Picture source / Oriental IC
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1. Because of a resignation letter, the market value of SMIC has shrunk by more than 10 billion yuan. The story of one mountain cannot tolerate two tigers began to ferment inside and outside the 400 billion chip giant SMIC.
2, Jiang Shangyi returned and Liang Mengsong resigned. On the second night after the incident, a reporter from "IT Times" ran into Liang Mengsong's car at the SMIC factory and listened to internal employees chatting about Jiang and Liang.
At 8:20 pm on December 16, a black car drove from SMIC Gate 1 to the SMIC Southern Plant. The sharp-eyed security guard recognized it as the "big leader" Liang Mengsong's car. Obviously, the security guard did not notice any difference from usual.
In the quiet and cold night, the sound of the equipment in the SMIC Southern plant was clearer than during the day, and a pungent odor was volatilized around. Sleeping during the day and working at night at night, the security did not realize that the company had explosive news during the day: On December 15th, SMIC held a temporary board of directors to announce that the former COO of TSMC and the great technology god Jiang Shangyi returned to SMIC, and the co-CEO Liang Mengsong Not only did he abstain from voting for Jiang Shangyi's entry, he also submitted his resignation on the spot on the board of directors.
According to a resignation letter from Liang Mengsong on the Internet, Liang Mengsong was only informed that Jiang Shangyi was about to take up the post of vice chairman of the company on the morning of December 9. In this regard, Liang Mengsong felt "very astonished and puzzled because I didn't know about this beforehand. I deeply feel that I am no longer respected and distrusted. I think you should no longer need me to continue here. I'm fighting hard for the company's prospects." In the words, he appeared angry and fierce.
The resignation letter of Liang Mengsong
was published online. In response to Liang Mengsong’s resignation, SMIC announced on the morning of the 16th that “Dr. Liang is aware of his conditional resignation and is currently actively verifying his true intention to resign.
As of the close on the 17th, SMIC’s A shares closed at 56.01 yuan per share, with a market value of 431.284 billion yuan, and the stock price rebounded 1.47% from the previous day.
01
internal staff talk about the status quo
14nm production capacity "hollowing"
On the evening of December 16, a reporter from "IT Times" came to SMIC in Zhangjiang, Shanghai. Many employees admitted that it was a personnel struggle between senior executives. Some employees said indifferently, "It's just a common CEO to change." In response to the rumors of discord between Liang Mengsong and Zhao Haijun and , an internal employee did not directly answer, but said that the former is a “technical faction” and the latter is more “dominant and powerful”.
Source/IT Times
An employee who works at SMIC’s advanced manufacturing plant, SMIC Southern, told the IT Times reporter that although he has not contacted Liang Mengsong himself, there is a common feeling among colleagues in his department. : The intention of this operation is obvious, just to squeeze Liang Mengsong away. "Do you think that Liang had parachuted a leader without knowing it beforehand. There had been conflicts between the two. Where did this put him?" The above-mentioned employee of
also said that because Liang Mengsong had worked at both TSMC and Samsung Semiconductor It is the third time to do 14nm FinFET process in SMIC, so I have rich experience. In addition to controlling the technical direction of the advanced manufacturing process, Liang Mengsong also brought a new set of management experience, especially strengthening the management of confidentiality measures. "The change that our grassroots employees can feel is that they must put their mobile phones in the office before entering the office. In the personal locker downstairs."
is not optimistic about the advanced process prospects that Liang Mengsong insists on. "The ability to achieve 7nm has reached the limit. Because there is no EUV lithography machine, more advanced processes cannot be used. Breakthrough." In addition, due to the US ban, although the 14nm factory line has energy production, the capacity utilization rate is not high after losing the order of Huawei HiSilicon. "Now there are only one or two thousand per month."
02
loses Huawei HiSilicon
hits Liang Mengsong's development path
SMIC’s latest Q3 financial report shows that mature processes of 55/65nm and 40/45nm are still the company's main source of profit, and 14/28nm revenue only accounts for 14.6% of SMIC. And a subtle change is from now onBeginning in the second quarter of the year, SMIC’s financial report no longer separately calculates the proportion of 14nm chip revenue, but merges disclosure. Although the revenue of 14/28nm increased by 5.5% month-on-month, the outside world cannot know whether this increase comes from advanced technology 14nm or mature technology 28nm.
Figure source/SMIC’s Q3 financial report
Since 2020, the production capacity of mature processes is in short supply, and the supply of products such as UMC is in short supply. Take UMC's share price as an example, the increase has exceeded 200% since the beginning of 2020. SMIC also stated in its third quarterly report: "The demand for mature application platforms is as strong as ever, from power management, radio frequency signal processing, fingerprint recognition, and image signal processing related revenue growth."
in SMIC's third quarter performance description At the meeting, a questioner asked: "The company's 14nm capacity utilization rate is relatively low. Will SMIC consider switching from 14nm to 28nm and 45nm products in a short time?" In response, Liang Mengsong said: "We must transform a 14nm factory For other purposes, this is economically impractical. We will not do this kind of thing, but we will actively develop other customers. Currently, the company (advanced technology) has more than 10 customers and is steadily increasing the quantity In early 2020, SMIC announced that the production capacity of the 14nm process will be expanded from 3,000 to 15,000. With such a large capacity redundancy, it is difficult to find a volume as large as Huawei HiSilicon to fill it in the short term. Without the large order from Huawei HiSilicon, SMIC has lost the support of its strongest customers in its breakthrough advanced manufacturing process.
Picture source/Pixabay
Advanced process has always been the company's development path advocated by Liang Mengsong. The turmoil of the international industry situation has severely hit Liang Mengsong and SMIC's fresh advanced process development path. The advanced process of
is not easy to follow, and it can even be said to be full of thorns. In the development of advanced technology, giants such as GlobalFoundries and UMC have opted out of it. In 2018, GlobalFoundries announced the abandonment of 7nm R&D; in the same year, UMC announced the abandonment of investment in advanced processes below 12nm (ie 7nm and below). In addition to digital chips, the market for non-high-end advanced technology chips is still large enough to meet the development needs of chip makers.
03
Jiang and Liang’s feuding past
According to SMIC’s announcement, Jiang Shangyi was appointed as the company’s second-category executive director, vice chairman of the board of directors and a member of the strategy committee. Effective December 15, 2020, Jiang Shangyi has the right to The employment contract received annual fixed cash remuneration of US$670,000 (approximately RMB 4.4 million per year) and annual incentives.
Co-CEO Liang Mengsong abstained from voting for Jiang Shangyi's appointment. Obviously, Liang Mengsong was not very happy about Jiang Shangyi's return. According to multiple sources, Liang Mengsong had resigned on the board of directors, but Chairman Zhou Zixue did not approve it on the spot.
opened the resumes of Jiang and Liang. Both of them belonged to the technical gods. At least two work experiences overlapped, one at TSMC and the other at SMIC. As early as the TSMC period, Jiang Shangyi and Liang Mengsong had some grievances.
According to 36 krypton reports, Liang Mengsong was demoted by his then boss Jiang Shangyi for various reasons when he was at TSMC. In 2006, 60-year-old Jiang Shangyi announced his retirement. Liang Mengsong, who is most likely to succeed Jiang Shangyi in the R&D department, was unexpectedly unsuccessful. The last one was promoted to his peer who has been fiercely competing with him for many years and the current TSMC chief technology officer Sun Yuancheng.
and Liang Mengsong was sent to implement a newly launched "Project Beyond Moore." This plan sounds very big, but it is only used by two backward fabs, and the office has only a small four-person room. In 2009, the chilling Liang Mengsong chose to resign and left TSMC, which had worked for 17 years.
Someone once analyzed that Liang Mengsong’s resignation was not only because his career plan was affected, but also because of his upright, conceited, and single-minded personality. It is also said that if it is not a small character problem, with Liang Mengsong's level, the current position of TSMC chairman Liu Deyin is his.
Liang Mengsong left for the second time at Samsung. After helping Samsung to reverse the unfavorable situation in the semiconductor industry, Liang Mengsong also drew the dissatisfaction of his old company TSMC, and he was infamy as a "betrayer". Because of the competition agreement, Liang Mengsong could not be threeStar works, but he “secretly” works for Samsung as a university lecturer. According to reports, it was Jiang Shangyi who discovered and disclosed the work mailbox of Liang Mengsong Samsung.
At the end of 2016, TSMC’s No. 2 hero, Jiang Shangyi, known as "Dad Jiang", knocked on the office of TSMC founder Zhang Zhongmou and told him that he was going to be a director of SMIC. More than half a year later, at the invitation of Zhou Zixue, Chairman of SMIC, Liang Mengsong left Samsung and joined SMIC in October 2017.
By chance, Jiang and Liang have become colleagues again, but Jiang is an independent non-executive director of the third category and has no technical output. The corresponding remuneration is 40,000 US dollars in annual cash remuneration and 187,500 shares. Common shares and 187,500 restricted shares are available for subscription. The three-year term expires in June 2019. SMIC has not renewed the contract with Jiang Shangyi. After leaving SMIC, Jiang Shangyi became the CEO of Wuhan Hongxin. However, Hongxin reported that the capital chain was broken and unfinished this year. Jiang also left Hongxin in June this year.
Jiang Shangyi (sixth from right) left during his tenure at Wuhan Hongxin. Source/Wuhan Hongxin official website
During his more than three years at SMIC, Liang Mengsong, as the co-CEO, has been responsible for advanced process research and development. From the perspective of the industry, Liang Mengsong’s greatest contribution after joining is to quickly narrow the gap between SMIC and TSMC and Samsung in the field of advanced technology.
04
route game: advanced process or advanced packaging?
There are various signs that, in the case that the advanced process road is blocked, the personnel changes of SMIC are not just as simple as "high-level infighting".
Regarding joining SMIC this time, Jiang Shangyi said that he still has a strong passion for semiconductors, and he is very keen on advanced packaging technology and chiplets. It will be easier to realize his ideals in SMIC. "Now SMIC's advanced process technology has achieved 14nm, N+1, and N+2. I believe that SMIC can realize my dream of advanced packaging and system integration at least 4 to 5 years faster than Hongxin. "Z3z
image source/Pixabay
This statement means that Jiang Shangyi chose not to invest in more advanced manufacturing processes such as 7nm and 5nm, but a packaging technology path related to chip miniaturization. And was asked whether SMIC can invest resources to let Jiang Shangyi do advanced packaging and chip miniaturization technologies? Jiang Shangyi joked: "(If SMIC disagrees), maybe go back to the United States again!"
It is reported that Jiang Shangyi proposed advanced packaging when he was at TSMC, and finally obtained Zhang Zhongmou's approval. At present, TSMC has made good technological breakthroughs in the field of 3D packaging, which provides a technical guarantee for its continuation of Moore's Law.
Liang Mengsong is more inclined to research and development of advanced processes. In his resignation letter, Liang Mengsong said frankly that 28nm, 14nm, 12nm and n+1 technologies have now entered mass production, and the development of 7nm technology has also been completed, and risk mass production will be available in April next year. In the resignation letter circulated by
on the Internet, Liang Mengsong mentioned the "pain of EUV lithography machine", "The 8 most critical and arduous technologies of 5nm and 3nm have also been carried out in an orderly manner, only waiting for the arrival of EUV lithography machine. , You can enter the comprehensive development stage." EUV lithography machine has become an insurmountable obstacle for SMIC.
In 2006, the world’s first EUV lithography machine prototype image source/network
Senior semiconductor observer Wang Ruchen analyzed to a reporter from IT Times: “Liang Mengsong is the head of technology research and development, relatively more professional and focused, but (advanced process) uncertainty High, after all, the equipment and material supply chain is unstable; Jiang Shangyi is better at operation, focusing on commercialization, and the two people have different thinking."
Wang Ruchen further pointed out that packaging actually focuses on commercial operation, similar to IDM (Integrated Manufacturing) mode TSMC has been involved in packaging a long time ago: "In the final analysis, the two directions are actually a game of long-term and short-term goals and rhythms, as well as a game of routes. They are similar to the topics of trade, industry, technology, technology, industry and trade on the early Lenovo , but they must be considered. At the stage of enterprise development, when it is difficult to survive, it is too idealistic. SMIC must consider financial factors in the short term, after all, it is a listed company."z As of press time, SMIC officials have not responded to the IT Times reporter on issues such as 14nm production capacity and technical route selection.
Standing at a crossroads, SMIC faces a smart choice between dream and bread.
author / IT Times reporter Li Yuyang
editor / kicked sister
layout / Feng Chengjie
picture / IT Times Oriental IC SMIC Wuhan Hongxin Pixabay Network
source / "IT Times" public account vittimes
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