Don’t Deify TSMC: Restore TSMC’s Three Important Battles on the Road to “Fengshen”

Chip, the lifeblood of the country.

This small square actually stuck the throat of countless cutting-edge industries in our country and became the Achilles heel of the technology giants. In 2021, 36Kr will launch a series of industry observations on the “Xin Journey” series. This series will conduct a comprehensive in-depth study on the upstream and downstream of the semiconductor industry, including manufacturing giants, equipment suppliers, material suppliers, and chip design companies that continue to break through the limits of Moore’s Law. We hope that our content can provide some reference and reference for the Chinese industry that is plagued by “core shortage”. TSMC was deified. Against the background of trade frictions and global core shortages, this Taiwanese foundry has suddenly become the focus of the world. Its every move has been deconstructed and re-read, and it has become a popular quotation-style truth. This article will invite TSMC to the altar to restore the three important battles on the road of TSMC’s “Fengshen”, and restore how it overcomes difficulties step by step. After thousands of day and night struggles, it will finally come to today. 1. Brothers fight against the wall for twenty years TSMC’s first enemy is UMC, one of its compatriots. UMC and TSMC were also born in the “Taiwan Institute of Industrial Technology”. Since its establishment in 1995, until around 2010, UMC has remained firmly on the throne of the world’s second largest semiconductor foundry company, and launched three stunning blitzkriegs against TSMC in 1997, 1999, and 2001. . Zhang Zhongmou in his youth TSMC founder Zhang Zhongmou is 16 years older than UMC founder Cao Xingcheng. Zhang Zhongmou has been studying at Harvard and MIT since he was a teenager. After joining Texas Instruments, he has been soaring all the way. He has not only reached the top position of Texas Instruments’ global third-ranking position within 25 years, but also has a close relationship with Jack Kilby and Andrew Grew. The semi-conductor god-level figures like Andrew Grove have very close personal relations, and they are always happy, talking and laughing. In 1976, the Industrial Technology Research Institute sent staff to RCA in the United States to study semiconductor technology. Cao Xingcheng (first from left). Source: Industrial Technology Research Institute In contrast, Cao Xingcheng is a native Taiwanese man. When he was studying in Taipei in his early years, Cao Xingcheng also lived in a tin hut with tricycle drivers due to family constraints, and watched the world. After graduation, Cao Xingcheng became a civil servant, and then transferred to the newly established “Taiwan Industrial Research Institute Electronics Department”, and in 1976 was given the opportunity of the Industrial Technology Research Institute to study semiconductor technology in the United States. After returning to Taiwan, China coincided with the establishment of the first semiconductor factory in Taiwan by the Industrial Technology Research Institute, Lianhua Electronics, Cao Xingcheng volunteered to become the first deputy general manager of Lianhua Electronics, and was promoted to general manager within two years due to his outstanding achievements. The difference in growth experience gave the two completely different personalities. Zhang Zhongmou is serious and calm, and prefers management talents with a background of studying abroad. Taiwan media commented on him as “drinking red wine, smoking cigar, and being a gentleman.” And Cao Xingcheng acted eclectic, loyal, courageous, and extremely good at using financial leverage to kill and annex, quite a bit of a chaotic world. The two have been married for a long time, but they have also been grudges for a long time. Who would say that TSMC was “the first company in history to propose a foundry model”, Cao Xingcheng was the first to oppose it. In 1984, the 37-year-old Cao Xingcheng issued a plan for “Expanding UMC” to Zhang Zhongmou, who was in the United States, which not only elaborated on the upcoming new era of integration in the semiconductor industry, but also It is the first time to put forward the concept of “foundry”. However, Zhang Zhongmou did not reply to Cao Xingcheng. In the following year, Zhang Zhongmou was invited by Sun Yunv, “Jiang Jingguo’s successor”, to leave the United States and came to the “Taiwan Industrial Technology Research Institute” as the dean, becoming Cao Xingcheng’s immediate boss. And what surprised Cao Xingcheng was, In the third year, Zhang Zhongmou unexpectedly announced the founding of TSMC, the “first foundry in history”, without mentioning Cao Xingcheng’s plan. The Very Large Scale Integrated Circuit (VLSI) plant of the Industrial Technology Research Institute leased by TSMC in 1987. Source: Industrial Technology Research Institute Cao Xingcheng’s anger can be imagined. However, at this time, Zhang Zhongmou was not only the dean of the Industrial Technology Research Institute and the chairman of TSMC, but also the chairman of UMC and the direct leader of Cao Xingcheng. Cao Xingcheng has nowhere to complain. In 1991, after Cao Xingcheng finally joined other directors in a letter to remove Zhang Zhongmou’s chairmanship, Cao Xingcheng directly criticized Zhang Zhongmou’s “plagiarism” and “misappropriation” in public, but he never received a response from TSMC or Zhang Zhongmou. In an interview, Cao Xingcheng even said angrily: “ At the beginning, the government probably trusted people with white hair, so it was handed over to Mr. Zhang, whose hair was whiter than me, to execute. . ” Established in 1980, UMC is the earliest IDM manufacturer in Taiwan, China, with both hands on chip design and manufacturing. In July 1995, UMC announced the divestiture of all semiconductor design businesses to focus on foundry manufacturing. Since then, the well-known MediaTek in the industry was spun off from UMC that year. ( The peak of history was slashed by market value, and the iron-blooded manager turned the tide, and it made crazy in the 5G era | ) Cao Xingcheng’s vicious judgment on the development of the industry can be seen as early as more than ten years ago. This person is easy to read history, happy and elegant, and is best at playing Go. His commercial methods seem to be a big deal, but in fact, he calculates accurately and does everything step by step. In 1995, the United States regained the world’s first throne in semiconductors, and South Korea rose against the trend. Although Japan was particularly defeated, the global semiconductor industry entered a new cycle of tight production capacity. It is the best time for UMC to announce its full venture into foundry. In order to compete with TSMC, which has been running for eight years, Cao Xingcheng immediately thought of a differentiated strategy that is deeply tied to customers. From July to September, Cao Xingcheng united 11 IC design companies from the United States and Canada. Under the huge capital operation of up to 3 billion US dollars, the three major foundries of Liancheng, Lianrui, and Lianjia were established. , Suddenly became a tendency to lean on the corner. This kind of group style of big investment, big territory, and interest binding has since become UMC’s fist style. In the following two years, UMC continued to make moves, mergers and acquisitions, shareholdings, factories, going to sea, and digging for customers. They were pressing everywhere, and it was almost out of breath to catch up with TSMC. According to media reports, in June 1997, TSMC announced that it would spend NT$400 billion to expand its production capacity, and UMC immediately announced an additional NT$500 billion to invest. In August, UMC’s 8-inch wafer foundry, Lianrui, was officially put into operation. The next month’s production capacity rushed to 30,000 wafers. The prospects were so good that the general manager of UMC Xuan Mingzhi was interviewed by Taiwanese media in early October. Confidently announced to reporters-“UMC will kill TSMC within two years!” However, just a few days later, in a two-and-a-half-hour-long fire, the brand-new Lianrui factory was equipped with tens of billions of equipment and tens of thousands of crystals that were still being processed on the production line. Round, all torch. It is said that the fire was caused by the accidental construction of UMC’s contractors. At that time, the entire Hsinchu Park was covered with black smoke clouds, and the fire tongue burned the walls of the brand-new factory building. According to statistics after the event, this sudden fire caused UMC to directly lose tens of billions of NT dollars, and orders of more than 2 billion yuan could not be executed. What’s more serious is that UMC therefore missed the excellent market of semiconductor global recovery, and the loss was immeasurable. Success requires strength, contacts, and even a little bit of luck. The sky does not follow people’s wishes, but Cao Xingcheng wants to change his fate against the sky. Beginning in 1998, UMC started a new round of mergers and acquisitions. During this period, UMC successively acquired a 15% stake in Hetai Semiconductor and jointly invested US$3.6 billion with Infineon to build a new plant in Singapore. In 1999, Cao Xingcheng relied on his superb capital operation ability and amazing negotiation skills, and at an ultra-low price of 400 million New Taiwan dollars, the 16 billion assets of Japan’s Nippon Steel Semiconductor Company were acquired, which shocked the entire semiconductor industry. In the same year, Cao Xingcheng announced again that UMC would merge with its four UMC Tigers (Liancheng, Unirui, Unitech, and Hetai) to form the “UMMC Group”. The combined UMC not only occupied more than 40 global foundries in one fell swoop. % Of the market share, its output value directly rushed to the world’s third, second only to Intel and TSMC. In addition to the two-pronged approach of production capacity and scale, UMC has also made rapid progress in technology. Historically, it was the first manufacturer to introduce a copper process to produce wafers, the first to produce 12-inch wafers, and the first 65nm chip. The technology gap with TSMC has been shortening, approaching the world’s number one. In the two blitz battles in 1997 and 1999, UMC lost one and the other lost. Time came to 2001. With China’s accession to the WTO, 9.6 million square kilometers of market space opened up, and massive semiconductor demand flooded into the market. Cao Xingcheng, with a keen sense of smell, immediately realized that this was the overtaking opportunity that UMC had been waiting for for many years. “ The battlefield to compete with TSMC is none other than Mainland China. “Cao Xingcheng said excitedly. However, at this time, the Taiwan authorities have been strictly controlling local chip manufacturers to invest in the mainland on the grounds of avoiding the outflow of advanced technology and job opportunities. In order to grab this piece of fat that was delivered to the mouth, in April 2002, UMC bypassed the Taiwan authorities and quickly reached a cooperation with Shanghai Belling and announced a joint investment in the construction of an 8-inch wafer fab in Zhangjiang, Shanghai. In November, UMC cleverly used the curve investment method to form a joint venture with Wuxi Shanghua Semiconductor to build an 8-inch wafer fab “Hejian Technology” with a $1 billion investment. However, in the second year, TSMC obtained the qualification to invest and build factories in the mainland approved by the Taiwan authorities, but UMC’s approval was delayed. The above-mentioned cooperation can only be carried out in the form of “under-the-table cooperation”. If all goes well, UMC will fight with TSMC in their last life and death battle on mainland China. But just like the factory fire that caught off guard in 1997, fate once again made a little joke on Cao Xingcheng. In 2004, the result of the election of the leader of China’s Taiwan region was announced, and Chen Shuibian took office. For many years, Cao Xingcheng has always advocated that the mainland and Taiwan should coexist peacefully. In this election, it is natural to oppose Chen Shui-bian’s various measures. Cao Xingcheng has an outspoken personality and has always spoken boldly in public. He did not comment in the unexpected world, and naturally he did not take this matter to heart. Who would have thought that on February 15, 2005, on the afternoon of the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, the “Taiwan Inspection Department” suddenly dispatched more than 120 celebrities and horses to conduct a lightning surprise inspection of the residences and offices of several UMC executives , And stated that UMC is suspected of providing illegal support to China Hejian Technology. Since then, the protracted and sensational “Heship Case” on both sides of the mainland has officially kicked off. Cao Xingcheng was interviewed by the media after the outbreak of the “Hejian case”, source: CRNTT After UMC was searched by the authorities, Cao Xingcheng issued open letters to employees and the media several times. His words became sharper and sharper. He pointed out that the search was a misguided action by the public power. He even named the National Taiwan Jiaotong University where the prosecutor Chen Ronglin was studying. The Science and Law Institute is sponsored by its competitor TSMC. For more than a year after that, UMC was procrastinated again and again by this case, and fined again and again. Cao Xingcheng’s refusal to accept defeat only resulted in greater suppression by public power agencies. The Taiwan authorities deliberately established the “Heship Case” as a typical case of restricting cross-strait economic and trade cooperation, and continued to harass UMC up and down. In December 2005, UMC’s stock price plunged, and the company was clouded and misty. On December 29, 2005, just two days before the new year, Cao Xingcheng finally surrendered. In order to preserve the UMC, for which he has devoted 20 years of hard work, Cao Xingcheng announced in an open letter that he would resign as chairman and director and cut all ties with UMC. One year later, the Hsinchu District Court in Taiwan ruled that the prosecutors against UMC did not find out the situation in detail, nor did it have a professional unit appraisal. The court could not adopt evidence as evidence, UMC was not guilty, and Cao Xingcheng was not guilty. However, after this battle, UMC completely lost its position to compete with TSMC for the global leader. In 2018, it announced that it would abandon the investment in advanced processes below 12nm and focus on mature markets. From 1995 to 2005, UMC and TSMC have been fighting for 20 years and launched a blitzkrieg three times, but every time UMC is about to catch up with TSMC, it will always be blocked by other factors. This is not good luck, but it is also because UMC has natural shortcomings in the fields of standardization and internationalization. Compared with UMC, TSMC’s management is much more “foreign”, and most of them not only have doctoral degrees from overseas universities, but also There is no shortage of executives from international chip giants. Since then, Cao Xingcheng devoted himself to art collection, and never dealt with commercial affairs. Cao Xingcheng concentrated on art collection in his later years, regardless of commercial sources. Picture: Wuzhen Cultural Lecture Hall At the time of the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, Cao Xingcheng also auctioned off his collection of Qianlong pen holders and donated money to the earthquake-stricken areas in Sichuan. 2. Sluggish and bloated, “big company disease” budding In 2005, his old rival Cao Xingcheng retired, and Zhang Zhongmou, who was much older than him, had already planned to retire. At this time, TSMC’s second enemy quietly appeared. However, this enemy does not come from the outside, but from the growing volume of TSMC itself. As UMC was caught in the quagmire of the lawsuit, seeing that the general situation was over, in May of the same year, 74-year-old Zhang Zhongmou officially resigned from the CEO position and handed TSMC to the “prince” Cai Lixing, who was personally trained by him. He retired and went home to serve flowers. Make tea and spend your retirement leisurely. Cai Lixing, source: TSMC Cai Lixing is relieved. This Cornell University materials engineering postdoctoral fellow joined the company when TSMC was established only two years ago. He led the creation of the first 8-inch factory in TSMC’s history. He was a great minister of TSMC’s early expansion of territory and Zhang Zhongmou’s confidant love. will. Although a full 20 years younger than Zhang Zhongmou, Cai Lixing and Zhang Zhongmou not only have similar experiences, but also have similar personalities and growth environments. Cai Lixing was born in a bureaucratic family. His father Cai Tong_ was the chairman of the “Taiwan Stock Exchange”, while Zhang Zhongmou’s father was the Finance Director of Yin County, Ningbo City, and his mother was a descendant of Xu Shidong, a famous book collector in Qing Dynasty in Ningbo. In addition to school and work experience, the two are most similar to each other in character and behavior. Zhang Zhongmou acts rigorously, has a strong style, and requires perfection in everything; Cai Lixing is even more “iron-blooded and strong.” In the industry, he runs the factory as a leader. Once the goal is set, the mission will be achieved without obstacles. Since defeating UMC and winning a beautiful technology battle on the 0.13 micron copper process, TSMC has gradually embarked on the fast lane of development. At this time, Zhang Zhongmou thought that he could safely hand over power to Cai Lixing, so he retreated to the second line. However, within two years of his birthday, the flames of war once again burned to his door. As TSMC has invested more and more in technology research and development, how to maintain profit margins while still attracting customers has become TSMC’s most troublesome thing. The situation in the harvest year is acceptable, but once the disaster year comes, the pressure on TSMC will suddenly increase. In 2007, the subprime mortgage crisis swept the world, and the semiconductor industry was not immune. In the context of the global financial tightening, TSMC has had to cut prices year after year and its gross profit margin has fallen all the way to get an order in the hands of customers whose wallets are getting tighter and tighter. In order to further reduce costs and increase gross profit, under the auspices of CEO Cai Lixing, TSMC has not only suspended the procurement of advanced 40nm technology and equipment, but also adopted extremely aggressive layoff measures-the bottom 5% of the employees in the performance ranking were directly dismissed and not retained. Any leeway. At the same time, when the market gradually recovered and the foundry capacity began to appear short, TSMC increased prices in response to “persuade” many old customers. According to Taiwanese media reports, at that time a major TSMC US customer stated that he could not accept the decision to increase prices and began to cultivate the second and third foundry suppliers to prevent another single supplier from being stuck in the future. Neck, and had to accept the price increase. All this, Zhang Zhongmou saw in his eyes and anxious in his heart. Today’s TSMC has grown from a small fab with less than a few hundred people to a behemoth with more than 20,000 employees and businesses all over the world. The flow of personnel, project management, and technology inheritance have all become problems on the road to development. In April 2009, Zhang Zhongmou, who has been decentralized for a long time, rarely appeared at TSMC’s annual business conference. He criticized harshly throughout the entire process, even saying “Tighten your skin! If this goes on, TSMC will die.” All the executives were silent. As the situation continued to ferment, in June of that year, Zhang Zhongmou stepped in strongly, not only publicly announcing the re-hiring of all laid-off employees, but also personally removing Cai Lixing’s CEO title, entering the “cold palace” and changing to the general manager of the new business organization. Zhang Zhongmou announced the removal of Cai Lixing’s CEO position. Picture source: Business Weekly 78-year-old Zhang Zhongmou re-emerged and once again carried the banner of TSMC. After the return, the first thing Zhang Zhongmou did was to declare that the previous layoffs were invalid. TSMC’s door will be opened for all employees who wish to return. And not only is it not layoffs, TSMC will also increase its personnel R&D investment, spending $1 billion in R&D funding, and there is only one condition, “spend it out as soon as possible”-you know, TSMC’s total revenue in 2009 was only 90. One hundred million U.S. dollars. Technology upgrades, customers return, and people’s hearts are united again. In particular, the Gate-Last technology that TSMC has invested heavily in research and development has overwhelmed its competitors and has become a key node for the company to dominate the industry in the 28nm process. Zhang Zhongmou’s return has strangled TSMC’s “big company disease” in its infancy. Cai Lixing is not incapable-a few years later, he will airborne the position of co-CEO to save another Taiwanese chip manufacturer from the brink of life and death, and he has achieved great success. It’s just that Zhang Zhongmou’s “Day 1” “We are only 30 days away from bankruptcy” and the sense of urgency that first-generation entrepreneurs like Zhang Zhongmou have, as well as the “paranoia” of rejecting public opinion, ignoring financial performance, and sticking to our own opinions, are all occupations It is difficult for managers to possess. This battle is almost a narrow victory. If it is later, TSMC is about to usher in the most powerful opponent in its life, a behemoth with a wealth of enemies-Samsung. 3. The Giant Samsung and the “rebel” Liang Mengsong Samsung is the largest conglomerate in South Korea. This large-scale company founded and controlled by the Lee family for nearly 90 years has nearly 100 subsidiary companies involved in many fields such as electronics, medical care, life, finance, construction, and hotels. Especially in the electronics industry, Samsung Group’s tentacles extend all the way up and down the industrial chain, including multiple key components such as screens, batteries, lenses, sensors, etc., relying on technology monopoly to make huge profits. Moreover, the Samsung Group’s acting style is very “Korean”, and my country’s mobile phone and TV industries have been squeezed by it. During the 1985-1987 Japan-U.S. trade war, Japan and the U.S. fought in the semiconductor field. Samsung made a profit and hollowed out Japan’s memory chip talents in one fell swoop. In the next few years, it will rapidly reduce market prices, with strong capital strength. Overcoming its opponents, it became the number one in the memory chip market in 1993 and the number one in the flash memory chip market in 2003, and has been dominating the market ever since. The smoke on the Japanese battlefield has not yet cleared, and Samsung has aimed at the next victim. According to a 2013 report by Taiwanese media “Today”, during the 2008 global subprime mortgage crisis, Samsung’s top management after many conspiracies finally decided to target Taiwan, China, the rising IT star. In order to seize the market share of Taiwan, Samsung has formulated a meticulous “Kill Taiwan (Eliminate Taiwan)” plan, which targeted the Taiwanese electronics industry and dumped the market. In the past few years, it has gradually crushed Taiwan’s electronics industry. The storage, panel, and mobile phone industries are triumphant along the way. And the lucrative foundry, naturally, can’t escape Samsung’s clutches. Due to the high investment in early-stage technology of the foundry, the smart Samsung did not have a head-on conflict with TSMC as soon as it came up, but cleverly chose the segment of the high-end market. Huang Chang-kyu, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor business unit, also repeatedly emphasized in an interview with the media that Samsung’s foundry is mainly for high-end chip products, which is not the same as TSMC’s positioning. In 2009, it was a turning point for everything. During this year, three major events occurred: 1. The 78-year-old Zhang Zhongmou returned to TSMC and removed the “prince” Cai Lixing, and put on the CEO shirt again. 2. The “Hummingbird” mobile phone chip jointly developed by Apple, Samsung, and Intrinsity is available and produced by Samsung. This mobile phone chip is the proud work of Apple and Samsung. With it, Apple has produced the first generation iPad and iPhone4 that shocked the world, and Samsung has launched its famous smart phone, the Galaxy S i9000, which has become popular all over the world. . (For details, please refer to Apple’s Thirty Years of Core Manufacturing | Core Journey) Samsung’s foundry business also broke through the $400 million mark in one fell swoop. 3. Liang Mengsong, the backbone of TSMC’s technology, ran away in anger, was successfully poached by Samsung and came to South Korea. In Taiwanese media reports for many years since then, Liang Mengsong has been dubbed the title of “Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s No. 1 Traitor.” In this battle, the joining of Liang Mengsong instantly knocked the balance of strength between TSMC and Samsung. Liang Mengsong is a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. His tutor is Hu Zhengming, the inventor of the FinFET, who is world-famous in the semiconductor industry and has continued his life for TSMC for 20 years. In TSMC’s 16 years, Liang Mengsong led the team to lay a lot of key technical challenges, not only has a strong technical research and development capabilities, but also has a deep industry Know-How. According to Liang Mengsong’s colleagues, he was a technical madman, strong, demanding, quick-tempered, and outgoing and hot-tempered, and he liked to go it alone. This was common in the raging remarks of Liang Mengsong’s angry remarks from the CEO of SMIC last year. To this day, Liang Mengsong still retains the angular technical arrogance of an engineer, and he has a strong love and perseverance for advanced technology. Fang Shuhua, the former chief legal officer of TSMC, once lamented, “(Liang Mengsong) he has a kind of obsession. He thinks that the most advanced technology can be reused.” This is why, when TSMC’s R&D vice president was changed in 2006, Liang Mengsong found that not only was he not promoted to R&D vice president, but was transferred from the front line of advanced technology R&D and arranged to be responsible for the mature process production line of the “Beyond Moore” program. The reaction was extremely fierce, and even angrily denounced it as “overhead”, “demotion” and “freezing”, and finally ran away in anger. At this time, the eagerly awaited Samsung is eager to open its arms to welcome Liang Mengsong’s arrival. The annual salary of hundreds of millions of Taiwan dollars and the chartered delivery of special planes to and from get off work are only basic operations. More importantly, Samsung has given Liang Mengsong absolute control and broad development space, allowing him to focus on advanced technology with peace of mind. After Liang Mengsong, Huang Guotai, Xia Jinqiu, Zheng Junlong, Hou Yongtian, Chen Jianliang and other old units of TSMC have also been successfully poached by Samsung, forming a strong “Taiwan team” within Samsung. In just a few years, Samsung’s foundry technology has advanced by leaps and bounds. The foundries are seeing the key technology nodes of 45nm, 32nm, and 28nm being overcome by Samsung one by one, and the gap with TSMC is getting smaller and smaller. In 2009, Samsung’s foundry business was only US$400 million; in 2010, this number surged to US$1.2 billion, and in 2013 it reached an astonishing US$3.95 billion. The speed of its rise is staggering. By the time TSMC sensed the danger and began to sue Liang Mengsong with a competition agreement, it was already a bit late. At this time, under the leadership of Liang Mengsong, Samsung, all the way to triumph, made an extremely bold decision-skip 20nm, march directly to 14nm, rush to the world’s first 14nm before TSMC, and declare war head-on. In 2015, TSMC launched the 16nm process, but Samsung completed 14nm mass production half a year ago, and successfully snatched the $1 billion Apple A9 order that should have belonged to TSMC. At the same time, it grabbed a huge order for Qualcomm chips. No two, so brilliant. Taiwan media’s report on Liang Mengsong, source: Sanli Finance and Economics Channel With backward manufacturing processes and loss of customers, TSMC’s stock price began to collapse. Credit Suisse, CLSA, and other brokers that have always been optimistic about TSMC, began to downgrade TSMC’s investment rating. At the Falun Dafa Conference on January 15, 2015, Zhang Zhongmou reluctantly admitted, “Yes, we are a bit behind when asked by analysts.” This is the biggest crisis that TSMC has faced since its establishment-in the past few decades, it has never been so significantly behind in advanced manufacturing processes. At this time, Zhang Zhongmou is 84 years old, and the world is full of doubts. Will TSMC still win this battle? The answer is yes. In order to launch a technical battle, TSMC followed Foxconn’s example and implemented a 24-hour three-shift R&D system. The basic salary of the participants was increased by 30%, and the dividend was increased by 50%. All the staff were red-eyed, and there was only one goal-to defeat Samsung. After Cai Lixing, TSMC’s treatment plant was already known for its “iron blood”. Under the high pressure of this chicken blood, it has burst out astonishing combat power. Not only did the 16nm process yield linearly increase, it also opened 10nm at the end of 2015. Sample delivery certification of the process. At the same time, TSMC also carried out a protracted lawsuit against Liang Mengsong. Even if Liang Mengsong repeatedly emphasizes that he has not leaked TSMC’s core secrets and “absolutely abides by the non-competition regulations”, it is useless. The major “presiding courts” in Taiwan, China, have made their stand on the team clear from the beginning. The presiding judge of the second instance, Xiong Songmei, even bluntly said, “(Taiwan) can have several large companies? If we don’t protect them (TSMC) ), who do you want to protect?” Just as Liang Mengsong was overwhelmed by the litigation, Samsung’s 14nm process was also the first to run, and there were obvious problems with yield and power consumption control, and even the iPhone6s “chip gate” incident, which caused Apple’s subsequent A9 additional orders to flow back to TSMC. In hand. Since then, Liang Mengsong has been troubled by litigation and said goodbye to Samsung, and was invited to join SMIC in 2017 as the CEO. In this round, TSMC once again narrowly won. However, to this day, Samsung still has not given up on the pursuit of TSMC. In 2016, Korean media reported that Samsung promised Qualcomm to carry the Snapdragon 830 chip in its Galaxy S8, provided that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 830 orders will be produced by Samsung. In 2019, Samsung desperately lowered prices, rushed to order TSMC, and has successfully won orders from Nvidia. Li Zai F (second from left) visits the Dutch ASML factory in Eindhoven. Source: Samsung In October last year, the actual controller of Samsung Group Li Zai F personally flew to the Dutch headquarters of the lithography machine giant ASML, and was personally received by the CEO and CTO of ASML. The two parties further discussed cooperation in 5nm, 3nm, and even more advanced processes. opportunity. The gunpowder has not stopped, and the war continues. end Looking back at TSMC’s 40 years of ups and downs, these three major battles happened to divide TSMC’s growth into three stages. In the early stages of growth, the Yuliang dispute between TSMC and UMC just promoted the explosion of the first generation of foundry technology. UMC’s aggressive “arms expansion competition” has accumulated a rich material foundation for TSMC’s future global dominance. In the mid-growth period, as the corporate organization became bloated and the “big company disease” quietly breeded, TSMC promptly killed it in its budding state and was not bound by financial statements. It strengthened the foundation of technology and established the long-term development of TSMC. The cultural foundation. In the later stages of its growth, when TSMC truly stood on the global stage, facing the wealthy and powerful chaebol giants, it not only re-cleared the research and development system, but also used international political relations to the point of success, leading the foundry industry in Taiwan to succeed. After Samsung’s “precision blasting”, we are on the road to global hegemony. Sometimes you should be most thankful for your enemies. Reference materials: 1. “Cao Xingcheng Cao Mang: “Song Jiang” in Taiwan’s Science and Technology Circle” Lianhe Zaobao 2. “Cao Xingcheng: The “Political Stick” of Taiwan’s IT Hero” China Jingwei Net 3. “Exquisite: Did Samsung steal TSMC technology? 》Write some popular science 4. “TSMC at the forefront of history: two high walls, one sharp knife” Yuanchuan Research Institute 5. “United Microelectronics Group: The Road to the UMC” Oriental Entrepreneur 6. “Hunting and Killing Rebel Generals: Revealing the Secret of TSMC Liang Mengsong’s Role in Samsung” Commonwealth Magazine 7. “Samsung De-Taiwan Plan Decryption: Kill DRAM/Panels and Attack Hon Hai/TSMC” CTIMES 8. “Four Reasons for Zhang Zhongmou’s Replacement of Cai Lixing, Back to the Inside Story” Taiwan Hai.com