Chapter 591: Chairman of Unicom
The wheels of history do not shift course just because of Yuanxin's rise—they may, at most, turn a bit faster.
The so-called cyclical winter of semiconductors, from an economic standpoint, is caused by overcapacity leading to increased market risk—where consumer demand growth is unable to absorb the chaos brought by uncoordinated production expansion.
From a technical perspective, it's the result of new technologies, new processes, and advanced manufacturing nodes completely crushing older techniques and products.
This cycle typically spans 4 to 5 years—roughly equal to two to three generations of process nodes.
However, in all past "winters," not a single wafer fab at the leading edge of manufacturing and technology has ever been taken down by them. In fact, most were barely affected.
The ones destroyed by the cold? They were always the cash-churning, soul-less fabs mass-producing DRAM chips.
Su Yuanshan wasn't worried about Deyuan being dragged down at all.
From its inception, Deyuan had almost completely avoided DRAM—because it had Yuanxin and a wealth of domestic orders to fall back on. There was no need to fight with short-sighted fabs for the quick cash of DRAM.
Instead, Deyuan focused on NAND flash—a rising star in storage. Coupled with its continuous pursuit of technical breakthroughs and backed by Yuanxin, it would take nothing short of a global collapse in the PC and consumer electronics markets to rattle it.
Would a financial crisis affect the entire globe?
Zhang Rujin might worry about that—but Su Yuanshan didn't.
The Asian financial crisis, in essence, was a feast where the rich preyed on newly enriched—or still poor—pseudo-middle-class economies. The hot money would eventually cycle back into Western markets and blow the dot-com bubble to its fullest.
Su Yuanshan was waiting right there for it.
...
"Uncle Zhang, you're far more experienced with counter-cyclical investment than I am. We're not a hedge fund, nor a trend-chasing operation after quick profit," Su reassured Zhang Rujin, reinforcing his own belief: "We are a technology company that firmly and eternally believes in the explosive power of tech development. Expansion will be our constant theme for years to come."
"Unless we hit a truly insurmountable barrier, every industrial shake-up is just a bump in the road—something we can simply step over."
"All right then." Zhang Rujin, seeing Su's unwavering conviction, let the matter drop. Building factories was his specialty anyway—if Su gave him the opportunity to "plant red flags everywhere," he'd jump at it.
"As for Deyuan, there's not much more to say. Even if we build fast, Rome wasn't built in a day. We'll just proceed step by step."
"Oh, one more thing." As he closed his notebook, Zhang gave a meaningful smile. "TI has expressed interest in negotiating a license for the 0.35-micron process."
Everyone immediately turned to Su Yuanshan.
—Everyone here, with the exception of newly promoted He Wei, were seasoned veterans of Yuanxin. Naturally, they remembered the long, hard-fought struggle just to bring TI's 0.5-micron process into China. First, TI forced them into a "pick one" trap, followed by multiple difficult rounds of negotiation, including Su flying to Texas and verbally battling the board... He'd even nearly lost his temper.
In the end, they managed to secure 0.5-micron licensing—barely—and not without concessions that some had felt bordered on humiliating.
Su took a sip of tea, unfazed.
After a brief pause, he smiled.
"Let them come."
...
The conference focused on the mobile communications market lasted a full day. In addition to collecting responses and strategies from various departments, its main purpose was to synchronize their approach.
The goal was to ensure unity of thought and rhythm across departments—avoiding a supply chain bottleneck when the mobile market inevitably exploded.
Next came the executive board meeting and the fiscal year conference—prompting Su Yuanshan to sigh. Too many meetings, indeed.
On January 13th, a delegation from Beijing arrived at the tech park.
...
At the park gates, Su Yuanshan and Wen Xiaoqian stood ready to greet them.
The visitors had specifically asked for Su—not wanting to disturb the busy Director Chen.
As the business car pulled up, Yang Weichang, his graying hair barely hiding his excitement, opened the door before anyone else could move.
Su Yuanshan rushed forward to greet him.
"Xiaoshan, bet you didn't expect this, did you?" Yang Weichang laughed heartily, showing off his good mood, completely ignoring the secretaries and subordinates standing around him.
"No, sir. Not in a million years." Su answered honestly. When he'd learned that Yang Weichang—Yang Yiwen's father—was appointed as the first chairman of China Unicom, he was so shocked he almost popped his eyes out.
"Honestly, I didn't expect it either," Yang chuckled, pulling Su by the hand toward the main building. "Come on, let's talk inside."
Su coughed lightly and looked back at the subordinates trailing behind. "Uncle Yang, I know some of these guys, but... shouldn't we do the formal thing here?"
Yang burst out laughing again. "Oh, right. Let me introduce you..."
And with that, the top brass of Unicom was formally introduced to Su Yuanshan—though most faces were already familiar. Several of them had come from the former Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Commission.
...
Once inside the tech park, even though she was busy, Chen Jing came out to welcome the guests. She knew how close Su and Yang were, so she let them talk privately while giving full courtesy to the rest of Unicom's executives.
Yang Weichang was led straight to Su Yuanshan's office.
"Uncle Yang, how's Liang doing? I heard he just had a daughter?" Su personally served tea and sat down to chat.
"He's doing all right. And yes, a daughter." Yang's wrinkled face was lit with pride. "The little one is adorable—here, take a look."
He pulled out a photo from his wallet and handed it to Su.
In the photo, a baby less than six months old held a sparkling necklace and giggled into the camera.
"Whoa, a diamond necklace?"
"Yeah! Her aunt gave it to her. Said girls should be raised rich—what kind of nonsense is that?"
Yang shook his head, but his tone was full of pride.
Among top-level officials nationwide, perhaps only Yang dared to talk openly about "raising his granddaughter rich."
Everyone knew the central government was now cracking down hard on corruption—especially to safeguard the reforms and opening-up policy. That was why Mobile's leadership had changed, and why Unicom's new chairman had to be someone squeaky clean.
It helped that Yang's daughter had been listed among Fortune magazine's top ten richest women in the world.
And her wealth? Earned abroad. Legally. Transparently.
Add in her ties to Yuanxin, and no one was better suited to lead Unicom.
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Chapter 592: Unicom's Ambition
"Xiaoshan, do you know why I came this time?"
Yang Weichang asked with a wide grin as he tucked the photo back into his wallet.
Su Yuanshan chuckled. "I have some idea. But Uncle Yang, if you'd come just two days earlier—Wang Chaoxin was still here."
Yang Weichang gave him a strange look. "So you thought I came to ask for inventory or payment terms?"
Su blinked—he had indeed been thinking that. After all, Unicom had just been established and was said to have received a startup fund of three billion yuan. That might sound like a lot, but considering that Unicom was expected to run everything from internet access, landline services, paging, to mobile operations… even without having to invest in base stations, the budget would be tight.
Renting office space, hiring staff, paying salaries—that alone could bleed them dry.
Besides, Zhongxin had already built a close relationship with China Mobile, launching more than ten low-cost phone models and helping Mobile gain significant market traction.
Unicom also inherited the country's paging infrastructure. So, if anything, it would make more sense to negotiate with Wang Chaoxin. Yuanxin, on the other hand, was known for high-end devices—luxurious, uncompromising, and certainly never branded with carrier logos in mobile shops.
Yuanxin had painstakingly built that premium brand image.
"Then... surely you didn't just come here to chat?" Su smiled as he spread his hands. "Though if you did, I always have time for you."
"Haha, sure, let's call it chatting for now. Business can come later."
Yang Weichang set his briefcase down and, after a moment's thought, his expression grew more serious. "Xiaoshan, you know I've always worked in foreign trade. But I've never actually run a business."
"Your brother Liang and sister Yiwen both insisted that I come to you for advice after I took this new post. Not that I wouldn't have come on my own, of course."
Su immediately waved his hands modestly. "Uncle, I'm not qualified..."
Yang Weichang smiled but held firm. "Don't be modest. Unicom is a state enterprise the country has pinned great hopes on. From both an industrial and national perspective, failure is not an option. And you are widely recognized as the person who understands the information industry best."
With those words, Su stopped trying to deflect. If he kept dodging, he'd probably get scolded by Yiwen for not helping her father.
After a few seconds of silence, Su replied quietly, "Uncle Yang, to be honest, we've been discussing the Ministry of Information Industry and Unicom's future impact on the sector these past few days."
Yang nodded and pulled out a notebook and pen. "Go ahead."
Su's eyes widened slightly. "Uncle Yang, there's no need to take notes—this is too formal..."
"Don't worry about it. Just talk." Yang gestured for him to continue. "Or you can just give me a copy of your meeting notes."
"..."
Resigned, Su began by outlining the importance of the ministry's creation—a point Yang already agreed with. Then, he walked him through domestic and international trends, the evolution of the local economy, and laid out his projections for the next few years in technology and business.
When he got to the part about pagers being completely wiped out within three years in a sudden and illogical collapse, Yang broke into a cold sweat.
—Because inside Unicom, most voices were still focused on "stabilizing the foundation," i.e., consolidating their recently acquired paging assets from the postal system.
To be clear, the state wasn't acting in bad faith.
Conservative estimates, excluding extremely poor and remote regions, suggested there were over 100 million potential pager users in cities and capable rural areas. Optimistically, that number could be doubled.
With only about 25 million users now, the market seemed ripe with potential.
"You're saying pager subscriptions will grow quickly for the next two or three years... then suddenly collapse and vanish? That's your conclusion?"
"Yes," Su replied calmly. "It's my conclusion, and it's unanimously supported by Yuanxin's marketing and strategy teams. Uncle Yang, you know that Zhongxin made almost 500 million yuan last year from pagers alone. Wang Chaoxin feels the loss, but he sees no alternative."
"Couldn't we shift strategies—say, integrate paging with the internet?" Yang asked, still holding onto hope.
Before coming to Yuanxin, he had held a high-level internal meeting. One of the VPs—head of the nationwide paging network—had proposed enhancing paging by integrating it with the web. Yang had liked the idea.
But Su shook his head slowly and firmly, with a touch of sadness.
"Uncle Yang, others might see paging being replaced by mobile phones as a natural technological progression. And if it were just a replacement, yes, superior service or price could extend its life."
"But that's not what's happening."
Su's tone dropped. "In essence, the mobile phone is a smart handheld terminal that integrates communication, computing, and connectivity. Paging's extinction is just the first silent casualty in the conquest of personal digital devices."
"When a tank rolls over, can an ant survive no matter how well-armed it is?"
Yang went silent for a long while, then finally sighed deeply—and suddenly smiled.
"Thank you, Xiaoshan."
"You're too kind, Uncle."
Su exhaled quietly.
Even if Yang hadn't asked, Su had been planning to find a way to warn him.
Because in actual history, Unicom had been dragged down painfully by the pager crash. It had launched around the same time as Mobile, with similar foundations and even a public listing—yet couldn't survive the blow.
Let alone now, with Unicom just beginning.
Yang quickly jotted down Su's key points. He would need that speech to convince his colleagues back at headquarters. But then a new question popped into his head.
"Then what about mobile phones? What will replace them?"
Su was caught off guard. The old man really knew how to dig deeper.
"I don't know," he admitted.
"Maybe holographic glasses, smart projection wristbands, or brain-computer interfaces. Who knows? Let's talk about that when the time comes."
Yang blinked at the barrage of futuristic terms, then burst into laughter. "That's too sci-fi. Let's focus on the present."
"Exactly. Let's talk about your CCDMA protocol."
Su was stunned again.
"Xiaoshan, 3G is going to be Unicom's chance to leapfrog, right?" Yang's eyes were sharp.
Su nodded vigorously. "Yes. It absolutely is."
"How long until it's ready for full commercialization?"
Su held up three fingers.
"Three years."
...
That afternoon, Su Yuanshan and Chen Jing personally escorted Yang Weichang and his team out of the tech park.
"It's almost quitting time. Want to take a walk?" Chen Jing glanced at the fading sky, noting there was half an hour left before the end of the workday.
"Sure." Su looked around, didn't see the ever-lurking Fu Zhenhua, and instantly felt more relaxed. He turned to Wen Xiaoqian. "Xiaoqian, go tell the office."
"..." Wen Xiaoqian watched the two of them stroll toward the sidewalk and wondered, What are they up to now? Still, she obediently informed the gate staff.
Moments later, two security guards pedaled behind them on bikes at a discreet distance.
...
"Geez... Wen Xiaoqian is ruthless," Su grumbled, glancing back and realizing the guards were definitely her doing.
Chen Jing smiled, hands in the pockets of her long coat, kicking her legs as she walked.
"I remember when we first came here, both sides of the road were still farmland. The road was asphalt. Now it's all concrete." She looked beyond the passing cars toward rows of tall buildings across the street. "That's the software park, right?"
"Yeah. Last month when YXLAB spun off, one of the local officials tried to convince President Xi to move the internet division over there."
"Oh? And what did he say?" Chen turned around and stopped walking.
Su smiled. "He told them to take a hike."
"Haha!" Chen burst into laughter and bent slightly at the waist, then caught herself and gave Su a playful glare. "Did he really say that? Isn't he afraid of retaliation?"
"Can't be. That official was his grad school classmate."
"Oh!" Chen folded her arms, chuckling. "Then I guess not."
"Though President Xi's classmates must be pretty young, right? Already a deputy director?"
"Well, President Xi is just thirty now. Most of his classmates are five or six years older." Su paused. "Still, he's thirty already..."
Under a streetlamp, Su gazed toward the city center. The lights were beginning to glow across the provincial capital. One tower after another rose from what had once been barren land, transforming the development zone into a bustling district.
"Time flies..." he murmured, squinting into the distance, thinking about how fast everything had changed since Yuanxin was founded.
To be honest, he wasn't trying to be sentimental.
He just wanted to sigh, realizing how quickly the years had passed—like the scenery itself had changed before he could even take it in.
Then, beside him, Chen Jing murmured softly, "Time waits for no one. In a blink, hair turns silver."
Su turned, startled. She was tilting her head toward the sky, looking for all the world like a poetic soul lost in the melancholy of spring.
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Chapter 593: The Traitor from TI
Chen Jing quickly shook off her poetic moment. Seeing Su Yuanshan's stunned expression, she explained, "It's from a poem by Li Bai, just lamenting the passage of time."
"Ah." Su offered a polite apology: "Sorry… I didn't mean to make it awkward."
"...Saying sorry means you meant to." Chen Jing shot him a glare. "And for the record, I don't think I'm old."
Su opened his mouth to respond but quickly realized: when a woman—especially one slightly older—mentions age, it's best for a man to shut up.
Seeing he was smart enough to remain silent, Chen Jing let it go and kept walking.
"By the way, what did you and Director Yang talk about today?"
"Mostly about Unicom's future direction. It's clear they're ambitious," Su said, pausing briefly. "They're planning to be first to launch 3G."
"Yeah, I heard that too." Chen Jing nodded and sighed. "3G... So what's the situation with the standards now? At the last meeting, Li Yinan spoke very convincingly, but I heard the ITU is about to start collecting submissions for official 3G standards… and they require a certain number of patents."
"Don't worry, we've got enough patents. As for the technology... we exchanged IP with Qualcomm. Our multiplexing tech supports both FDD and TDD."
Chen immediately interrupted, "Speak in plain language."
"Okay, simply put, among the three strongest standards currently under development, ours—CCDMA—leads Europe's WCDMA by a small margin in network speed, and beats CDMA2000 by a larger margin. Of course, the patents behind CCDMA don't come only from Yuanxin; we also have contributions from Xinghai and telecom operators in Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, and others."
"The standard is mostly finalized. Our biggest contribution is the power control core patent, which is essential for both WCDMA and CDMA2000."
Chen Jing slowly nodded and smiled, "So you're saying we'll be collecting patent fees lying down?"
"Hah! Dream on." Su Yuanshan chuckled. "No way. Our tech is still based on upgrades from CDMA and GSM—we still need plenty of licenses from others."
Chen gave him a side-eye, "You mentioned telecoms from Southeast Asia hold some patents—when did they become relevant?"
Su scoffed, "Relevant? Not really. Most of their patents are trivial—and we basically taught them everything. But you know why we let them in."
Chen nodded silently. Of course she knew—working with foreign telecom companies, especially operators, had one goal: push the standard.
If CCDMA could go international, then base stations, baseband chips, and phones could follow.
That was the game. Expansion.
"But damn it's hard, Jingjie…" Su hugged his arms, shivering against the wind as they neared Yuanxin's front gate.
The wind carried his voice: "In East Asia—especially Confucian cultures—governments hold enormous power. Trying to use business to shift policy is near impossible."
"It's really damn hard."
...
On January 28th, Jiang Shangwen's plane landed in Shanghai on time.
As a senior VP of Texas Instruments (TI), this wasn't his first visit to China. He had represented TI last year at the flash memory alliance summit hosted by Yuanxin and had secured a licensing agreement for MLC flash technology.
—Yuanxin had licensed the process to TI without upfront fees. Instead, revenue would come from royalties based on chip sales.
This model let fabs avoid large initial investments and begin production quickly—accelerating adoption.
But TI never manufactured anything.
Yes, after careful consideration, TI had chosen not to produce MLC chips.
And in hindsight, they were right. Technically, while Yuanxin had pioneered the MLC architecture and hyped it as the engine of the digital era, Intel and Sandisk swiftly retaliated—showing that Yuanxin still lacked the muscle to challenge seasoned semiconductor giants on their home turf.
But just when it looked like IS (Intel + Sandisk) had things under control, the unexpected happened.
Within a month, Deyuan announced it had broken through the 0.35-micron process node. Less than a month later, Yuanxin followed up with a 64MB single-chip flash announcement.
But the biggest shock came from an obscure chip design company—Yuanzhong Microelectronics.
They announced breakthroughs in soft-decision LDPC error correction for NAND flash. Along with that, they launched two flash controller chips: the IS748, aimed at high-end SSDs, and the IS948, which pushed USB flash drives close to the USB 1.2 protocol's transfer limits. They even claimed the USB standard itself needed an upgrade.
The industry trembled.
Previously, Yuanzhong Micro had barely made waves after introducing the "U disk" two years ago. USB adoption was still low, and other companies had long since entered the controller market.
So except for the companies Yuanzhong had sued for patent infringement, few in the industry paid them much attention.
But now? Now the major players were starting to notice.
If Yuanzhong's two controller chips weren't bluffing… the flash market was about to be rocked.
The strength of the IS alliance came from its dominance in SSDs.
And SSDs, as everyone knew, were made from stacks of single-die flash chips.
Now, Yuanzhong claimed not only to have built an SSD controller, but also one with superior error correction...
...
"Everything's changing," Jiang Shangwen muttered as he stepped out into Shanghai's overcast skies.
Scanning the area, he spotted Sun Guangfeng approaching with a smile.
"Dr. Jiang, welcome. Dr. Zhang got tied up last minute, so I'll be handling your visit today. Hope you don't mind."
Jiang didn't flinch. After shaking hands, he smiled, "No worries, Guangfeng. You're an old TI hand too. If Dr. Zhang hadn't sent you, I might've taken it personally."
"Haha, thank you. This way, please."
Two business vehicles pulled out from Hongqiao Airport, heading downtown.
During the ride, Jiang and Sun didn't talk business. They chatted casually about how Shanghai had changed.
"Just a year ago this was all construction," Jiang marveled. "Now it's commercial property?"
"Shanghai's got good bones—it develops fast."
"Still, this pace is unbelievable."
As their car merged into city traffic near rush hour, congestion began to build.
"What are all those people doing—lining up for phones?"
Following Jiang's gaze, Sun looked to the curbside crowd outside a shop.
"Yeah, that's Unicom's grand opening. Buy a certain phone model at their store and they'll refund the 1,000 yuan network access fee as call credits. Effectively, access is free."
"They eliminated the access fee?" Jiang was stunned.
As TI's Asia-Pacific president, he knew how steep those fees were in China—often higher than the phone itself.
"Wait… doesn't China already have a telecom carrier? Is this a government mandate?"
"Looks like market competition to me. Unicom kept this campaign completely under wraps. Not a whisper until today." Sun grinned. "Dr. Zhang is hosting a production meeting right now because of this. Half of Deyuan's output is mobile chips—it's a huge chain reaction."
Jiang nodded and fell silent.
There was no question—fabless production of mobile chips was more profitable than DRAM. DRAM might move volume, but the margins were paper-thin these days.
Unless a few fabs caught fire, the industry was due for another brutal winter.
...
The business vehicles exited the city and rolled into Zhangjiang Industrial Park.
Jiang stayed quiet, offering only short replies.
At Deyuan Semiconductor's main gate, the car pulled up to the office building.
"This way, Dr. Jiang."
Dr. Zhang Rujin still hadn't appeared.
At this, Jiang finally furrowed his brow—but smiled and followed Sun Guangfeng into the elevator.
At the top, Zhang emerged quickly to greet him with a beaming smile and many apologies.
"Brother Shangwen! So sorry I couldn't meet you downstairs—please, come in."
"Zhang, no need for that."
The two exchanged pleasantries and entered Zhang's office. Sun took the rest of the TI team to a separate lounge.
After tea was served and the door shut, Jiang stared at Zhang and sighed.
"Zhang, looks like I came at a bad time?"
"Not at all…" Zhang pushed the tea toward him. "This one's from President Su himself. Special supply."
Jiang nodded, took a sip, and asked, "Is President Su available?"
"He's even busier than I am. Left for Japan yesterday. Won't be back until after the Spring Festival."
Jiang's eyes flickered.
This old fox… Zhang Rujin… the traitor of TI.
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Chapter 594: TI's Blunders
"Come on, guys, please start taking your lessons seriously from now on. Even if Yuanxin is hailed as the Whampoa Military Academy of the semiconductor world, you've still got to bring some foundation when you walk through the door."
In the CPU Design Center, Gao Xiaodi was delivering the very first training session to a new batch of recruits fresh from completing their onboarding rotation at Deyuan.
These new hires were all top graduates from the nation's leading universities with degrees in integrated circuit design.
But none of them dared talk back to Gao Xiaodi—known as "Principal Gao"—head of the CPU Design Center. Rumor had it, half the current leaders in the architecture department had been personally trained—some said "screamed into shape"—by him during Yuanxin's early startup days in rented offices.
Only one person dared mumble, "Director Gao, we didn't even get a chance to take classes."
"Then listen up now." Gao tapped the whiteboard. "You've spent six months at the fab. By now, you should understand how a chip comes to life."
"At the same time, you should know that CPU performance hinges on three pillars." He paused. "I don't know how updated your textbooks are, but when I was in school, they only covered the basics—manufacturing nodes, pipelining, and instruction sets."
Heads in the room began to shake.
Their experience was mostly with the classic 8051 microcontroller. Though the 8051 had evolved into countless variants in China, most students, even at the graduate level, were taught the most primitive and standardized versions.
"Our Tenglong processor line can go toe-to-toe with Intel because of our microarchitecture..."
Gao Xiaodi was in full swing when the door to the meeting room suddenly opened. Li Mingliu stood in the doorway.
Gao immediately shifted gears: "And of course, Director Li's cache design has also given us a major edge."
The new hires: "…"
"Principal Gao, still going?" Li Mingliu greeted the newcomers with a cheerful nod.
"Let's wrap it up here," Gao said decisively. "Just remember one thing: in chip design, Yuanxin is the best. Period."
...
Li Mingliu and Gao Xiaodi took the elevator together to the rooftop solarium.
A secretary quickly brought up a tea set. There were only two of them, but four cups were laid out.
"You laid it on a little thick back there, didn't you?" Li Mingliu asked as he sipped his tea, referring to Gao's comment that Yuanxin was "the best."
"What, if I don't hype us up a bit, these kids will start kneeling when they see Intel logos. And let's be honest—we kind of are the best. I mean, look at Jiang Tao's big news."
Li Mingliu chuckled and shook his head.
Just then, the door opened again. Jiang Tao and Luo Ming entered the solarium and took their seats.
Once everyone was there, Li Mingliu cleared his throat. "Gentlemen, before he left, President Su tasked us with developing a solid-state drive solution for the April semiconductor expo. I think we all know that last year's tricks from the IS Alliance were nothing short of mockery."
"Frankly, if President Su didn't have such strong industry sway, those flash memory vultures would've defected already—look at TI as a perfect example."
At the mention of TI, everyone exchanged awkward glances.
—It was rumored that when President Su heard TI was sending a delegation, he gave a strange smile and simply said, "Let them come." Then he vanished to Japan without a word.
Word was that TI's VP Jiang Shangwen was probably getting stonewalled by Zhang Rujin at this very moment.
After the chuckles faded, Li Mingliu continued, "So, not only do we need to deliver a solid-state drive ASAP, it has to lead in capacity, speed, and security."
"The flash memory war is no longer just about chip density. It's also about product-level performance." He turned to Jiang Tao and Luo Ming. "So—what's the plan?"
Luo Ming had previously pushed hard for a major I/O overhaul, and though that hadn't yet succeeded, his team had gained considerable expertise in system buses.
Jiang Tao, meanwhile, had exemplified the phrase "silent for three years, then boom."
Once sent by Yuanxin as technical lead to support Zhongxin, Wang Chaoxin had ended up keeping him—and entrusted him with founding Yuanzhong Microelectronics.
To be honest, Yuanzhong didn't begin with grand ambitions. It merely aimed to make a few quick bucks during China's chip shortage. After all, who would dare challenge Yuanxin in chip design?
But then Yuanxin entered the flash memory field, and Su Yuanshan personally sent Li Mingliu to "motivate" the Yuanzhong team.
And Li Mingliu didn't just motivate—he reshaped them.
Now, Yuanzhong Microelectronics had transformed.
"Director Li, based on the current market and tech, your expectations are doable. But we're running into a ceiling," Jiang Tao said, sipping his tea, revealing his thinning hair.
"To be blunt, what's limiting SSD development—and NAND flash more broadly—is the interface protocol. Whether it's USB 1.2 or ATA, they're falling behind hardware capabilities."
Li Mingliu replied, "Don't worry about USB. One team is already working on USB 2.0. The real bottleneck is the hard drive interface."
He turned to Luo Ming.
If Li Mingliu was President Su's fiercest general, Luo Ming was the blade in his hand.
"We've got a concept," Luo said seriously. "Proposing a bus is easy—getting people to adopt it is hard. We've talked with Meijie, even reached out to legacy HDD makers like Hitachi and Toshiba. Bottom line: our influence in the storage world is still limited."
"Quit the sob story," Gao Xiaodi interrupted. "What's your concept?"
"A new serial interface to replace ATA entirely. And if we can unify I/O protocols, the CPU can get involved directly."
Gao rolled his eyes. "That's a lot of work."
"It is," Luo admitted. "But I believe the next-gen I/O unification is inevitable. If we don't lead, Intel or AMD will." He sipped tea. "If we really want a next-level SSD, give us time—we can work with Meijie on a new ATA protocol. But if others won't play along or the IEEE committee rejects it, the loss would be huge."
Li Mingliu frowned deeply. For a moment, he wanted to call Su Yuanshan.
He took out his phone… but hesitated… and put it away.
"Fine. You've got one year. Build me a killer interface. Jiang, give me your best SSD design—I'll personally pick the flash dies."
"And Gao, Luo's right—unifying I/O is only a matter of time. Either we follow Intel's lead or blaze our own trail. If we deliver something clearly superior, President Su will handle the lobbying."
He took a deep breath. "How do you build influence? By leading in technology—again and again. If we're behind, then we've got to run harder."
"Won't we pull a muscle?"
"Pull what? Get moving!"
...
Meanwhile, in Zhang Rujin's office:
"Brother Jiang, when we licensed the 0.5-micron process last time, it included shared rights for tech developed from that process. But our 0.35-micron node wasn't based on the 0.5—it came from a new path pioneered by Dr. Liang Mengsong and our team. Yuanxin's photonics group contributed too. I hope you understand that."
Zhang, still smiling like the good-natured veteran he was, now carried a firm edge in his voice.
Jiang was momentarily speechless. He raised his teacup and took a long sip. After a pause, he sighed. "Zhang, I know our headquarters made things difficult during the 0.5-micron negotiations. But as a long-time TI employee, you should understand their concerns."
Zhang didn't even lift his eyes. "Brother Jiang, my job now is to think about Deyuan's future. As its chairman, that's my duty."
"And as you said, I was at TI for twenty years." He smiled again, though bitterly. "But when I begged, no one listened. Even the factories I helped build treated me like a threat."
"In the end, it was President Su who flew to Texas and swallowed a dozen unfair conditions just to get approval."
Zhang's smile faded into cold resolve. "I still have my pride."
And with that, Jiang knew… there was nothing more to say.
"Can I speak frankly, Brother Jiang?"
Could you possibly be any more blunt? Jiang thought. "Go ahead."
"TI never treated Yuanxin as a real partner. From the start, we were just a tool for investment and leverage. And that attitude… led to blunder after blunder."
"For comparison—look at Sony."
"President Su is in Japan right now. He'll spend four days with Sony discussing full collaboration in the digital consumer space."
"You may not know this, but Sony's stock rose 5% today."
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Chapter 595: If We're Doing It, Let's Do It Big
Tokyo, Sony headquarters.
"So basically, you came here just to dodge TI?"
Su Yuanshan and Li Xiao strolled slowly across the grassy area outside the lab, both with their hands in their coat pockets.
"NO! I came to see you, of course."
"Get lost." Li Xiao rolled her eyes and lifted a foot, feigning a kick.
Startled, Su Yuanshan quickly leapt back.
Li Xiao came to a stop, then after thinking for a moment, turned serious. "But I really do want to come back. Do you remember when we first set up the lithium battery lab? Back then, Senior Cheng Peng proposed developing a composite cathode material. Later, for the sake of commercial stability, we decided to focus on lithium iron phosphate."
"Now we've got multiple cathode material teams on both sides, mainly working on breakthroughs in lithium iron phosphate and lithium cobalt oxide."
Su Yuanshan paused in place. "Go on. What's your idea?"
"Mr. Nishimiu here at Sony has also been eager to push forward in composite materials. After multiple rounds of screening, they ended up using the concept we proposed in our lab back then."
"They're using a certain ratio of nickel and manganese to replace some cobalt, forming nickel cobalt manganese oxide to replace lithium cobalt oxide. Theoretically, not only does it reduce cost, it also increases energy density—higher than even lithium iron phosphate. The only drawback is..."
"Stability?"
"Exactly. It's not very stable." Li Xiao recalled their early days in Yuanxin, when the chemical lab was still new. Su Yuanshan had basically let them go wild, with ample funding and no interference. They had free rein to experiment however they wanted.
Thinking back, those early days at Yuanxin were the happiest. The lab had all the experimental materials they could never access in school. Whenever someone had a new idea, they could immediately test it.
They'd gotten lucky—although there were several lab fires, none caused serious damage, and thankfully, no one was ever hurt.
"So I'm thinking, since Sony and we both independently arrived at nickel cobalt manganese oxide, that probably means this path is reliable. You know how materials research often comes down to luck. Here, I mostly just run analysis and cross my fingers."
"So rather than sit here and gamble, why not go back, build a new team, and focus on nickel cobalt manganese? What do you think?"
Su Yuanshan pressed his lips together, then slowly smiled.
"Don't laugh—just say yes or no!" Li Xiao glared at him.
"Yes, of course yes!" Su laughed and nodded.
In fact, part of the reason he came was to bring Li Xiao back. Her initial deployment to Sony wasn't just for technical exchange—it was also a quiet form of "oversight" and "infiltration."
At the time, Yuanxin and Sony had just started cooperating. Keeping an eye out was only prudent.
One of Su's current negotiation goals was to convince Sony to shut down their 18650 battery division entirely and fold it into the Soxin brand.
According to Kutaragi, Sony leadership was receptive to this "grand integration." The future of polymer lithium batteries was visibly bright.
If the merger succeeded, there would no longer be "Sony" branded batteries on the market—only "Soxin."
At that point, neither side would have reason to hold back.
Of course, Su wouldn't abandon lithium battery R&D. Even in tight collaboration, the side contributing more technology would hold more sway inside Soxin.
In the long term, this would directly influence their leverage in the new energy sector.
The only issue was that Li Xiao held too high a position—it was hard to place her properly.
But since the Sony lab had naturally steered toward the same path they had initially envisioned, Su saw no reason not to go with the flow.
After confirming Su wasn't dodging the question as usual, Li Xiao pumped her fist. "Provincial capital—hotpot—here I come!"
"...You can't go back to the provincial capital."
"Why not?" she blinked.
"Because..." Su cleared his throat. "Because the tech park is a nationally classified R&D zone. No dangerous experiments allowed."
"Damn it! It's not like I'm working with explosives!"
Over the next few days, Su Yuanshan continued visiting major Japanese semiconductor companies—not just to invite them to the second Flash Memory Forum, but also to encourage them to join the Ymicor OS Alliance in May.
Truth be told, Su hadn't come to Japan just to dodge TI—though he wasn't exactly rushing to greet them either. His real goal was to deepen cooperation in flash and OS with Japanese firms.
Meanwhile, Chen Jing had traveled to Europe, promoting the Shanghai software fair and recruiting companies interested in mobile—and more accurately, smart mobile—devices for the YOS ecosystem.
After all, the ITU was about to officially solicit proposals for third-generation mobile communication standards.
And that marked the dawn of mobile high-speed internet—or, optimistically, the mobile internet era.
After saying farewell to Kutaragi at the airport, Su returned to China on February 9.
...
As soon as Su stepped into his office, Li Mingliu arrived, hot on his heels.
"Old Li, not like this… give me a breather," Su groaned when he saw Li Mingliu carrying a thick folder with a smug grin.
"Fine, I've got time." Li casually tossed the folder on the desk and pulled up a chair across from Su, lounging back with legs crossed.
"You..." Su sighed and opened the folder.
One glance at the table of contents was enough to shift his mood.
A few minutes later, he finished skimming the document. Now he understood where Li's confidence came from.
"This is a solid proposal! But have you thought it through, Old Li? This puts us on a collision course with Intel—head-on."
—To be frank, Su hadn't wanted to confront Intel so soon in the area of flash chip capacity.
Unlike CPUs, NAND flash scaling not only required finer processes to pack more transistors—it also had to overcome electron leakage issues.
That required deep technical accumulation. In this arena, Yuanxin still lagged.
And Intel's strength was luring opponents into its home turf, then burying them with experience.
Take CPUs: Intel was pushing the "clock speed supremacy" narrative because process tech was the key, and no one could touch their lead.
Still, what excited Su more than the flash battle was the early emergence of SATA and AHCI technologies.
The folder revealed that teams led by Gao Xiaodi and Luo Ming had each proposed a breakthrough solution—doubling theoretical hard drive bandwidth beyond ATA's 1Gb/s limit.
Faster than even SATA 1.0.
And SATA? Intel wouldn't propose that standard for another three years.
Li Mingliu raised his teacup, blew on the foam, sipped, and looked up.
His eyes twinkled with a teasing smirk. "You're not chickening out, are you?"
"Me? Chicken?" Su scoffed, tossing the folder onto the table. He stood up, a glint in his eyes.
"If we're doing it, let's do it big. Let's launch with a custom-built machine!"
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