May 22, 2013.

The third tropical cyclone, Capricorn, this year, began to move towards the Nanbo Bay after entering the South China Sea.

The storm caused by the typhoon has had a huge impact on the production and life on the island.

In Hsinchu Industrial Park.

TSMC Headquarters Building is also facing a "storm" at this time.

The major reshuffle of the global semiconductor industry has entered a more intense stage this month.

MediaTek was officially merged by Datang Semiconductor in early May, 54.6% of Goryeo Samsung's shares were swallowed up by Chinese capital, UMC was controlled by Inspur, Tokyo Electronics announced bankruptcy reorganization, Yuexin Materials was merged by the United States Applied Materials, and Hynix was sold to Changjiang Storage as a whole.

These things have been going on fiercely in the past few months, and big companies have been beaten to kneel down and beg for mercy, let alone those small companies.

Zhang Zhongmou held the document in his hand, and his hands couldn't help trembling. The document in his hand was a Nanbowan Semiconductor Industry Research Report.

At its peak, Hsinchu Industrial Park had about 400 semiconductor-related companies, with annual operating income of 30 to 50 billion meters and 113,000 semiconductor practitioners, known as the "Oriental Silicon Valley".

However, under the continuous impact, Hsinchu Industrial Park has declined from prosperity since 2011.

At this time, there were only 86 companies left in the industrial park that went bankrupt or were not acquired; there were only about 27,000 related semiconductor practitioners left.

Obviously, as the leading company of Nanbo Bay Semiconductor, TSMC has become the last bastion of the Nanbo Bay Semiconductor industry.

But Zhang Zhongmou also felt powerless to turn things around.

Li Yuanzhao, the manager of the legal department, said painfully: "Mr. Zhang, let's surrender! If you persist, the company will have to file for bankruptcy."

"Li Yuanzhao, you are a traitor..." A vice president cursed.

Zhang Zhongmou slapped the table and shouted: "Okay! When is it now? I'm still criticizing each other here. What's the use?"

Deputy Technical Executive Cai Guobin said with a heavy face: "Everyone, Manager Li is actually right, we really can't maintain it."

They naturally knew the difficult dilemma in front of them.

TSMC has been deeply engaged in lithography. Although it can now mass-produce 16-18-nanometer chips on a small scale, the problem is that they have encountered a very fatal problem - patents.

That's right! It's a patent issue.

Logically speaking, with TSMC's industry status as the world's largest lithography chip foundry, coupled with its backing to Wall Street, and has close exchanges and cooperation with the lithography semiconductor industry, and has even been among the best in semiconductor patent holdings.

Under normal circumstances, only TSMC will charge others' patent fees or get stuck.

But TSMC succeeds and lithography is also the result of lithography.

If lithography is united within the lithography method, TSMC can reach patent exemptions with other companies and even receive some patent fees with its own patent library.

The problem is the split within the lithography semiconductor company. After SMIC went bankrupt, it was acquired by ZTE Group. Other Chinese-funded companies successively controlled lithography semiconductor companies such as MediaTek, UMC, Goryeo Samsung, and Hynix.

In this case, part of the total patent library of lithography semiconductors has been mastered by Chinese capital.

However, the Chinese Semiconductor Alliance uses textile semiconductors and does not require patent exemptions from TSMC, Intel, Qualcomm and Apple.

In this way, these lithography semiconductor patents have become weapons for Chinese-funded enterprises, either prohibiting the other party from using their own patents or charging high patent fees.

Affected by the patent war, TSMC has been seriously affected. The chip production line cannot be produced at all, and it will be sued as soon as it is produced.

If there is a huge local market like Intel and Texas Instruments, you can also be stubborn and have a long-term patent lawsuit, and take advantage of local partiality and resist it.

However, TSMC is a company that mainly exports. If it does not abide by patent laws, it will be difficult to move forward in the international market.

Zhang Zhongmou wanted to compromise and planned to sell part of TSMC shares to Huawei.

Unfortunately, his small abacus failed. Not only did the Nanbo Bay Integrated Circuit Investment Fund (one of TSMC's major shareholders) disagree greatly, but even Wall Street, which has been busy with local economic issues, prevented Huawei from acquiring TSMC.

Under the tearing of both sides, TSMC also began to reach its end.

It lost 8.6 billion meters in the first quarter, and 15.7 billion meters in the second quarter. Together with the previous losses, TSMC's current debt is as high as 57.3 billion meters, and this number is increasing day by day.

They originally wanted to win a game with new technology, but the desperate bet on new technology made them lose all the money, accelerating the speed of TSMC's defeat.

The closed-door meeting started from noon to late at night.

Zhang Zhongmou kept talking to the Nanbowan Integrated Circuit Investment Fund and Wall Street investors, hoping that they could sell TSMC's shares.

But the answers he got were all ambiguous and perfunctory.

Several investment companies on Wall Street are willing to take stocks, but Noah will disagree with this matter, and they have no funds to mobilize to acquire TSMC now.

According to the current situation, it is obvious that Wall Street plans to wait for TSMC to go bankrupt before taking action to buy back the relevant assets.

Zhang Zhongmou, with gray hair, hadn't eaten all day, and his voice became hoarse when he called, but in the end he only received perfunctory and refusal.

Cai Guobin, the deputy technical executive, delivered a box of lunch to the table: "Mr. Zhang, eat a little! Your health is important."

Looking at the conference room, no one dared to eat, Zhang Zhongmou nodded: "Everyone should eat!"

After saying that, I opened the lunch box and even though it was tasteless, I took a few bites.

In order to ease the atmosphere, Cai Guobin turned on the computer, called out today's entertainment program, and played it on the big screen.

As he was eating, Zhang Zhongmou saw a familiar name appear on the news scrolling entry below the program.

He stopped the chopsticks and asked the secretary to call out today's news.

The news was found soon.

It turned out that after ZTE Group reorganized ZTE Microelectronics, it invited Zhang Rujing to be the chief technology executive of ZTE Microelectronics.

ZTE Microelectronics also issued invitation advertisements, inviting semiconductor practitioners from home and abroad to join ZTE Microelectronics.

Obviously, after ZTE Group merged with the remaining assets of SMIC, it intends to use Zhang Rujing's influence in the Nanbowan semiconductor industry to attract more semiconductor practitioners on the island to join ZTE Microelectronics.

After reading this news, Zhang Zhongmou remained silent for a long time.

Everyone did not dare to speak out, so they could only eat silently.

After all, the grudges between Zhang Rujing and TSMC can almost be said to be irreconcilable. Now TSMC is shaking. With Zhang Rujing's influence in the industry, it is estimated that a large number of technicians will be pulled away.

"What can you do if this is the general trend!" Zhang Zhongmou sighed.

May 25, 2013.

TSMC has started large-scale layoffs within its office, with more than 90% of its employees being fired. This is the fourth time they have laid off employees this year.

Bad news also came from patent companies in Australia and West China, TSMC was found to have infringed on 3,587 patents of the Semiconductor Alliance, and a total of 67.2 billion yuan of Huayuan.

Finally, on the morning of the 26th.
Chapter completed!