Chapter 233: Shocking the Rivals
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
In Gorea, at Samsin Headquarters, there was incredible shock.
“How is this possible?” Samsin’s president, Li Jianrong, widened his eyes in shock when he received the news. Perhaps he was experiencing an auditory hallucination? They had conquered the 7-nanometer chip in eight months? The 10-nanometer was skipped. They had moved directly from the 14-nanometer to the 7-nanometer. “Is this some kind of fantasy?” Skepticism was written all over his face.
He shook his head fiercely. “Impossible. Absolutely impossible! At the most, they could only have moved onto the 12 or even 10-nanometer. They simply announced it as 7-nanometer to the outside world. They’re giving out false information to get more publicity. The real performance of their chips is definitely worse than Samsin’s 12-nanometer!”
This marketing strategy had been employed by Samsin in the past. When Samsin had first started to enter the OEM industry for chip manufacturing, they frequently announced that they were the first to conquer the 12-nanometer and 10-nanometer. But the chips that they produced had mediocre performances and were far worse than even the 16 and 14-nanometer chips. Hence, they had been described as “fakes.” Even so, this strategy produced good results and Samsin received many big orders.
However, no one would fall for the same trick twice. After CPU chip manufacturing had progressed to the 7-nanometer, nearly all companies, including AMD, Fruit, and Hua Yao, had chosen Mossy Electrics as their OEM manufacturer. Many in the industry did not believe that Samsin had achieved the 7-nanometer production techniques. In reality, Samsin’s 7-nanometer chip was more like the 8 or even 9-nanometer. It was only in these couple of years that Samsin had mastered the 7-nanometer chip.
But, Mossy Electrics was about to start ma.s.s producing the 5-nanometer chip. Therefore, if Zhongxin International came to the forefront, the structure of the OEM industry for chip production would undergo tremendous change. Mossy Electric would be the industry leader, and Samsin and Zhongxin International would be in second place. But Samsin could not accept this situation. Absolutely not!
“It must be fake! They are liars!” Looking at the trial version of the chip with its running benchmark of 450,000 points, Li Jianrong felt a shadow in his heart. He silently thought, So what if you’ve conquered the 7-nanometer? How would you compete with Samsin with a yield of less than 20%? Our yield rate is four times yours.
But, the yield was something that could be continuously raised… As long as one had funds for R&D. Once their yield had been increased to a significant rate, and with Z country’s lower labor costs, after two years…
At this point, Li Jianrong hit upon an idea. He immediately said to his a.s.sistant, “Hurry and announce this. From today onwards, we’ll reduce the charges for OEM chip production by 10%! We must never let Z country’s companies take away our OEM orders!”
“Yes, President!” The a.s.sistant left the office.
Li Jianrong suddenly felt a headache coming on. Chips that had brought in 60 billion in annual revenues would see their price reduced by half. The NAND storage had experienced many price reductions since the previous year. The selling price of every 1GB of storage s.p.a.ce was less than $0.10. There was no profit at all. They were involved in a price war with Z country over the screens and panels. Losses had started appearing last year. Z country had achieved breakthroughs even in the OEM industry for chips.
A full frontal a.s.sault. That was the phrase that suddenly appeared in his mind. Although his Samsin empire was as powerful as before, its foundations had already been shaken under this a.s.sault. In addition, with Z country’s government backing them up, there was no way that Purple Ray would collapse even if Samsin attempted the “Law of The Downswing” for the fourth time. Z country’s government would never allow this company to collapse even if their market share was essentially zero. It was not even worth mentioning the many products of Xing Hai Technologies. Purple Ray, Da Jiang Storages, and Zhongxin International could be sustained simply with the sales of phones that were installed with the Star Cloud system.
So… Li Jianrong, who was feeling extremely confident about “slaughtering the dragon” mere days ago, now thought that his prospects were bleak. He could only brandish his fist and yell “Ah! Hah!” to vent the frustration in his heart.
…
In a particular private villa on Treasure Island, after hearing Liu De Ming’s report, the founder of Mossy Electrics, Zhang Zhongmou, widened his eyes. “They really did it, and in such a short period of time.” Disbelief was written all over the old man’s face.
“Old man, I don’t think it’s the 7-nanometer.” Liu De Ming shook his head. “At most, it might be the 10 or 9-nanometer. We took 5 years to conquer the 7-nanometer. Their technological repertoire is much weaker than ours, how could they achieve that in less time than us? It’s a fake process! They must have employed the same strategy by Samsin to inflate their share prices. Even so, this is a pretty good achievement.”
The old man shook his head. He raised his face and looked towards the direction of the mainland. “We should be happy for their achievements. But now, we have one more compet.i.tor.”
Liu De Ming frowned. “A crazy Samsin that reduces their prices drastically to get orders is enough of a headache for us. And now, there’s Zhongxin… Old man, how should we handle this?”
“I’m not in a position to meddle. I’ve quit the company. You can decide how to manage this situation. This had nothing to do with me.” Suddenly, the old man sighed. “It’s difficult. We’re always prideful over every little small achievement of ours and looked down on them on various things. We had thought that Z country would remain forever outdated and never catch up to us. We’ve never seriously considered the environment where our R&D had taken place and their environment where their scientific research had taken place. Whenever there was any refined or high-end equipment that we could not manufacture, we could simply import them from Merica, j.a.pan, or Europe. There were no sanctions against us. Behind us is the advanced and powerful industrial system of Europe, M, and not by such a small island. Our development was aided by the advanced and powerful industrial systems of Merica, j.a.pan, and Europe. We did not depend on ourselves as a small island. As for them, they started from the very bottom. They could only depend on themselves in every aspect! When it comes to essential technologies, Europe and Merica had never relaxed their isolationist policy towards Z country for the past decades. They bore the brunt of Europe and Merica’s isolationist policies. Their technological sanctions against them were the strictest out of all the countries. They don’t want to sell even a higher grade screw to the mainland. But, Z country still managed to achieve an admirable success under these kind of circ.u.mstances. Anyone can ridicule the mainland for being outdated and undeveloped, but we are the only ones who don’t have that right! Although Mossy Electrics is number one in the world, the mainland has many other companies that are also the top in the world! Now, even their OEM chip production is slowly catching up. If certain people in our island still refuse to open up their minx and continue to underestimate the mainlanders, I predict that they will surpa.s.s us in our last area of pride and joy within 10 years… That would be really tragic, although I would probably be dead by that time. This island would be thoroughly impoverished.”
These were the words of the 91-year-old elderly man.
When he heard these words, Liu De Ming shook his head fiercely. “No, old man, it won’t happen! They will never surpa.s.s us! Not even in 10 or 20 years! We’re the top in the world. We’ll forever remain the pride of Treasure Island!”
Never surpa.s.s?
The old man laughed in self-deprecation. “We had to use a myriad of methods to overcome the problem of transistor leakage caused by quantum effects before we were able to successfully progress to the 5-nanometer chip production. But, we might not advance to the 3-nanometer chip even with ten years. We’re at the end of the alley with pursuers hot on our feet. ” The old man shook his head again. “With the speed that the mainland is catching up to us… After 10 years…”
Liu De Ming’s heart sank. He left the villa, and decided on his way home that he would persuade the board of directors to reduce the charges of OEM chip production by Mossy Electrics by 15%! He clenched his fist. “Zhongxin International, you will never achieve great success. The t.i.tle of number one will always belong to us!”