Pit people again! How many Taiwan companies are still playing the routine of United Power?

There has always been a saying circulating in the anecdote: "Do business with The Bay, you must keep more eyes", this sentence is not empty, dumb loss we did not eat less.

Not long ago, the mainland was "pitted" by Taiwan-funded enterprises. The joint venture has just turned its losses into profits, and Taiwan enterprises can't wait to kick the mainland shareholders out of the game and play with "unloading and killing donkeys" with one hand.

In 2014, Xiamen officials and Fujian Electronic Information Group decided to jointly establish a 12-wafer foundry "Lianxin" with Taiwanese enterpriseSWITC, which mainly plans to produce 40nm and 28nm chips.

When the company was first formed, the outside world was generally optimistic about this project. We have abundant funds and are willing to invest in chips, and there is no doubt that UMC is the "second brother of chips" technology in Bay Bay. The strong alliance between the two sides will certainly set off a wave in the field of chips.

Construction began in March 2015 and soon the plant construction, equipment, and employees were all in place.

In the middle of 2016, Lianxin completed the 40nm chip market, and the 40nm chip achieved mass production in the fourth quarter.

In May 2017, Lianxin achieved mass production of 28nm chips.

At this point, everyone seems to be a win-win situation - UMC has received investment and entered the mainland market. We have also solved the chip production capacity through the core. But under the ice, in fact, there are dangers, and soon the development of things is beyond the imagination of many people, so that domestic netizens directly call "fooled".

The UMC abacus is refined, and it will turn losses into profits

Soon the project had its first problem – never making money.

From the completion of the project in 2016 to the end of 2021, although the development of Lianxin is in full swing, it has actually been losing money.

In 2016, Lianxin lost 1.435 billion yuan;

In 2017, Lianxin lost 1.681 billion yuan;

In 2018, Lianxin lost 3.116 billion yuan.

Until last year, Lianxin still had a loss of 2.368 billion yuan. In fact, the loss is normal, after all, the annual R & D investment of Lianxin can reach billions of yuan. Our company has not been on this loss, after all, in our eyes, technology research and development is more important. So even if it has been losing money, mainland investors are still investing in research and development.

Soon, however, a shocking scene occurred. In the fourth quarter of last year, Lianxin finally turned a profit and became a profitable company. Originally, the company made money, which was a happy thing. When we first lost money, everyone gritted their teeth and insisted on it together, and now that the hard days are over, everyone will make money together with Harmony.

But the first thing Lianxin did after making money was to "kick out the mainland capital.". A few days ago, UMC announced that it would buy the shares of all other shareholders for 4.858 billion yuan in three years. At that time, Lianxin will become a 100% controlled subsidiary of UMC.

UMC has long been premeditated, and there is cat grease on the contract

Many people who heard the news were stupid, and it was ugly to call the united power to eat. Why has Lianxin developed over the years?

On the one hand, our support policies have played a great role, and tax incentives and research and development subsidies have shared a lot of survival pressure for Lianxin. On the other hand, the continuous investment of shareholders has allowed the production and research and development of Lianxin to continue, and the entire project will not fall into a rotten end. UMC, however, was not so honest from the start.

First of all, at the beginning of the cooperation, UND clearly stressed that the mainland cannot participate in the company's operation and technology research and development, but can only participate in investment dividends. This is obviously a wary heart, afraid that we will learn the technology. To know that we have been investing in chip companies, the most important purpose is to accumulate chip manufacturing technology and experience, and now there is no way to participate in research and development, which is very unfavorable for us.

Secondly, UMC added a "overlord clause" to the contract - after 7 years, UMC has the right to buy back all the shares of Lianxin. Why is this an overlord clause? The word "right" is very critical, so that the repurchase of the equity of Lianxin has completely become a right of UMC. If the company is in good operating condition, UMC can forcibly buy back the equity, and if the operating conditions are not good, UMC can shrink its head, regardless of it.

It just makes a lot of people feel wrong is that when the seven-year period arrives, UMC immediately turns a profit, is this time point stuck a little too coincidental, will this be designed by UMC at the beginning?

The "United States case" was put together by UMC

In February 2016, UMC, together with Fujian Electronic Information Group and Jinjiang Energy Investment Group, established Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd., which mainly produces dynamic access memory (DRAM). At that time, the domestic DRAM market was monopolized by foreign companies, and in order to change this situation, mainland enterprises came to UMC for cooperation.

UMC is still the same routine, moving out of its own set of "you pay, I contribute", the operation and research and development are firmly controlled in their own hands, telling the other two shareholders only need to contribute capital, and nothing else needs to be managed. However, UMC still drew a "big cake" and told the other two shareholders that the preliminary technology research and development work was completed by UMC, and after the successful technology research and development, it would be transferred to the name of Fujian Jinhua and then produced.

After the establishment of the enterprise, Chen Zhengkun, the senior vice president of UMC, was transferred to the general manager of Fujian Jinhua, and this person subsequently became the culprit who destroyed Fujian Jinhua. Chen Zhengkun worked at U.S. company Micron Technology before joining UMC, which is a world-renowned storage chip giant, so Chen Zhengkun is an experienced and skilled veteran in this industry.

When he joined, Chen Zhengkun brought a DRAM technical team, many of whom were technicians from Micron, which also attracted the attention of Micron.

In September 2017, Micron sued UMC for technical infringement, saying that technicians from Micron who had jumped to UMC stole its internal trade secrets, and that many of the technologies used by U-Power were unauthorized "skinning techniques." Subsequently, the case was heard in the United States, and one of the defendants in court was Fujian Jinhua, who believed that Fujian Jinhua could not be separated from it, and also used its own stolen key technology.

In the end, under the heavy evidence, UMC had to admit its crime, lost 60 million US dollars to Micron, and gave the matter to it. But the other two shareholders are in a difficult situation. Lao Mei put Fujian Jinhua on the "entity list", European and American technology and equipment were all recovered, and the company was completely suspended. The entire project, from plant construction to equipment purchase to technology licensing, invested a total of nearly $5.3 billion, which can be said to be all gone.

A good project under the operation of UMC can be said to be "chicken flying egg fight", and the mainland investors are bitter and cannot say that such cooperation has made its reputation stink.

Foxconn is another example

In fact, Taiwan enterprises in the mainland cut leeks and are not only United Power, we are most familiar with Foxconn. At the beginning, with the generous treatment given by the state, Foxconn became a world-renowned foundry industry giant.

As for the intensification of the Western blockade, Foxconn is also involved in it, as huawei's most important foundry, it directly cut off all foundry work without calling. If IT had not stood up at a critical moment and taken over all of Huawei's foundries, Huawei would have most likely stopped production or reduced production.

Later, Foxconn gave up its domestic industry and followed Apple to Southeast Asia, what was the result?

First of all, the factory can not recruit the right workers, the difference in corporate culture and work system, so that many Southeast Asian countries labor force "not cold" to Foxconn. In desperation, Foxconn can only raise salaries to attract talent.

In recent years, Apple has been exposed to an increase in the failure rate of mobile phones, and problems such as lens accumulation, green screen, hardware failures and other problems are becoming more and more common, resulting in Apple's reputation gradually declining, but Foxconn also needs to increase employee training.

More seriously, after the outbreak of the epidemic in Southeast Asia, Foxconn was forced to cut production, which led to Foxconn directly falling into operational difficulties, and Foxconn obviously paid the price for its own choice.

Last year, Gou announced that Foxconn would return to China, but today's Foxconn is no longer what it used to be. In the past year, Foxconn has been in difficulty in recruiting workers in the mainland, and in order to fill the vacancies, Foxconn has repeatedly raised salaries and treatment. In this case, can Foxconn reproduce the "majestic wind" of the past? We don't know.

Earning our money to smash our bowls is absolutely intolerable

Perhaps many Taiwan enterprises still do not understand the situation, the mainland is no longer a mainland that "can't afford to eat tea and eggs," and we are no longer ordinary people who "can't afford to eat Fuling squeezed vegetables." We have begun to embark on the road of independent research and development, and the original set of "you pay, I contribute" routine of Taiwan enterprises has not worked. I believe that in the future, Taiwan enterprises will come to the mainland as another posture, and the behavior of "earning our money and smashing our bowls" will no longer be tolerated. (Huo Hao)

Pit people again! How many Taiwan companies are still playing the routine of United Power?

Eat our food and smash our bowls? UMC eating is too ugly