Wang Yi's words were full of helplessness: "Director Qin, the research and development of the 10-nanometer process normally takes 36 months."

"In order to shorten the R&D cycle and surpass Samsung, TSMC has invested thousands of engineers and adopted a 24-hour three-shift model!"

"In addition, TSMC has also dispatched 500 to 800 top engineers to form a technical Nighthawk team. It implements two shifts in 24 hours and fully closed mode."

"These 500 top engineers cover process integration, lithography, film, etching and other fields, and have more than five years of advanced process experience."

"It is divided into two shifts, one is a day shift, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., focusing on experimental execution and data analysis."

"The other shift is the evening shift, from 7 pm to 7 pm the next morning, focusing on equipment debugging and process verification."

"There will be a meeting for half an hour of shift handover every day. All results and subsequent R&D deployment will be fully communicated and handed over between the two shifts."

"In this way, under the 12-hour shift system, the ultimate R&D model of continuous shutdown of people is achieved!"

"The biggest advantage under this model is that the 10-nanometer process that originally took 36 months to develop was planned to be able to be produced within 24 months!"

"In this way, the 10-nanometer process can be completed in mid-2016, and equipment debugging can achieve 10-nanometer risk mass production in the fourth quarter of 2016!"

Upon hearing this, Director Qin's face changed sharply: "In the second half of 2016, that is, the year after, TSMC will be able to achieve mass production of 10-nanometer chips? So fast!"

Wang Yi nodded: "It's not just TSMC, but Samsung is the same. Samsung's 10-nanometer process will also be mass-produced in the fourth quarter of 2016!"

"This..." Director Qin's expression became complicated: "So, the gap we finally narrowed was quickly opened up again?"

"That's right. We are currently developing a 14-nanometer process. If nothing unexpected happens, energy production will be a little slower than Samsung's 14-nanometer and a little faster than TSMC's 16-nanometer. But the 10-nanometer process will be surpassed again. No one from us."

"Wait, what did you say just now?" Director Qin suddenly stood up, full of incredible: "Singyi Semiconductor's 14-nanometer process will produce energy next year? Is it faster than TSMC's 16-nanometer process?"

"yes."

"really?"

"really!"

"Okay, OK, Xingyi Semiconductor is a good one, haha, it can actually catch up with Samsung at 14 nanometers and lead TSMC. That's great!"

Director Qin was very excited: "This is something that I can't even think about. Could it be that you have also given up the 20-nanometer process?"

Wang Yi nodded: "Yes, if we develop step by step, we can only mass-produce 20 nanometers next year, but Samsung and TSMC have achieved 14/16 nanometers, which makes no sense. Our 20 nanometers still lag behind as soon as it lands."

"No one can be a competitor to TSMC in step-by-step research and development. They can only develop in a leap."

"But unfortunately, even if TSMC is a little ahead of 14 nanometers next year, the subsequent 10-nanometer process will be greatly overtaken by TSMC. Now they have started 10-nanometer research and development, and while maintaining normal R&D of 20-nanometer and 16-nanometer, they still dispatched 500 top engineers to form the Nighthawk team, and two shifts will fight 10-nanometer!"

"In comparison, our Xingyi Semiconductor has only more than 400 top engineers!"

"Yes, the gap is that big."

"The total number of TSMC engineers is about 40,000, and there are thousands of advanced process R&D engineers. You can easily draw out 500 elite troops to form a two-shift Nighthawk team."

"We have a total of 400 advanced process process R&D engineers in Xingyi Semiconductor, of which 250 are working hard to develop 14 nanometers. The remaining 150 people are developing 10 nanometer processes, and the progress is much slower than TSMC."

Director Qin's face became solemn: "Yes, even if a team develops a 10-nanometer process, it takes about 250 people. 150 people are indeed not enough, let alone the two teams are falling."

"Yes, if this continues, our 10-nanometer process will be two years behind TSMC. The progress that has finally caught up will quickly disappear." Wang Yi was very sad.

"Oh!" Director Qin sighed: "The key is the talent gap. The mainland lacks semiconductor talents."

"Yes, although we dug some, it's still not enough, it's too far."

"Can you get transferred from a university or other research institute?" Director Qin asked.

Wang Yi shook his head: "It's difficult, it's very difficult. What we need to develop a 10-nanometer process is not ordinary semiconductor talents, but top semiconductor talents in advanced processes."

"For example, the 500 Nighthawk team members drawn by TSMC are not ordinary semiconductor talents, but elites with more than 5 years of advanced process research and development experience. It can be said that each of them is a top engineer in the semiconductor field!"

"The simplest thing is that these 500 people have participated in TSMC's 28-nanometer R&D, 20-nanometer R&D, and even 16-nanometer R&D, and have been around for more than five years!"

"Only top engineers of this level can participate in the core technology breakthrough of the 10-nanometer process."

"In addition to these 500 top engineers responsible for technical breakthroughs, TSMC also simultaneously invested 2,500 backbone engineers to cooperate with R&D, and 1,000-2,000 outstanding engineers as support teams, responsible for equipment debugging, material research and development, design collaboration and other work."

"As for the elites from mainland universities or other research institutes, to put it bluntly, the processes they developed are all 90 nanometers, 120 nanometers, and even micrometers, which are all old things."

"These people are almost the same for developing 55 nanometers, and developing 40 nanometers is troublesome, let alone 10 nanometers."

"It can be said that the one they learned is the car in the Steam Age."

"What we want to build is modern supercars, which are not the things of the same era at all. They cannot use their experience, theoretical system, and technology."

"Not to mention the 500-defense team of the Nighthawk Project, even a 2,500-person R&D team is difficult. Many of them can only be regarded as support teams."

"This..." Director Qin was silent and frightened: "The highest-end semiconductor research institutes and universities in the mainland are already so behind?"

"You're welcome, this is true. Unless it is special, such as military semiconductors, such as Beihang's aerospace semiconductors, these fields require chip reliability first, and the process is not important, even 90 nanometers or 120 nanometers, it can be used."

"But our consumer electronics field is different. The iPhone 6 series in the second half of this year will use 20-nanometer chips, 14-nanometers next year, and 10-nanometers later. Those old things will not be used."

"Not only that, the things taught in mainland universities are also outdated and old-fashioned."

"So it is useless to recruit 985 semiconductor graduates from prestigious universities in the mainland. After joining the company, they have to learn the theoretical system of advanced processes from scratch. It often takes one to two years to become qualified first-level R&D engineers."

Wang Yiyue said that Director Qin's face became more and more serious: "I understand that there is something wrong with our training system. The mentors from mainland universities themselves do not understand the advanced processes, and what they teach students is naturally outdated, so even if they graduate from a doctorate, they cannot use it. They still have to study and re-train."

"Yes, it is precisely because of this that our Xingyi Semiconductor cannot recruit enough engineers. We can only poach people from TSMC, Samsung, and Intel, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to poach people, and the number is too small."

Wang Yiwei said: "TSMC has more than 40,000 engineers, Samsung has nearly 30,000, Intel has more than 50,000 engineers, and even SMIC has 10,000 engineers."

"And our Xingyi Semiconductor started too late. No matter how high the salary is, it is not as good as the accumulation of other giants over the past few decades. At present, the total number of engineers is only more than 1,000, and the advanced process R&D engineers are only about 400. It's too much worse."

"According to my estimate, the number of engineers of Xingyi Semiconductor must reach at least 20,000, of which 8,000 R&D engineers must reach 8,000!"

"The core R&D engineers of advanced processes need to reach 1,500, and there is still a gap of more than 1,000 people!"

Wang Yi's estimate is considered conservative.

For example, TSMC directly invested 5,000 engineers, including 500 top engineers in order to develop a 10-nanometer process.

Samsung is about the same, at least 4,000 people!

Why can't SMIC's 28-nanometer process be achieved for a long time?

There are too few people.

Especially the core R&D engineers of advanced processes, there are too few.

Although Xingyi Semiconductor has few people, it has the team brought by Mr. Hu, coupled with subsequent recruitment, and spending money to poach people, creating an advanced process team of more than 400 people.

In addition, Mr. Hu, the super giant, was in charge, and he created 40 nanometers and 28 nanometers in one fell swoop.

It can be said that although Xingyi Semiconductor has few people, they are all elites in advanced manufacturing processes.

For example, the more than 200 people brought by Mr. Hu initially were all top elites. He had participated in 40-nanometer processes or even 28-nanometer processes before, and had rich experience.

Therefore, Xingyi Technology is progressing smoothly with 40 nanometers and 28 nanometers.

With these experiences, it was also very smooth to develop 14 nanometers again.

But SMIC engineers are different. Only a very small number have participated in the 40-nanometer and 28-nanometer research and development of Samsung, TSMC, and Intel, and have switched jobs to join SMIC.

The others are hard to describe.

The key is not the number of R&D engineers, but the number of engineers with advanced process R&D experience.

Wang Yi continued to complain: "It is not enough to poach people with such a big gap, so we can only cultivate it ourselves, but the current system of our mainland universities cannot be cultivated. This is difficult to deal with!"

"This matter cannot be solved. Mainland semiconductor talents will continue to be in a serious state of lack of power, so our competition with TSMC and Samsung will always be at a disadvantage."

Word by word, Wang Yi analyzed it clearly.

Director Qin nodded repeatedly, his face becoming more and more serious: "This is indeed a big problem. Mr. Wang, what solution do you have?"

"have."

“How to solve it?”

"Combining industry and education, targeted cultivation!"

Wang Yi opened the folder and explained in detail to Director Qin.

Director Qin nodded repeatedly: "This strategy is good, laying the foundation in one year, and starting to take on the advanced process theoretical system the next year, and directly targetedly train advanced process engineers!"

"Okay, great. This is indeed the best solution and can completely shorten the cultivation time."

"I fully agree that extra enrollment is not a problem, and cooperation among other top universities is not a problem either!"

"It's not too late to do this. You leave the documents to me and I'll go find them now. This year, we will start to cultivate the first batch of targeted talents."

Wang Yi was in a good mood. Director Qin said so, so this matter was basically stable.

"Director Qin, I'm working hard. I have some new suggestions."

"you say."

"Even if we start enrolling students in September this year and come into contact with advanced process theory system in September next year, the internship will take three years after the year. This is too slow."

Director Qin nodded, that's true.

"So I think, in addition to the targeted training from the beginning of my freshman year, can we directly screen some of the most elite from the existing undergraduate, master's and doctoral students from famous universities in related majors, so that they can graduate early and sign contracts to enter the internship of Xingyi Semiconductor. In this way, they will be the only one next year."

Director Qin thought: "The current undergraduate, master and doctoral students have studied for several years and have a certain professional foundation. They graduated early and entered Xingyi Semiconductor directly, and went into mature technology. They will become qualified engineers next year."

"Yes, and these people are still young! They can grow better."
To be continued...