eurekapd Chapter 484 Liang Mengsong's Breakthrough in Singapore
Chapter 484 Liang Mengsong's Breakthrough in Singapore
The good news from the Singapore wafer fab arrived in the early hours of the morning. Liang Mengsong wrote only one line in the email: "0.13-micron copper interconnect process successfully mass-produced, yield 88%." No exclamation marks, no superfluous adjectives. That's just how he is; the bigger the event, the shorter the description.
Ling Yun saw the email at six in the morning, before dawn. He stood by the office window with his coffee, read the sentence over and over again, and then dialed Liang Mengsong's number.
"Mr. Liang, an 88% yield rate—how much faster than expected?"
"Two months." There was a low hum of machinery on the other end of the phone. Liang Mengsong's voice was devoid of much emotion. "In Singapore, we can now handle the entire process from design to manufacturing. Our own wafer fabs, our own processes, our own chips. Everything's running smoothly."
Ling Yun paused for a few seconds, holding the phone. "Thanks for your hard work. What time is it where you are?"
"Three o'clock in the morning."
"Why not post it during the day?"
"The data just came out, I don't want to wait until dawn." Liang Mengsong paused, "There's something else. TSMC's new factory in Singapore is progressing faster than we expected. Their R&D building was topped out last week, and they're poaching our people. They're offering three or five times the salary. I've already lost seven core engineers this quarter."
Ling Yun placed the coffee cup on the windowsill. "How many more do you estimate will leave?"
“If it were just a salary issue, a raise could solve it. But they’ve brought in other things to poach us—positions on the 12-inch wafer fabrication line, state-of-the-art manufacturing processes, and opportunities for promotion at TSMC headquarters. I can’t offer those.” Liang Mengsong’s voice was still calm, but Ling Yun could hear the weariness beneath that calm. “Ling Yun, to be honest with you, sentiment alone can’t retain everyone. Some have just had a baby, some have parents who are sick and need money. Five times the salary means they won’t have to squeeze into HDB flats anymore, they won’t have to live on a tight budget anymore. I can’t stop them.”
"I didn't ask you to stop me," Lingyun said. "I'm flying to Singapore this week."
The wafer fab in Woodlands, Singapore, was converted from an old factory purchased from Chartered Semiconductor. The exterior walls have been repainted with a new gray paint, but the palm trees in the factory area are still the original ones. Liang Mengsong's office is on the second floor, with a coconut tree directly in front of the window. A coconut falls and hits the grass with a dull thud.
Liang Mengsong placed the personnel turnover statistics table on the table. Seven people in three months. The three most important ones were the deputy director of the process integration department, the group leader of the lithography group, and a senior engineer in the etching group. All of them were key personnel who had worked there for more than four years.
"I've arranged a company-wide meeting," Liang Mengsong said. "You'll give the presentation."
The meeting was held in the factory canteen. There weren't enough chairs, so some people sat at the tables, while others leaned against the food serving window. Ling Yun stood at the very front of the canteen, with a whiteboard displaying the week's menu behind him.
"TSMC can offer you higher salaries," he said, his voice echoing in the cafeteria, "but they can't give you one thing—a sense of participation in history. What you're doing now isn't working for someone else. It's creating a world-class chip manufacturing company of your own."
The cafeteria was so quiet you could hear the hum of the refrigerator compressor in the corner. A young engineer in a cleanroom suit sat in the front row, clutching his anti-static cap that he had just taken off.
"Ten years ago, when we acquired our first electronics factory in Jinan, someone asked me, 'What makes you, a recent graduate, qualified to take over a factory on the verge of bankruptcy?' Five years ago, when we started working on StarCore chips, someone else asked me, 'You don't even have your own wafer fab, how can you compete with Qualcomm?' Two years ago, when we took over Chartered Semiconductor's old factory and renovated it ourselves, some people said we were just picking up other people's junk." Ling Yun paused for a moment. "Now, we're mass-producing 0.13-micron chips. The chips we make run in the phones we make, and they're sold all over the world. Those who asked us 'what makes you qualified' are now asking—'How did you do it?'"
Someone below chuckled softly.
"I want you to remember this feeling." Ling Yun looked at the engineers in cleanroom suits in front of him. "Ten years from now, when your children ask you, 'Mom and Dad, where were you during that chip breakthrough battle?' I hope you can say—'I was on the front lines.'"
The young engineer folded the anti-static cap and put it in his pocket.
After the conference, Liang Mengsong drove Ling Yun to the airport. Neither of them spoke in the car. As they approached Changi Airport, Liang Mengsong suddenly spoke.
"When that lithography team leader resigned last time, he told me privately, 'President Liang, it's not that I don't love Xinghuo, but my daughter needs to go to an international school, and the tuition is 40,000 Singapore dollars a year. Five times the salary is right in front of me, I can't refuse.' He tapped his fingers twice on the steering wheel. 'I told him, go ahead. Come back when Xinghuo is better. He said, 'President Liang, I will definitely come back.'"
Ling Yun looked out the windshield at the rainforest on both sides of the highway. "Once Starlight II is built and the 12-inch wafer fabrication line is operational, their promotion path will be clear. We'll raise salaries again, and all core engineers will be given stock options. What we can offer right now isn't enough, but the gap is narrowing."
"It's not just about salaries." Liang Mengsong parked the car on the departure level of the terminal and turned off the engine. "TSMC's greatest strength isn't its money, but its entire ecosystem—from design services to packaging and testing, from IP libraries to EDA tool support, it's all integrated. It's like a high-end restaurant where you don't have to worry about anything once you walk in. Right now, we're like building our own stove; before the food is even cooked, we're already choked by the fumes."
"Then let's set up the stove first." Ling Yun opened the car door, turned around and said, "Let them see that the dishes cooked on a Chinese stove taste just as good as anyone else's."