Rewrite the Technological Landscape

After Zhang Shuxin and Li Yanhong got on the elevator, Meng Qian walked out of the hotel and was about to immerse himself in a strange emotion, but was cut off by his mobile phone.

"President Ren?"

"Have you heard about our HiSilicon incident, Mr. Meng?"

"Well, I heard."

"Mr. Meng, do you have time these days to come to Haisi to have a look?"

"On the 3rd, I happen to be going to Shencheng, and I will go to HiSilicon to find Mr. Ren in the afternoon."

"Okay, I'll wait for Mr. Meng."

In fact, the former Huawei developed the first mobile phone processor in 2008, and the K3 was also released in 2009. Of course, the products at that time were very bad, and some counterfeit mobile phones were not attractive, but the former Huawei in 2005 In 2007, Huawei obtained the authorization of ARM. After a certain entanglement, Huawei in this life did not choose the authorization of ARM. Instead, it obtained the authorization of the Hongmeng architecture in 2007. As a result, it produced a mobile phone processor within 2 years. Meng Qian Somewhat surprised indeed.

On July 3, Meng Qian came to HiSilicon, and Ren Zhengfei had been waiting there for a long time.

"Is HiSilicon expanded?" Meng Qian visited HiSilicon two years ago when HiSilicon purchased the Hongmeng architecture license, and this time the place is obviously different.

"Well, after confirming the authorization of Hongmeng, we will start the expansion." Ren Zhengfei signaled Meng Qian to advance to the main building, "Since we have identified the direction, we will move forward."

In the lobby of the main building, Meng Qian saw conspicuous places such as the strategic planning map, the overseas market layout map, and the talent display area.

"Why does this person look familiar to me?" Meng Qian was most interested in talents, and subconsciously walked towards the talent display area.

Ren Zhengfei walked up to Meng Qian, and pointed to another person, "Does this person, Meng Qian, look familiar?"

"Really, who are these two?"

"This is Chartered Semiconductor's chief technology officer."

"Oh, the one on the other side is the chief technology officer of Xingpeng Jinke." Meng Qian finally remembered.

"That's right."

"They were actually dug over by Haisi."

"Because we acquired Chartered Semiconductor and Xingpeng Jinke."

Chartered Semiconductor was acquired by ATIC in 2009, and Xingpeng Jinke was acquired by China Changdian Technology in 2015.

Meng Qian was slightly surprised, "We have contacted these two companies before, but the acquisitions failed."

There was a little pride on Ren Zhengfei's expression, "It's more than that. We also recruited two core teams from the Institute of Microelectronics IME and DRAM company Singapore Technology Semiconductor."

"How did you do it? I remember that the past few years have been the stage of rapid development of Singapore's semiconductors. If I remember correctly, the proportion of Singapore's semiconductor production capacity in the world should have risen from 6% in 2001 to 11% in 2009. HiSilicon is going to smash the plate of Singapore Semiconductor?"

"That's because Dafeng Group contacted a little earlier. The situation in Singapore is quite special. On the surface, it is indeed developing very well, so we also wanted to go to the Neon Country of Taiwan Province and the United States to find talents at the beginning, but Dafeng Group He Ziguang was too ruthless and didn't give us any chance at all. We had to turn our attention to other places, but unexpectedly let us discover the huge crisis hidden in Singapore.

The financial crisis has hit Singapore hard. The Singaporean government managed to maintain a good international risk-fighting performance through some means, but the bottom is actually chaotic, which gave us the opportunity to acquire a large number of semiconductor talents from Singapore. "

Meng Qian didn't know what Ren Zhengfei said, but it is indeed a fact. Singapore's semiconductor industry reached its peak in 2009. Singapore was even once hailed as the new leader of semiconductors in Asia, replacing Neon Country. However, after 2010, the aftermath of the financial crisis broke out. Singapore was unable to support the development of semiconductors, and began a downhill road without turning back. A large number of semiconductor companies were acquired. The myth of Singapore’s semiconductors has basically been completely shattered in 2019.

Meng Qian nodded silently, that's good, everyone has found their own way to develop rapidly and attract talents.

Meng Qian turned to look at HiSilicon's development plan.

"The positioning of HiSilicon is to build a company that provides chip solutions in the fields of digital home, communication and wireless terminals." Ren Zhengfei explained on the sidelines.

"In other words, do you plan to make home digital device chips, mobile phone chips, mobile communication system device chips, and transmission network device chips?"

"That's right." There's nothing to shy away from.

"It seems that Dafeng Semiconductor has to set HiSilicon as a key competitor." Meng Qian said this deliberately.

Ren Zhengfei responded almost without thinking too much, "As long as it is a healthy competition, we will not be afraid of any opponent."

The two looked at each other and smiled, Ren Zhengfei took Meng Qian to observe carefully for a while, "By the way, I heard that Dafeng Group acquired Hikvision?"

"It's investment, it happened a few years ago, what's wrong?"

"We have recently made some breakthroughs in the field of security equipment chips, and we plan to increase investment in the field of security equipment chips. Mr. Meng can go and have a look later, because we happen to be discussing cooperation with Hikvision." Huawei It is really good in the field of security equipment chips. In 2019, it occupied 90% of the global market. Among them, Hikvision is the company with deep cooperation.

"The chemical reaction between HiSilicon and Hikvision can still be expected." Meng Qian thought, and responded to Ren Zhengfei, "No problem."

Continuing to read, Meng Qian noticed that Huawei has set server chips as a key research and development direction, "Speaking of server chips, this year can be regarded as a year of explosion. Intel and IBM are leading in this field. HiSilicon intends to challenge Intel and IBM?"

"The development of cloud computing is inseparable from the development of servers. Since we all believe that cloud intelligence is the future development trend, the company believes that servers are a very important direction of attack, especially high-end servers. As a chip design company, HiSilicon naturally We must undertake the design work of server chips." When Ren Zhengfei said this, it was very natural, as if we must do this, even if there are two big mountains in front of us, Intel and IBM.

Meng Qian nodded, "We are also developing server chips. Later, we can get the teams from both sides together to communicate."

"Okay, I wish I could."

Going forward, it is the mobile phone chip. HiSilicon's latest mobile phone processor, K3, has been marked on the strategy map.

"I still took the name."

"What did Boss Meng say?"

"Oh, let me talk about the meaning of the name K3, Mount Everest, if it's convenient for Mr. Ren, please take me to see the situation of K3 first."

"OK."

Ren Zhengfei took Meng Qian to learn about the K3 processor in detail. One of the characteristics of the K3 is that it is small, with an area of ​​12mmx12mm. It is currently the smallest mobile phone processor size in the world. GPU unit, at the same time, on the K3, we really saw an advantage that Huawei's processors must bring, the power management system.

"Mr. Ren, is Huawei planning to use the first processor in the latest product?"

"It's too late to use it in the latest products, but we will use our own processors in some of the next products."

"Mr. Ren has great confidence in K3?"

"From the experimental data, the performance of K3 is not bad. Although there will definitely be problems, we are willing to bear the consequences for our own processor."

Through in-depth observation of the product, Meng Qian can at least confirm that the K3 in this life must be more successful than the K3 in the previous life. After all, Huawei in this life has more talents and more income to provide greater investment. But Meng Qian didn't dare to judge whether it would be risky to use it directly on his own mobile phone, "Which mobile phone do you plan to use?"

"Ascend mobile phones will have four series, which are divided into flagship, high-end, mid-range, and entry-level phones. Mr. Meng will see at this press conference that we plan to use K3 on entry-level and mid-range phones first, and our Flagship phones and high-end phones still use Hongmeng processors."

The Ascend mobile phone, which is of great significance to Huawei, also appeared 2 years ahead of schedule.

Meng Qian had a good idea and didn't ask any more questions. Under the leadership of Ren Zhengfei, he had a good visit to HiSilicon, and then asked at the dinner in the evening, "So what is the main purpose of Mr. Ren's invitation to HiSilicon today? "

"Hisilicon is very clear about its position as a fabless factory, and we have no plans to invest in the establishment of a fab for the time being.

So we need to find a factory to cooperate with, and the recent situation between TSMC and ZTE International is very complicated, and Taiwan Province has fallen into a technological crisis caused by LCD screens and WiMAX.

We have to worry about the future development of semiconductors in Taiwan Province. When Ren Zhengfei said this, he deliberately stared into Meng Qian's eyes, obviously wanting to judge Meng Qian's reaction, "So I want to ask Mr. Meng, is he willing to accept our HiSilicon production order?" "

"There is no reason not to accept an order delivered to your door." Meng Qian responded with a smile, and hinted, "Not to mention grabbing an order from TSMC."

Ren Zhengfei understood Meng Qian's response, and immediately asked, "In Mr. Meng's view, can TSMC survive the crisis in Taiwan Province?"

"TSMC is likely to become the last card of Taiwan Province. In a short period of time, Taiwan Province will keep TSMC even if it pours everything into it, but the general trend has never been stopped by anyone."

With Meng Qian's words, Ren Zhengfei further confirmed his choice, "Speaking of the situation in Taiwan Province, the entire semiconductor industry is also in turmoil after the financial crisis. What does Mr. Meng think about the future changes in the global structure of the semiconductor industry?" ?”

Meng Qian took a bite of the meat and thought for a while, "Looking at the classification, in the semiconductor chip industry, business models are mainly divided into IDM, Fabless and Foundry, that is, integrated component manufacturers, fabless factories and OEMs. .

For a long time, the foundry has been the confidence of Taiwan Province. Represented by TSMC, the United States also maintains its market competitiveness. Represented by GlobalFoundries, fabless factories are mainly concentrated in the United States, with Qualcomm and Broadcom as the leaders. first echelon.

As for IDM companies, the United States has an advantage, led by Intel, Micron, and Texas Instruments, followed by Europe and Neon China, represented by Infineon, STMicroelectronics in Europe, Sony and Toshiba in Neon China, and Fast catching up is Korea's Samsung and Hynix.

In other words, there is basically nothing wrong with us in China Mainland.

If I want to make a judgment on the future structure of the global semiconductor industry, I can only say that on the foundry battlefield, I place my hopes on ZTE International, on the fabless battlefield, I place my hopes on HiSilicon and Tsinghua Unigroup, and on the IDM battlefield In terms of technology, our Gale Group will surpass Intel sooner or later. "

Ren Zhengfei unconsciously raised his wine glass, "Every time I chat with Mr. Meng, it always makes people's blood boil."

Meng Qian also raised his glass, "Then let's work together to change the global semiconductor landscape."

Thanks for the reward of The Return of the Incredible Hulk! Thanks for the reward of One Yuan Taichu!