Rebirth of Northland Technology

It rained yesterday, the temperature dropped a lot today, and the weather is getting colder and colder.

The weather in the Northeast, spring and autumn are both coming and going.

Ye Jing received the books on the desk into her schoolbag, greeted her classmates and hurried out of the classroom.There is a meeting in the Optoelectronics Research Office at 4 o'clock and she needs to attend.

There is still some distance from the mechanical building to the meeting room of the optoelectronic company, and it takes about 20 minutes to walk.

This is the first time to attend a management conference.She used to participate in scientific research group meetings at most.

When she hurriedly hurried to the meeting room, it was past 4 o'clock, and everyone in the room was waiting for her.

Ye Jing pulled a chair away and sat down.

Yan Liang nodded to her, but neither of them spoke.

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"Now that everyone is here, let's start."

Cheng Yongxing put down the calculator in his hand. He has been calculating the company's cash flow to see if he can undertake the next additional expenditure.

Manager Bai looked around,

"Anyone? Just a few of us? What is the theme of today's meeting?"

Apart from him in the room, Zhang Yan and Zhou Qiang are two students and Cheng Yongxing.

He didn't want to understand that the people attending the meeting were such a group, why the two students came here.

"Discuss the first thing first, the construction of the first 2nd generation LCD."

The 2nd generation line (15 inches) has passed half a year since it was proposed in March.Logically speaking, this line also has the conditions to start.

"Now? But we don't have a factory building!"

In general, the construction of several production lines of "Full Color Technology" is that the factory is built first, and then the equipment is directly installed.In this way, the construction speed of the production line seems to be very fast.

This is more similar to the idea of ​​attracting investment after building the factory in many development zones in later generations.

The plant resources in the hands of the Optoelectronics Department have all been used.Wang Yan and his staff are already laying the foundation for the new factory building, but due to winter construction, the first batch of factory buildings could be delivered. It was also in the spring or even summer of 1993.

"Yes, I am going to move the current Line 1. The factory building is there."

"Disconnect Line 1? Are you sure?"

Several people in the room were taken aback.Now full color can be produced stably, and there are only two production lines in total.

"Yes. Line 3 and Line 4 will soon be completed. The value of Line 1 is not so important. This is the first reason.

The second reason is that our 2nd generation line plan must be implemented on time.This is part of the big plan."

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Dismantling a production line that has stabilized production and continues to create profits will bring huge losses to the company, but its strategic significance must be considered.

The TFT-LCD market has become hot.All sources of capital are preparing to enter LCD production.

With the exposure of ODF technology, the biggest secret of full color is gone.

Once the full-color technological advancement takes a breather, it will be defeated by large-scale industrialized competitors with low cost.

Optoelectronics’s best plan now is to launch new generation products every year or even every six months, and use its own advantage in small steps to run quickly, and all the slow-reacting players, their scientific research capabilities, and investment will be wiped out.

In 1992, Optoelectronics put a 12-inch LCD screen into the market. This step stopped all the first-generation lines under construction or to be constructed.

But by the second half of 1993, the equipment and technology required for the new generation of production lines will be mature.12-inch LCD will become a popular commodity.

This opportunity must not be allowed to appear.As long as the 15-inch production line of Optoelectronics is put into production in early 1993, these funds or plans for follow-up will be suspended again.

The pilot line program reduces not only the cost of the production line, but also the development cost and development cycle of the equipment.

Traditional LCD equipment, because its goal is large-scale industrial production, its technical indicators are quite high, which brings high research and development costs.

For example, the equipment used in the pilot line program only needs to process 16-inch glass, while the assembly line version equipment not only processes 40-inch glass substrates, but also handles the issue of processing speed.

Cheng Yongxing plans to launch a new production line every six months in the past few years, and toss several times. It is estimated that there will be no semiconductor equipment manufacturer interested in entering this market.

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The second-generation line to be built this time is a 14-inch-15-inch LCD panel.

14 inches is the largest monitor that a notebook can use.Especially now, when widescreen is not popular.

The 15-inch LCD, its target is the 17-inch CRT monitor on the market.

In this era, even CRT monitors are a luxury.The retail price of a 17-inch CRT is more than one thousand dollars.Therefore, the retail price of a 15-inch LCD monitor can be a high price of US$4,000.It's not impossible to call out $5,000.

Of course, with the doubling of product prices.The cost of production line equipment is also doubled.

"Ok."

Bai Xuecheng was convinced.Cheng Yongxing always has the final say in determining the strategic level.This inertia of thinking cannot be broken in the short term.

"Then what about the equipment removed from this production line?"

"These equipment will not be wasted. I plan to move it to Spring City. Rebuild the production line there."

This line 1 has not even recovered its cost due to mass production not long ago.In addition, the products of this production line are still in short supply and will certainly not be wasted.

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"This relates to our second topic today. That is the No. 1 project to be launched."

The few people in the room, except Yan Liang and Ye Jing, were all surprised by this new project.

During this time, the company has been busy.

Unexpectedly, this young little boss would start the battle again at this time.However, Cheng Yongxing's identity as the founder still plays a role.Several people are waiting for his next words.

"The strategy of optoelectronic scientific research is to run in small steps at the strategic level. While maturing a product, develop one and reserve one. Under this strategy, we have matured the LED production line, and the LCD production technology is also close to maturity. It’s time to move on to the next product development."

Cheng Yongxing took a sip of water and paused to give everyone time to react.The interest of several people in the room was obviously mobilized.

The success of LED and LCD has been confirmed.So what is the next product?

"The core project in the next phase is the wafer semiconductor factory."

Cheng Yongxing swept the participants on both sides of the conference table and expressed satisfaction with their expressions.Then explained:

"It's time to make some preliminary preparations for the next stage of the fab."

"Does this wafer project rely entirely on our own strength?"

Bai Xuecheng frowned.

Full-color, or optoelectronics, although it has some experience in semiconductor production.For example, LED production requires four photolithography.LCD production requires five photolithography.But they are still far behind compared to real integrated circuits.

Slightly more complex integrated circuits are all dozens of lithography!

The difference between the two is like the comparison between 90% pure gold and 99.999% pure gold.

This is basically the difference between Li Gui and Li Kui.

In the production of LEDs and LCDs, photoelectric instruments use a multi-device method.Because the number of processes is limited after all.But in wafer production, this method simply doesn't work.Should the workshop be full of lithography machines?

In addition, in the process of wafer production, this method of reducing the complexity of the equipment through static equipment is not feasible.Because, even with a single lithography machine, the lens itself moves during the lithography process.

On a wafer, multiple chips are processed at once.Due to the high precision of the chip, when wafer lithography is used, it is a chip, and a chip is lithographically used.

There are many things like this.

LCD can use the pilot line, is it also the wafer?

Therefore, the manpower and material resources required to start a wafer project can be imagined.