Material Empire

Snyder's ancestor of Nice Semiconductor in England was a noble with a knighthood. Although the title did not pass on to him, he was meticulous in inheriting that nobleman. Even when the company of Nice was declining and his salary had to be reduced, he still kept his proud face like a black swan, facing the two yellow-skinned guests sitting in his office. With the nobleman's spectrum.

"Two, please drink coffee. This is hand-ground with coffee beans made by Sandos. I have never been used to drinking machine-ground coffee. I think it has a taste of ... coal." Snyder He greeted the guests, with a strong taste of loading forks in his tone.

"Thank you." Xiao Weihao from the Chinese National Security Department nodded politely to Snyder, and did not mind the other party's display.

"I very much agree with Mr. Snyder." This is Qin Hai, who has always been incapable of pretending to be speaking. He lifted the coffee with a smile, and sipped it, saying, "Machine ground coffee is not as good Hand-grinding has a more natural feel, especially for machines driven by thermal power, and the coffee taste is even worse. But if you use hydropower, you can still import it ... "

"Oh!" Xiao Weihao was about to spit out the coffee in his mouth. You cow, people just drank the smell of coal from the coffee ground by the machine. You can taste even thermal power and hydropower. .

"Fire power ..." Snyder was also stunned by Qin Hai. He wanted to express a little anger at Qin Hai's ridicule, but there was no way to talk about it. After all, he himself started the topic first. It just follows his routine.

"The two said on the phone that you are interested in buying a Nice company. Can you elaborate?"

After a few sighs of relief, Snyder decided to set aside the question of coffee and go straight to the topic of today's talks.

Qin Hai and Xiao Weihao flew from Beijing to Birmingham, an old British industrial city, a week ago. After some external understanding of the current state of Nice. Qin Hai directly called Snyder, expressing his intention to invest in Nice. Snyder is worrying about the business prospects of Nice. I was overjoyed to hear that someone was brave enough to take over. However, due to the nobility's refusal, he did not immediately agree to Qin Hai's request, but only invited Qin Hai and Xiao Weihao to his office for an interview.

Qin Hai traveled to Britain this time for the Nice company. Through his huge network of foreign contacts, he has long heard of the news that Nice is in trouble. Nice is a strong semiconductor manufacturer in the UK, although it can only be regarded as a second-tier company compared with its international counterparts. But its technology is definitely far ahead of Chinese companies. If such a company can be included in the bag, it will be able to comprehensively improve China's overall semiconductor manufacturing level.

In many fields, it can be seen that the technology of an unknown company abroad is more advanced than that of the entire country of China. This is not because of how great these companies are, but because they have the support of the entire Western world. For example, Nice has advanced equipment such as high-purity single-crystal silicon growth furnaces, lithography machines, and ion implanters from more than a dozen countries, including the United States, Germany, Italy, Britain, France, and Sweden. If Chinese enterprises want to purchase equipment, they will never be able to do so. Western countries will use various excuses for obstruction.

In the dictionary of the Chinese Industrial Party, we often see a word called "subject to people". This is a word precipitated by countless painful lessons. In order to avoid being constrained by people, China's equipment manufacturing industry often has to use its own strength to single out its peers all over the world. s country.

Qin Hai came to Nice company this time, the most direct purpose was to obtain the igbt manufacturing process and related equipment mastered by Nice company, and the indirect purpose was to open a gap to the western semiconductor industry system through Nice company.

Of course, Qin Hai is also clear. To eat the Nice company is tantamount to making a hide with Tiger. This is a difficult thing.

"Mr. Snyder, I heard that there have been some difficulties in the operation of Nice in the past three years. We want to see if we can do something for Nice." Qin Hai said in a polite tone.

Snyder said arrogantly: "It's true that, as the legend goes, our company has some temporary difficulties. However, these difficulties are not much. We are currently adjusting, and I believe we will soon get out of trouble. Restore the splendor of Nice. "

"Really?" Qin Hai asked. "Is this your personal opinion, or is it the consensus view of your company's board?"

"Mr. Qin, what does this mean?" Snyder asked Qin Hai with small eyes and asked.

Qin Hai smiled and said, "In the past few days, Mr. Xiao and I also visited a few friends in Birmingham, including the directors of your company. According to them, the board is not optimistic about your company's prospects."

"This is just the opinion of individual people." Snyder replied with some embarrassment. "The difficulty the company is currently experiencing is the lag in the rate of technological development. As long as it can introduce a small amount of funds, it will take several current When the technology is completed, our difficulties will be quickly resolved. "

"Oh, isn't it?" Qin Hai said unhurriedly. He knew that Snyder's purpose was to add more weight to himself during the negotiation. The problems facing Nice now are completely different from Snyder. It's as simple as that. To bring this company back to life, it is definitely not something that can be done by introducing a little capital.

The problem of the Nice company is actually a common problem facing all small and medium-sized semiconductor manufacturing companies in the world. With the development of semiconductor technology, the effect of scale on the competitiveness of semiconductor products is increasing. Semiconductor companies either continue to expand in order to reduce costs, or they can only survive in some market segments, waiting to be crushed or merged by large companies.

Nice company had some technical strength in the past, relying on several advanced technologies, it really lived and nourished. However, due to the lack of foresight on the market changes and the failure to keep up with the pace of technological changes, the company's market began to shrink continuously and eventually suffered a continuous loss. In this case, if the Nice company wants to regain its fanfare, it must find a large investor, inject no less than 200 million US dollars, comprehensively update equipment and improve technology, otherwise any small investment It's nothing more than water.

Using the contacts accumulated at the Global Materials Conference, Qin Hai learned from several semiconductor experts about the current status of the Nice company, and also knew that it is almost impossible for a company like this to find hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in the capital market. . In the eyes of Qin Hai, the Nice company is a treasure. For western investors, there are a lot of semiconductor companies with more investment value than Nice companies. Who is willing to throw money into this pit?

A few days ago, Qin Hai targeted a few major shareholders of the Nice company to understand their attitude towards the Nice company. The answers of these major shareholders are almost the same, that is, they have completely lost confidence in the Nice company and hope to sell it early in order to recover some equity.

With such information, Qin Hai is naturally not afraid of Snyder's tricks. The other party put on a show, which was due to personality, Qin Hai didn't care. He knew that it was not these small tricks that decided the final negotiation victory, but the real gold and silver.

"Mr. Snyder, how much additional investment do you estimate your company needs to be able to escape from the current difficulties?" Qin Hai asked.

"This ..." Sneakers jammed. He just blown out Daniel and said that he could get out of trouble as long as he injected a little capital. Now facing Qin Hai's inquiry, he didn't know how to answer.

A small number is actually not enough to solve the problem, and you will eventually miss an opportunity to attract investment.

To say a real number is equivalent to beating his own face, which will make two guests look down on themselves. More importantly, in this way, the company's dilemma will be clearly revealed, and it will be passive in subsequent negotiations.

"I think ... we need about $ 20 million ..., of course, if there is more, it might be better." Snyder replied indifferently.

"$ 20 million?" Qin Hai sneered ~ www.novelmtl.com ~ Your company's current igbt chip uses 400 micron thick silicon wafer technology, and the mainstream trend today is thin silicon wafer technology below 100 microns. In order to produce thin silicon wafers, your company needs to update all the single crystal silicon growth equipment, which can be purchased for $ 20 million? "

"This ..." Snyder was dumbfounded, originally thinking that the Chinese didn't know much about igbt technology, and what he said was, who would have expected this guy to be clear about the technology trend, even the company's equipment condition Find out, this pretentious act, in the eyes of others, is simply acting as a monkey.

"Mr. Qin is right. We are indeed considering the introduction of thin silicon technology. Of course, it is best to have sufficient funds to introduce the corresponding equipment. What I just said is based on our existing situation. We hope to do some technical development on thick silicon wafers, "said Snyder. His statement is not entirely a lie, because limited by the company's financial constraints, the company's technology department is indeed developing thick silicon technology, although this can only be regarded as a repair of outdated technology.

Qin Hai said politely: "Thick-layer silicon wafers have high costs and complicated processes. At present, companies such as Siemens, Toshiba, ir, and sgs have clearly stated that they will abandon this technology. Your company will continue to make articles on thick silicon wafers. , It's just a waste of money. "(To be continued)