Technology: Start by selling mobile phones

"I know their phones and I bought one."

Hearing Zhang Jun's inquiry, Xu Mingkai did not shy away, nodded and said:

"Their 'Brilliant S1' is really well made, with fine workmanship and high technical content. The overall design and control of details are completely unlike a mobile phone manufacturer that only emerged in two or three years."

"We also dismantled the NPU chip you mentioned and looked at it. It's not bad. The performance data is exactly the same as what they advertised. There are no problems."

"but……"

Having said this, Xu Mingkai suddenly paused and looked up at Zhang Jun.

"But compared to their NPU chips, what surprises us even more is the foundry that helps them manufacture chips!"

"oh?"

Zhang Jun was slightly startled and let out a light sigh.

"What's the surprise?"

"It's like this. We originally thought that Nietzsche's 38nm NPU chips would be manufactured by relatively stable Taiwanese companies such as GlobalFoundries and UMC, even if they were not manufactured by top fabs such as TSMC and Samsung. But we didn't expect it to be. Produced by a chip foundry called 'Yellow River Memory' in Chengdu."

"Moreover, after in-depth understanding, we found that this 'Yellow River Memory' does have the technology to produce 38nm chips, but it does not have many business partners. The only customer or the only big customer is Nietzsche Mobile Phone."

“We speculate that this company called ‘Yellow River Storage’ should be a subsidiary of Nietzsche.”

"Subsidiary?!"

A hint of surprise suddenly appeared on Zhang Jun's face, and he asked:

"You mean, 'Yellow River Storage' and Nietzsche Mobile are companies within the same group?"

After finishing speaking, before Xu Mingkai could answer, he continued to add:

"If so, doesn't it mean that Nietzsche Mobile not only has its own design capabilities, but also has the ability to independently produce chips?!"

Xu Mingkai nodded.

The affirmative answer surprised Zhang Jun.

He has been in charge of Huawei's affairs for more than a month, and he knows a little bit about the chip industry.

The chip industry has huge investments, difficult research and development, and requires a lot of technical personnel in each link. Therefore, there are almost no chip companies on the market that do both design and manufacturing.

In his impression, such an IDM model can only be managed by top chip giants such as Samsung, Texas Instruments, and Intel.

It’s really surprising that a small business like Nietzsche actually adopts the IDM model and seems to be doing well.

"It's not just the IDM model."

"We also discovered that 'Yellow River Storage' is not only responsible for NPU chip research and development... they have also recruited many 'memory chip' R\u0026D personnel in the past year or two, and one of them is a top talent who is well-known in the field of memory chips. ——Zheng Qian.”

"The main direction of his research is the most advanced '3D-NAND' technology in memory chips today!"

“So, we judge that ‘Huanghe Storage’ should be developing ‘3D-NADN’ flash memory particles, but there is no product yet.”

And memory chips?

A series of news made Zhang Jun more interested.

To be honest, the only domestic companies that can produce 38nm chips are SMIC and Hua Hong Semiconductor. It is surprising that "Yellow River Memory" can produce 38nm chips, but I didn't expect that it is still developing "3D-NAND" flash memory particles. !

Is this... so much money invested? !

Moreover, what makes him even more curious is that compared to "SMIC", which has become popular due to the Huawei incident during this period, "Yellow River Storage" is unimaginably low-key.

There are almost no external customers in the industry, and even insiders don't know its name unless they pay special attention. Such a company is too mysterious.

For a moment, such a sense of mystery made him have a strong association with the strength of "Yellow River Storage". He suddenly looked up at Xu Mingkai and asked:

"Mr. Xu, our current dilemma at Huawei is that TSMC no longer helps us manufacture chips. Can we cooperate with 'Yellow River Storage'..."

Xu Mingkai was stunned for a moment, then shook his head.

"almost impossible."

"Although we don't know much about the specific situation of 'Yellow River Memory', what they have shown so far is that they can only produce 38-nanometer chips, while our Kirin 970 is a 10-nanometer chip. The difference is still very big."

"oh."

Zhang Jun suddenly came to his senses and slapped his forehead suddenly.

"Sorry, I forgot about the manufacturing process in the excitement..."

Xu Mingkai smiled awkwardly, and the two of them fell into a brief silence unknowingly. Fortunately, a few seconds later, Zhang Jun slowly exhaled and said:

"Let's not talk about this matter for now. In fact, there is another important thing I want to communicate with you today."

"The leaders above attach great importance to your experience and realize the importance of localization of the chip industry."

"So, next we will provide a lot of support to the domestic chip industry..."

After the words fell, Xu Mingkai's eyes, which had been extremely depressed throughout the entire conversation, finally lit up.

He sat up straight and sounded a little happier.

"That's great!"

"To tell you the truth, our group has recently held a meeting to discuss this matter. After more than a month of turmoil, we also realized that we must establish a safe and reliable domestic chip industry chain!"

"Almost all the important parts we purchased before were from foreign brands. Next, our first task is to cooperate more with domestic companies, improve the product quality of domestic brands and finally complete the substitution of domestic products!"

Both parties were almost thinking the same thing.

Zhang Jun was quite happy:

"That's good, that's good. The state is responsible for supporting the entire chip industry, and you guys will carry out detailed attacks to get twice the result with half the effort!"

"By the way, have you started to find out? How is the situation?"

Compared to Zhang Jun's excitement, when he said this, the light that flashed in Xu Mingkai's eyes suddenly disappeared again.

After two seconds of silence, he slowly shook his head.

"It's hard."

"Let me give you a simple set of data. There are about 35 important parts on a smartphone now, and the localization rate on our Meta 10 is only 14%."

"14%?! So low?!"

"Yes! It's that low."

As he spoke, Xu Mingkai suddenly sighed deeply.

"Actually, these parts are fine. The most troublesome thing is the manufacturing process!"

"This month we contacted SMIC, Hua Hong Semiconductor, and all leading domestic chip companies. The most powerful one, SMIC, currently has the largest process of 38 nanometers."

"Okay, we can still accept 38 nanometers. We can slowly improve the process level. The most troublesome thing is that after we checked it out, we found that there is not even a high-end lithography machine in the major domestic fabs!"

"Both SMIC and Hua Hong Semiconductor have 90nm, 65nm, and 40nm lithography equipment. The most advanced ones are just a few 38nm lithography equipment!"

"It is simply impossible to produce high-end 10nm chips with such a machine!"

Hearing this, Zhang Jun's originally good mood also frowned.

Indeed, you can still catch up with the production process and so on. What the hell are you going to do if you don’t even have production equipment?

At this moment, Xu Mingkai’s voice continued:

"According to our understanding, in order to produce 10-nanometer high-end chips, at least a 28-nanometer lithography machine is required to produce it through multiple exposures. But now domestic lithography machines only have 80 nanometers, which is completely out of reach!"

"really……"

Zhang Jun echoed that it is obviously impossible to import AMSL advanced lithography machines at this time, and we can only rely on domestic manufacturing.

However, domestic lithography machines are far behind...

He shook his head. In this way, there was almost no solution to the problem of domestic substitution of chip manufacturing. But at this moment, suddenly, an idea flashed in his mind, and his eyes suddenly looked at Xu Mingkai.

"By the way, do you know about the Yellow River Storage?"

"They can produce 38nm chips, so they should be strong enough. What if they have more advanced photolithography machines?!"

Xu Mingkai was also stunned for a moment, and then said:

"That's true!"

"However, I guess there should be no high-end lithography machines... Well, I will arrange for someone to ask and understand their situation later. Of course, we shouldn't have high hopes."

"Well, let's ask first and then talk."

That's it, this topic is coming to an end, and today's exchange between the two sides is almost over.

Seeing this, Zhang Jun stood up.

"Mr. Xu, the information you provided today is very valuable. I have also learned more about the current situation of the chip industry. Next, I will summarize it and report it to the leaders above!"

"Finally, there is one more thing I want to reveal to you in advance. I just said that we are planning to support the domestic chip industry. This time we will set up a large chip fund to invest in domestic chip companies through fund shares. The first phase will probably have Project support quota of 100 billion yuan!”

"Please give me a list of companies that need to be invested in, and we can use them as a reference!"

"certainly……"

Zhang Jun paused deliberately and looked at Xu Mingkai.

"Of course, you must remember to focus on the situation of the 'Yellow River Storage'."

Xu Mingkai's eyes lit up and he nodded heavily.

"good!"

…

Mo Ran probably didn’t expect that “Brilliant S1” would have such great stamina.

Just when "Yellow River Storage" was noticed by Huawei, far across the ocean, the recent news of Nietzsche's "Brilliant S1" was also noticed by a department on the other side of the ocean.

Of course, Nietzsche is not good enough for the other side of the ocean to convene a special research and judgment meeting, but at the end of a meeting to discuss the Huawei incident, Nietzsche's "Brilliant S1" appeared on the conference table as the final discussion issue.

"My suggestion is to immediately impose restrictions on this Chinese mobile phone company named Nietzsche and restrict Qualcomm from providing Qualcomm flagship chips to it."

The person speaking was Kamila Sam, the strategic advisor of the Ministry of Commerce, a typical Angsa person.

Not only was he a hard-line radical in the Huawei incident, he was also very tough on Nietzsche.

"Mr. Sam, I understand your position, but to be honest, I have never even heard of this Yanguo company."

"Are you being too sensitive? I don't think they will pose any threat to us."

The speaker was another consultant—Mike Kevin.

"sensitive?!"

Camilla Sam suddenly raised her arms and shook her head.

"Mike, have you noticed that this company named Nietzsche has been very active on the Yanguo network recently!"

"According to the information we have, they have not only independently developed and produced 38-nanometer chips, but also publicly announced the development progress of their next-generation chips at their new product launch conference!"

"There is no doubt that this is a huge threat to us."

"38 nanometers? Huge threat?"

"Sam, are you sure you're right? Even 38-nanometer chips will pose a threat to us?"

Mike, who was the first to speak just now, didn't give in at all. The relationship between him and Sam had never been very good, and conflicts of ideas were common.

"Haha, a Yanguo company that can independently design and produce 38-nanometer NPU chips, and publicly stated at the new product launch conference that it has a 'timetable' and is 'developing the next generation of chips,' isn't it worthy of our attention?"

"Besides, we have already taken measures to ban this company. What's the problem?"

After saying this, many consultants present who were looking through Nietzsche-related materials nodded in agreement.

really,

As Camilla Sam said, according to the materials reviewed, this Chinese company named Nietzsche publicly stated at a recent new product launch that it was “developing the next generation of chips.”

This is a very dangerous signal that deserves vigilance.

Huawei has grown up step by step in this way.

However, Mike clearly disagrees.

He snorted disdainfully and said:

"Sam, what you said is too simple, convenient?!"

"Haha, we have aroused a lot of public opinion internationally. Now that the public opinion has calmed down a little, do we need to stir up public opinion again for an extremely ordinary company?"

At this point, Mike paused for a moment.

"I have also learned about their 38nm chip you mentioned, but it is just a dedicated NPU chip, not even a SOC chip. What are you worried about?!"

Mike's analysis made many people who originally supported Sam hesitate.

In any case, the previous events did bring a lot of pressure from public opinion to them.

Is it worth it now for a business that is not too important?

but.

Camilla Sam was not ready to admit defeat, but just as he was about to continue to refute, suddenly, sitting above the conference table, the core boss of the business department suddenly coughed slightly, interrupting the dispute between the two.

Kamez Aleman had been in a high position for a long time. He coughed slightly, and everyone stopped and looked at him with respect.

"Sam, what you said makes sense. A company has developed a 38-nanometer chip in just two or three years. It is by no means an ordinary chip company. We need to pay attention to it."

Sam's eyes suddenly lit up, and at this moment, Kamez Aleman turned to look at Mike.

"But what Mike said is right. In addition to 'offensive', we really need to relieve some pressure from public opinion now."

“It’s not impossible to put this Nietzsche brand away for a while.”

Sam was stunned for a moment, his expression changed, and he hurriedly tried to continue convincing Aleman.

"Mr. Aleman..."

Kamez Aleman interrupted him with a wave of his hand.

"This matter has been settled. If there is nothing else, today's meeting will end here."

At this moment, Sam did not give up.

He suddenly stood up from his seat and looked at Kamez Aleman.

"Aleman, I accept your arrangement, but I have one last request."

"Huh? You say."

"I agree with your decision to put Nietzsche back, but I hope you can leave Nietzsche's investigation to me. I want to investigate personally to see what the strength of this company is!"

Aleman thought for a moment and then nodded.

"Okay, I'll leave this matter to you and investigate!"

"Okay, let's break up the meeting."