Zhuo said cheerfully, "Oh yes, other players on the team. That’s fine, Nash or Carter.”

The young engineer happily returned to his colleagues, and soon the small group over there burst into laughter.

I didn’t take a long break at noon, and started looking for issues regarding risky trial production at 1:30 in the afternoon.

The risky trial production of 130nm process technology involves all aspects. Equipment, technology, materials, process flow, etc. all need to be systematically reviewed. This is a major issue related to subsequent mass production.

The expert team from SMIC is to improve various parameters, optimize the process flow, and improve the yield rate of large-scale formal production.

The yield rate of wafer foundry is the lifeline of an enterprise and the core competitiveness in the competition between peers and the same process.

For example, SMIC’s yield rate is...well, this is a very strict trade secret, and experts don’t mention it.

But... Qiu Ciyun is the vice president who came out of SMIC and is Zhang Rujing's right-hand man. He has a clear understanding of SMIC's situation before leaving, and he also has a rough judgment on the situation after leaving.

Of course, he would not say anything verbally when discussing, and they would communicate with each other in a heart-to-heart manner.

Compared with ordinary engineers, Qiu Ciyun works from morning to afternoon. His face is serious and he looks very stressed.

Fang Zhuo is very confident in his vision of people, so...

He didn't want to show up in front of Mr. Qiu's eyes from time to time, adding extra pressure to him.

In the afternoon, I wrapped myself in a coat and blew in the wind, lit a cigarette and looked at the factory.

While Fang Zhuo was replying to text messages, he was considering the follow-up arrangements for the projects at hand. The highest priority at the moment was the trial production of ice cores, followed by Tesco's launch arrangements and competitive strategies.

These are relatively urgent, and other operations such as "World of Warcraft" also need to see the effect.

Generally speaking, the plan for the year begins with spring, and this spring looks forward to another busy year.

On the contrary, in the past few days, it is relatively relaxing to wait for the trial production situation, smoke cigarettes, and look at the door.

I've got half a day to spare. It's the first day of the new year, so there won't be any special circumstances.

Fang Zhuo thought this way, and just lowered his head to reply two text messages. When he looked up again, he saw a Mercedes-Benz sedan with Shencheng license plate driving towards the ice core - because Luzhou has not fully developed this area, in fact, basically driving Everyone who comes here is looking for ice cores.

The Mercedes-Benz parked neatly, and two people in suits and ties got out of the back door.

Fang Zhuo watched the two men standing next to the trunk, tinkering for a while, and then each walked over with Maotai.

"Master, I have an appointment with you."

The two of them walked towards the gatekeeper, who was wrapped in a coat and sitting on a chair next to the gate booth.

"From Morningstar? Why are you here today?" Fang Zhuo was a little surprised when he heard the visitor's Baodao accent. He received a New Year's message from Morningstar Semiconductor, an IC design company, last night and made an appointment in a few days. Let’s talk about TV chips.

Unexpectedly, just after New Year's Eve and just the first day of the Lunar New Year, people actually came to Luzhou.

The man who spoke was also surprised to be asked this question. He carefully looked at the man wrapped in a coat and scarf, and introduced himself with a bit of surprise: "I am Wei Boyun, the marketing director of Mstar Semiconductor."

Wei Boyun put down the vintage Moutai he had specially collected, and gradually identified the richest man in the mainland in the video with the smoking man in front of him, and asked awkwardly: "Uh, uh, is it Mr. Fang?"

Fang Zhuo put out his cigarette and nodded: "It's me, Director Wei. Let's go and talk inside."

He looked at another man with glasses who was still holding a drink: "Who is this?"

"This is our R\u0026D director Tang Bingde." Wei Boyun introduced quickly.

Tang Bingde smiled at first, then realized what he was doing, put down his drink, shook hands and said, "Happy New Year, Mr. Fang, I am Tang Bingde."

"Let's go, let's go in and say it's cold outside." Fang Zhuo walked in and asked, "Do you want to smoke? You still have wine with you, why are you so polite."

Wei Boyun smiled and said: "You can't celebrate the New Year empty-handed. I heard that Mr. Fang is here at Bingxin, so Bingde and I took the liberty to come over and wish Mr. Fang a happy New Year."

Fang Zhuo nodded noncommittally. This New Year greeting was a good reason. It was better to inquire about the drinks and gifts in advance.

The three of them arrived at Bingxin's air-conditioned office.

Fang Zhuo took off his coat, pulled off his scarf, poured tea, and after chatting for a while, he said, "Mr. Wei is here for your chips."

When Wei Boyun heard that the topic was getting to the point so quickly, he quickly put down his tea cup and said seriously: "Yes, Mr. Fang, we are here with sincerity."

Mstar Semiconductor Mstar is an IC design company in the vertical field, located in Hsinchu, Baodao.

A very powerful semiconductor industry has been planned and developed there. From IC design to manufacturing and packaging, the industrial chain is quite comprehensive, and companies such as TSMC, MediaTek, and UMC are all familiar with it.

As a new startup, Morningstar Semiconductor only focuses on the field of display chips.

Wei Boyun had been in contact with Hu Zhengda, who started his own business at TSMC, and knew that he introduced his family to Ice Core. However, under normal circumstances, a new foundry company did not attract much attention from him.

Even though, behind this project is the richest man in Mainland China.

However, when he encountered difficulties with several TV companies in the mainland and was reminded by someone, he learned about the profound influence of the richest man, Mr. Fang, on Changhong, and that was how he started to contact and visit him.

The operational focus of an IC design company lies not only in the design of integrated circuits, but also in the marketing and sales of chips.

The latter is what Wei Boyun, the marketing director, is responsible for.

He came to the mainland in October last year and wanted to open up the TV chip market, but after several contacts, companies such as Skyworth, Haier, and TCL all believed more in those big European and American brands and basically did not give them a chance to negotiate.

Therefore, facing the ice core now is an opportunity not to be missed.

"Mr. Wei, whether you are sincere or not, our ice cores have not yet established mass production capacity. If you want to place an order, I can't accept it." Fang Zhuo knew the other party's intention, but only explained the situation on the surface.

The main reason is that it is not yet certain whether Plan A's contact with Philips and Jeni will be successful. This spare tire coming to the door is somewhat embarrassing.

Wei Boyun didn't beat around the bush and got straight to the point: "Mr. Fang, I know what Bingxin and Changhong want to do. Jenny will never agree to it, and Philips is even less likely to give away its own wafer orders to outsiders."

Fang Zhuo picked up the tea cup and blew on the tea leaves. He was not surprised by these words: "Oh?"

"Jenny is the overlord in the field of TV chips. Those Americans are very proud. They hold the largest market. It is impossible to change the wafer factory they are used to just because of a TV brand from Oriental China." Wei Boyun said. Talking, "I don't know if you, Mr. Fang, have any contact with them now. One of our deputy marketing directors has worked at Geni and is well aware of their arrogance habits."

"Furthermore, Mr. Fang, let's not mention those American habits. If you had 60% of the market share, would you be swayed by the voice of a customer that doesn't account for much of the global market share?"

"I believe Mr. Fang must have the same answer as me."

Mr. Wei Boyun did not say anything and continued: "As for Philips, they have their own wafer factory. Although most of them are self-produced and sold, some of their production capacity is for external OEMs. There is no need for an outsider to get involved in the former. , the latter is even in competition with Ice Core, and Philips’ attitude may only be a little better than that of the Americans.”

When Fang Zhuo heard this, he nodded and agreed: "That's right."

Changhong has contacted Philips, and the other party's attitude is indeed tough.

"But the orders I can provide are not only Changhong, but also orders for Yike music players. The demand for this part is quite large this year." He took a sip of tea and said slowly, "Besides, can you step in?" , can you impress them? In the final analysis, isn’t it still a matter of quotation?”

Wei Boyun's heart sank.

Fang Zhuo shrugged and said easily: "We can make less, or we can lose a little. Bingxin is not trying hard to eat the other party's order in one go, so why is there no room for negotiation?"

It is normal for each other to compromise in business. Bingxin just wants to have a smooth start. The purchase price of Yike and Changhong and the OEM price of Bingxin can be negotiated.

"Mr. Fang, why not make money if you can? I believe no one would be willing to give up profits to the other side." Wei Borun was thinking.

"Ice core has just started, and we want stability. Both Jenny and Philips have good reputations. A long-term business is a good deal." Fang Zhuo added some tea.

At this time, Tang Bingde, who had been silent all this time, suddenly said: "Mr. Fang, ours is better! Our chips perform better! We can design and develop in a targeted manner, provide one-stop solutions, and serve as a supplier to TV companies." The nanny of LCD products!”

"Mr. Fang, can you imagine a group of Americans who occupy most of the market humble themselves to serve the Chinese TV company Changhong?"

"We can, we are a small company, we can keep a R\u0026D team in Luzhou."

Fang Zhuo looked at the technical director who was blushing a little, and asked a little doubtfully: "Americans can't be nannies, so you can?"

Tang Bingde said firmly: "Yes, what's wrong with being a nanny?"

He continued: "We just want to challenge Jenny's market. Jenny's research and development on LCD TVs does not necessarily involve more investment than ours."