Chapter 217 Returning Home in Glory
That evening, Su Yuanshan accompanied his slightly tipsy father and Zhang Rujin back to the hotel.
They continued chatting in the café about the development of China's semiconductor industry. Compared to the formal speeches and grand predictions of the daytime, tonight's discussion was much more pragmatic—focusing on what needed to be done over the next few years.
"Internationally, based on the development scale and trends, the semiconductor industry has already been clearly divided," Zhang Rujin said, sipping his Longjing tea, reeling off knowledge as if it were second nature. "From an application perspective, semiconductors are categorized into four major fields: integrated circuits, optoelectronic devices, discrete components, and sensors."
"Let's not talk about the other three for now. Just integrated circuits," Zhang Rujin said, looking at Su Yuanshan.
Su Yuanshan smiled and picked up the conversation naturally. "Although the West's categorization differs slightly from ours, broadly speaking, it's the same four areas: microprocessors, logic ICs, memory, and analog circuits."
Zhang Rujin nodded. "Exactly. Integrated circuits are the gold mine of the semiconductor industry—and processors are the diamond mines within the gold mines."
Even within microprocessors, the industry divides them further: MPUs (Microprocessor Units), MCUs (Microcontroller Units), and DSPs (Digital Signal Processors).
"Too bad we've driven MCU prices into the dirt," Professor Su Xinghe said, laughing.
"Low-priced MCUs are essential for widespread adoption of automatic control. Cheap prices are where they belong," Zhang Rujin also laughed. "And it seems Yuanxin now only lacks DSPs?"
"Yeah. We don't have much experience with DSPs," Su Yuanshan admitted. "But one of our labs is preparing to work on it."
Zhang Rujin raised his eyebrows. "Oh? Are there any domestic talents for that?"
"Not really. We're planning to poach someone from IBM."
Zhang Rujin burst out laughing. "Why not steal one from Texas Instruments?"
Su Yuanshan: "..."
He couldn't deny that Zhang had a point. In DSPs, Texas Instruments (TI) was a dominant force. But Yuanxin and Xinghai currently had excellent relations with TI—so close it could be called a honeymoon phase. Poaching their talent would be... awkward.
Thus, the fallback plan was to target IBM.
Moreover, it wasn't Su Yuanshan personally recruiting—it was Xi Xiaoding's mission.
Xi, despite being relatively reserved during his years abroad, had made a few friends. Though back when he first returned to China, the timing wasn't ripe and Yuanxin wasn't strong enough to attract top people.
—You couldn't expect someone happily working at IBM or TI to drop everything to "help out" a startup.
Even when Xinghai was desperate for people early on, Xi Xiaoding had only casually mentioned it to close friends. The only one he actively recruited was Chen Haoming—who was practically family.
But now, with Yuanxin and Xinghai flourishing, with a wafer fab established, and Xi Xiaoding himself holding real power, it was time to start calling people back.
Moreover, to reflect the high level of talent and ambition of his group, Xi Xiaoding had renamed his department "Pandora"—after Pandora's box.
The Pandora Lab would represent the highest concentration of IQ at Yuanxin and its cutting-edge R&D breakthroughs.
It wouldn't produce any guaranteed short-term profits. It wouldn't belong to any single division. But it could collaborate with anyone.
It wouldn't have many people, and joining would be extremely hard—there was only one criterion: you had to be outstanding.
Su Yuanshan almost lay down and kicked his legs in the air in glee when he heard the idea.
He had always emphasized that Yuanxin should maintain a certain elegance, a certain temperament—to set an example for research-driven enterprises and become a model for private companies and even state-owned enterprises to follow.
...
The three men chatted until nearly 11 p.m. before Zhang Rujin insisted on returning to the factory. Professor Su and Su Yuanshan had no choice but to arrange a car to take him back before they returned to their hotel room.
Meanwhile, Zhou Xiaohui had already returned to Yuanxin when Professor Su arrived. After all, she had mainly accompanied Su Yuanshan to assist with technical discussions with Yuanzhong and the CPU team merger.
Now that was done, it was only proper for her to return.
—Besides, having a young, pretty secretary hanging around after the boss's father showed up wasn't exactly ideal optics.
"Next up, you're planning to head to Russia, right?" Professor Su asked once they were back in the suite.
"Yeah, probably around September or October," Su Yuanshan replied. "Things are still a bit messy over there. Some of our traders have been behaving badly, causing resentment among locals."
Su Yuanshan thought of his uncle—truly one of the few "honest" traders in those chaotic early days.
Professor Su laughed. "Have your uncle go with you. He knows the ropes over there."
"Yeah, but first we need to set up an office. Ideally, we can recruit some local staff... But honestly, the language barrier is a nightmare. Their English is even worse than ours."
Su Yuanshan wasn't exaggerating. His old employer had once hired a batch of Russian scientists, and their English was... well, comparable to the worst in Japan. And hardly anyone spoke it!
In their view, recognizing English words on a software menu was already doing Americans a favor—speaking English? Dream on.
"Heh, take your time," Professor Su said, mimicking Su Yuanshan's usual tone. "No rush."
"Yeah. No rush. Time is on our side now."
...
Two days later, father and son returned to the provincial capital.
After landing, Su Yuanshan put his father in a car but stayed behind himself.
"You're not coming home?" Professor Su asked.
"I'm here to pick someone up," Su Yuanshan said, glancing at his watch. "Flight lands in half an hour."
"Picking up Chen Jing?"
"Uh... no," Su Yuanshan said, grinning. "Dad, you're about to be a dean—you should pay more attention to school affairs! Today, the international programming competition team from UESTC is returning home victorious!"
Professor Su smacked his forehead, then shoved open the car door. "My bad! Totally forgot!"
Three days ago, the UESTC team, led by Ye Rudai, had battled through fierce competition and secured second place in the finals.
Today was the day they returned.
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