Chapter 395 Gu Fan Comes from the East
The two core businesses of Dongxin Semiconductor are photolithography machines and chip research and development. From the moment of their establishment, these two projects have basically become the core business of Dongxin Semiconductor. Just doing these two things will continue in the future, as long as Dongxin Semiconductor still exists!
In terms of chips, Dongxin Semiconductor is currently only responsible for design and R&D, and the production is OEMed by Shougang NEC Company.
If we only talk about the chip business, then Dongxin Semiconductor is definitely making money, and it is much more than imagined.
Other chip manufacturers are also affected by the industry cycle and their orders are unstable. However, for Dongxin Semiconductor, they receive internal orders from the parent company. The entire Donglin Hi-Tech’s chips, motherboards, optics Sensors, etc., are all orders placed with Dongxin Semiconductor.
But the lithography machine project is different. In this regard, it is really difficult. The most important thing is that the domestic lithography machine companies have basically been wiped out.
This is not as simple as saying a word. The company that develops lithography machines has disappeared, and there are no chip manufacturers. The parts and components supporting companies in the entire industry chain of domestic lithography machines have, in the past ten years, Basically extinct.
When countless people believe that the domestic lithography machine industry is completely dead, many companies and practitioners have directly exited or changed careers in the past ten years.
This is like the American NASA in the previous life. In the 1960s and 1970s, the world was full of publicity about traveling to the moon.
But decades later, when people questioned it, it was difficult for NASA to prove itself. It only needs to repeat the feat of that year and send people to the moon again to break all doubts and show its confidence to the moon. The world has once again proven America’s technological dominance.
But it was difficult for NASA to achieve what it had originally accomplished. It finally used Boeing to launch a star-rated passenger plane and send people to the space station. But... they couldn't come back.
The interstellar airliner that was blown into the sky had an air leak. Of course, the cause of the air leak was definitely not America’s fault. It was because of the aluminum alloy supplied by Asan. No, it was because the titanium alloy was unqualified. Anyway, Boeing and NASA There is no taking the blame.
As for the people sent to the space station, what will they do if they cannot come back? What else can they do, they can only play mahjong and egg-breaking on it...
In this day and age, When America was at its peak, no one in the entire America would believe that they could send someone to the space station and their hips would be stretched.
The reason why NASA was unable to send people to the moon in the previous life was because in the past few decades, America’s aerospace-related industry chain companies have basically disappeared, and almost all of them have been transformed or closed down. , even if you collect parts according to the drawings, you can't find the companies that make the parts. There is no difference between the drawings and the waste paper.
At present, there are only a few laboratories left in China that are engaged in research and development of lithography machines. The most famous ones are the Huaqing Laboratory and several R&D teams of the Academy of Sciences. They are not companies, but only keep ignition seeds for domestic lithography machines. That’s all.
But the current market situation of domestic lithography machines makes Dongxin Semiconductor very embarrassed. There are no supporting suppliers of parts at all. They either buy them from overseas, or they develop their own research and development, and buy them overseas, mainly from Nippon. Buy parts, but even if you want to buy them, you may not be able to buy them.
This makes the research and development progress of Dongxin Semiconductor’s lithography machine project really unsatisfactory. That is to say, Li Dongling is keeping it and giving it to Dongxin Semiconductor’s lithography machine research and development team. There are still enough funds. Time, otherwise the R&D team would have been disbanded long ago if we had another big sponsor...
As for Dongxin Semiconductor, whether we should continue to develop lithography machines, just look at the previous life of Chrysanthemum Factory and domestic chip manufacturers. What happened to the company after it was banned from selling chips by America?
It is estimated that this year, Canon has just released a 350nm FPA lithography machine for etching 8-inch wafers. I would have never imagined that this machine would be regarded as an antique after decades of storage. No, I know that a photolithography machine that has been used a few times can still be robbed in China more than 30 years later, and the price of a machine has been raised to 1.7 million US dollars.
You must know that this brand-new Canon lithography machine is currently priced at about 3.5 million US dollars. It has been used for thirty years and has been pushed hard by so many companies that it is smoking. In thirty years, it can still retain half of its value. , but also to be robbed.
In the past few years, those who were hoarding pagers and preparing to sell them at high prices probably cried with envy after hearing about the experience of lithography machines. They also collected old antiques, and the gap in treatment was too big. Now, if you collect a batch of second-hand lithography machines from this era, keep them for decades and sell them, you will probably still make money.
This is the influence of lithography machines in China. An old antique can be hyped up and its price has increased 17 times. It is conceivable how much the latest model of lithography machines can be hyped. Got it.
Sometimes, presence and absence are completely different concepts. If not, the other party will really kill it. Likewise, if there are no domestic products, foreign companies will really try to kill it!
“Dongxin Semiconductor’s current chip production capacity is severely affected. Shougang NEC’s production capacity is to produce chips for Nippon NEC. It is impossible to give all the production capacity to Dongxin Semiconductor! ”
Wu Xinyi mentioned to Li Dongling the problem of insufficient production capacity of Dongxin Semiconductor.
Currently, there are only two companies in China that can OEM chip production, Shougang NEC and Huajing. However, the latter can only produce in name. It has been established for six or seven years, but it has not been able to start production. As for the major players in the domestic chip industry such as Shanghai Microelectronics and SMIC, they have not yet started to emerge. After all, even Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and VIA, etc. on the island have just begun to emerge. Now the world's chips There is a technical gap between players of lithography machines and lithography machines, but there is no generational gap.
Even if the domestic lithography machine industry gave up its martial arts in the past few years, it was not because of the lithography machines of Nippon Nikon that it was crushed into slag. It was just because of production costs and yield rate. , There is a gap in technology. Foreign chips are cheap and easy to use, so they naturally start to purchase them from abroad. Without domestic chips, domestic lithography machines will naturally have no use and begin to die out.
Dongxin Semiconductor's chips are manufactured by Shougang NEC. As for Shougang NEC, just by listening to the name, you know that it was jointly established by Shougang and Nippon NEC.
Shougang NEC's technology and semiconductor equipment are all provided by Nippon Benzene NEC. NEC is also the second largest shareholder of Shougang NEC, holding 40% of the shares. But in fact, in terms of technology, Shougang NEC is completely controlled by Nippon Benzene, and even The entire Shougang NEC is also very affected by Japan's benzene NEC.
The reason why Nippon Benzene NEC cooperates with Shougang is to increase its production capacity.
So, in essence, Shougang NEC manufactures chips for Nippon NEC, and produces chips for Dongxin Semiconductor, which is a "private job" in a certain sense. When Dongxin Semiconductor orders orders from Nippon NEC, it happens During the conflict, even if Shougang NEC wants to make money from Dongxin Semiconductor, it must first complete NEC's orders.
Who let Nippon NEC hold on to technology? If Shougang NEC is disobedient, subsequent technology, equipment, and production lines will not be able to be upgraded...
But this leaves Dongxin Semiconductor Helpless, my parent company placed orders like crazy, but they couldn't deliver the goods. PHS's production capacity was insufficient. Not only Duan Youli was angry, but Wu Xinyi was also the same.
Wu Xinyi traveled to Yanjing countless times this year just to coordinate chip production capacity issues with Shougang NEC.
“To increase chip production capacity, Dongxin Semiconductor has two options. The first option is to find other chip foundries, such as TSMC and Lianhua in Baodao, or seek Japanese Benz, America’s chip processing factory to help.
As for the second option, Dongxin Semiconductor builds its own semiconductor production base!”
Hearing Wu Xinyi’s words, Ren Yuefeng, Hu Xian and others couldn't help but rub their teeth. They knew that playing with semiconductors would cost money, but they never expected that it would cost so much money. Building a semiconductor company now, although not like in later generations, would easily cost billions of dollars, but as long as Once construction started, several hundred million yuan was thrown in, and there was basically no blisters.
Like Shougang NEC, it cost about 500 million yuan to build, but Shougang NEC is very special. It is the students from Nippon NEC who taught them step by step, whether it is factory construction, technology, equipment, experience, They are all provided by NEC, and these are difficult to measure in terms of funding.
The most intuitive one is Huajing. At that time, it claimed to have invested 2 billion, but now it is still unable to produce. The engineers there have been working for many years, including Wu Xinyi, who was also born in Huajing...
< br>Li Dongling rubbed his brows. The current situation of Dongxin Semiconductor has basically met Li Dongling’s original expectations.
At the beginning of establishing Dongxin Semiconductor, Li Dongling planned to let Dongxin Semiconductor learn from MediaTek. MediaTek never acted arrogantly and made everything as its mission to survive and make money.
So MediaTek, bent down, can develop movements for VCD manufacturers, and develop mobile phone chips for MP3 and copycat mobile phones. It seems that MediaTek is not very qualified, but it is these orders that keep it alive.
Li Dongling planned these routines for Dongxin Semiconductor. No matter what the order is, as long as it can make money, he should do it first. Only by surviving can he be qualified to compete with Intel, Texas Instruments, Infineon, and Toshiba. Wait for the company to challenge.
But designing chips is different from producing chips. In the latter, you really have to spend a lot of money to survive.
But if you don't produce chips yourself, and you can't produce chips domestically, and you find other manufacturers to do it, it's also not safe. In the past life, HiSilicon was tricked by TSMC.
“Huh”
Li Dongling looked at Wu Xinyi, “If you use the two options together, you can first place an order with another chip foundry. In addition, if necessary, Dongxin Semiconductor will build its own semiconductors. Production company!”
Wu Xinyi was delighted. Li Dongling didn’t refuse, which meant there was a chance!
(End of this chapter)