Chapter 147 - Meeting with Texas Instruments
After the rainstorm, the air in the Special Economic Zone was fresh and the temperature pleasant, perfect for touring the factory sites. The motherboard, VCD, and optical drive factories were built side by side. Capital-wise, they were all sister companies, so the factory compounds were interconnected — though there was only a gate between them, and it was only open for material carts.
Across the street was a separate pager factory owned by Zhongxin, but since Zhongxin operated relatively independently, there wasn't much interaction between them.
After dinner, with plenty of daylight still left, Su Yuanshan, Chen Jing, Tian Yaoming, and Wang Rui, accompanied by several plant managers, began inspecting the facilities, starting from the easternmost motherboard factory and ending at the optical drive factory. As the optical drive technology was mainly handled by the Japanese side, Su Yuanshan merely exchanged a few polite words before leaving.
Back at the hotel, Su Yuanshan sketched a rough layout map of the city using a tourist map.
"In the future, both the pager and VCD factories will have to transition," Su Yuanshan said with a smile. "When investing in capacity, don't be rigid. Think about scalability and flexibility."
He laughed and added, "Today, somehow Futukang next door caught wind that we've developed a mobile phone. They pulled some strings to approach my dad, offering to manufacture for us at a very favorable price."
Chen Jing smiled, "If we include our own investments, the price offered by old Guo is indeed very competitive."
Wang Rui laughed, "Probably because Guo doesn't realize yet that we are actually his competitors."
Everyone laughed heartily.
From early on, Yuanchip's upper management had known that Su Yuanshan planned to build a large factory complex — practically an industrial park — focused on manufacturing and assembling various 3C products: computers, communications devices, and consumer electronics.
The VCD factory's large land allotment was intended precisely for future transitions. For example, the mobile phone production lines would be split off from the VCD plant.
After the laughter subsided, Su Yuanshan turned to Chen Jing, "Sister Jing, how's your brother's situation?"
"He's decided to listen to your advice. The design center will be relocated to the SEZ, no later than the end of the month," Chen Jing said after a pause.
Su Yuanshan smiled and nodded.
Back during the Spring Festival, to "rescue" Meijie, he had allocated nearly ten million dollars to them, personally delivered patents, and helped Meijie develop a high-end motherboard capable of precisely diagnosing errors. Once released, it quickly dominated the high-end DIY market.
Chen Daohua had learned from the experience, aggressively expanding the R&D team and committing to Su Yuanshan's philosophy of "developing high-end technology even if it doesn't immediately sell."
The dividends from technological breakthroughs snowball quickly. Over the past six months, Meijie had delved deeper into overclocking technology, regaining its footing in the high-end market and securing a 200,000-unit order from Dell.
Now, Su Yuanshan was preparing to assign them their next mission: manufacturing accelerator cards for Xinghai's upcoming 3D chip.
The catch was, production needed to happen within the SEZ.
In the previous life, 3DFX had launched the first 3D accelerator card two years later, producing it themselves. But in this life, since the 3DFX team was now a department under Xinghai, their strategy had shifted — they would design and manufacture chips but leave card production to others.
Thus, Meijie would take on the role of manufacturing the cards.
Chen Jing and Chen Daohua accepted the task without hesitation, mainly because Su Yuanshan was so confident that this accelerator card would be groundbreaking.
Why was Su Yuanshan so confident?
Because Xinghai had invested in a tiny game studio called id Software, which had only about a dozen people at the time. Xinghai had pressured them to upgrade the Doom engine and develop a new, more powerful 3D engine based on DirectX.
At first, John Carmack, id Software's founder, had been disdainful of Xinghai's "outsider" suggestions. But when Scott, head of Xinghai's 3D core team, shoved a pile of data in Carmack's face, telling him, "I may not understand games, but I understand that your so-called 3D engines aren't worthy of our hardware," the challenge ignited a fire.
Thus began the Quake project, with both sides determined to prove their worth.
The next day, Chen Jing and Tian Yaoming returned to the provincial capital, while Su Yuanshan stayed behind to continue providing guidance and ideas.
He hadn't designed a mobile phone before, but he had seen countless models in his previous life. Even if Yuanchip was a year behind competitors, they could still catch up by innovating in design.
Meanwhile, on Su Yuanshan's instructions, Jiang Wanchao began inviting various semiconductor companies to negotiate cooperation agreements. Two of those companies were personally invited by Su Xinghe.
A week later, as the invited companies gathered in the provincial capital, Su Yuanshan also returned.
Su Yuanshan didn't participate in the equity sales negotiations — legally speaking, he didn't own any shares in Yuanchip. They all belonged to his father and uncle.
While Professor Su Xinghe was busy negotiating with the bigshots, Su Yuanshan quietly arranged a meeting with Vincenti from Texas Instruments.
"Mr. Vincenti, good to see you again," Su Yuanshan said, shaking Vincenti's hand firmly outside the Yuanchip administration building.
"Likewise, Mr. Su Yuanshan," Vincenti said, laughing heartily. "I wasn't sure how to interpret your decision, but if it were me, I wouldn't have been willing."
Su Yuanshan smiled, "It couldn't be helped. As fundamental tools in the semiconductor industry, EDA shouldn't be monopolized by any one company."
Vincenti nodded, understanding. "I get it."
After a tour around the Tech Park, the two of them returned to Su Yuanshan's office. Zhou Xiaohui served them coffee before discreetly closing the door.
Holding his cup, Su Yuanshan cut straight to the point, "Mr. Vincenti, how about another collaboration?"
Vincenti's eyes locked onto Su Yuanshan's, smiling slightly, "What kind of collaboration?"
"Let's build two eight-inch wafer fabs in Shanghai together — two production lines at 0.5-micron process," Su Yuanshan said, smiling brightly.
Vincenti's pupils narrowed slightly.
When he learned that he was personally invited by both Su Xinghe and Su Yuanshan, Vincenti had guessed that they wanted to discuss something important. He had speculated that perhaps they wanted him to invest in Yuanchip — which would have thrilled him. If last year Yuanchip had the makings of a giant, this year, they had already become one, at least within China, and the only private giant among them.
But he never expected Su Yuanshan to propose building a wafer fab.
As one of Yuanchip's closest partners... this was huge.
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