Starting From the Chip in 1991

Chapter 47 I Want to Poach a Few People

Jiang Wanchao sat as usual on the reception sofa reading a book and sipping coffee. Though his face remained calm, he was inwardly quite nervous. Smiling wryly at himself, he forced his focus back onto discrete mathematics.

He had joined Yuanxin alongside Li Mingliu back when the company had barely thirty people, all scrambling to code, far from today's multiple departments and even an overseas branch in Silicon Valley.

After EDA was completed, Li Mingliu had been recommended by Xi Xiaoding to head the commercial IC design department, while Jiang Wanchao had been promoted by Xi to become the acting head of the EDA department, with the same salary grade as Dr. Tian and Li Mingliu.

 The only catch was that he didn't yet have his own office downstairs, and upstairs renovations weren't finished either, so he stayed in the open office area for now. Since Xi Xiaoding left, he knew it was only a matter of time before this office became his.

 But every time he saw the "Technical Director" sign on the door, Jiang Wanchao felt guilty—he dared not even hang the sign after moving in. Everyone except the newcomers knew who the true programming genius at Yuanxin was.

"Senior Jiang." "Little President Su." Hearing Su Yuanshan enter, Jiang Wanchao quickly shoved aside his wandering thoughts, set down his book, and stood up.

"I'm just helping Senior Brother Xi pack up. This office will be yours," Su Yuanshan said as he opened a drawer and rummaged through it, finding only snacks.

 With a helpless face, he dumped them onto the table. "Man, he's like a hamster." Jiang Wanchao chuckled. "I'll bring them to Qu Hui and the others later; they always came here to mooch snacks from Senior Brother Xi anyway."

 "Good," Su Yuanshan said casually, turning on the computer, inputting the password, and opening a file as instructed by Xi Xiaoding. It was a complete evaluation and summary of all software department members—the priceless final legacy left by Xi as tech director.

After scanning through it quickly, Su Yuanshan copied the file onto a floppy disk, shut down the computer, and unplugged it. "Senior Brother Xi's computer will be sealed up. You move in. Want to keep the sign?" "No, better replace it," Jiang Wanchao said hurriedly

. "I can barely handle the tasks, but I'm not worthy of his title." He raised his book and smiled bitterly. "Before he left, he told me to study algorithms more. I used to think my math was decent, but the deeper I dig, the more I realize I'm no math major."

 "True," Su Yuanshan sighed. "Even abroad, algorithm research is just starting. Senior Brother Xi is already a big name." Jiang Wanchao hesitated, then couldn't help asking, "And you?" Su Yuanshan laughed. "Me? Half-baked." Jiang Wanchao silently rolled his eyes—half-baked? Half the patents for Yuanxin EDA's algorithms were yours!

"Haha, move into the office first. Later show me your work progress. We need to finish the project merge functionality by year's end. After that, you'll move on to Ethernet network collaboration."

Since LAN standards weren't yet fully unified, Su Yuanshan hadn't rushed into network collaboration development. First, he prioritized the engineering merge function, allowing multiple computers to develop modules separately before merging them—greatly improving efficiency. It was the second hammer Su Yuanshan had prepared for competitors.

When they realized it and tried copying, Ethernet would just be becoming the LAN standard—cue the third hammer. And if competitors still refused to die, he would bring out the final hammer—3D stacked multi-layer design.

In the future, only by moving circuits from flat 2D layouts to 3D stacking could you fit billions of transistors onto a fingernail-sized wafer—a technology called FinFET, which TSMC's Professor Hu Zhengming would invent in 1999. By then, fabs and EDA would be inseparably linked. If competitors still survived after that, they weren't capitalist—they were backed by state funding.

...

Not long after returning to his own office, Su Yuanshan's phone rang—it was a call from across the strait. On the line, Lin Yonggu sounded like he was smiling. "Little President Su, am I disturbing you?" "Lin, your call could never be a disturbance," Su Yuanshan replied cheerfully.

"Haha, good. I heard from inside—our company has decided to cooperate with you." "Oh?" Su Yuanshan's eyebrows lifted, but he immediately calmed down.

 Lin's informal tone clearly meant nothing was finalized yet. "And then?" "Mainly we still need government approval, so everything is still uncertain.

 That's why we haven't formally contacted you." Lin chuckled, then added casually, "I heard Synopsys sent their whole team into Intel. We're left with only a newbie on support." Su Yuanshan's tense expression relaxed into a smile. "Thanks for the heads-up, Brother Lin. Next time you're here, drinks are on me."

 "Haha, deal. Gotta run." Su Yuanshan exhaled and smiled. He thought of his Beijing speech metaphor—Japan was the West's 'child,' and yet they wouldn't even allow their child to surpass them.

 Would they really tolerate China surpassing them in EDA? If not for the fact that Yuanxin EDA was currently the only software exported across the strait, they probably would have forced China into signing some "software trade agreement" by now.

Lin's message wasn't a secret, but it was crucial. Su Yuanshan knew a special organization would soon be formed in China to handle cross-strait exchanges, and consensus would follow next year. In other words, both sides were flirting with each other.

No way would the authorities block UMC from entering a mutually beneficial commercial partnership.

...

Zhou Boguang had just gotten up to go to a meeting when he received Su Yuanshan's call. Rumor had it that upper management was softening a little. If Huajing kept pushing, they might actually secure funding this year.

 "Hello, Director Zhou? It's me, Little Su." Zhou immediately pictured the spirited young man and smiled. "Little Su, I heard you gave the foreigners a good thrashing at the expo?"

"Haha, they exaggerated it." "Still impressive." Zhou put down his folder and leaned against the desk, smiling. "What's up? More chip tape-outs?"

"No. I want to poach a few people from you." Zhou froze. "Poach people?" "Yeah. Last time during the tape-out, I noticed Wang Dawei and a few others had a deep understanding of lithography equipment.

 I want to poach a few of your senior engineers for Yuanxin." Su Yuanshan chuckled as if it were a joke, but Zhou's brows furrowed, his voice turning serious. "Little Su, don't beat around the bush." Su Yuanshan didn't change his tone.

 "Seriously. I want them to join Yuanxin. Then, together with our EDA engineers, they'll be stationed at UMC for CPU reverse-engineering." Zhou's gaze froze, then lit up.

"Good! Damn good!" "So, will you let me poach them?" Zhou laughed heartily, hands on his hips. "You don't need to poach—we'll pick the best for you! How many can you take?" "A dozen total; you send seven or eight.

 Make them young, experienced, preferably familiar with design and microcode." "Good! Good! Good!" Zhou pounded the desk, full of energy, grabbed his folder, and marched to the meeting.

...

After hanging up, Su Yuanshan shook his head, smiling. Qin Weimin smiled back at him. "You seem very keen on helping Huajing. Can they really be saved?" "Senior Brother, think about it," Su Yuanshan said as he took Qin's files. "If they can be saved, we'll earn goodwill. If they can't, they're helping us train talent—without us paying a dime." "Tell me—should I help them or not?" Qin Weimin was stunned for a moment, then finally said, "I surrender."

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