Chapter 1419 Lithography Machine

  Masayoshi Sun, as a Korean-Japanese who roams the rivers and lakes under the name of his grandson, should be able to eat in the three countries of East Asia.

   But in Japan, where xenophobia is serious and blood is concerned, even if Sun Zhengyi becomes the richest man in a country, the evaluation of many ordinary Japanese people is still not as good as Matsushita Konosuke and Morita Akio.

   Including the founder of Uniqlo, as did Yanai Masaaki, who just became the richest man in Japan this year.

   Although both of them have wealth beyond the reach of ordinary people, it is the six major financial groups that stir up Japan's economic situation.

  Xia Jingxing asked Sun Zhengyi to be responsible for the matchmaking. Fuxing Semiconductor and Xinxin Semiconductor planned to discuss several cooperations with three of the six major consortiums.

  For example, the storage chip manufacturer Elpida, its three major shareholders are Mitsubishi, Hitachi, and Japan Electric NEC, which correspond to the three major consortia behind Mitsubishi, Fuji, and Sumitomo respectively.

   Doing business in Japan cannot avoid these pervasive consortiums.

  …

   The next day.

   Under the recommendation of Sun Zhengyi, Xia Jingxing met the contemporary heads of the three major consortiums and indicated to them that Xinxin Semiconductor Group intends to acquire Elpida.

   The three of them didn't directly refuse, but they didn't agree happily. They just said that they needed to hold a manager meeting to study it.

Unlike Samsung in Bangguo, the Japanese consortium has gone through the process of splitting and reorganizing in World War II. The control over the member companies of the consortium has become less strict, and it is no longer based on the blood relationship of family members for expansion and management. It has evolved into an alliance of interests, in which companies share shares with each other, but do not pursue holding shares.

   For example, the subsidiary companies of the consortium can be described as brother companies or relatives, but the "father" above is no longer the chief executive or commander.

  Since there is no such affiliation of "father and son", then naturally there will be no administrative agencies such as "group companies" and "headquarters", and there will be no organizational form of "consortium".

   Today's Japanese consortium is more like a community of interests under a "brand".

  It is characterized by the ring-shaped shareholding among the member enterprises, a horizontal association system with capital as the link. This association is mainly for mutual business cooperation, so it is only a loose association.

Although today's major consortia are still centered on large banks and financial institutions, the highest authority is the "Managers Association", but because there is no unified and official management organization, and the consortium itself does not have an independent legal person status, so On the surface, the Japanese consortium is already somewhat misnamed.

   But in fact, it still has an extremely powerful control and influence on the Japanese economy and all walks of life in Japan.

  How to use the power of the consortium?

  How to schedule the resources of each member enterprise?

   and why the outside world still sees them as a consortium?

The key to the core of    lies in the "Managers Association".

  For example, the Mitsubishi Foundation calls the club where the leaders of various member companies gather together to form a friendship. Because this group of people gathers regularly on the second Friday of every month, Japanese Friday is also known as "Golden Day", so it is called this name.

The association between the presidents of Sumitomo is called "Bai Shui Association". It is said that Bai Shui is the name of a Chinese in the late Ming Dynasty, who brought advanced copper smelting technology to Sumitomo. The name is to commemorate international friends; there is also a This statement is derived from the word "spring" in the Sumitomo family's business name "Spring House", which is split into two words for "white water".

  Although the manager meeting is called a sorority, it is a big mistake to believe that a group of top presidents from all walks of life gather to just eat, drink, and visit a high-end custom shop.

To give the most striking example, the executives of the member companies of the Japanese consortium often transfer each other, such as from Toshiba to Toyota, from Panasonic to NEC, and well-developed companies often send their capable men to support brothers who are in trouble. The development of the company, if you do well, you can be transferred back for a promotion and salary increase after two years, or even take over as the president.

  Ali, Penguin, and Chrysanthemum factories in China, executives jumping between each other, can go to court and fight with each other, far from the stable and solid environment of the Japanese consortium.

   The reason why the Japanese consortium can make the relationship between the members of the enterprise so harmonious is naturally inseparable from the secret deliberations and decisions of the management council, even if it is not the group board of directors, it is not much different.

   In addition, the manager's association is also very private and traditional. For example, if a new president who is promoted wants to join the association, he must first sign a blood letter, indicating that he will abide by the rules of the consortium.

   The new president of Sumitomo Metal Industries in the previous life did not know whether it was because he was afraid that biting his finger would be too painful, or he felt that the operation of the consortium was a bit counterintuitive.

When this matter became a big deal, the Japanese people and the people around the world knew that the Japanese consortium still retained this ancient contract signing operation, and also knew that the Japanese consortium was not as harmless as it seemed on the surface. , what national enterprises, people-controlled enterprises, all are disguise.

  The Japanese consortium has just changed to a lower-key and more secretive organizational form and continues to operate.

   Now that Xinxin Semiconductor proposes to acquire Elpida, the biggest impact on the three major consortiums is actually not at the capital level, but at the operational level.

  If the acquisition is agreed, then there will be no internal chip supply from Elpida, which means that the member companies of the three major consortiums will need to purchase storage chips from external companies.

   This is like a car that is driving normally on the road, and the tires suddenly run out of gas, not to mention the car crashing and killing people, but it will inevitably be in a hurry for a while.

   Moreover, Elpida is the last face and stubbornness of Japan Semiconductor. If even this position is lost, the last fig leaf of the three consortiums will also be lost, and it will inevitably be criticized by the public.

   However, all of this is nothing compared to the ease brought by the three major consortia after getting rid of the big burden.

  The three consortiums jointly established Elpida in 1999, which began to operate externally in 2000. It has been in operation for a full ten years now. Except for Weiwei's profit in 2006, the remaining nine years have all lost money.

  If the Japanese government had not come to rescue Elpida this year, most of the three consortiums would have let it go bankrupt, and they would have no confidence to continue operating.

   Now that local Chinese tyrants are representing a Singaporean company to buy Elpida, the heads of the three consortiums were so happy that they almost agreed. In order to show restraint, they said that they should consider it.

Xia Jingxing doesn't care about this. As long as the three consortiums want to sell the company, everyone will slowly grind the price. At present, Xinxin Semiconductor's main energy is spent on acquiring Qimonda. In fact, it is not too anxious to acquire Elpida. patience.

   After discussing the cooperation, and after the head of the Sumitomo Consortium left, Xia Jingxing proposed a second cooperation plan to the remaining two.

   "The joint consortium formed by Fuxing Industry and Xinxin Semiconductor, Vision Capital, and Daxia Capital hopes to acquire the lithography machine business of Nikon and Canon."

   As soon as Xia Jingxing finished speaking, the face of the head of the Mitsubishi and Fuji consortium changed drastically.

   "Canon's lithography machine business is our not-for-sale product and our core technology."

   The speaker is the president of the Furong Club and the president of Marubeni Co., Ltd. Kunibuya, and he is also the current speaker of the Fuji Foundation.

   Soon, Hideaki Miya, the chairman of the Jin Yao Association and the president of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, continued to express his position: "Xia Sang, Nikon's lithography machine business is equally important to Mitsubishi, we will not sell it, I am very sorry."

  Xia Jingxing spread his hands, "That's a pity, I wanted to cooperate with you all and jointly build a business alliance against Asmail, Samsung, Bay Power, and Intel."

   This sentence made Kokubunwen and Omiya Hideaki interested. The two looked at each other and asked, "Why?"

   "Because to break the old order, a new order must be established."

  Kokubunya and Omiya Hideaki are each responsible for the core companies of the Fuji Foundation and the Mitsubishi Foundation. Although those businesses are basically not related to semiconductors, they both understand the beginning and end of the decline of Japan's semiconductor industry.

   At present, Japan Semiconductor has basically announced that it has withdrawn from the finished chip, and the remaining semiconductor-related businesses are mainly semiconductor materials and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

  Take semiconductor materials as an example, how strong is Japan? It monopolizes about 70% of the world's semiconductor materials, such as photoresist, silicon wafers, special gases, targets and so on.

Don't look at the sticks shaking in front of them now, and they look like the poor are getting rich, but as soon as they cut off the supply of materials, it doesn't matter how much market share Samsung and Hynix have, and how badly they beat Elpida. Gotta be in a state of shutdown.

In contrast, semiconductor manufacturing equipment is almost meaningless, especially in the area of ​​lithography machines. Nikon and Canon's products have lagged behind Asmail by a large margin, and their market share has been shrinking. The machine market barely resisted the crazy attack of the lithography machine giants from the Netherlands.

   But before 2000, Nikon and Canon were also far ahead. They once occupied the first and second place in the global lithography machine market by relying on Japan's strong semiconductor industry.

As for Asmail, it was just merged with a division spun off from Philips. It was small and inconspicuous, and it was on the verge of bankruptcy several times. eyes.

  The semiconductor industry pays attention to supporting facilities. In the 1980s, Japanese semiconductors surpassed the United States in areas such as finished chips, manufacturing equipment, and materials, so they eventually attracted a thunderous blow.

  Many Japanese feel that the decline of Nikon and Canon in the field of lithography machines has a major relationship with the suppression of Americans.

   "Xia Sang, how do you or your alliance want to establish a new order?"

  Omiya Hideaki looked at Xia Jingxing with a smile, if the person sitting opposite was not the richest man in Asia, he might not speak so politely.

   Established a new order, so big.

   "You should have studied the history of Asmael's rise and the reasons for the failure of Canon and Nikon.

   So I won’t go into details here, just a few points.

   First, the innovation of R&D model, Asmar is better than Nikon and Canon. "

   Having said this, Xia Jingxing glanced at the expressions of the two of them, their expressions were normal, they were not angry, they seemed quite calm.

So Xia Jingxing continued: "From a specific perspective, Japanese enterprises have a very distinctive feature, the organization and operation between upstream and downstream enterprises are very strict, which can be very good in precision machining and machinery. to maintain the stability of product quality.

   However, this feature is placed on the research and development of top technology projects such as the chip industry that require "extreme research and development". The internal integration innovation model of Japanese companies often lacks focus.

   For example, the high-end lithography machine has more than 100,000 parts, but Asmail only masters 10% of the core technology, and the rest mainly relies on more than 5,000 suppliers mainly in Europe and the United States to provide support.

   The number of parts and components of this magnitude is no longer affordable by the original internal vertical integration R&D model of a single Japanese company or a few consortium member companies. It needs a more open and specialized R&D platform. "

  Omiya Hideaki and Kokubunwen also remained silent. Xia Jingxing was telling the truth. This was the drawback of the Japanese consortium. Any purchases would give priority to the member companies of their own consortium. The same was true for research and development, which had become an internal closed ecosystem.

   And Asmar took advantage of this, gathering the world's scientific research wisdom to attack Japan's national strength, even Nikon and Canon, which only have the strength of a single consortium.

   Now the Japanese have woken up to this point, but it is too late, Asmar's general trend has been completed, and it is not so easy to shake its status.

"The second point is the establishment of a business ecosystem. Asmail once invited major customers such as Samsung, Gulf Power, and Intel to invest in them, and together bear the research and development costs. In return, Asmail will give these companies lithography machines. right of first refusal.

   And when the technology is used and participated by more customers, it will further strengthen the dominant position of ASML.

  In contrast to Japan, the main suppliers and customers are from Japanese local semiconductor manufacturers.

   With the continuous shrinking of the finished chip market in Japan in the past two decades, Japanese companies have focused more on technological breakthroughs in the field of semiconductor raw materials, resulting in the gradual loss of lithography machine customers.

   This also means that it is difficult for companies to obtain immediate and sufficient market feedback, and its influence will be transmitted to the research and development level, which will slow down the technological progress of Nikon and Canon. "

  Xia Jingxing did not say anything else, the immersion lithography technology invented by Lin Benjian has made great contributions to the rise of Asmail.

Originally, Wandian originally wanted to cooperate with old customers Nikon and Canon to develop this technology, but because the two Japanese companies have invested countless manpower and material resources in the direction of dry lithography early, Wandian ran out at this time. Saying that you want to change the technical route and change the track is simply outrageous!

  The two Japanese lithography giants not only did not support the technical ideas of Bay Power, but also used their status as industry hegemons to constantly put pressure on Bay Power, asking Bay Power to freeze Lin Benjian, the man who hit the market.

   Wan Electric was unwilling and still wanted to use the new technology to overtake on a corner, so it finally went to cooperate with Asmar.

  Asmar was not as stubborn as the Japanese companies, and the market share of Asmar at that time was not high, and it was bent on surpassing Nikon and Canon.

When they saw the technical solution sent by Wandian, they quickly adopted the technical idea proposed by Lin Benjian, using water as the medium of light, and reduced the most advanced wavelength of 193 nanometers to 132 nanometers through refraction, surpassing them in one fell swoop. Nikon and Canon.

   It was not until many years later that Nikon created a lithography machine with a wavelength of 157 nanometers, but at that time it could not catch up with the soaring Asmar.

   This is a microcosm of the Japanese technical closure. They like to close the door and play by themselves, and always feel that they are the smartest. For example, the hydrogen energy technology that Japan has painstakingly researched and developed for many years has suffered from the pain caused by the changes in the technology track between China and the United States.

   There is also the reason why Japanese smartphones were captured by foreign manufacturers because of the relatively closed systems and ecosystems developed by their telecom operators.

  Kokubun also pondered for a while, and said, "Xia Sang, you have reviewed and summarized the reasons for Nikon and Canon's failure in the field of lithography, but what does this have to do with establishing a new order?"

   "Of course it does, and it does matter a lot."

  Xia Jingxing smiled and analyzed the two Japanese in front of him: "If you want to catch up with or even defeat Asmail, Nikon and Canon must make changes."

   "How to change? Sourcing global components like Asmar? Or to form alliances like it?"

  Xia Jingxing nodded towards Omiya Hideaki, who was speaking, "Yes, only in this way can the lithography business of Nikon and Canon avoid dying in the future."

   "Death?"

   The two Japanese finally lost their temper. The young richest man in Asia is so ugly, how can he curse people to death like this.

Without waiting for the two to rebut, Xia Jingxing continued to ask like a barrage of guns: "Asmar already occupies 70% of the lithography machine market share, can Nikon and Canon regain the lost market share from them? Make EUV lithography machine?

   Oh, the Americans will not allow your two companies to join the EUVLLC alliance on the grounds that they threaten national security. "

   Hearing Xia Jingxing's taunting, the two Japanese consortium bosses were itching with anger, but they couldn't find anything to refute.

  In order to suppress their Japanese industries, the Americans have almost spared no effort to introduce various plans in the past two decades, then pulled the encirclement and formed various business and academic research alliances, but their Japanese enterprises were excluded from the alliance.

   When Xia Jingxing saw that the two of them didn't say a word, he knew that the two of them still had a bit of shame, and they didn't fall down to the point of being completely willing to be dogs to the Americans.

   "Now there is only one way out for Japan Semiconductor, which is to form alliances with Chinese semiconductor companies."

   Facing the extremely surprised eyes of the two of them, Xia Jingxing said with a serious expression: "China has a market, but you both have the technology, the cooperation will benefit both, and the split will be suppressed by European and American manufacturers, and then harvested one by one.

   Now Japan's market share of finished chips is about to be suppressed, and there are no semiconductor companies. Who still buys the lithography machines you produce? Not waiting to die, what is it?

  China is different. The demand for finished chips is increasing year by year, and one chip manufacturing factory after another is rising. Moreover, China has little demand for high-end lithography machines for the time being, which is the best technical training ground for Nikon and Canon.

  With the booming semiconductor demand in the Chinese market, Nikon and Canon can stabilize their positions, accumulate strength, and then launch the ultimate revenge against Asmail.

   The worst, Nikon and Canon can also keep a certain market share, and will not be swallowed by Asmail. "

   The two of them thought carefully about what Xia Jingxing said, carefully weighing and weighing in their hearts.

   "What's the benefit to our two companies by doing this?"

   Guofenwen also suddenly raised his head and looked at Xia Jingxing with burning eyes, while Omiya Yingming, who was sitting beside him, also looked directly at Xia Jingxing.

   No matter how much Xia Jingxing said, no matter how hysterical and endless reverie, if the two companies couldn't get half a cent from it, why would they still participate?

Moreover, there is a lot of risk involved in doing this. The Toshiba incident of the year is still vivid in my mind, just like a sword hanging over the heads of Japanese entrepreneurs, reminding them all the time, honestly be a dog to the United States. , cannot resist.

   "Of course there are benefits. The plan I propose is a win-win plan, and the Japanese company can also benefit from it."

   Two-in-one, not finished, let’s continue tomorrow, don’t stay up late, take care of your body and spirit, and you will owe an update.

  

  

   (end of this chapter)