article | "Finance and Economics" Weekly Zhou Xiangyue
editor | Zhao Yanqiu
In the field of semiconductors in China, Tsinghua University Radio Department (later changed to Electronic Engineering Department) 85 is a special existence.
According to incomplete statistics, including Zhao Weiguo, Chairman of Ziguang Group, Yu Renrong, founder of Weir, Shu Qingming, one of the founders of Zhaoyi Innovation, Feng Chenhui, co-founder of Zhuosheng Microelectronics, Zhao Lixin, founder of Geke Microelectronics, and Suiyuan Technology Founder Zhao Lidong, and more than a dozen founders or executives of listed semiconductor companies, including Ren Zhijun, Gao Feng, Liu Weidong, Lu Huang, Yu Qunhui, etc., are all from this level.
These people call themselves EE85. Among the top 15 Chinese A-share listed semiconductor companies by total market value, the listed companies founded by them occupy 4 seats, namely Weir shares, Zhaoyi Innovation, Ziguang Guowei, and Zhuosheng Micro, the field covers chip design, manufacturing, packaging and equipment in the semiconductor industry chain.
As of the close of September 30, the total market value of these four companies reached 374.889 billion yuan, accounting for about 13.88% of the total market value of A-share semiconductor listed companies.
01
In 1978, with the reform and opening up, China's semiconductor industry gradually entered a stage of full recovery. At the end of this year, the Tsinghua Radio Department returned to Beijing from Mianyang, Sichuan, which provoked the backbone of talent cultivation in China's chip industry.
In 1985, a group of first-year students in the radio department lived in Building 10 of the Student Dormitory in the East District of Tsinghua University.
Lu Huang, who was admitted to Tsinghua University from Quanzhou, Fujian, and Liu Weidong from Shanxi, became roommates. Gao Feng, who was from Anhui, became roommates with Wang Hongwei from Jiangsu.
lives in the same building and Zhao Weiguo, who was admitted from Shawan County, Tacheng District, Xinjiang.
, a young man who lived in Xinjiang with his parents since he was a child, and spent his childhood basically feeding pigs and herding sheep, he has always had the strength to refuse to admit defeat. His father planned a "relatively stable" life route for him-learning a craft to eat. However, Zhao Weiguo, who is so strong, disregarded his father's suggestion, resolutely chose the road of college entrance examination.
In fact, as the first person admitted to Tsinghua University in the county, Zhao Weiguo has the capital to be proud of. But in the talented Tsinghua University, this kind of "capital" may be "discounted".
“I thought I was a genius before I went to university, but I found that the genius was someone else after I entered Tsinghua University.” After entering the university, Zhao Weiguo’s academic performance has been “smooth”. He was 17th in the class when he enrolled, and 17 when he graduated. name.
Picture/Visual China (Zhao Weiguo)
Yu Renrong, who also belongs to EE85, can be regarded as the "other" in Zhao Weiguo's words. In his freshman year, after playing mahjong all night, he participated in a school-wide math competition at 8 am the next morning, and finally won the first prize. He usually does some "small business", such as taking the papers from Haidian to Baoding to sell, and he has successfully made himself one of the richest among his classmates.
Therefore, in the eyes of his classmates, Yu Renrong has always been a "extremely smart person" and extremely sensitive to the market.
It is worth mentioning that Yu Renrong and his colleagues just caught up with the teaching model of Tsinghua Radio Department's pilot "freshman no major, no major second". As a result, in the second year of enrollment, the radio department was divided into 7 majors in semiconductor, communications, imaging, radar, microwave, optoelectronics, and electronic physics, a total of 9 classes.
However, in the early stages of reform and opening up, the country invested its efforts in people's livelihood and heavy industry. Semiconductors are obviously not a popular profession. Entering the semiconductor profession is more dependent on "fate." Wang Hongwei chose the semiconductor major because the teachers and head teachers who recruited him into the radio department were all semiconductor majors, while Liu Weidong and his roommates Lu Huang and Huang Wenyong were assigned to the semiconductor major.
Wang Hongwei's roommate Gao Feng also entered the semiconductor major, and another roommate Feng Chenhui was assigned to the electronic physics major. In addition, Zhao Weiguo went to learn microwave, Yu Renrong and old classmate Liang Jie studied image processing, Zhao Weiguo’s Xinjiang fellows Ren Zhijun and Zhao Lidong from Beijing went to learn communication...
At this time, this group is not close to semiconductors. Obviously, no one knows that the young people of China will become the vanguard of China's semiconductor industry in more than 30 years.
02
The big tree outside the dormitory window has been green five times, and the EE85s finally ushered in their graduation season.
In the 1990s, the focus of the global semiconductor industry has shifted from the United States to Japan. At that time, Japan accounted for 6 of the world’s top ten semiconductor companies, NEC, Toshiba, and Hitachi were among the world’s top three, and Intel only ranked fourth. , Samsung has not yet entered the top 10.
Japanese semiconductors are in full swing, the United States is unwilling to do so, and South Korea is also watching. In this global battle, semiconductor majors seem to be popular among the United States, Japan and South Korea. However, this "lively" atmosphere has obviously not spread to China, and the gap between China and the United States, Japan and South Korea in the semiconductor field has become insurmountable. In China, there are very few jobs that correspond to semiconductor majors. After graduating from university, Liu Weidong, who majored in semiconductor, carried a box and went to a post related to communications. Roommate Lu Huang returned to his hometown in Quanzhou and worked in a tobacco industry company. Gao Feng and his bunk bed brother Wang Hongwei chose to continue their studies. The former studied for a master's degree at the Microelectronics Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, while the latter received a direct Ph.D. In addition to semiconductor majors, students in other majors of the radio department have found their own destinations one after another. Yu Renrong, who studied image processing at
, had good luck and joined the Inspur Group as an engineer when he graduated. At that time, Inspur had just developed the world's first Chinese pager. It was a star enterprise in the IT field at that time, and it was gaining momentum.
However, after only two years in Inspur, Yu Renrong went to a component distributor and served as the sales manager of its Beijing office for 6 years. Until February 1998, he was on his own and competed on the same stage with his old club.
Zhao Weiguo went to Zhongguancun, and returned to Tsinghua University for postgraduate studies after 3 years. After graduating with a master's degree, he was assigned to work at Tsinghua Unigroup as the deputy general manager of the Automation Engineering Division of Tsinghua Unigroup; soon afterwards, he was transferred to Tsinghua Tongfang to participate The first capital operation after Tongfang went public-the merger and acquisition of Jiangxi Radio Factory.
More people went to the other side of the ocean and began to have a deeper intersection with semiconductors.
Picture/Visual China
In 1992, when Deng Xiaoping inspected Zhuhai's high-tech enterprises for overseas students, he called on all those studying abroad to come back, "To make a contribution, it is better to return to China." In the second year, "support studying abroad and encourage returning to China." The policy of studying abroad is written in the documents of the Third Plenary Session of the 14th Central Committee.
Zhao Lidong went to the United States to study in the United States under this wave of policies. After graduation, he entered the Austin headquarters of Intel’s old rival AMD until he resigned and returned to China in 2014. During this period, he also participated in the founding of AMD China R&D Center in 2007, saving a wave of connections with the Chinese semiconductor industry in advance. The peak of
's semiconductor profession left Tsinghua Microelectronics Institute in 1995 and entered Singapore Chartered Semiconductor. The following year, Gao Feng's brother Wang Hongwei joined the company. This semiconductor company, established in 1987, was once the world's third largest semiconductor foundry after TSMC and UMC. Chip manufacturing is also the link where Huawei chips are stuck.
Singapore Chartered Semiconductor is really the cradle of Chinese semiconductor talents in this period. Lixin Zhao of EE85 joined Chartered Semiconductor Singapore after graduating with a master’s degree in 1995 and worked as a process engineer for 3 years. Then he turned to ESS Technology, a US chip design company, and worked as a senior engineer for 3 years. He participated in videophone image sensors and DVDs. After the chip development and testing, he entered the R&D center of ADI and UTStarcom in the United States, and continued to engage in chip design for 2 years. It is worth mentioning that the high-precision digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital converters produced by ADI in the United States are still difficult to overcome in China.
In the ten years when EE85s moved from their 20s to their 30s, China launched its first large-scale attack on the integrated circuit industry, and successively launched two "China Chip" projects.
In 1990, the country launched the "908 Project" with a goal of investing 2 billion yuan. During the "Eighth Five-Year Plan" (1991-1995) period, the semiconductor manufacturing will be advanced to 1 micron. The main undertaking company is Wuxi Huajing, and the technology is from the United States. Lucent purchased.
However, this plan, which was placed high hopes to bring China and the world closer to the advanced level, has not achieved satisfactory results. It took 7 years from the beginning of the project to the actual production. When it was completed and put into production in 1997, Huajing’s technical level had fallen behind the international mainstream technology by 4-5 generations, and the monthly output was onlyAround 800 pieces, the loss was 240 million yuan when it was put into production.
In 1995, with the determination to “smash the pot and sell the iron” to promote the semiconductor industry, the country further promoted the “909 Project” and decided to invest 10 billion yuan to set up a chip manufacturing production line starting with 8-inch and 0.5-micron process technology. It will be undertaken by the joint venture Shanghai Huahong NEC.
This is the largest national investment project in the history of China's electronics industry. Fortunately, Hua Hong NEC did not repeat the mistakes of Huajing’s 7-year factory building. It started construction on July 31, 1997 and was completed in February 1999. It achieved profitability the year it was put into production, and achieved sales of 3.015 billion yuan in the following year. Reached 516 million yuan.
03
With 2000 as the demarcation point, China's semiconductor industry has entered a new stage of development.
On February 27, 2001, Professor Wang Yangyuan, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dean of the Peking University Institute of Microelectronics, gave a high-level report on "Microelectronics Science and Technology and Integrated Circuit Industry". After the
report, the leaders at the meeting came to a conclusion: integrated circuits are the "heart" of electronic products, and the integrated circuit industry must be vigorously developed.
In the same year, the government issued a document to encourage the development of the integrated circuit industry, which is known as the "Document No. 18" in the semiconductor field; the following year, it launched the "Document No. 51" and successively approved 7 national integrated circuit design industries. Chemical base. As a result, industry and capital became active.
Subsequently, a large number of semiconductor professionals gathered one after another, and semiconductor companies began to spring up like bamboo shoots. EE85s also migrated one after another during this period, ushering in the climax of their story with China's semiconductor industry.
Picture/Weir Stock's official WeChat account (Yu Renrong)
In 2003, Yu Renrong, who had turned "Boss Yu", accidentally got the guidance of an executive of American chip company ON Semiconductor and began to adjust his business thinking. In addition to continuing to be an old business in the distribution of electronic components, it also began to provide design solutions and became a trend pioneer. He also set up locations across the country to cooperate with emerging design companies, including DXN Wireless, the largest mobile phone design supplier in China today.
With the rise of the mobile phone market, by 2006, Yu Renrong had become famous in the field of electronic components distribution and became the largest distributor in Beijing. In 2007, Yu Renrong took advantage of the opportunity to upgrade his business and established Weir shares in Shanghai. He went to work on the design of semiconductor discrete devices and power management chips. In the following years, he adopted a plan of endogenous and mergers and acquisitions, and soon gained in the consumer electronics field. Recognized by mobile phone manufacturers such as ZTE, Xiaomi, Lenovo, etc., achieved a career leap.
In the same year that Yu Renrong received the "superior guidance", Zhao Lixin, who was far away across the ocean, quit his job at UTStarcom and returned to China to start Gekewei with all his wealth and US$2 million invested by his high school classmates. Electronics, starting from the camera sensor.
In 2005, Gekewei's first product came out and successfully won its first customer-Vimicro, which was gaining momentum at the time, to provide sensors for its computer cameras. However, with the entry of more and more large companies, the pressure of Gekewei has doubled. Seeing that it will lose money in 2007, Zhao Lixin made an important decision-to enter the mobile phone market.
, as Lei Jun said, "follow the trend". At that time, the situation of China's mobile phone market was very good, with the annual sales of mobile phones reaching hundreds of millions of units, and the growth rate was still in double digits. Relying on the production of mobile phone camera sensors, Gekewei began to "savage" growth. By 2010, the company's turnover had exceeded 100 million U.S. dollars, and it was successfully selected as one of China's top 10 integrated circuit designs.
, like Zhao Lixin, returned to China to start a business, and Feng Chenhui. In July 2006, Feng Chenhui and his two friends Xu Zhihan and Tang Zhuang co-founded Zhuo Shengwei in Shanghai. They also made chips for mobile phones, and developed mobile TV chips in the early days. Later, they adjusted their direction and made RF front-end chips. Nowadays, RF front-end chips are hot, and Zhuo Shengwei has become a supplier of Huawei mobile phones. The story of
starting a business with alumni also happened to Shu Qingming of EE85. In 2004, Zhu Yiming of the 89-level physics department and Shu Qingming of the 85-level radio department were preparing to start a chip business, but suffered from no investment and hit a wall everywhere. After hearing the news, Li Jun, alumni of the Department of Automation of
85, not only helped them get a $100,000 venture capital, but also introduced them to the Department of Economics of 83.Xue Jun, Xue Jun brought in Luo Zhuo from the 80-level engineering department, and Deng Feng from the 81-level electronics department, and collected 920,000 US dollars in investment. With this investment, Shu Qingming and Zhu Yiming founded Zhaoyi Innovation, China's first memory and chip development company, in 2005.
When other alumni of EE85 returned to China to start their businesses, Zhao Weiguo also left Ziguang in 2004 and went to his hometown of Xinjiang for gold with a principal of 1 million yuan. The following year, Beijing Jiankun Investment Group Co., Ltd. was established, mainly investing in real estate and minerals. Zhao Weiguo was the largest shareholder and chairman of the board, and became a veritable "real estate developer" and "coal boss".
He later recalled, “At the time, entering real estate was like grabbing money. I took 1 million yuan to Xinjiang. When I came back, I had earned 4.5 billion yuan, which was 4500 times the profit!” When Zhao Weiguo found his first pot of gold, Ziguang However, the group is gradually experiencing difficulties and is on the verge of bankruptcy. The leaders who saw Zhao Weiguo's ability to make money wanted him to "return", and Zhao Weiguo was not disgusted to continue his relationship with Ziguang. In 2009, Zhao Weiguo returned to Ziguang Group as president.
Jiankun Investment controlled by Zhao Weiguo also acquired 49% of the shares of Ziguang Group, second only to 51% of Tsinghua Holdings. Although the old shareholders were dissatisfied with the issue of pre-emption rights, Zhao Weiguo succeeded in becoming the master of Ziguang, and Ziguang Group has since entered the Zhao Weiguo era.
04
2014 is the first year of China's 4G network and a year of rapid development of smart phones.
Two major events have occurred in China's semiconductor industry this year. One is that the state established a "big fund" for the integrated circuit industry in September 2014, and for the first time private capital was driven by state capital to invest heavily in the domestic semiconductor industry.
Another thing is that Ziguang Group, under the helm of Zhao Weiguo, listed semiconductors in the company's main direction. Zhao Weiguo returned to his old profession. Tsinghua Unigroup acquired the mobile phone chip companies Spreadtrum and RDA, which had returned from the privatization and delisting of Nasdaq in the United States, with a "dark horse". From a layman, Ziguang Group has become the third-largest company in global mobile phone baseband chip shipments, with Qualcomm and MediaTek ranked first.
Since then, "buy, buy, buy" has become Zhao Weiguo's life standard. In the five years from 2013 to 2018, Zhao Weiguo invested and acquired 16 companies, spending 100 billion yuan, 11 of which involved the chip field. In the eight months of 2015 alone, Ziguang Group's foreign investment and mergers and acquisitions amounted to as high as 50 billion yuan, and Zhao Weiguo was awarded the title of "hungry tiger".
was also around 2014. Liu Weidong and Liang Jie started their second ventures. The former founded Jiuhao Electronics, focusing on sensor signal conditioning chips, and the latter aimed at the Internet of Things market and founded Secun Technology, focusing on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communication modules.
It is worth mentioning that Liu Weidong’s first investment in establishing Jiuhao Electronics came from his former university roommate Lu Huang. In addition to his investment in Jiuhao Electronics, Lu Huang was also an early investor in Weir shares and Zhaoyi Innovation. . I have to say that Lu Huang's investment won in the inner circle.
Figure/Vision China
Around 2017, domestic semiconductor companies sounded the clarion call for the second listing, and the first wave of listings occurred 10 years ago. At that time, Vimicro and Spreadtrum landed on Nasdaq. Deng Zhonghan of Vistar Microelectronics also became the first listed company owner to sign in Chinese on the Nasdaq. And after 10 years of energy accumulation, EE85 is doing my part in the second wave of listing. However, most of them chose the A-share market.
On August 18, 2016, Shu Qingming, as the co-founder of Zhaoyi Innovation, was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange; on May 4, 2017, Yu Renrong’s Weil shares successfully landed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and acquired Tsinghua alumni Chen Datong one year later. Founded image sensor chip company Howe Technology; on June 18, 2019, Zhuo Shengwei, which Feng Chenhui participated in, also entered the capital market and became a winner in life.
is to enter the capital market on one side, and on the other is a new wave of entrepreneurship.
At the end of 2017, Ren Zhijun proposed to Zhao Weiguo to resign and founded Xinhenghui Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. in Shandong with the goal of "listing." According to Tianyancha APP, the company has a registered capital of 167 million yuan and is China's first smart card packaging carrier tape manufacturer. Among them, the largest investment came from old classmate Yu Renrong, with an investment of up to 56.432 million yuan, Holding 33.86% of the shares, Ren Zhijun’s capital contribution is 28.216 million yuan, holding 16.93% of the shares.
At the same time, Zhao Lidong also resigned from the position of vice president of Ziguang Group and established Suiyuan Technology in March 2018, focusing on the field of artificial intelligence chips, stepping on the wave of the times.
On May 15, 2019, the US Department of Commerce issued a ban on Huawei. China's semiconductor industry has entered a wartime state, and the important strategic position of the semiconductor industry has reached an unprecedented consensus. In June, the Science and Technology Innovation Board held an opening ceremony to support the key to complying with national strategies Chip companies are the top priority for the development of core technology companies. Since then, Huawei has adjusted its procurement strategy from selecting the world's top chip suppliers to supporting domestic companies; in October, the second phase of the National Integrated Circuit Fund was registered and established, focusing on supporting equipment materials. .....
EE85 level is destined to shoulder a greater historical mission.
is no exception even if it is the latest entrepreneur. In December 2019, Zhao Lidong's Suiyuan Technology released the first AI training chip, and entered the chip market such as Nvidia. Ren Zhijun’s Shandong Xinhenghui is on track. The new high-precision etched metal lead frame project planned to be completed in May 2022 will be replaced by domestically produced products...
EE85 is undoubtedly lucky. When I entered the industry, it was all by fate, but when I was young and strong, I stepped on the wind of the times and created a new wave of wealth myths. In the "2020 Hurun Global Rich List" announced on February 26, 2020, Yu Renrong ranked 281th on the list with a net worth of 50 billion yuan, becoming the well-deserved richest man in Chinese chips, and Zhao Weiguo with a net worth of 25 billion yuan. Ranked 729th on the list.
Reference Materials:
1, "Thirty Years of Classmate Love EE85 Core-Yiyi Accompanying My Heart". THU Department of Electronics Alumni Association. 2020-06-03
2, "The Chairman of Ziguang who resigned due to too busy work: one person manages 64 homes The company has invested 63 billion in two years. AI Finance and Economics. 2018-4-10
3, "2 years, 4 rounds, 1.4 billion!" Suiyuan Technology wants to explore the "core" of AI. Zhang Tongshe. 2020-5-8
4, "Who are the Shaolin and Wudang of China's AI chips?" 》. Lei Feng. 2020-3-23
