Chapter 371 Laying out chip manufacturing, Su Ya will end up personally!
By the time Zhang Shuo completed his flight around the country and returned to Binhai City, January had come to an end.
And while he was away.
Sprout Group has officially reached an overseas investment agreement with AMD. Sprout Group will invest US$500 million to acquire 25% of AMD's shares and become one of AMD's major shareholders.
This part of the equity will be listed under the name of Daosui Group, which will continue to increase the valuation of Daosui Group.
The market value of AMD in 2022 was close to US$200 billion at its peak, but its current market value is only US$2 billion.
This means that from the perspective of financial investment alone, in less than ten years, Sprout's investment in AMD will skyrocket by nearly a hundred times.
Absolutely great value for money.
From AMD's perspective, Germination's $500 million investment is more like a life-saving straw, enough to inject a shot in the arm into the market amid continued losses.
The most important thing is that this fund can also be used for new research and development.
It’s not a loss either!
After the transaction is approved, AMD will hold a shareholders' meeting, at which time Daosui Group will have the right to nominate a new director to AMD's board of directors.
There is no doubt that Lin Zhengdong, president of Daosui Group, will be a suitable candidate.
In this way, Daosui Group will reach a strategic partnership with AMD, which will undoubtedly be of great benefit to the future technical cooperation and personnel exchanges between the two semiconductor companies.
Due to AMD's continued losses, approval of the transaction is basically a certainty.
The best thing is——
"Through the investment in AMD, we have demonstrated our financial strength to the outside world. According to the latest news I have received, Japan's attitude has become more relaxed." Lu Kai reported with a smile.
"Very good, we just need to maintain this momentum and continue to put pressure on Japan."
It can be said that the acquisition of Japan Storage is an important part of Germination's overseas investment and M&A strategy. It can even be said to be a touchstone and a war it cannot afford to lose.
Must win!
Even if you have to pay a little more premium, it is still worth it.
Because scarce assets like Nippon Storage will be difficult to buy again in the future, even if you have money. If one company is acquired, it will lose one, and it is difficult to evaluate it based on short-term loss fluctuations.
"By the way, look at this."
Zhang Shuo pressed the button and pointed to a piece of news on the computer——
"Lejing Group is heavily in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy!"
However, starting in 2008, the DRAM industry in Yizhou Province suffered heavy losses under the three-star campaign. Prices continued to collapse, and many companies faced the dual pressure of debt and losses.
Lijing Group is the first to bear the brunt.
By the end of last year, Lijing Group's debt reached 28.4 billion, coupled with continued losses, it delisted sadly.
The debt problem has not yet been solved.
It is about to wander on the edge of bankruptcy and reorganization and become an outcast of the times.
This attracted widespread attention.
"Chairman, do you want to enter the foundry industry?" Lu Kai's eyes flashed.
"clever!"
Zhang Shuo couldn't help but give a thumbs up, admiring Lu Kai's sharp thinking.
As a semiconductor company in Yizhou Province, Lijing Group is not as prosperous as Tai Electromechanical, but its strength cannot be underestimated. Its subsidiary Lijing Jicheng Electronic Manufacturing Company is a wafer foundry.
It coincides with Lijing Group's debt crisis, which is a good opportunity for bargain hunting.
The reason why Zhang Shuo paid attention to Lijing Group was that the company later turned around. Not only did it pay off its debts, its subsidiary Lijing Jicheng Electronic Manufacturing Company was relisted.
It's a legend.
The most important thing is that Luzhou, known as the strongest venture capital city, cooperated with Lijing Group in 2015 to establish Jinghe Integration, which is known as the third largest wafer foundry in China.
Jingwa Integration has indeed lived up to expectations. It is like a dark horse. In just a few years, it has surpassed Dongfang Hi-Tech of Korea and ranked tenth among global wafer foundries.
In China, it is also second only to Zhongxin International and Huahong Group.
In the last major semiconductor integration, Huahong Group has been fully integrated into China Microelectronics.
Of course, Zhang Shuo also fell in love with Lijing Group. He wanted to follow the practices of Luzhou in the original time and space. While investing in Lijing Group, he also relied on Lijing Group’s technology accumulation in the field of foundry to join forces in Jiangxia.
Prepare to build its own wafer foundry belonging to Daosui Group.
After all, we cannot pin all our hopes on China Microelectronics.
Nor can we place all our hopes on calculations against Tai Mechanical and Electrical.
As for Zhongxin, forget it, Zhang Shuo had no expectations for it from the beginning to the end.
Zhongxin was destined to be riddled with factions from the very beginning.
If your genes are not pure, no matter how hard you try, it will be useless.
Wafer foundry is related to the overall development of semiconductors, and competition with each other is not a bad thing. Zhang Shuo must make complete preparations and must not put all his eggs in the same basket.
and.
Having said that, only in the budding series, in addition to Zhulong chips, Mango car chips and Jing Jiawei's graphics card chips, and memory chips from Nippon Memory all require the cooperation of wafer foundries.
In this case, it is very reasonable for Daosui Group to intervene in the foundry business.
Also very suitable.
"Well, after the annual meeting, I will personally go to Yizhou Province." Lu Kai also acted vigorously and resolutely.
"be quick!"
Zhang Shuo was even more anxious, "The investment in Lijing Group will be finalized within a month."
It's not that he is eager for quick success.
But in two or three months, the price of DRAM will usher in a rising cycle. Although there is no way to directly pull Lijing Group out of the debt quagmire, it can still be a blood transfusion.
At that time, the cost of investing in Lijing Group will definitely be higher.
The icing on the cake is better than providing help in times of need!
"There should be no problem."
Although this month spanned the Spring Festival holiday, Lu Kai did not make any excuses. As a group executive, there was no holiday in the strict sense.
You have to work overtime when you should.
"In addition to investing in Lijing Group, there is one more thing we need to pay close attention to." Zhang Shuo said.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! "Please speak!"
"Go to Korea, find Liang Song, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Samsung Foundry, and invite him to join Daosui Group as executive vice president and chief technology officer, fully responsible for the group's foundry business."
Although the wafer foundry business is at the downstream of the semiconductor chip industry, the research and development of advanced processes also requires a leading technology expert.
And Liang Song is such a legendary figure.
It can even be said that he is one of the most outstanding talents in high-tech research and development in the field of wafer foundry.
Liang Song studied under Hu Zhenming, the father of semiconductor wafer processing technology, and worked at AMD after graduation. During this period, he published 350 technical papers and obtained 181 key semiconductor technology invention patents.
He is a typical technical tycoon.
In 1992, Liang Song resigned from amd and joined Taiyuan Electric, which was not very prominent at the time.
Although the chip manufacturing process in 2021 has been rolled out to 5 nanometers, 3 nanometers, and even 2 nanometers, around the millennium, the world's mainstream semiconductor companies are still making breakthroughs from 180nm to 130nm processes.
Is the gap a bit big?
What is different from the past is that what we want to break through this time is a technological watershed.
Because the aluminum process was used in the past, various problems will arise when the aluminum process continues to be used above 130 nanometers, so the whole world is trying to solve this problem.
IBM first gained some leadership in research and development, and tried to use this as a bargaining chip to continue to dominate the entire chip manufacturing process, so it approached Tai Electromechanical and proposed cooperation.
As a result, Tai Electromechanical refused.
The confidence that Tai Electromechanical refused came from Liang Song and his mentor Hu Zhenming. The mentor and apprentice revolutionary adopted a new fin field effect transistor, also known as fin.
fet technical solution.
Skip 150nm and go directly to the 130nm process.
In 2003, the new solution for the 130-nanometer all-copper process was successfully mass-produced. With this, Tai Electromechanical not only tied the two-generation process gap with IBM in one fell swoop, but also got rid of its dependence on its technology.
Have a place in the semiconductor industry.
In this battle, Liang Song, who made great contributions, also became famous in one battle, establishing his position as the core of Thailand's electromechanical technology.
But fate is so magical.
In the subsequent workplace struggle at Tai Mechanical and Electrical, Liang Song unfortunately lost and was marginalized.
In 2009, he resigned from Tai Mechanical and Electrical Co., Ltd.
Because of Liang Song's resignation, the mass production of Tai Electromechanical's 28nm process has been delayed from 2010 to 2011, more than a year later than planned.
The following story is even more legendary.
In 2011, Liang Song quietly joined Samsung and served as executive vice president and chief technology officer of Samsung's wafer foundry.
At that time, Sanxing's wafer foundry business was stuck in the process of moving down from the 28nm process. It was unable to make a technological breakthrough and development came to a standstill.
Seeing that it was about to be unable to keep up with the development pace of Tai Mechanical and Electrical, that's why I bet on Liang Song.
And Liang Song has indeed lived up to expectations. He immediately stopped the research and development of the 20nm process, which was no longer keeping up with the times, and directly jumped from the 28nm to the 14nm process, completing three generations and four levels of process iterations at once.
Although this seems a bit crazy to Sanxing, there is no choice but to fight to the death.
I can only give my full support as if I'm gambling on my life.
The hard work paid off, and finally in 2014, Samsung's 14nm process was the first to be successfully mass-produced. However, Taiyuan Electromechanical launched the 16nm process only half a year later, which was still half a generation behind Samsung.
Relying on its leadership in manufacturing processes, Sanxing successfully snatched Pingguo A from Tai Mechanical and Electrical.
80% of the orders for 9 processors and a large number of orders for Gaotong Snapdragon have achieved huge commercial benefits.
After that.
Tai Electromechanical launched a hunt for Liang Song, forcing him to leave Sanxing in 2015.
Then there is the well-known story. After leaving Sanxing, Liang Song was visited by Zhongxin three times and joined Zhongxin in 2017, hoping to help Zhongxin achieve a leap forward in advanced manufacturing processes.
Unfortunately.
At that time, Tai Mechanical and Electrical, Sanxing was already too far ahead of Zhongxin, and Zhongxin's own technical reserves were seriously insufficient. Even if they caught up, they would not be able to compete with the world's most advanced manufacturing processes.
And now.
What Zhang Shuo wants is to poach Liang Song from Samsung and join Daosui Group before Samsung successfully mass-produces its 14nm process, so as to participate in the competition of global advanced processes in advance.
This is of course very difficult.
At that time, Sanxing put a lot of effort into poaching Liang Song. When Liang Song was still in Taiyuan, they established personal contact with Liang Song in private and engaged in wife diplomacy.
Not to mention, Liang Song was burdened with the non-competition agreement of Three Stars and was also being pursued by Tai Mechanical and Electrical.
It is really difficult to successfully join Daosui Group.
But Zhang Shuo has never been a person who is afraid of difficulties. "You and Director Wu, go to Gaoli to contact Liang Song first. When the time is right, I will interview him in person."
"good!"
Lu Kai was no stranger to Liang Song, and he suddenly felt a lot of pressure. Because in his opinion, poaching Liang Song from Three Stars was much more difficult than investing in Lijing Group.
But no matter how difficult it is, we can only bite the bullet.
………
Friday, February 1st.
Tonight, the headquarters of Sprout Group will also hold its regular annual meeting.
The day after tomorrow is the Lunar New Year, which means that after the annual meeting, the Sprout Group from bottom to top will basically enter the Spring Festival holiday, and all the tickets for non-local employees have been purchased.
Just waiting for the annual party to end, friends will get together, and after a while, they will go home.
Zhang Shuo is no exception.
He deliberately missed Jiangcheng during this nationwide inspection, just because he planned to take a trip to the Pinxixi Group headquarters when he returned home to avoid the hassle of going back and forth.
In the morning, Zhang Shuo sat in his office and signed the funding application for the new month.
Allocate 700 million R&D funding to the Fertile Soil Research Institute;
Allocate 600 million R&D funding to Mango Automobile;
Allocate a total of 3.7 billion huge funds to Daosui Group, of which 500 million is R&D funding, and the remaining 3.2 billion is funds prepared for investment in AMD;
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Only 100 million operating funds have been allocated to Sprout Real Estate because construction is basically suspended during the Spring Festival.
The total amount added up is 5.1 billion in allocations, and the amount of allocations in a single month has reached a new high.
Even so, the operating funds for the first quarter were allocated last month, and the allocation in February is only a supplement and is mainly used for research and development expenditures.
Otherwise, the total allocation amount will be higher.
It can be seen that, excluding subsidiaries that have achieved profitability, only three companies, Fertile Land Research Institute, Mango Automobile and Daosui Group, have a combined monthly R&D expenditure of 1.8 billion.
The Fertile Soil Research Institute has added a 3D printing laboratory.
It can be inferred from this.
The entire sprouting system's annual R&D expenditure in 2013 exceeded 30 billion, which is very easy.
It may even exceed the standard.
In addition to these, the major expenses last month also included an increase of 3.6 billion in Qingyun Data and the acquisition of Linxiang Jingjiawei for 2.5 billion.
In terms of profit.
Last month, Jade Bird Interactive Entertainment turned over a profit of 3.2 billion, Maili Group turned over a profit of 6 billion, Qinghe Technology turned over a profit of 250 million, and Sprout Financial Holdings turned over a profit of 200 million.
The total profit turned in was 9.65 billion, an increase of 100 million from last month.
Compared with last month, the cash on Sprout's account surged by 11.45 billion, which does not mean that it has achieved positive profits.
Quite the opposite.
Due to investment and mergers and acquisitions, Germination’s cash flow last month was actually a net outflow of nearly 2 billion.
The reason why the cash flow has skyrocketed is because it obtained a 12 billion loan from the bank and also issued a billion corporate bonds, which allowed the sprout to maintain sufficient funds.
Otherwise, the capital pool will bottom out again.
Fortunately, February is already expected to be the most difficult month. Once the 20 billion service fees arrive next month, the budding cash flow will be completely improved.
The premise is that in the future, Sprout will no longer make large investments.
This is of course impossible.
Not to mention anything else, it is just the beginning of entering the wafer foundry field, from investing in Lijing Group, to building a wafer foundry in Jiangxia, to subsequent research and development, mass production, etc.
Even if you say less, tens of billions of funds will be spent.
Zhang Shuo has already made a mental preparation and expects most of the profits from the 13 years to be invested in the semiconductor field to support the rapid development of Daosui Group.
There are only a few years left to consume!
………
Because of Zhang Shuo's instructions.
This year's annual meeting at the headquarters of the Sprout Group was extremely frugal. It did not invite celebrities to support the event, nor did it create any big scenes. Everything was kept simple, and it was more like an awards ceremony.
As per usual.
Various awards including Best New Employee, Best Employee, Best Operation Team, Best R&D Team, Best Progress Award, Best Care Award, Best Charity Award, etc. were awarded at the annual meeting.
Of course, there is also the most important President’s Special Award.
This year's winner is Gu Mingzhang, senior vice president of the group and president of Maili Group, in recognition of the stunning launch of Maili x1, which is well-deserved.
After the annual meeting, Zhang Shuo flew back to Jiangcheng the next day.
Also accompanying me is Cai Miaomiao.
This girl is quite enterprising. She originally planned to celebrate the New Year in Binhai City, but her uncle and aunt lectured her on the phone, so she reluctantly went home.
It is just like Zhang Shuo version 2.0.
When I got home, the atmosphere at home was not very good.
"What's wrong? Didn't I bring Miaomiao back?" Zhang Shuo was also confused.
"It was your uncle who had an accident at the construction site."
Lao Zhang rarely frowned, "The template collapsed, and your uncle's left calf is considered useless."
"People safe is good."
Zhang Shuo also felt his heart sink.
"What's good is that your brother-in-law used to work as a contractor, and the family's life was pretty good. Now as the backbone of the family, he can take over as many positions as he wants. There are elders above and younger ones below."
"Then there are still us."
If it were the original time and space, Zhang Shuo would probably be helpless in the face of such a big change in his family. It is different now. Although money is not everything, it can indeed solve many problems.
"After the Spring Festival, arrange for my uncle to go to the magic city or the capital for medical treatment and get a prosthetic limb. All expenses will be borne by the Prodigal Son Fund. From now on, every month, I will give my uncle's family a subsidy of 10,000 yuan for living expenses."
Zhang Shuo also wanted to give more, but he was afraid that other relatives would be jealous.
In addition to supporting family members to start their own businesses, the Prodigal Son Fund also plays a very important role, which is to provide financial support for serious illness expenses of family members.
"I think so too."
Lao Zhang's frown eased slightly, "It's just that your brother-in-law usually has a strong personality, so he may not be willing to accept this kind of semi-charity life. Life is worry-free, but mentally..."
People are different.
There are those who like to lie flat and would rather wait to die while receiving subsidies.
There are also some who need to be stronger.
My uncle Zhang Zhannan is the latter, otherwise he would not have gone out to work at a young age. A man who has not even graduated from elementary school has become a contractor step by step.
It can be considered to be a standout.
"That's it..."
Zhang Shuo thought about it for a while and said: "Old Zhang, look, can you invest in building an ecological picking farm in our hometown in the countryside in the name of the prodigal fund, and hand it over to my uncle and uncle to take care of it together? If my grandparents can do it,
If you want to move, you can also move to the farm and help out together.”
He was inspired by the planning of the Germination Industrial Park.
If you want your uncle to stand up mentally, it cannot be a simple charity. It is best to find a career that can be busy or even fight for.
Ecological picking farms are a good platform.
The first is the popularization of agricultural machinery, which does not require much manpower. More importantly, the whole family, old and young, can work together, and it can also re-bond the relationship between family members.
You don’t have to go out to work to make money.
"Is this an ecological picking farm? I've heard that it can only be done near big cities. Our hometown is just around the county town, so there are no customers, right?" Lao Zhang was not fooled.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "That's easy, just contract a piece of land in the suburbs of Jiangcheng, isn't that enough?"
As long as you have sufficient funds, this doesn't matter.
"Then you have to spend such a huge sum of money without even thinking about making money, right? Your uncle is not stupid and will not see through the little tricks you are playing here." Lao Zhang was still a little worried.
"I don't think so."
Zhang Shuo shook his head, "My uncle wants to be strong but not stupid. Who is really good to him, can you tell?"
There is a difference between trying to be strong and being aggressive.
"That's true!"
Lao Zhang glanced at Zhang Shuo in surprise. He didn't expect that Zhang Shuo could see things more clearly than him in terms of human relations and sophistication. He was relieved at the same time, but also felt a little bit disappointed.
"Moreover, spending a lot of money to build an ecological picking garden may not necessarily make you unable to make a profit."
Zhang Shuo continued his idea.
"If nothing else, Pinxixi Group can be a regular customer of the ecological picking garden. The large canteen at the Pinxixi Group headquarters can digest most of the vegetables and fish."
“The picking garden can also be a team building partner of Pinxixi Group, so we don’t have to worry about lack of customers.”
Although Zhang Shuo has always insisted on allowing family members to work in companies owned by the Germination Group, he is not stubborn and this kind of flexibility is still allowed.
It is also a mutually beneficial thing.
"That's a good idea."
What Zhang Shuo said completely aroused Lao Zhang's interest.
"right?"
Zhang Shuo continued to confuse, "The house on the farm can be built bigger, so that you and your mother can go to the farm for vacation on weekends, grow vegetables, raise flowers, feed fish and so on, how nice it would be."
"What you said makes me want to retire early." Lao Zhang finally smiled.
Just at this moment.
My mother, who had been silent all this time, quietly interjected: "Even if you retire, you have to wait until you have your grandson. Brat, when are you and Xiaoxi going to get married?"
"Ting!!!"
Zhang Shuo was speechless. There was nothing to talk about today.
Unexpectedly, this time Lao Zhang actually joined in and said, "Your mother is right. After you and Xiao Xi have a child, we, the old couple, will help take care of it. You don't have to worry about it. You can continue to live your two-person world."
"you do not say!"
Cai Shuyu was so greedy for her grandchildren that she almost cried, "It would be best to have twins!"