The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide

"The biggest problem is the lack of talents. Huaguo has too few talents in the chip field. Most of the few engineers with previous experience also work in state-owned enterprises or research institutes, and are seriously out of touch with front-line production. Some of them have strong learning ability , getting started quickly.

There are few engineers who can get started and start working.

Regarding this problem, we have started a joint training program with the Shenhai Municipal Government, but it is far from enough to rely on Xinxin Technology to lead this program, and the number of other semiconductor companies in the entire Zhangjiang Park is still too small .

One is that the number is too small, and the other is that they have little interest in letting college students come for internships, and they can bring very few internship positions. "

For the development of semiconductor technology, the most important thing is talents, and talents are the solid cornerstone of all this.

Guan Jianying continued: "Xinxin Semiconductor is mainly engaged in chip design, and we can offer a very high salary. Just the A1 series chips and the decoding chip produced for Apple, these two products are enough for our entire Shenhai Top-notch salaries employ thousands of college students.

It is not enough to rely on talents in the field of chip design, and the upstream and downstream of chips is a huge job.

Chip foundry is the key. Hua Hong Semiconductor is limited by the shackles of NEC. We are now negotiating with Shen Hai and Yanjing to establish a new chip foundry company jointly by Hua Hong Semiconductor and Xinxin Technology. , to move part of Hua Hong's production capacity to the newly established joint venture company.

The joint venture company established by Hua Hong and NEC still produces memory chips, and the new company established by us and Hua Hong mainly produces decoding chips, and the DSP chips that will be used in the next generation Mphone will also be handed over to this new company. make.

In this way, a group of talents in the field of chip foundry can be cultivated. "

Whether it is Neon, Korea or Wanwan, the rise of semiconductors in these places relies on a large number of excellent engineers.

These engineers are not top talents, but excellent talents at a certain level. A large and stable supply of excellent talents is an important reason why East Asia is leading in semiconductor competition.

Taking Wanwan as an example, the best students of Wanwan in the early days will not go to TSMC, they will go to study finance, medicine or computer. Even if you enter the semiconductor field, chip design is a better place than chip foundry.

Also a well-known company in the field of curved chips, MediaTek’s starting salary is higher than that of TSMC, and the working environment is easier.

Because chip foundry is a manufacturing industry, it is an out-and-out industry.

Most of the engineers who can enter TSMC are talents between the top five percent and one thousandth of the Wanwan area. They are not the top talents, but they are definitely good enough.

Because the characteristic of East Asian education is to cultivate such homogeneous talents.

Therefore, chip foundry has only developed in Korea and the Wanwan area. On the one hand, it is because American has suppressed Neon, and on the other hand, these two areas have a sufficient and stable supply of talents.

It’s not enough to be mediocre. Anyone who has worked as a chip foundry knows that people with dreams and talents will not do that kind of super tiring and unfulfilling screw job. The chip foundry industry is not created by a few creative geniuses who proposed a direction, but is the result of stacking a large number of engineer teams.

TSMC's R\u0026D leaders are almost all dug from American, such as Hu Zhengming, Liang Mengsong, Lin Benjian, etc., and later emerged from the grassroots.

The leader of the R\u0026D team only decides the direction, and the follow-up team operations and execution are the key to TSMC's leadership.

Moreover, TSMC's tens of thousands of engineers are qualified to enter the advanced process R\u0026D team, and there are only a few hundred people in the first generation of process. The hundreds of engineers who were later packaged and taken away by American were the essence of TSMC engineers, their R\u0026D team for the most advanced manufacturing process.

Hu Zhengming is much more optimistic than Guan Jianying: "The current situation is much better than I expected.

Laoguan, I will go to the place where I live today to clean up, and when I go to the company tomorrow, you can help me find some specific information about the Huaguo integrated circuit companies that you have collected during this period, and let me have a look.

Also, which foreign companies have branches in China and what kind of business do these branches do in China? Please also provide me with a copy of these materials. If I remember correctly, Intel has a branch in China.

In my opinion, this is not the biggest difficulty. The biggest difficulty lies in the restriction of the Wassenaar Agreement, which prevents Huaguo from importing the most advanced equipment.

If there is no Wassenaar agreement, if Huaguo can import the most advanced equipment from abroad and build the most advanced chip production line at present, it will be easy to cultivate talents. "

It is normal for the upstream and downstream of the chip production line to come from all over the world. Still taking TSMC as an example, the factory buildings, circuits and pipelines are all made by Wanwan. The automation equipment in the factory mainly comes from Neon, and the processing tables and mechanical equipment are from the Netherlands and Neon respectively.

The lithography machines are mainly from the Netherlands, and the chemical raw materials are from Germany, France, the Netherlands, Neon, American and other countries.

This is the same as a large aircraft. It is already a success if you can integrate and produce finished products.

All localization is unrealistic in today's highly developed business world, and Zhou Xin has never thought about all localization. He just wants to control some key nodes of technology, and it is enough to achieve technological leadership in these key technology nodes.

"Take the A1E chip designed by you as an example. Mphone has sold 1 million units, which means that 1 million A1E chips have been produced. One such chip costs about 110 US dollars, which means that A1E takes half a year. That's $100 million in revenue.

At the same time, chip foundries can help Mphone to manufacture chips, so they can also help other chip design manufacturers to manufacture chips. With Mphone's chip demand as the cornerstone, it is easy for chip manufacturers to form a positive cycle.

Matrix raises the demand, Xinxin Semiconductor is responsible for designing chips to meet Matrix's needs, and then the chip manufacturer manufactures the chip designed by Xinxin, and Xinxin lithography machine slowly enters the manufacturing process.

We can slowly cultivate talents, slowly develop lithography machines, catch up with advanced technologies, and at the same time conduct research and development in chip materials, EDA software and other fields.

It doesn't take too long to develop the chip industry, and the fastest five years is no more than ten years. Then we can lead the entire semiconductor industry forward.

I believe that Zhou Xin thought so at the beginning, but the problem now is that Huaguo enterprises cannot import the most advanced equipment, and putting the production line in Huaguo cannot manufacture chips with the most advanced process.

The 260nm chip cannot meet the needs of Mphone, and the forward cycle is stuck in the chip manufacturing process.

So I need to conduct field research in Huaguo, Mphone can not start the first step, then we have to change a product to start the first step. "

Let’s update a chapter today and there will be more tomorrow morning