“Okay, this factory can be used to launch our Golden Sun Electric Vehicle.” Qin Tao said: “The capital has made a lot of sacrifices, and we can’t let them suffer too much.”
We agreed to cooperate with Line Dai Automobile, but now, we have changed our minds and stopped cooperation. If we give Qin Tao face, of course Qin Tao must also give them face.
Xu Zhengyang nodded: "Yes, our Golden Sun Electric Vehicle Company also has this intention. However, Line Generation Automobile wants to sell the factory here at a high price, so it is still under negotiation for the time being."
In the joint venture factory, South Kimchi Country's capital will also account for a large proportion. If the capital side stops cooperation, the factory will no longer be usable, and it will have to be sold for money.
"There is no need to worry about this. We can afford to wait, but they are the ones who cannot afford to wait." Qin Tao said, "We can wait slowly. The longer we wait, the lower the price will be."
A certain factory in later generations could not be transferred after several changes of hands, and the price was getting lower and lower. Although domestically produced cars are not yet good, domestically produced electric cars have been developed. That large factory is destined to be the Golden Sun. The meat of electric cars cannot be eaten by others.
“One more thing.” Xu Zhengyang continued: “During this operation, Wanwan’s memory suppliers and chip factories also suffered a major blow.”
A smile appeared on Qin Tao's face: "Yes, we are going to give them a serious blow."
Killing two birds with one stone, Qin Tao has been planning for so long, how could he just want to bring down Line Generation Heavy Industry? He has more important things!
Since Dongfang’s chips have developed, don’t even think about Wanwan’s chips!
“Among them, Micron Technology, the largest memory giant, has suffered the biggest loss. After all, they have a large number of DDR memory modules on hand.”
Micron Technology is an American company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of semiconductor storage and imaging products. Its main products are memory, flash memory, solid-state drives, CMOS sensors, etc.
Although it is an American company, its subsidiaries are spread all over the world, especially a major overseas branch established in Baywan, which is responsible for the research and development, production and sales of memory chips.
The sudden plunge in memory prices occurred without any warning and caught them off guard. The memory sticks they spent huge sums of money to produce were no longer worth anything, and the price they sold them for was not enough to cover their employees’ wages. They were crying without tears.
“Are there any other companies?”
“Other memory manufacturers, large and small, and even intermediaries who stock up on goods have suffered heavy losses. As for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd., the largest chip manufacturer in the Bay Area, they will also face huge losses.”
TSMC originally relied on OEMs to make its fortune. One of the main products they manufacture is memory chips. Many of the memory chips they produce now cannot be given away at all. Memory manufacturers would rather lose the deposit than give them away, and the remaining balance will still be counted. Yes, the final payment is several times the selling price, they are not that stupid.
“Okay, let TSMC lose money and close down.” Qin Tao said: “This company must go bankrupt and close down!”
TSMC has always been SMIC’s biggest enemy.
TSMC was established in 1987. Zhang Mou, who founded the group that year, creatively chose the OEM route. The company he founded did not engage in design, but production. Therefore, when the company was established, it was scorned by many people in Silicon Valley. , I think this approach is pure nonsense.
No one thought that TSMC would develop so fast. After being criticized by Intel in the early days and working hard to improve its internal skills, TSMC officially established a firm foothold and even began to seize the production tasks of high-end chips from design companies in Silicon Valley. Work has become an industry, and even at its peak, it accounted for more than 50% of the world's share.
This is called leaving professional things to professional people. Intel should understand this more easily. When they were studying hard to break through from 14 nanometers to 10 nanometers, TSMC, which was only responsible for process research, had already entered the 7th stage. Nano, or even 5-nanometer production, is far behind Intel.
It can be said that TSMC is an important promoter of Moore's Law and has gradually become the most advanced wafer manufacturing plant in the world.
However, all this came to nothing after the establishment of SMIC. SMIC used immersion lithography machines to raise chip production to a higher level in one fell swoop. Since then, it has been leading the way. TSMC cannot catch up, and they can no longer catch up. To OEM the most advanced chips in the world, we can only OEM some low-end ones.
Memory foundry has become one of their most important sources of profit, and now with the sharp plunge in memory prices, they have also suffered heavy losses.
The atmosphere in the conference room was tense.
"SMIC is simply a bastard!" Zhang Mou said angrily: "They occupy the high-end market and leave the low-end market to us. It is no longer interesting. Now they are going to ruin the pot and make us unable to eat. There’s nothing to eat, it’s too much, it’s too much!”
“Yes, this conspiracy was created by them. Although they cheated line-generation electronics, we also suffered heavy losses. We must find a way to solve this matter!” Hu Ming, CEO of TSMC Technology, said.
“To put it nicely, they are the boss in the market now, and they can do whatever they want.” Jiang Yi, another veteran and senior vice president of R&D, said.
There is also a struggle within TSMC. Chiang Yi and Hu Ming refuse to accept the other and have been competing with each other. This situation was brought about by Zhang Mou, because in this way, TSMC can improve its technology faster. , this is the benefit of competition.
But now, Zhang Mou is a little tired of the language dispute between his two men. He doesn't want to hear these, he just wants to hear useful methods.
what to do?
“The original SMIC was nothing at all. Many people in their R&D team were poached from our company,” Hu Ming said.
Zhang Mou's eyes lit up. Yes, Zhang Rujin poached a large number of people from them back then. Now, he must make a fuss about this matter!
"They are stealing our trade secrets." Zhang Mou said: "We will never see this happen again! We need to make a strong counterattack!"
Both of them were stunned. Steal ours? An advanced company steals the trade secrets of a backward company? No one would believe it if I told you!
“We have to have evidence, right?”
"Of course there is." Zhang Mou said: "The evidence is not found casually, we will arrange it today!"
A few hours later, Wanwan police searched the home of TSMC's former quality and reliability project manager in Hsinchu. The project manager had gone to work at SMIC in 1997, but his parents still stayed in Hsinchu. The police seized the computer and soon found a large amount of internal information from TSMC in 1997 on the hard drive of the computer, as well as a mysterious email. This mysterious email showed that someone asked him to bring this information to his new workplace. can be reused.
The data on this computer quickly became conclusive evidence. The next day, TSMC formally accused SMIC in the United States of stealing their trade secrets in this unfair way, and also infringed on a large number of TSMC patents!
The complaint is eloquent. A total of 65 trade secrets were stolen by SMIC through various means, with detailed details and evidence. Especially the harvest in Hsinchu is irrefutable.
This incident quickly spread around the world and caused a sensation in the high-tech chip field.
This time, Zhang Zhong said the program did not continue to remain silent.
"Hello everyone, today our program is called Zhang Zhong talks about chip technology. We know that it is difficult to improve the technology of chip technology. We have specially invited relevant experts to introduce us to the chip technology. Professor Wang Hello."
"Yes, we can check the data at that time, and it can be seen that the Loongson processor at that time used this process, so we are very curious. Do we need to deliberately obtain backward technical data from TSMC? "
After hearing what Professor Wang said, Zhang Zhong immediately questioned: "It's like we already have a train with a speed of 200 kilometers per hour. Do we still need to refer to other people's trains with a speed of 100 kilometers per hour? This is not scientific at all. Wang Professor, TSMC has found so much evidence, is it trying to frame SMIC?"
"We can't say whether it is a frame-up, but their request is for SMIC to compensate TSMC US$300 million. This amount of money is nothing to SMIC, but it can make up for TSMC's funding gap. Without this, If we don’t have enough money, TSMC may be at risk of bankruptcy.” ˆ ˆ ˆ “Isn’t this blackmail?”
Professor Wang smiled: "I can't say this on the TV show, but the facts are right in front of us and are clear. However, the most interesting part of this lawsuit is that TSMC filed the lawsuit in the District Court of California, USA."
"Yes, are the courts in the United States qualified to try our Eastern companies? This is clearly ultra vires." Zhang Zhong said: "I suggest that our SMIC also sue TSMC for infringement of immersion lithography machines in the capital court. The technology was invented by SMIC and TSMC has no right to use it. This is blatant infringement."
In the dispute over the technical route, Qin Tao firmly supported the immersion lithography machine route. Zhang Rujin was also a little curious at the time, but he adopted this plan and used people supported by Qin Tao. Facts have proved that this plan is completely Correct, let them overtake in the corner, and the start will be the peak.
Seeing that this technical route is correct, other chip companies naturally began to follow this path, and the technical patents for immersion lithography machines have long been registered by SMIC. Therefore, they are all infringing, and they are justified. Infringement!
“If a lawsuit is filed from this perspective, I am afraid that all chip factories in the world are infringing the law,” Professor Wang said.
"Yes, they are all infringing. We at SMIC didn't care about them before, and we still don't care about them now. However, TSMC, which provoked this conflict in the first place, must not let it go." Zhang Zhong said: "We must We want TSMC to lose money!”
This is a just war. Since the other side launched the attack first, how could our side sit still and wait for death?
Take the initiative!
At the same time that Zhang Zhongshuo's program was broadcast, SMIC formally filed a lawsuit with the Capital Court to sue TSMC for infringement.
The conflict escalated and attracted everyone's attention.
TSMC filed a lawsuit in California, and SMIC filed a lawsuit in the capital. How will the two courts rule? Which court's decision is effective?
The capital, a small courtyard in Gongzhufen.
“The Americans will definitely rule against SMIC.” Zhao Ling said to Qin Tao: “We must make corresponding preparations next.”
“Of course, when the Americans declare that they have lost the case, our court will also rule in favor of us. At that time, TSMC will definitely not give in. We will use this as a reason to formally impose sanctions on TSMC.”
Sanctions! Now Qin Tao has the ability to raise the sword of sanctions and chop it down at them!
“How to sanction?” Zhao Ling asked: “Is it to refuse the export of our most advanced Loongson 4 computer?”
This trick has been used on Americans before. If they don’t like it, then they won’t be able to export computers to them and they will have to import them from third parties at high prices.
"Of course, we will never give our companies the opportunity to use the most advanced computers." Qin Tao said: "But not only these, we also have to impose software sanctions. For example, we have to prohibit them from using our EDA software.”
Mingzhou Group’s strength in the high-tech field is not only in hardware, but also in software.
EDA software is one of them. It can be roughly divided into three categories: chip design auxiliary software, programmable chip auxiliary design software, and system design auxiliary software. These software were originally tinkered with by Americans, but later, Mingzhou Group's Loongson computer came out. This computer used a new instruction set, a new operating system, and of course required new software.
Goose Factory cooperated to develop a lot of software. Due to the fast running speed and high software execution efficiency of Loongson computers, they quickly gained the favor of various chip companies, so they all abandoned their original computers and invested in the products of Loongson and Goose Factory. In arms.
As for the companies that originally developed these software, they went bankrupt one after another because they could not sell more software.
Now, almost all the world's technological elites are using Loongson computers and software from Goose Factory. This is a huge advantage. Qin Tao can wield the big stick of sanctions at any time.
“Will this make them realize that the monopoly of our Loongson and Goose Factory is not good for them, so they can develop independent software?” Zhao Ling was a little worried.
"So we are the first to win. We only fight TSMC." Qin Tao said: "Now they want to cause trouble for us, and we have to let them know how powerful they are. If it is other companies that have not caused harm to us, they will cooperate obediently." , how could we use this method to deal with them. Moreover, developing this kind of software requires a large amount of money and a long time, and TSMC does not have the capital investment nor the time to wait."
TSMC's chip production lines, when producing chips, the first step is to input the design drawings, which uses Goose Factory's software. As long as the use of their own software is prohibited, their entire production line will stop.
After a few steps, I don’t believe that TSMC will not give in.
Zhao Ling nodded: "Indeed, we are looking for trouble with TSMC now."
Generally speaking, the court's trial of intellectual property cases is very complicated. The trial of such a large international company often takes months or even years. TSMC originally wanted to win this lawsuit, but from the beginning, they found that they wrong.
"Mingzhou Group has no industry in the United States, no deposits, and even few in the West. Their business is mainly in the third world." Zhang Zhong said with a gloomy look: "We originally planned to apply for court review as the first step. They threatened to freeze their assets in the Western world, but I didn’t expect that they had no assets at all.”
The lawsuit was superficial, but what was behind the lawsuit was important. They suddenly found that they had no means to threaten the Mingzhou Group.
Needless to say about them, the military bosses of the pretty country, who are so jealous that they can’t do anything about it, are nothing to lose.
Several other people also had ugly faces.
"Yes, they went too far and actually filed a lawsuit on their territory. We will never recognize the result of this lawsuit. We only recognize the result of the US court. Only the judgment of the US court has legal effect!" Jiang Yi said.
"You said, if we don't recognize this result, what will they do?" Zhang Mou said.
"What else can they do? Can they still come to Wanwan to seize our property? We are not afraid of them!" Hu Ming said.
Zhang Mou looked gloomy and did not answer.
Mingzhou Group has always had one characteristic when doing things: either it doesn’t do it or it doesn’t do it at all. This time they are planning to trap Line Generation Electronics. They, TSMC, only accidentally injured them. But now, it is obvious that Mingzhou Group is fully equipped with firepower to deal with it. They are.
This is a wrong move. What will happen next?
Even Zhang Mou didn’t know, he just had a premonition that a huge crisis was waiting for him ahead.
"I think we have already used legal means, but the effect is not very obvious. Therefore, the most important thing for us is to use technical means." Jiang Yi spoke again: "We must defeat SMIC technically. Our The chip production process is more advanced than theirs. Only in this way can we defeat them! When we have more advanced technology, even Intel will come to us for OEM. Are we afraid that we will not be able to defeat them? "
This sentence is correct, but do they still have this chance?