UGB Chapter 231, Location 7
Chapter 231, Location 7
At 10:00 AM on July 6th, in the large conference room on the third floor of Vilan's Zhangjiang headquarters.
The curtains weren't drawn, and sunlight slanted down from the southeast onto the long table, casting a whitish glow on the edges of the stack of documents. Lin Wei sat at the head of the table, Su Chen beside her. Engineer Xu sat near the center of the table, the final draft of the six site selection plans for the Qiming Laboratory laid out before him. Su Zhao, Zou Xin, representatives from Huaxiao Technology, Qirui Precision Measurement, and AVIC MEMS sat on either side.
At the lower end of the long table sat a person who hadn't appeared in the banquet hall of the North Building the previous night.
Tao Bingwen, director of the Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is 61 years old with gray hair and wearing a light blue short-sleeved shirt. He is not a director of Weilan, but he is the only external person present today. Lin Wei personally called him at 11 pm last night, and Director Tao left from Hangtianqiao at 7 am this morning, taking the high-speed train.
Lin Wei kept her opening remarks to a minimum.
"XCMG has revised the six site selection plans for the Qiming Laboratory four times. Today we will vote on the final draft," she said. "Before the vote, I will put a document that I received from Director Tao at six o'clock this morning on the table."
Everyone in the conference room turned their attention to Tao Bingwen.
Tao Bingwen pushed the still steaming cup of tea in front of him half an inch to the side.
"Let me explain the situation first," he said. "Last September, Wei Lan borrowed eighty people from our institute to take over the verification work for the submicron node. These eighty people's contracts are valid until August 1st. I'm here today to tell them in person: these eighty people need to go back on August 1st."
He paused for a moment.
"It's not that I don't want to stay. It's that I have to give way," he said. "On August 1st, our institute will be undertaking a national mission, codenamed 'Advanced Memory Architecture Verification,' and this project will fill all the institute's national-level cleanrooms. Eighty people—I can't keep them all."
Su Zhao glanced down at the notebook in front of her. When she took over last September, she led this group of eighty people through a full ten months of submicron node convergence in a 600-square-meter national-level cleanroom at the Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Among these eighty people, eleven were "Special Grade Process Engineers"—an internal title given by the institute to that type of person, equivalent to level eight and nine workers in an outside factory. She could call each of these eleven people by name.
Su Chen gently placed the pen in his hand on the table.
He didn't immediately bring up what to do about the project. He first subtly shifted the topic towards Director Tao.
"Old Tao," he said, "these eighty people will return to the institute after August 1st. I have something I'd like to ask."
Tao Bingwen looked up at him.
"Qiming Labs will start recruiting in six locations in August," Su Chen said. "Zhangjiang, Zhongguancun, Changfeng, Xinglong Lake, Future Science City, and Guangming—these six locations combined will have the first batch of 400 people on August 1st; the second batch of 400 people on September 1st; and the third batch of 400 people on October 1st. In August, September, and October, we need to recruit 1,200 people."
He pushed the open page of the document toward Tao Bingwen.
"Out of 1,200 people, I hope to reserve 120 spots for top-level process engineers who worked in national-level cleanrooms, worked on wafer transfer stations, maintained lithography stations, and adjusted vacuum pumping stations in the 1980s and 1990s," he said. "I don't want active-duty personnel for these 120 spots. I want those veteran craftsmen who have already retired or have switched to production line management, but whose hands are still sharp."
Tao Bingwen remained silent for a few seconds.
"Which of these 120 spots do you want to take?" he asked.
"No," Su Chen said, "I'd like to ask you to help me make a decision. I'll take these 120 spots from the retirement rosters of the eight national-level cleanroom facilities across the country. I won't be involved in active duty."
Tao Bingwen picked up his teacup again and took a sip.
"I can't make that statement," he said. "The retirement roster is scattered among eight different units, which are under the jurisdiction of four ministries. I only have the copy from my institute."
Su Chen nodded.
"I know," he said. "I don't want you to provide the information from all eight companies. I want you to provide the information you have. As for the other seven, I'll go knock on their doors one by one myself."
Tao Bingwen looked at him.
The meeting room was silent for a few seconds.
"Okay," Tao Bingwen said. "I have a list of fifty-two people here. I'll compile it and give it to you before August 1st. But let me make this clear first—I can only give you the list of these fifty-two people; I can't persuade them to come back one by one. If you want them to come back, you have to talk to them yourself."
"That's enough," Su Chen said. "The roster is sufficient."
He retrieved that page of the document.
He did not immediately move on to the next item.
He placed the pen in front of him and remained silent for about five seconds.
Lin Wei could tell he was holding something back. She didn't urge him.
"Mr. Tao," Su Chen finally spoke, "there's one more thing I'd like to say in front of everyone at this table."
Tao Bingwen nodded.
"Qiming's second layer consists of five modules—CMOS, power devices, optoelectronics, quantum interfaces, and MEMS," Su Chen said. "For each of these five modules, we need to run industrial simulations. For industrial simulations to run smoothly, we need two things: a core algorithm and a material calibration library. I have a good grasp of the core algorithm; Qiming's six labs will develop it independently within eight years, and I can handle that."
He paused for a moment.
"I can't handle the material calibration library."
This sentence was said very softly.
Everyone in the conference room looked up.
"What is a material calibration library?" Su Chen said. "For example, we have blueprints for high-temperature alloys for aero-engines in China. We also have designs for single-crystal turbine blades. But we don't have data on the creep rate, fatigue curve, and oxide film thickness changes of this alloy after 30,000 hours of continuous operation under a centrifugal force of 18,000 revolutions per minute at a temperature of 1,200 degrees Celsius. All we can find are calibration libraries from abroad."
"This set of data is not something that can be 'made up' overnight. This set of data has to be gradually accumulated through decades of domestic field testing, thousands of furnaces, and hundreds of thousands of hours. If it is not accumulated, the life predictions generated by industrial simulators will differ from the actual lifespan by 30%. What does a 30% difference mean? An engine with a rated lifespan of 30,000 hours may start to have problems after flying for 21,000 hours."
He glanced at everyone at the table.
"Each of Qiming's five blocks has its own material calibration library," he said. "CMOS has silicon, silicon dioxide, and high-k gate dielectrics; power devices have silicon carbide and gallium nitride; optoelectronics has indium phosphide and gallium phosphide; quantum interfaces have niobium, aluminum, and superconducting alloys; and MEMS has piezoelectric ceramics, single-crystal silicon, and polymers. These five calibration libraries are on the table globally today, with 90% of the data held by four oligopolies and the remaining 10% held by three independent US calibration library companies. None of these seven companies have sold their complete data to China."
"The versions they sell to us either have a two-year delay in updates, charge a subscription fee, or require us to send a 'user activity log' back to their headquarters."
"Qiming needs to expand its reach over the next eight years, and this is an area we can't bypass."
He picked up the pen again.
"So," he said, "in addition to the six locations of the Enlightenment Laboratory, I'd like to add one more place."
Lin Wei looked up at him.
"The seventh location," Su Chen said, "is an independent entity, not bearing the name Qiming. It's called the Weilan Materials Calibration Center. It specializes in creating a domestic materials calibration database for industrial simulation. From silicon, silicon carbide, gallium nitride, and indium phosphide, all the way down to piezoelectric ceramics, single-crystal silicon, and polymers, it covers five major categories and eleven basic materials. It doesn't handle downstream applications; it only provides the underlying data."
He pressed the tip of his pen against the document.
"I suggest placing it in Suzhou Industrial Park."
XCMG raised his head.
"Why Suzhou?" he asked.
"Three reasons," Su Chen said. "First, the Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics (SINANO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is right next to the Suzhou Industrial Park. They have a nanomaterial characterization line that has been running continuously since 2003, which can save us three to four years of equipment construction time. Second, within a one-hour high-speed rail radius of the Suzhou Industrial Park, there are Shanghai Microelectronics, Huahong, SMIC Shaoxing, and JCET Jiangyin—three of the five major material production lines are all within this one-hour radius. Third, the Suzhou area has readily available immersion lithography testing stations and high-temperature furnaces, which can save us 4 billion yuan in equipment investment."
Lin Wei lowered her head and wrote a few lines on the document.
"Startup capital?" she asked.
"The first batch is 3 billion," Su Chen said. "The total over eight years will be 18 billion. It will be allocated from the net profit of Weilan each year, without going through the quota of Qiming Laboratory."
"people?"
"The first batch of two hundred people," Su Chen said. "Half of them were poached from the Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, and the Beijing General Research Institute of Nonferrous Metals. The other half were poached from the departments of four major foreign calibration libraries. We offered double the annual salary to bring them back."
"Belonging?"
"It belongs to Weilan," Su Chen said. "But regarding the database itself, I suggest opening the interface to all industrial simulation manufacturers in China that follow the Qiming route in the third year. Free of charge. Not a single penny."
Lin Wei put down her pen.
She glanced at Su Chen.
"free?"
"It's free," Su Chen said. "If only Wei Lan's family can walk this path of enlightenment for eight years, then it's not enlightenment. This is Wei Lan. What we want is enlightenment."
Tao Bingwen gently put down his teacup at the other end of the table.
He didn't speak. He just nodded.
That nod carries more weight than any word of agreement.
Lin Wei picked up her pen again.
"I'll read the seven proposed locations again," she said. "First, Shanghai Zhangjiang; second, Beijing Zhongguancun; third, Chengdu Xinglong Lake; fourth, Hefei Changfeng; fifth, Hangzhou Future Science City; sixth, Shenzhen Guangming. The seventh location is Suzhou Industrial Park, the Vilan Materials Calibration Center. Vote."
She raised her hand.
Everyone at the table raised one hand at a time.
No one abstained.
At the moment the vote passed, XCMG wrote a line in his meeting minutes: July 6th, 10:27 AM, Qiming Seven Locations Established.
He drew another horizontal line under the words "seven places".
Before the meeting adjourned, Tao Bingwen stood up and walked to Su Chen's side.
"August 1st," he said.
"August 1st," Su Chen replied.
"Those fifty-two names," Tao Bingwen said, "I will write one person in the top column."
Su Chen looked at him.
"You," Tao Bingwen said, "after I retire, if Suzhou is willing to take me in, I am willing to dedicate the last five years of my life to the calibration warehouse."
Su Chen did not answer immediately.
He reached out and grasped Tao Bingwen's hand.
He held on very tightly.