Reinventing the Millennium

On November 4, 2008, the Ice Core Wafer Manufacturing Services Alliance led an industry meeting in Pingjiang, Suzhou Province.

The reason for choosing Pingjiang is not because of any administrative or market implications, but because the service alliance's working team has just progressed to this point, so there is no need to move places, and they directly move people on the spot to carry out a phased preparation.

The industry market during the financial crisis was too bad.

Bingxin has co-branded with SMIC, hoping that the higher authorities will pay attention to the fragile industrial chain that has been cultivated with great difficulty, and has also initially completed the bank's credit granting work, but...

Everything has a process.

It seemed that many factories could no longer support that time. They actually had to call here and dismantle the equipment there. Therefore, Liu Yangyang had to make a decision at the last moment and organized a somewhat hasty meeting.

After she reported the domestic industry situation to Mr. Fang, on the one hand, she got the registration and permission, and on the other hand, she also received strong support.

On the 4th, in addition to the upstream and downstream manufacturers who called to invite, there were also many people who came after hearing the news.

The meeting time moved from morning to afternoon and finally to evening.

At eight o'clock in the evening, there was some chaos in the conference room.

The economic situation is not good, and most of the people here are suffering from the impact. It is difficult to calm down and discuss the situation slowly and quietly. One is complaining, the other is helpless, and the expression in the middle is blank, which almost explains the current situation in the industry.

At a quarter past eight, Liu Yangyang and the vice president of Changdian were still communicating, but the conference room suddenly fell silent.

She looked up at the door and saw Jiang Shangzhou, now the chairman of SMIC, slowly walking into the conference room accompanied by several people.

Liu Yangyang knew that Dr. Jiang was in poor health and hurried forward to greet him.

"Mr. Fang started such a battle and didn't notify me? Do you think we at SMIC can't contribute?" Jiang Shangzhou took the initiative to extend his right hand and said to Secretary-General Liu of the Service Alliance with a smile.

Liu Yangyang's thoughts changed slightly. It was true that SMIC was not informed of the meeting. This was precisely the decision made by Mr. Fang, because the situation of SMIC was not very good. There was very definite news that SMIC's factory in Chengdu was to be sold. .

Although there is no news of layoffs at SMIC, it is confirmed that overtime pay will be suspended and one month's rest will be taken at the end of the year.

"Mr. Jiang, we are really in a hurry to prepare for this meeting, and we also want to check it out before discussing with SMIC." Liu Yangyang led Dr. Jiang to the front row. This was a reason, but Dr. Jiang's physical condition was also the reason.

Bingxin has teamed up with SMIC to provide suggestions, but the real situation on the front line also requires data support. The service alliance that has been running for more than a year has just covered this aspect. This is also an important project that Liu Yangyang has been doing for more than two months. Work.

Jiang Shangzhou smiled and said: "That's it. I thought Mr. Fang disliked the old man and couldn't do anything anymore."

Liu Yangyang said seriously: "Mr. Fang really cares about Mr. Jiang's health."

"Where are the others? They haven't come back?" Jiang Shangzhou suppressed his smile slightly. His physical condition has recovered well, otherwise he would not have taken over as the chairman of SMIC.

Liu Yangyang hesitated, lowered his voice, and used Mr. Fang's exact words: "Mr. Fang said that he was making money outside."

Jiang Shangzhou wanted to laugh. He could almost imagine Mr. Fang's tone. He nodded and said, "This is indeed very important. We are just giving Mr. Fang a hand."

He looked around a few more times and asked, "Isn't anyone from ICBC here?"

"The banks arriving tomorrow are ICBC and Bank of China." Liu Yangyang replied.

Jiang Shangzhou heard the discussion gradually rising in the conference room and was unwilling to take up Secretary-General Liu's time. He had previously spoken to Mr. Fang about the joint venture between SMIC and Bingxin and knew about the other party's series of efforts, one of which was about Some of ICBC's loans are cut off first and paid later, and some are exchanged with each other.

When it comes to industry-assisted loans under current circumstances, ICBC will not rashly lend without administrative motivation. However, as the time for the lifting of the ban on listed shares approaches, continuing to hold shares during the financial crisis has a certain symbolic meaning.

It is said that UBS is likely to cash out its Bank of China shares at the end of the year because it is in urgent need of recovery from its losses in the financial turmoil.

It would not be surprising if similar logic appears in foreign investors such as Bank of America and Temasek, which raises some hidden worries in the market.

Jiang Shangzhou clearly heard Mr. Fang mention this on the phone. He had already given a promise not to reduce his holdings and sell them, in exchange for an upfront credit line of 2 billion from ICBC.

Can 2 billion solve the problem?

Definitely not.

But it may also be able to alleviate some of the urgent needs.

In addition, when it comes to international funds, Jiang Shangzhou doesn't know how Fang always operates.

The whispers in the conference room turned into worries about the industry again because of the presence of SMIC Chairman.

When Liu Yangyang's temporary communication with Changdian, a listed company, ended, she picked up the microphone and formally talked about today's meeting aimed at integrating resources and reducing losses.

Since its establishment, the Service Alliance has been surveying the domestic semiconductor situation, screening and supporting companies that are useful for ice cores or will be useful in the future. This matter is difficult, but it is indeed going on, and the work in the past two months is another situation... …

It's like expanding the original network to try to capture more upstream and downstream parts of the domestic industrial chain.

However, are all the companies sitting in the conference room at this moment critically ill due to the external economic crisis?

This is indeed a major factor and an accelerating factor, but some companies themselves do not pay attention to technology, neglect management, and are greedy for credit and rush to advance. It is also an important reason.

The reason why Jiang Shangzhou is here today is because he is worried that Mr. Fang's service alliance may do bad things with good intentions. He is also worried that in a critical situation, it will be difficult to coordinate with everyone. Everyone is short of money and help. No matter how you divide it, it will easily cause trouble.

Soon, following Liu Yangyang's narration, different voices appeared in the conference room.

Some companies themselves are not members of the service alliance, and they still need to accept conditions such as discounted acquisitions, second-hand equipment prices, factory relocation, etc. This makes them complain - they just want to help us with money, and we will wait until we recover. Give it back to you.

When such a voice appeared, the atmosphere in the conference room became weird.

Jiang Shangzhou was worried that Liu Yangyang would not be able to convince the crowd. After all, President Fang was not here today, so he was ready to get up and support the service alliance.

"I know that many people have doubts and concerns, both about the industry situation and about our service alliance." Liu Yangyang was very calm, "What will happen to the industry situation? Don't talk about me, even the experts in our ice core. I dare not say when the bottom will be and when it will rebound, so I won’t say such words here to comfort everyone.”

“But for the Service Alliance, I ask you all to read the full name with me.”

Liu Yangyang said word by word: "Ice Core Wafer Manufacturing Service Alliance."

"This alliance allows companies to serve the wafer manufacturing of our ice cores, not the ice cores to serve you!"

"Today's situation is special, special matters should be handled specially, and urgent matters should be followed by authority. If you are willing to stay and accept the standards, if you are not willing, we will reimburse the travel expenses."

Liu Yangyang was not afraid of offending anyone, nor did he want to waste time.

She reiterated the nature of the service alliance and measures in special circumstances.

There was silence in the conference room.

Jiang Shangzhou sat back down firmly again. It was good. This service alliance was also good.

…

On November 6, the snow in Washington became suitable for passenger flights after it stopped for two days.

Fang Zhuo flew to Silicon Valley on a private plane.

This trip to Washington lasted longer than expected. In addition to meeting many local companies in Washington these days, he could only listen to work in other cities online.

From arriving in the United States to now, except for a few companies such as Deyi that unexpectedly appeared in the financial crisis, Fang Zhuo has met almost all the key companies on the list that he had paid attention to before.

This "key point" is not indicators such as corporate size and profitability, but whether it is beneficial or may be beneficial to the development of Yike and Bingxin.

As the head of Deyi said, Yike is one of the lucky ones to grow against the trend in today's era with the development of smartphones. To consolidate this "lucky", more technical reserves are needed.

Some technologies may really just be explored and will never be commercially available, but...

It's not expensive anyway, just buy it and put it in the company for fun.

Fang Zhuo thought so and did so.

During his trip to Silicon Valley, he also brought the two young founders of Vision Company with him.

In the afternoon after arriving at Yike Silicon Valley R\u0026D Center, the two of them browsed their future workplace together.

With the expected growth of employees, Yike R\u0026D Center has rented a similar building. In the future, it may also consider building its own park, but the main factor is to facilitate the recruitment of talents.

"Mr. Fang, Mr. Fang, come and try our fingerprint unlocking."

Deputy Technical Director Elder followed Mr. Fang throughout the whole process this time. The first thing he did when he came back was to let his boss try out the new gadgets in the R\u0026D center. They wanted to install a fingerprint reader in every office.

Different from Yu Hong's previous description, the group smoothly unlocked the conference room door using their fingerprints.

However, when Fang Zhuo tried to register his fingerprints, the thing didn't work again.

During the slightly awkward fifteen minutes of waiting for rescue, Fang Zhuo asked Haydn about the application of their image sensors.

"Isn't the direction of your sensor suitable for facial recognition? In the future, you can also have a door unlocked by facial recognition in the conference room on your floor. Just compare it with this floor to see who locks more people."

Fang Zhuo's sarcastic suggestion made Haydn's eyes light up.

The depression of being acquired for 800,000 US dollars has also faded a lot. He has a hunch that the atmosphere in Yike R\u0026D Center may be pleasant.

In a financial crisis, this may be an excellent situation.

Fang Zhuo didn't know the mood of Haydn, a research talent, but he knew that both Yike and Bingxin needed to digest the new employees, new departments, and new technologies that were added one after another, and they had to be organically integrated to form a reasonable driving force for progress.

How to digest it?

This problem is left to Xu Keden and others, but there is still an old method-rapid development.

As of November, the new generation Mars mobile phone released by Yike in June and sold in July has maintained an average sales volume of 1.4 million units a month. It seems to have successfully continued and exceeded the sales momentum of the previous generation, and will almost certainly achieve internal sales. The guaranteed target is 10 million units.

This is without counting sales in the Chinese market.

China's local factors are special. No matter who asks now, including the media and some leaders, the company's tone is: It's okay, not too much.

Whether it is Nokia being criticized, LG being sued, HTC being sued, Sony Ericsson maintaining the classics, Samsung using deep learning, or Apple making up for shortcomings, none of the mobile phone products they have launched have much impact on Yike Mars. sales volume.

Or, it may also have an impact. Without them, Mars sales would have been higher, but now it has stabilized the first-class level of smartphones.

However, Fang Zhuo, who returned to Silicon Valley, also found that introducing new mobile phone products is also a very stressful matter. Last year, consumers were satisfied. This year, consumers are satisfied. What about next year? What about the year after tomorrow?

Whenever Mars initially gets a good reputation, the next generation of products is put on the agenda.

Fang Zhuo feels that either we need to attract talents to alleviate the pressure within the company, or we need to create more pressure on our friends.

On the second day in Silicon Valley, an acquisition intention from the end of last month came back.

Siri, founded in 2007, declined Yike's acquisition. This text chat service company is cooperating with Nuance, the world's largest speech recognition manufacturer, in an attempt to implement speech recognition functions.

Siri believes that this cooperation will help increase the company's value and is not in a hurry to be acquired now.

Fang Zhuo can understand that not all companies are short of money, so he is not disappointed. Just keep in touch. Is there any mystery here? Like the last chip company, Apple can acquire it, but Yike cannot?

On this day, employees of Texas Instruments who had previously made two-way selections gradually confirmed their intentions.

Currently, more than 100 employees are willing to join Yike, which is about 70% of the earlier list. However, the proportion of Bingxin is average, with only 25% of engineers willing to join, still for the promised German factory.

However, considering the degree of integration between Texas Instruments engineers and wafer foundries, Bingxin has gained close to 90 people in terms of number of people.

Faced with this situation, Fang Zhuo had no choice but to urge Qiu Ciyun again and ask him to go to Germany with him at the end of the year, so that he could preside over the wafer foundry that was highly likely to be approved.

In early November, Fang Zhuo had a relaxing two days in Silicon Valley, but there was a steady stream of news in the market that made him excited. Motorola, Credit Suisse, Dell, Nortel, HSBC, BMW, Nokia, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, AMD...

Some of them have nothing to do with him at all, but looking at the news of hundreds of layoffs, I always feel that it would be a waste not to get some back, and some of them are extremely suitable for recruiting talents.

Like AMD, it plans to lay off 500 people globally, while Micron Technology, which has 22,600 employees worldwide, plans to lay off 15% of its employees in the next two years, which all bring similar appeal to TI.

The most important thing is that Taiji has also started large-scale layoffs. This is Bingxin’s key new recruitment activity.