Tech Giants: Starting from Bankrupt Companies

166: Chapter 166 Shenzhen Negotiations: The First Round of ConfrontationJanuary 17th, 9:30 AM, Shenzhen, 49th floor of the Xinghuo headquarters.

This space, known as the ”Cloud Conference Room,” had three sides made of seamless, floor-to-ceiling glass, overlooking Shencheng Bay and the distant Hong Kong skyline.

The fourth wall was a single, flexible OLED screen, currently displaying real-time data streams: global semiconductor market indices, prices of key raw materials, and capacity utilization rates for various process nodes...

In the center of the conference room was a 12-meter-long ebony conference table, with touchscreens embedded in the surface, though they were currently dark.

Su Chen sat at the head of the table. To his left were Li Wanqing, CEO of Xinghuo Chip; Wu Yi, Chief Scientist and CEO of Spark Materials; and Zhang Bei, President of International Business. Five seats were left empty on his right—reserved for the European guests.

The door slid open silently.

Five European representatives walked in, guided by a secretary.

They were dressed in business attire, but the exhaustion of their journey was visible—bloodshot eyes and slight puffiness caused by jet lag.

Su Chen stood up and welcomed them in fluent English: ”Mr. Berg, Ms. Moreau, welcome to Shenzhen. Was your flight smooth?”

Hans, the CTO of Infineon, shook hands with a firm grip: ”Mr. Su, thank you for the hospitality. The flight... was very creative.” He spoke with a hidden meaning—clearly, he had some complaints about the ”unexpected” detour to refuel in Moscow.

Isabella Moreau, Vice President of STMicroelectronics, a fifty-year-old French woman, maintained an elegant smile: ”The weather in Shenzhen is much warmer than in Brussels; this is a good omen.”

The other three—Fritz Müller of BASF, Lucas Schneider of Rheinmetall, and ”private consultant” Madeleine Renault—took their seats in turn.

Renault deliberately chose the seat furthest from Su Chen, keeping a low profile while her gaze could cover the entire room.

Without any small talk, Berg went straight to the point.

He opened his tablet and projected it onto the main screen. It was a concise proposal:

”EU-China Semiconductor Strategic Cooperation Framework Proposal”

European Side Offers:

EU Market Access: Lift import restrictions on all Xinghuo semiconductor products (including consumer electronics, automotive chips, and industrial control chips).

Most-Favored-Nation Treatment: Xinghuo products will enjoy the same terms as European companies in EU government procurement, new energy vehicle subsidies, and 5G infrastructure construction.

R&D Cooperation: Open top research institutions such as the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA-Leti) for joint laboratories with Xinghuo.

Requirements for Xinghuo:

Full FD-SOI Process Package: Including complete process documentation, Design Rule Manuals (DRC), and Process Design Kits (PDK) for both 14nm and 7nm nodes.

Technical Training: Provide no less than 1,000 man-months of on-site training for European engineers.

Patent Licensing: Allow European companies to use Xinghuo’s FD-SOI-related patents within the EU, free of licensing fees.

Su Chen listened quietly, tapping his fingers lightly on the table. The conference room was quiet enough to hear the faint sound of the central air conditioning.

”Mr. Berg,” Su Chen finally spoke, ”This proposal reminds me of an agreement a Chinese photovoltaic company—let’s call it ’Sunshine Tech’—reached with the EU in 2016. At that time, the EU promised market access in exchange for Sunshine Tech’s silicon wafer purification technology. And what was the result?”

He projected a document: ”After the technology transfer was completed, the EU imposed a 47% anti-dumping duty on Sunshine Tech on the grounds of ’overcapacity and market harm.’ That company is still appealing in the courts of Brussels, but the European solar market has already been carved up by local companies.”

Isabella Moreau’s expression shifted slightly: ”Mr. Su, that was the photovoltaic industry; the situation is different...”

”The essence is the same,” Su Chen interrupted. ”Both involve using market promises to exchange for core technology, and then breaking those promises. The only difference is that the technical threshold for photovoltaics is low, while for semiconductors, it is high—so you need more sincerity this time.”

He turned to Renault: ”Ms. Renault, as the Chair of the Industrial Committee, you should be well aware of how legally fragile a simple ’market access’ promise is. A single administrative order can overturn it.”

All the European representatives were shocked—they hadn’t expected Su Chen to recognize Renault, who was disguised as a ”private consultant,” at a glance.

Renault was silent for a few seconds, then took off her non-prescription glasses—a simple disguise: ”Mr. Su’s intelligence work is excellent.”

”It’s not intelligence; it’s common sense,” Su Chen smiled. ”Those who can decide negotiations at this level cannot be mere corporate representatives. There must be political backing.”

He stood up, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, and with his back to the group, looked out at Shencheng Bay: ”So, let’s skip the probing stage. You need FD-SOI technology because America is stifling Europe’s path to semiconductor autonomy. We need the European market, but what we need more is a reliable partner—not a business counterpart that might break the contract at any moment.”

Berg and Moreau exchanged glances. This Chinese man was too direct, so direct that they were unaccustomed to the euphemistic diplomatic language of Europe.

”Then what are your conditions?” Berg asked.

Su Chen turned around, his eyes becoming sharp: ”I want two things. First, equity binding—not simple technology licensing, but the establishment of a joint venture with deeply tied interests. Second, non-proliferation guarantees—how do you ensure the technology will not flow to America?”

The negotiations entered the technical layer. Li Wanqing, CEO of Xinghuo Chip, a woman with an international perspective and a Ph.D. in microelectronics from a top university, took over the floor.

She opened a silver metal case containing twelve wafers, each encapsulated in a transparent box protected by inert gas.

”This is our FD-SOI sample,” Li Wanqing said, carefully taking one out with tweezers. ”14nm node, based on a 300mm wafer. Measured data: at a 0.8V operating voltage, the performance is comparable to TSMC’s 1FET, but static power consumption is 45% lower, and dynamic power consumption is 38% lower.”

She pulled up electron microscope photos: ”The key lies in the thickness control of the Buried Oxide layer—we achieved 7nm, which is 30% thinner than the industry standard of 10nm. This increases transistor switching speed by 15% and reduces leakage current by 60%.”

Fritz Müller, the materials scientist from BASF, practically lunged at the screen: ”The uniformity of this Buried Oxide layer... how did you achieve it? What is the interface state density between the silicon and silicon oxide?”

”0.8 × 10¹¹ cm²/eV,” Li Wanqing stated the number precisely. ”We developed a new Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) precursor that forms a monolayer passivation layer on the silicon surface before growing the silicon oxide. We can share this technology.”

Müller’s eyes lit up. As a materials expert, he knew what this number meant—it had already reached 90% of the theoretical limit.

But Hans was more concerned with practical issues: ”What about process stability? What is the yield?”

”The average yield of the small-batch production line is 62.3%, with the best batch reaching 65.1%,” Li Wanqing said, pulling up the yield monitoring curve for the last week. ”This is a completely independent production line; from the lithography machine to the etcher, everything is made in China or from non-American sources.”

The conference room fell silent again. A 62.3% yield at the 14nm node was already quite good—TSMC’s initial yield at the same node was no better.

”The problem now,” Li Wanqing shifted the topic, ”is if we cooperate, how will the technology be transferred? ASML lithography machines are under an embargo against China, and our process parameters are optimized based on the 22nm lithography machine from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Optoelectronics. If used on ASML machines, it will require re-calibration, a process that will take at least 3 months.”

Berg frowned: ”We can procure equipment through a third-party company in Switzerland and import it into Europe under the name of ’civilian research.’ As for process migration... Infineon has a complete production line at our R&D center in Dresden, which can be used for collaborative debugging.”

”And what about non-proliferation?” Su Chen rejoined the conversation. ”How can you guarantee that this technology will not pass through Europe and eventually flow to America?”

Lucas Schneider, the defense expert from Rheinmetall who had been silent until now, finally spoke: ”We can establish a ’Black Room’ system. All technical documents, process parameters, and design tools from Xinghuo will be stored on servers physically isolated from the internet. R&D personnel must pass a background check before entering the ’Black Room,’ cannot carry any electronic devices while working, and all operational records will be monitored throughout.”

”Similar to America’s ’Secure Enclave’?” Wu Yi asked.

”Even stricter,” Schneider said. ”We can even implant hardware-level monitoring chips in the servers; once abnormal data transmission is detected, the storage units will automatically self-destruct.”