My 1999

Counter-cyclical investment, anyone who pays attention to the chip industry in 20 years will know this development strategy originated in South Korea.

But not many people really know it now.

Zhang Rujing was surprised.

But he soon understood.

Hanhua is now rich and powerful, and he is indeed qualified to say this.

Looking at the other party's confident look, Zhang Rujing seemed to see that after SMIC's production capacity increased, except for TSMC, all major foundries in the world went bankrupt.

"Mr. Xu is really generous!"

Zhang Rujing was convinced.

Money can indeed solve most problems.

"Then there is litigation."

On January 30, 2005, SMIC and TSMC reached a settlement in the patent and trade secret lawsuit.

The settlement agreement stipulates that SMIC will pay TSMC $175 million in installments within six years;

TSMC will also withdraw all ongoing lawsuits in the U.S. Federal Court, the U.S. District Court of California, the U.S. International Trade Commission, and the Hsinchu District Court;

However, TSMC still reserves the right to file a lawsuit again.

The agreement also states that by the end of December 2010, the two parties will cross-license related patents.

In this agreement, TSMC does not allow SMIC to use TSMC's trade secrets, but agrees not to sue SMIC for certain TSMC trade secrets.

It was this backdoor settlement agreement that led TSMC to quickly come to the door and file a lawsuit against SMIC again.

"After Hanhua acquires SMIC, Hanhua's legal team will take over the lawsuit between SMIC and TSMC.

Mr. Zhang only needs to be responsible for the company's advanced process research and development and company operations. I will solve this problem."

Looking at Zhang Rujing's complicated expression, Xu Liang continued.

"Mr. Zhang, Zhang Zhongmou's strategy is actually very simple, to take advantage of your illness to kill you.

He intends to use the opportunity of weak global chip demand and SMIC's failure to completely turn losses into profits to drag you down with lawsuits.

Even if it fails to drag you down, it will disrupt SMIC's development rhythm, reduce your R\u0026D and operating funds, and make you completely unable to turn over.

So, if you want to solve this problem.

You can only actively respond to the lawsuit.

We will fight to the end.

But in addition to the lawsuit, SMIC must not only not give up its own development, but also accelerate it.

This will disrupt the development plans and strategies of Zhang Zhongmou and TSMC, and let SMIC reverse the current unfavorable situation."

Alas...

He sighed heavily.

"We are of the same roots, why are we so anxious to fight each other."

Xu Liang also sighed in his heart.

Zhang Zhongmou is indeed one of the top geniuses in the IC field!

In the 1980s, Japanese semiconductors and home appliances impacted the US market. Due to long-term debt and trade deficit, the United States began to force the surplus Japanese currency to appreciate, and signed the famous Plaza Accord with Japan.

When you are sick, let others take medicine. This is the way Americans always solve problems.

In addition to Japan, Taiwan, which focuses on processing and export, is also the target of oppression by Americans.

In less than two years, the exchange rate of the New Taiwan dollar against the US dollar has risen from 40 yuan to 25 yuan.

Taiwan's export competitiveness has been greatly lost, and companies have left one after another, moving to inland areas, Southeast Asia and other places.

At that time, the inland areas were in the midst of reform and opening up, and national policies favored foreign investment, especially Taiwanese investment, and the labor cost in the inland areas was very low.

The two sides of the Taiwan Strait share the same language and culture, and setting up factories in the inland areas is the first choice for Taiwanese investment.

Taiwanese factories are also blooming everywhere.

At that time, for ordinary people in the inland areas, being able to enter Taiwanese factories was also a well-paid job. That period of history also represents a period of Taiwan's industrial transfer to the inland areas.

In order to avoid industrial hollowing out, people of insight in Taiwan at that time hoped to drive industrial upgrading with semiconductor technology.

At that time, Taiwan's Premier Sun Yunxuan set his sights on the United States across the ocean, hoping to drive the upgrading of ordinary processing to high value-added industries by introducing semiconductor technology leaders.

Who was the ceiling of Chinese positions in the US semiconductor industry at that time?

If there is only one answer, that person is Zhang Zhongmou.

Old Zhang was born in Ningbo # in 1931.

The Zhang family is a scholarly family. His third uncle Zhang Sihou studied for a master's degree in telecommunications at Harvard and later obtained a doctorate in applied physics.

Later he taught at Northeastern University in the United States.

Before the age of 18, Zhang Zhongmou followed his parents to escape the war. He moved to six cities under the gunfire of the Japanese and changed ten schools in the turbulent times.

In 1949, he was brought to the United States by his third uncle Zhang Sihou and entered Harvard to study.

It should be emphasized that although Old Zhang founded TSMC in Taiwan, he was not a "veteran".

He became an American directly.

Old Zhang spent a year at Harvard University and then transferred to MIT.

In 1955, after completing his master's degree at MIT, he failed twice in applying for a doctorate at MIT.

This was the biggest blow in Zhang's life, but also his greatest luck.

It was precisely because he could not enter the doctoral program that he accidentally entered the semiconductor industry.

At that time, the US economy was booming after World War II, and there were job opportunities everywhere. After graduation, Zhang received several offers, including from well-known large companies such as Ford and an unknown small company "Sylvania".

At that time, Ford offered a monthly salary of $479, while Sylvania offered $480 per month.

Zhang Zhongmou chose Sylvania instead of Ford for a difference of one dollar.

This choice gave birth to the most important person in the current semiconductor industry.

Zhang Zhongmou completed the transformation from an industry rookie to a semiconductor engineer at Sylvania.

At that time, the semiconductor industry in the United States was in a boom, and the shortage of people in the semiconductor industry was very serious.

So even if the major was not suitable, you could get a job.

Became the "pig" on the vent.

After entering the semiconductor industry, he was favored by Texas Instruments with three years of work experience.

It was at Texas Instruments that Zhang Zhongmou met a very thoughtful engineer named Jack Kibby.

The two often drank coffee and chatted together.

One day, Jack told Zhang that he was planning to put transistors, bipolar bodies, and resistors to form a circuit on the same silicon chip.

Before this, all circuits were separate transistors connected by external wires.

And Jack Kibby's idea was to integrate them together on the same silicon chip.

He named this circuit "integrated circuit", or IC for short.

Later, Jack Kibby won the Nobel Prize in Physics.

A revolution has arrived!

Integrated circuits can make chips very small, but their functions can be very complex.

The small chip brought about the computer technology revolution and the rapid development of information technology.

From then on, Zhang Zhongmou and integrated circuits have been inseparable.

His specialty at Texas Instruments is chip manufacturing.

His work was quickly recognized by the company.

In September 1961, he was admitted as a doctoral student in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University.

The shadow of failing the MIT doctoral degree was swept away.

At this time, he had been to three famous universities (one year at Harvard University, bachelor's and master's degrees at MIT, and doctorate at Stanford University), and his halo was all over him.

In today's words, he is a "big shot in the industry".

In 1964, Zhang Zhongmou, who obtained his doctorate at the age of 33, returned to Texas Instruments, where there would be a bigger stage waiting for him.

In 1965, he was promoted to general manager of the integrated circuit department.

In 1972, Zhang Zhongmou successively served as vice president and senior vice president of Texas Instruments. He was the third person in Texas Instruments, second only to the chairman and president.

At this time, Texas Instruments had already become the world's number one, with 60,000 employees worldwide, half of whom were under Zhang Zhongmou's management.

He was the first Chinese to enter the top management of a large American company.

In 1982, Sun Yunxuan, the second-in-command in Taiwan, sent an English offer letter to Zhang Zhongmou.

In the letter, Sun Yunxuan sincerely hoped that Zhang Zhongmou would serve as the president of the Industrial Technology Research Institute.

Sun was from Qilu, a few years younger than Zhang Zhongmou.

He was also a very capable person.

In 1973, he overcame all objections and established the Industrial Technology Research Institute, a semi-official institution mainly funded by the government, in imitation of the South Korean Institute of Science and Technology. This is the famous Taiwanese "Industrial Technology Research Institute".

At the beginning of its establishment, the Industrial Technology Research Institute chose the integrated circuit direction as a breakthrough.

In 1975, Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) used CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology as the target of introduction and sent cooperation invitations to 14 well-known American semiconductor manufacturers.

After screening and negotiation, RCA of the United States agreed to transfer the technology to ITRI at a relatively low price of US$3.5 million, which included training talents in circuit design, mask manufacturing, wafer manufacturing, packaging testing and production management.

The development of Taiwan's semiconductor industry began from then on. After digesting and absorbing RCA's technology, ITRI incubated well-known semiconductor companies such as UMC, TSMC, World Advanced, and Winbond in the next 10 to 20 years.

Famous.

In terms of talent training, ITRI is also the "Huangpu" military academy for the development of Taiwan's electronic industry.

Many celebrities in the current technology industry, such as UMC Chairman Cao Xingcheng and MediaTek Chairman Tsai Ming-kai, all came from ITRI.

ITRI was created by Sun Yun-suan and is regarded as his "son".

This position is very important and sincere.

Zhang Zhongmou, who was then the vice president of Texas Instruments and the third in command, rejected Sun Yunxuan.

Zhang was very honest.

"After the talk, I found that they didn't know much about the treatment of American corporate executives."

The meaning was obvious, the money was not enough.

In 1984, Sun Yunxuan had a cerebral hemorrhage and died directly.

Although he was gone, his successor still did not give up the idea of ​​recruiting Zhang Zhongmou.

A year later, in 1985, his successors Yu Guohua, Li Guoding and Xu Xianxiu again invited Zhang Zhongmou.

The second visit to the thatched cottage, this time the lineup was even stronger.

Yu Guohua, a native of Fenghua, can be seen from his native place that he is a bald fellow villager and a direct descendant.

It is natural for him to be in a high position.

Xu Xianxiu, most people don't know, but this person is very powerful.

Under his leadership, Taiwan built the Hsinchu Industrial Park, making it the Silicon Valley of the East, and was hailed as the 'Father of Hsinchu'.

Li Kuo-ting, president of the Industrial Technology Research Institute, recruited many overseas Chinese to start businesses in Taiwan during the period when Taiwan's high-tech industry took off.

Li is capable and has a long-term vision.

He believes that a simple free trade zone is not suitable for Taiwan because the added value is not high.

High technology is the future.

ITRI, Hsinchu Industrial Park, Export Processing Zone, that was the highlight of Taiwan's high-tech industry.

A group of mainland officials who went to Taiwan from the inland, such as Sun Yunxuan, Li Kuo-ting, Xu Xiuxian, and other high-tech talents who went to the United States from the inland, played a decisive role.

In fact, companies including TSMC, Hon Hai, Acer, Delta Electronics, ASE, and Largan were all established in the 1970s and 1980s.

With the efforts of these people, Taiwan has finally become an indispensable link in the global electronic industry chain, whether by introducing talents, attracting investment, or establishing industrial parks.

There were invitations from three heavyweights, and Zhang Zhongmou's status has also changed, although he has jumped to General Instruments as president for a year and a half.

However, he is no longer a powerful figure like he was at Texas Instruments.

Zhang Zhongmou, who is 53 years old, has already achieved financial freedom. This time, he no longer cares about how much salary he can get from his job in Taiwan, and took over the position of president of ITRI.

These leaders in the Taiwan region visited Zhang Zhongmou three times and invited him to come, and also brought a "sacred mountain" to Taiwan's semiconductor industry.