In May 1994, the PC memory stick of the newly started semiconductor was not officially produced and launched, but it had already shocked the memory market.

On May 5, the 8mb memory stick in the PC market plummeted from a sky-high price of more than US$100 to US$80 per stick. On May 6, it fell to US$75 per stick.

PC users all over the world are happy to see it and are welcome to hear price cuts!

Afterwards, memory manufacturers spoke out, believing that the PC memory of newly entrepreneurial semiconductors was only staying in the plan and would not enter the market soon, but by May 15, the 8mb memory stick fell below $70.

Subsequently, memory manufacturers such as Samsung, Magnesium and other memory manufacturers announced that they would reduce the ex-factory price of memory sticks, and the ex-factory price of 8mb memory sticks for PC computers was reduced to US$60. As for the market retail price, it rebounded to US$75.

Originally, memory chip manufacturers, including Samsung, believed that even if a new entrepreneur semiconductor company wants to produce memory sticks on the PC platform, it will take at least 3 to 6 months to see the memory stick sales of the PC version of the new entrepreneur semiconductor, and if mass production is performed, it may be next year.

But on May 17, Xinxing Semiconductor released a news trial production of edo memory sticks. edo memory sticks were widely used in 386,486 and Pentium computers between 1991 and 1995, with a capacity ranging from 4mb to 16mb, which is larger than the previous generation of fpm Dram memory sticks.

At present, the PC market edo memory is considered the mainstream memory.

After this news was released, the 8mb memory stick in the PC market fell below $60! The 4mb capacity memory stick has dropped to $20!

Subsequently, the newly-enterprise semiconductor company announced that it would give away 1,000 8mb capacity edo memory sticks worldwide to solicit user review opinions. If users publish the review suggestions through relevant sections of the Yahoo website, they can receive a royalty of US$1,000.

A total of more than 30,000 users were drawn, and 1,000 lucky users were drawn. The winning rate was 30, which should be considered relatively high.

These memory sticks are delivered to users one after another through international express delivery.

Afterwards, a bunch of review articles and review articles in different languages ​​appeared on the Yahoo website, constantly singing praises to new entrepreneurial semiconductors.

"... Although, I applied for the review out of curiosity. After getting the 8mb memory stick, I found that it was the same as the memory slot in my 486 computer. After plugging in the memory stick, the computer was smooth and perfectly compatible. Even the memory frequency was higher than the original memory. The previous memory stick frequency was only 66mhz, but I found that the memory stick frequency for the new entrepreneurial semiconductors was as high as 100mhz. Although the frequency is not as important as the capacity, a higher frequency also means faster speed, which is very satisfying!"

"I hope that the memory of newly-entrepreneurial semiconductors will be launched soon. Before it is launched, memory manufacturers have reduced prices one after another. I am already looking forward to more preferential prices in the memory market on the market."

"I envy Pangu computers for using cheaper and larger memory, but there is no way. Our country stipulates that government office computers can only use PCs, and not Pangu. For office needs, we have to pinch our noses and use PCs. So much so that Pangu has a memory capacity of 64mb in the 8th generation, and my Pentium computer has a memory capacity of 8mb. It is hard to imagine that this is a product of the same generation!"

...

May 26, 1994.

Lin Qi went to the newly entrepreneurial semiconductor company and personally inquired about the progress of the memory project.

"Mr. Lin, I have asked employees to work overtime, and strive to achieve mass production in June. In July, PC memory began to be sold online." Hu Weiwu said, "At present, the production line originally used to produce Luban's first generation CPU chips is adjusted to produce memory chips. 80% of the chip processing equipment in the 1-micron chip factory actually does not need to be replaced. After all, quite a lot of equipment is common in the semiconductor industry. Therefore, the investment in equipment is not very expensive. It takes about 3 million to 8 million US dollars to complete the transformation of the production line. The first production line cost is $8 million to $8 million to be transformed into a budget of $8 million.

Because of lack of experience, after a few more modifications, it can be done within 3 million US dollars. The biggest difficulty in adjusting the production line is that employees need to quickly adapt to the production of new products. Fortunately, the current employee size of our factory exceeds 30,000, and the technical backbone employees exceed 5,000. It is easier to transfer 1,000 elite soldiers and transform the first production line. The biggest difference may be the packaging stage, that is, the slot interface of the memory stick is different. But for a large factory like us, there is no difficulty at all! It should be no problem to let the product be released in July."

"Okay! For memory products, profits are not important. Important sniping companies such as Samsung and expand our semiconductor industry!" Lin Qi said.

"Actually... PC memory, estimate the profit, should be very profitable!" Hu Weiwu said, "We are using production lines with similar depreciation to transform production. The investment in equipment is very low, and the current price of memory sticks is even more cost-effective than the price of Pangu 1st generation CPU. It is equivalent to transferring low-profit products to high-profit products. Originally, Pangu 1st generation CPU production lines were gradually being eliminated one after another. After the equipment was eliminated, the equipment was sold at a low price. Now, doing so has a greater profit margin."

"Okay!" Lin Qi was pleased with the efficiency of the new semiconductors at present. China's Tsinghua, Jinhua and other domestic chip factories in later generations have introduced overseas lithography equipment, and planned to invest more than US$50 billion to enter the memory particle and flash memory particle market. However, it has been planned for more than three years and has not yet entered mass production. Even if the equipment has arrived at the factory, it is difficult to train qualified industrial workers.

Simply put, in the past, there was no money or equipment. When I had money and equipment, I found that the equipment was in place and people still needed training. Moreover, the process level in later generations was already in the 7-nanometer era. Even if I used the same 7-nanometer lithography machine, I guess that I could achieve 14-nanometer accuracy at the beginning.

Only by continuous research and development and production can qualified craftsmen be cultivated from generation to generation.

The later, the more important the talent is. Even now, when there is no equipment or capital, many people think that it is just a poor equipment and technology. When the equipment is obtained, the technology will be shipped and transported. But... it still requires a large number of talents who have thoroughly understood the technology, right?

After getting ready-made technology, it has been 1 to 2 generations behind the competitor's most advanced technology. When you can fully understand it, five or six years may have passed...

The most important thing in the domestic semiconductor industry today is that it is not from scratch. The core giants of the entire semiconductor industry, newly entrepreneurial semiconductors and Lishan Semiconductor, have tens of thousands of experienced technical employees. The entire country has at least hundreds of thousands of talent reserves. If you count all the major supporting industries, there are millions of people.

With more employees in the industry, there will be more teams and talent reserves that can solve the difficulties.

For memory sticks with an 8mb capacity, there is not much difference in mass production costs of memory sticks under two different technical standard systems, PC and Pangu.

For mass-produced chip factories, the cost of 8mb per memory stick can be less than US$15 per piece. Even if some newly put into production lines have expensive depreciation costs, the cost of mass-producing should still be difficult to exceed US$25.

At present, 8mb memory sticks should be the mainstream memory stick in the PC market. The reason why the price is as high as $100 is that major memory manufacturers need to use mature products to make profits and prepare more capital for subsequent technology upgrades.

For example, at this stage, it is a 1-micron process technology that produces 4mb to 16mb memory sticks, and the investment threshold for chip factories is between 5 million and 15 million US dollars.

However, the next generation of chip factories, which produce memory sticks with a capacity of 32mb to 128mb, requires a 0.5 micron process to start, and the budget of a chip factory is increased to more than 50 million US dollars.

This is just the investment in the hardware facilities of chip factories. The supporting facilities of other employees train various industrial chains have increased the entry threshold for the next-generation memory chip factory to more than US$100 million. However, only one chip factory can be invested in 100 million, which is difficult to form a scale effect, and the cost will be more expensive than the large-scale production giants with a bunch of chip factories.

Therefore, memory chip factories, including Samsung, are all using mature memory products of 4mb to 16mb to continuously make money and save money for the next generation of process processes.

It is precisely because of this that from around 1991 to 1995, the technology of memory manufacturers was relatively stagnant in the 4mb to 16mb era. On the one hand, it was because of the technical defects of edo memory, which made its capacity and frequency increase relatively slow. In addition, it was because memory stick manufacturers were more willing to stagnate the process and continued to squeeze huge profits with old process production lines.

The newly entrepreneurial semiconductor company began to produce Pangu computer memory at Samsung Semiconductor, and directly began to sell low-priced memory sticks to the PC market, which was actually a blow-up table!

Even if you sell an 8mb memory stick for $35, you will not lose money. On the contrary, the profit margin is still quite amazing.

After all, the newly started semiconductors do not need to put into production a new chip factory. Instead, they transformed the chip production line that originally produced CPUs for Pangu and 7 generations, from producing CPUs to producing memory sticks. Although some new equipment is still needed, the cost of renovating a production line is less than 3 million US dollars. After transforming a production line, it is conservatively estimated that 50,000 memory sticks can be produced every month. Without shortage of orders, each transformed production line is expected to be able to make back the investment in production line transformation in just about 3 months. After that, the profit of more than one million US dollars per month can be said to be more profitable than producing CPUs.

Even if the new production line is not put into production, it is just to transform the old production line. The newly-start semiconductor company currently has about 60 1 micron chip factories.

If half of it is converted into a memory production line, it can produce 1.5 million to 2 million 8mb memory sticks every month. This production capacity alone is equivalent to half of Samsung Semiconductor now.

This is also the transformation and utilization of the backward production capacity of new entrepreneurial semiconductors. At present, the main investment aspect is still 0.5 micron process, which produces Luban's second-generation CPUs to supply Pangu computers and arm chips to supply Kirin mobile phones.

If it is true, Samsung semiconductor is weaker than newly started semiconductors in terms of production capacity and process level.
Chapter completed!