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A textbook-style rise in a country’s high-tech industry.

Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Magic Iron World” (ID :jiangpeiyu0916), the author of the magic iron, this article first issued Tencent Technology, can not be reproduced without authorization.

Targeting:

• Pu Zhengxi said that the transistor looks small, but the price is so high. The price of a transistor in a handbag is more than the cotton textiles exported by a granary in Korea. So “China wants to develop the electronics industry, please (Dr. King) Help.”

• In the 1980s, Japan made great strides in the semiconductor chip market and earned a lot of money. Therefore, the words of Inaba Hideyoshi are very authoritative and completely touched Lee Byeong-soo: (making semiconductors) is more promising than selling sugar and fertilizer. !

• If you lose another three or four years, Samsung will probably not be able to sustain it under the pressure of Japanese companies. At the crucial moment, Samsung is welcoming the opportunity to turn over: the United States has made a big stick to Japanese semiconductors.

• Fuji Semiconductor, one of the top five, has turned its semiconductor factory into a vegetable greenhouse and planted pollution-free lettuce. Each sold for 400 yen, the profits are even higher than the production of DRAM chips.

• Japan has also learned the lesson. In 1994, the first two years after the termination of the Japan-US Semiconductor Agreement, the US-Japan broke the automobile trade friction. Japan’s pressure to withstand the United States did not allow the United States to exceed its requirements and avoided Japan. The automotive industry is repeating the mistakes of the semiconductor industry.

Text:

For more than a month, the trade friction between Japan and South Korea on key semiconductor materials has not seen signs of easing. The impact is continuing to ferment. The Bank of Korea recently warned in a report that Japan’s measures to limit the export of high-tech materials may have a greater impact on the Korean economy than on tariffs, which will lead to a decline in semiconductor exports.

At present, Samsung is competing with TSMC on the advanced semiconductor process. At the crucial moment, Japan’s neck will put Samsung at a disadvantage.

When the friction between Japan and South Korea in the semiconductor industry ends, no one can give an accurate answer.

But if we expand the reel of time, we will find that the grievances of the two countries in the semiconductor industry have been staged 40 years ago. South Korea has replaced Japan as a global semiconductor stage, not because of the pure market. Competition, but the result of multiple forces.

1. Park Zhengxi’s yellow envelope contains 2000 USD

At noon on September 13, 1967, the Presidential Palace of Cheong Wa Dae, South Korea.

President Park Chung-hee and Dr. Jin Wanxi, a professor of electrical engineering at Columbia University, have lunch. The food was very simple and simple, and the only meat stewed pork ribs were placed in front of Jin Wanxi.

After the lunch began, Park Chung-hee first put the Suzi Ye on the key of Jin Wanxi and said sincerely: “The insider (President’s wife, author’s note) heard that Dr. Jin is coming, specially prepared.” p>

This lunch was so memorable that Jin Wanxi still remembers clearly after many years. After the meal, Park Chung-hee invited him into the study and took a small thing from the drawer and put it on the desk. This is Motorola’s upcoming product in Korea: transistor.

Park Chung-hee erected a signpost for South Korean semiconductor development.

Park Chung-hee said that the transistor looks small, but the price is so high. The price of a transistor in a handbag is more than the cotton textiles exported by a granary in Korea. So “China wants to develop the electronics industry, please (Dr. King) Help.”

That is, from this meal, South Korea has determined the national policy of using the electronics industry as the foundation of the country and the export pillar industry. Jin Wanxi is the consultant of Park Chung-hee.

On that day, when Jin Wanxi left Qingwatai, Park Chung-hee personally handed him a yellow envelope containing $2,000 to pay for his airfare to and from South Korea and the United States. Since then, Jin Wanxi has returned to South Korea three to four times a year, each time Park Chung-hee personally handed him a $2,000 envelope until he was assassinated in 1979.

The level of electronics industry in Korea at that time was very primitive. The largest electronic company, Venus Club, was only a transistor radio produced in the cottage in Hong Kong. Some officials in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce could not even distinguish between electrical storage (capacitors) and batteries.

At this time, Japan, separated from South Korea by water, relied on the dividend of the chaoxian war, and the manufacturing industry quickly rose up on the ruins of World War II. In the late 1960s, the transformation from heavy industry to light industry was gradually completed. A large number of Japanese companies such as Sony Enterprises rely on radio, television, calculators and other electronic products for export, and gradually emerged in the global market. “Electronics” has gradually become Japan’s national policy, and Japanese companies have entered the core high-tech product DRAM (dynamic random access memory; Remarks: Unless otherwise specified, “semiconductor”, “semiconductor chip”All refer to DRAM), quietly attacking the American territory.

In contrast, South Korea, where even transistors can’t be manufactured, can’t get to the table of global semiconductors, but the ambition is really sprouting.

Two, a suitcase chip can reach ten ship minerals

In the 18 years of Park Chung-hee’s administration, the South Korean economy achieved an average annual growth rate of 8.3%. The per capita national income rose from 92 US dollars in 1961 to 1747 US dollars in 1979, and the world ranking rose from 78th to 48th.

The period of extreme economic prosperity in South Korea is called the “Han River Miracle.”

In order to demonstrate the determination to develop the Korean electronics industry, Park Chung-hee asked her daughter Park Geun-hye to apply for the Department of Electronic Engineering at Xijiang University.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the “Hanjiang Miracle” is the Korean chaebol company.

After Dr. Jin Wanxi became a consultant to Park Chung-hee, he mainly helped him to do three major events:

• To establish Korea’s policy of developing the electronics industry with the power of the nation, the electronics industry has replaced cotton textiles and become the first industry in Korea. To express his determination, Park Chung-hee also asked her daughter Park Ge-hui to apply for the Department of Electronic Engineering of Xijiang University;

• Jin Wanxi, under the recommendation of Park Chung-hee, is a business consultant for Korean chaebol companies such as Venus, Daewoo, Samsung Electronics, Yanan Electronics, and Daehan Electric, and uses its long-term resources in the United States. Advantages, introduce partner companies, shorten technology gaps;

• In 1975, South Korea officially announced the “Six-Year Plan” to support the development of the semiconductor industry and to achieve localization of electronic components and semiconductor production.

However, the paper plan of the Park Chung-hee government is only equivalent to a road sign. After all, the financial valve companies have limited attraction. It is a legend that five years later, they really let them run on the road signs.

In the early 1980s, the Korean chaebol community began to circulate a rumor about semiconductor chips: semiconductor chips filled with a suitcase worth more than a million dollars, equivalent to 10 ships of minerals. The huge profits of semiconductor chips make the chaebols smell the windAnd the Samsung Group rushed to the forefront and ran to the United States to investigate the introduction of technology.

As early as 1974, Li Jianxi, the third son of Samsung founder Li Bingzhen, acquired the Korean semiconductor company, a Korean-American joint venture that was on the verge of bankruptcy, because of his enthusiasm for semiconductors. However, the company’s main product is an electronic watch. Although it has become a gift from Qingwatai to foreign guests (as one of the representatives of Korean technology), the production technology can only manufacture transistors.

So, despite government support, until the 1980s, Korean chaebol companies could not produce semiconductor chips at all, nor did they know its market value.

The rumors that a box of chips worth 10 ships of minerals have refreshed the perception of the chaebol companies.

Samsung founder Li Bingzhen initially opposed the entry into the field of semiconductor chips. He believes that selling sugar and fertilizers is a good thing. Why do you want to enter the black semiconductor chip field? So before the official entry into the semiconductor industry in the 1980s, he specifically consulted the president of the post-war Japan Renaissance Program, President of Fuji Chemical, Inaba Hideyoshi.

Inaba Hideaki told him that after the oil crisis (1970s), the entire industrial structure began to adjust to semiconductors, computers, new materials, fiber-optic communications, among which semiconductors and new materials have the most promising prospects.

Japan’s Kyushu Island is known as the “Silicon Island” and was once in the heyday with Silicon Valley in the United States.

For a long time, Japan has been a South Korean science and technology instructor. The Japanese have developed the original technology invented by Americans into products to make big money. The Koreans have also made a small profit in the back of the Japanese. In addition, in the 1980s, Japan made great strides in the semiconductor chip market, making a lot of money. Therefore, the words of Inaba Hideyoshi are very authoritative and completely touched Lee Byeong-soo: This is more promising than selling sugar and fertilizer!

Under the temptation of huge prospects, with the support of the Korean government, under the lure of a suitcase semiconductor chip worth 10 ships of minerals, in 1983, Samsung entered the field of semiconductor chips, followed by the pace of modern , LG and other well-known Korean chaebol companies.

South Korea and Japan have staged a long-standing resentment for nearly 40 years.

Three, even for four years, Samsung continues to accompany the Japanese with tears

On March 15, 1983, Samsung Group released “We areThe declaration of what to enter the semiconductor business, the semiconductor will be determined as the future of Samsung’s entire group.

The words went out, but where to introduce DRAM manufacturing technology is another problem. Initially, Li Bingzhen found NEC to talk about cooperative production of DRAM. The president of NEC is relatively tempered. If he is not happy, he will not meet you at all. Considering that Japanese semiconductor chip makers at the time played Silicon Valley companies such as Intel and found their teeth, and NEC is one of the top five semiconductor chip manufacturers in Japan, it is a matter of course.

Li Bingzhen and NEC have cooperated in the home appliance business. Although the two sides bumped into each other, they were generally friendly. Therefore, Li Bingzhen thought that this time it would be like the past, it would be a noisy talk.

The result is that NEC does not argue with him at all and refuses directly.

Next, Samsung broke through the threshold of the US and Japan semiconductor manufacturers, seeking technology licensing, but Texas Instruments, Motorola, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fairchild and other big companies lined up to reject Samsung.

At the critical time, Samsung played a good role in collecting intelligence information. Through the relationship, Micron Technology was hit by Japanese semiconductor companies, and it was in financial trouble and was willing to license the backward 64KB DRAM chips. Samsung bought the technology license for high-speed processing equipment from Zytrex, USA for US$2 million.

In 1984, Samsung’s 64KB DRAM chip was produced, but it was more than three years in Japan and the United States. In the second year, Samsung developed 256KB of DRAM for two years. The rule of the chip market is to make huge profits with new products, to reduce the price of old products, and to suppress the opponents. As a result, the market is fragrant and spicy in the morning, and the night market is out of the country.

Samsung’s 64KB capacity DRAM was launched soon. Japanese companies that dominate the international DRAM market set off a price war. In a few months, the price of 64KB DRAM chips dropped from $3.50 to $0.50. A piece of production costs a loss of $1.2.

The first generation of Samsung founder Li Bingzhen

The Samsung Semiconductor business began with Li Bingzhen and became a successor to Li Jianxi. The picture shows Li Jianxi and his eldest daughter Li Fuzhen.

The unique avalanche price reduction of DRAM has made Samsung, who just entered the market, suffer. From 1984 to 1987, Samsung Semiconductor’s business accumulated a loss of 115.9 billion won. Whether the company continues to make semiconductors into a pot of porridge. Li Bingzhen is in a dilemma. If he withdraws from the semiconductor business, the 1MB DRAM factory under construction will also sink into the quagmire, and the loss will continue to increase. Therefore, Samsung can only continue to accompany the Japanese with tears.

But if you lose another three or four years, Samsung will probably not be able to sustain it under the attack of Japanese semiconductor companies.

No one expected that Samsung’s chance of a comeback came.

Four or more than 10,000 tapes

On December 1, 1987, Samsung founder Li Bingzhen died less than a month. His third and 45-year-old Li Jianxi officially took over as president of Samsung Group.

Li Jianxi was a “invisible man” for 10 years under his father. Now he is on stage and begins to lead Samsung to attack the territory of Japanese semiconductor companies according to their own plans.

In order to compete with Japanese rivals, Li Jianxi made a large-scale organizational reform of Samsung in 1993, and even shouted that “except for his wife and children, anything can change.” In the basement of the 99-square-meter Hani-dong, known as the “seri- seri”, Lee Kin-hee has more than 10,000 videotapes stored in the world. The content is mainly the technological development trend of world-class companies. Among them, the content of Japan accounts for a considerable proportion. . In order to study Japanese opponents, Li Jianxi has watched 45 discs and 45 minutes of videotapes about Japan each time.

After a thorough and thorough study of Japanese opponents, Li Jianxi found the “cover door” of the Japanese semiconductor industry: blindly pursuing high yields, resulting in high costs. So, around the yield, Samsung launched a precise attack:

• Focusing on reducing DRAM chip area and avoiding short-term yields, Samsung’s 512MB DRAM chip area is about 77% of Elpida, although Elpida’s yield is 98%. It is 15% higher than Samsung, but Samsung relies on a smaller chip area, but it can cut more than 130 chips by Bill Bida, which means that Samsung’s cost is lower than Bilda.

• Samsung is not in comparison with Japanese semiconductor companies in terms of yield, as long as the yield reaches 80%, Samsung will start mass production planning.And Japanese semiconductor companies insist on mentioning the yield to more than 95% of the cost.

• Samsung’s requirements for chip manufacturing equipment are high throughput (the number of chips produced per unit time), and Japanese semiconductor companies pay attention to precision and precision (improving yield), resulting in the same quantity. The chip, Japan spends twice as much time as Samsung, which means the cost is twice as high as that of the Korean rival.

• Japanese semiconductor companies insist on producing DRAM chips that have been guaranteed for 25 years, which is much higher than Samsung’s five-year warranty. Over-quality has once again raised the production costs of Japanese companies.

Samsung and Japanese semiconductor companies are all high-tech companies with “technical supremacy”, but the direction of lighting technology trees is different. Samsung is a high-tech company that pursues low cost. If it can’t reduce costs, even the best technology. If it is not put into mass production, Japan is pursuing high technology at any cost. As long as it can improve technical indicators, the cost does not matter.

Since the pursuit of cost, Samsung can produce cheap DRAM, and Japan produces expensive DRAM. In the era of large computers, customers are enterprises and scientific research institutions. They are not sensitive to the price of DRAM, but they are extremely demanding for stable operation. The quality of Japanese DRAM is naturally favored. However, after the personal computer became mainstream, the cheap Samsung DRAM was more popular in the market, eventually eliminating Japanese semiconductor companies.

This is the Samsung myth created by Li Jianxi: the power of one person to destroy a high-tech industry in the world’s second largest economy.

However, “Samsung Myth” is difficult to explain. Before 1987, Samsung Semiconductor’s business suffered a four-year loss in the face of Japanese rivals. Why did the Japanese rivals unable to launch a price war by the end of the 1980s? On the other hand, Samsung, who lacks technology and lacks technology, why is it against the former weakness, like invincible, and invincible?

The answer is that the United States has swayed the Japanese semiconductor industry.

V. US Customization for the Japanese Semiconductor Industry

Two major events occurred in 1987. One was the implementation of the semiconductor agreement signed by Japan and the United States in 1986. The other was the plaza agreement signed in 1985, which led to a rapid appreciation of the yen.

The Japan-US Semiconductor Agreement has a very important content, namely the introduction of price supervisionIt is stipulated that Japanese semiconductor companies should not sell semiconductor products at a reasonable price. The so-called reasonable price is to add a certain profit to the production cost. In other words, Japanese semiconductor products are set to the lowest sales price.

Price supervision seems to guarantee the profitability of Japanese semiconductor companies. It is almost considerate to Japanese companies.

But careful analysis will reveal that this is actually a custom made by the United States for the Japanese semiconductor industry:

• First of all, the cost of production is determined by the Americans, and Japan is only responsible for implementation, which means that Japanese semiconductor products lose their free pricing power;

• Secondly, it effectively dispels Japan’s support for the development of the semiconductor industry;

• Third, the semiconductor industry follows the development of Moore’s Law. The more it sells, the cheaper it is. But the price supervision mechanism of semiconductor agreements makes Japanese semiconductor products always more expensive than Korean rivals. Don’t even think about it. Launch a price war against Korean opponents;

The semiconductor agreement is equal to disguised to impose tariffs on Japanese companies.

And Japan has succumbed to US pressure, adopted a compliance and cooperation attitude, set up a specialized agency, and implemented it conscientiously.

In addition, the rapid appreciation of the yen caused by the “Plaza Agreement” has put a huge grinding stone on the Japanese semiconductor industry. After the signing of the “Plaza Agreement”, in just three years (to 1987), the original one dollar against 240 yen rose to one dollar against 120 yen, and the yen appreciated by one time.

Because the Japanese semiconductor industry is an export-oriented economy, most of the products are exported. The one-time appreciation of the yen means that the profits of the company will only double the loss caused by the exchange rate. To avoid losses, the company can only reduce production or stop production. . For Korean semiconductor companies, it is equal to Japan to give up market share.

From the time node, it can be seen that the semiconductor agreement, the appreciation of the yen and the Japanese DRAM share are closely related. After 1987, the Japanese DRAM share turned down and slipped to the abyss without any rebound.

In 1987, Samsung’s DRAM share began to rise sharply, in stark contrast to Japan’s falling share line, clearly illustrating the mutual substitution between the two in the industry chain: Japan’s spit out of meat, into Samsung’s mouth.in.

In fact, the United States also directly supported Korean semiconductors. In the early 1990s, Samsung also faced US anti-dumping lawsuits, but it used the trade friction between Japan and the United States to resolve the crisis (see more than 30 years ago, How does Japan lose the chip war?) If the United States does not want to suppress the Japanese semiconductor industry, the Samsung public relations team’s lobbying ability will be more prominent and will not help.

In addition, Samsung’s DRAM as a “two-way data selection scheme”, approved by the American Semiconductor Standardization Committee, is equivalent to pushing Samsung in the personal computer era, far behind the Japanese rivals.

Six, Japanese grievances

After the Japanese semiconductor industry was completely shackled by the United States, the Korean semiconductor represented by Samsung ushered in a rising opportunity:

Because of the price supervision mechanism imposed by the Japan-US Semiconductor Agreement (until terminated in 1996), Japanese semiconductor companies could not launch price wars against Korean rivals, and DRAM chip prices rebounded. The situation of Samsung DRAM business has finally come to an end. Digging into the first bucket of gold, saving the strength of the offense;

The sharp appreciation of the yen caused by the “Plaza Agreement” further weakened the profitability of the Japanese semiconductor industry, making it unable to withstand Samsung’s offensive.

After 11 years of hard work, by 1994, the situation of the Japanese-Korean semiconductor war began to become clear. South Korea’s share of the global DRAM market rose from zero to 30%, becoming a force that can compete against Japan, and Japan in six years. , from 80% to less than 50%.

It is also in this year that Samsung’s family member Li Jianxi can finally breathe a sigh of relief. At the crucial moment in 1993, Li Jianxi only slept for 4 hours a day, and he lost a full 10 kilograms. Now he is strong and strong, and the five major semiconductor giants such as NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu and Mitsubishi are on the rise.

Moreover, Li Jianxi’s theory that “a genius can feed 100,000 people” is a great achievement for Samsung’s search for Japanese semiconductor talent. In the work of Hitachi Semiconductor and Elpida, Yu Long, in his book, revealed that Samsung spent a lot of money in Japan to recruit a 100-person technical advisory group led by a senior figure of Fujitsu Semiconductor. Under the technical guidance of the Japanese advisory group, Samsung’s third DRAM factory was successfully built (the second factory failed to build) and became the main force of shipment.

At the weekend, flights from Japan to Seoul were filled with technicians from Japanese semiconductor manufacturers. Tang Shanglong said that Samsung’s latest technical information on Japanese semiconductor companies is worth one million yen. In 1998, Hitachi Equipment Research Center was conducting 1GB DRAM research and development. Since Hitachi and NEC negotiated the establishment of a joint venture company Elpida, 1GB DRAM only produced more than 10 samples, which were not put into production, but the samples appeared inside Samsung Electronics.

Elpida memory. Hitachi and Mitsubishi’s DRAM business was reorganized into Elpida, which was responsible for the revival of Japanese semiconductor chips. It ended in failure and was acquired by Micron Technology after a serious loss.

The advisory group consisting of Japanese semiconductor technology backbones has been Samsung’s decision-making think tank to help Samsung attack the city, but Samsung has never made it public. This is also a grievance for Japanese semiconductor practitioners such as Tang Shanglong. local.

By 2002, the share of Japanese DRAM has shrunk to about 10%, and South Korea’s share has exceeded 40%. Japan’s semiconductor giants began to sell iron (restructuring semiconductor business), becoming a seller, Hitachi and NEC stripped DRAM business in 1999 to form Elpida, intending to revive Japan’s semiconductor, but insisted on bankruptcy 13 years later, was acquired by Micron Technology.

Fuji Semiconductor, one of the Big Five, has no choice but to turn the factory into a vegetable greenhouse and grow pollution-free lettuce, each selling 400 yen, which is even higher than the production of DRAM chips.

It can be said that the rise of the Korean semiconductor industry is inseparable from the efforts of the individual Korean valve companies and the determination of the Korean government’s industrial transformation. However, the semiconductor trade frictions that broke out in the US and Japan, coupled with the US support, are also a very important window of opportunity. The combination of the four has finally reshaped the global semiconductor industry chain.

At present, Japan has basically withdrawn from the field of semiconductor chip manufacturing, and its strategy has retreated to the field of semiconductor equipment and semiconductor materials. It has become a supporting link for the Korean semiconductor industry. The United States still occupies the high ground of semiconductor IP design and manufacturing. In the past, the pattern of Japan and the United States has been reversed. The United States and South Korea dominate the industry and the three-party pattern of Japan. Japan has only one fruit left in Toshiba. In June 2018, it sold Bain Capital, and the trader behind Bain Capital was the United States and South Korea. So far, the Japanese semiconductor chip manufacturing has completely ended.

A huge high-tech in JapanThe industry ended in an embarrassing way, and it still makes many Japanese people difficult to let go. However, Japan has also learned the lesson. In 1994, the first two years after the termination of the Japan-US Semiconductor Agreement, Japan and the United States broke the friction of automobile trade. Japan’s pressure to withstand the United States did not meet the excessive demands of the United States and avoided the Japanese automobile industry. The semiconductor industry’s mistakes.

Note: Unless otherwise stated, the pictures are from the Internet and the copyright belongs to the author of the picture.

Main bibliography:

“Korean Capitalism”, author [Han] Zhang Xiacheng, CITIC Publishing Group;

“Li Jianxi–From Lonely Boy to the Leader of the Samsung Empire”, author [Han] Park Changhe, CITIC Publishing Group;

“Core”, author Xie Zhifeng, Shanghai Science and Technology Press;

“The Lost Manufacturing”, author [Japan] Tang Shanglong, Mechanical Industry Press;