Chapter 395: Perfect Preparation
"Professor Shirakawa, Professor Hosono, what is the approximate production cost range of our current STN and TFT screens?"
These two LCD technologies have just been put into commercial use. To be honest, when Shirakawa Feng saw the factory price they sold to Casio, he was shocked.
A TFT screen that is slightly larger than an electronic watch costs as much as 30,000 yen.
This small piece is more expensive than Shirakawa Electric's high-end Walkman. No wonder the sales volume has not reached 10,000 after more than a month of sales.
Of course, the 30,000 yen includes the driver IC, which is the package price of the SIC.
“The cost of TFT screens is about 7,000 yen due to yield issues.
The cost of the driver IC is 2,000 yen, and the cost of the two together can be kept within 10,000 yen."
A yield rate of less than 30% is still too low, which has more than doubled the production cost of LCD factories.
Of course, Hideki Shirakawa and Hideo Hosono have been constantly improving the process, and it is expected that it will be able to increase by about 7 to 8 percent in a few months.
The TFT process, which uses photolithography technology to burn transistors over a large area on a glass substrate, is relatively immature.
If you want to improve the yield, you can only do it step by step. Of course, in addition to equipment, if there can be significant progress in the process, the yield will also increase faster.
Baichuan Feng silently calculated if the cost was 10,000 yen.
With a factory price of 30,000 yen, the final profit should be more than 15,000 yen.
Tsk, even though is not big, the profit is considerable.
It's a pity that the shipment volume is really small, otherwise it can really be called a gold mine.
"What about the STN screen? Is there any way to improve its yield?" If Baichuan Feng remembered correctly, the process of making the STN screen was much simpler.
"We are confident that we can increase the yield of STN screens to more than 60% within half a year."
STN does not involve photolithography technology, and this alone means that its process improvement is much simpler than TFT.
However, in order to improve its response speed and increase the pixel ratio, the process is still much more complicated than when it was first shown to Shirakawa Kaede.
Not to mention the various polarizers and filters, the performance of the driver IC is not much different from that of TFT.
However, the cost is still much lower than the latter, only about 2,000 yen, and the total including the chip is less than 5,000 yen.
STN's shipment price to Casio is 14,000 yen, and SIC can make a profit of about 8,000 yen.
If the shipment volume increases, it will not be difficult for the final profit to exceed the former.
“In the next stage, our main focus will be on improving yield and saving costs.
As for the development of larger TFT screens, we can proceed step by step without rushing.”
"Yeah!" Shirakawa Hideki and Hosono Hideo both nodded to show that they understood.
At the same time, they also admired Baichuan Feng's rationality. Their boss did not invest in the next stage of research and development regardless of cost just because of the outside world's hype about TFT screens.
The technical difficulty of TFT is far more complicated than imagined, and materials and equipment have restricted its technological progress.
These problems cannot be solved by simply throwing money at them. If we want to achieve a major breakthrough, we need progress in the entire industry chain.
Baichuan Feng also understood this point, so he was not in a hurry to develop a larger TFT screen.
If the problem was so easy to solve, TFT technology would not have been used on a large scale until the millennium.
Now Panasonic and Toshiba are rushing into the TFT-LCD field and developing large 14-inch displays right from the start.
Baichuan Feng was not optimistic about their ambitions.
If nothing unexpected happens, after several years of huge investments, there may be only a few companies that can actually persevere.
After discussing the future LCD development plan with Shirakawa Hideki and others, Shirakawa Kaede once again found Shima Masayoshi and Nakajima Heitaro and others.
Regarding Prince Akihito's reminder to him, Shirakawa Feng also told them the general situation.
Of course, there is no need to explain the source of the information in such detail, he still understands this point.
"Brother Nakajima, Mr. Dao, this is roughly the situation. Do you have any ideas?"
To gather everyone's ideas, Baichuan Feng also wanted to hear their opinions.
As expected, both Nakajima Heitaro and Shima Masayoshi were deep in thought with serious expressions.
They understand very well that if MITI forces SIC to disclose its chip architecture technology, the latter will have no good solution.
Ten years ago, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry was able to organize several semiconductor companies to put aside their selfishness and jointly tackle DRAM technology. This was not entirely based on profit.
Shirakawa Feng didn't believe that no tricks were used. Otherwise, NEC would not have obediently contributed its technology to the VL SI Research Institute.
No, there is no need for any special means. All we need is for the MITI to step in, and I believe no company would dare to refuse its request.
In the face of the state apparatus, any resistance is futile.
As long as the province makes a slight policy adjustment or issues a few fines, a company will slowly die.
There is a lot to be done here. Even a strong company like NEC has to bow down, not to mention SIC which has not yet grown up.
Seeing that they all looked serious but had no constructive suggestions, Baichuan Feng sighed secretly.
This was not unexpected to him. If an ordinary person heard such news, they might not even think of resisting.
It's quite good that they can keep calm.
"How about this," Baichuan Feng knocked on the table to attract their attention, "Brother Nakajima and Mr. Dao, mobilize all your connections and go to the Ministry of International Trade and Industry to inquire about the news.
It would be best if we could put some pressure on the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.
It's the same here. I will contact all the people who have a say and lobby the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.
Our goal is not to dispel the MITI or give up the idea of letting SIC disclose its technology. We have only one goal, which is to delay it! "
"Delay?" Nakajima Heitaro and Shima Masatoshi looked at Shirakawa Kaede in surprise.
"That's right, delay. Compared to forcing MITI to give up its original idea, delaying is easier to achieve.
Besides, things are not that bad. As far as I know, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry is just considering it and has no real intention to let us disclose the technology."
This is the only good news right now. Otherwise, if such an order is really issued, then Baichuan Feng doesn't need to discuss it anymore and can just execute it obediently.
When they heard that the Ministry of International Trade and Industry was still studying the idea, Nakajima Heitaro and his colleagues were delighted.
If it just interferes with their decision-making and delays the progress, they might actually give it a try.
After all, such a decision cannot be made by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry alone, and discussing it at a meeting is an essential process.
There will be a solution as long as we hold a meeting to discuss it. If that doesn't work, we can just find a few congressmen to stir up trouble.
In short, it would be best if this matter could be ruined, but if it cannot be ruined, dragging it out for a year or two would also be considered achieving the goal.
Baichuan Feng also had the same idea. Baichuan Electric had given so many benefits in the past few years. Now it was only right for these congressmen who had received the money to contribute their influence.
"In addition to these measures, do you think the last incident with Arnold Semiconductor is feasible?"
Delay is one method, but in other aspects, Baichuan Feng is also actively seeking a way out.
"In principle, this is not a problem. Especially in North America, property rights protection is more reliable than in Japan."
As for technology licensing, Shima Masayoshi has seen it a lot in Silicon Valley. It is very common in North America and will become more and more common internationally in the future.
"Okay, then let's contact the other party immediately and reach a contract as soon as possible." Baichuan Feng made the decision immediately. This matter should be done sooner rather than later.
"In addition to Arnold, if there are any other North American companies inquiring, we will also actively contact them."
Why did Baichuan Feng change his previous hesitation and start considering releasing authorization?
That's because he was considering the fallback plan and the worst-case scenario.
If the MITI issues an order, it will mean that SIC will lose its own technology.
In this case, it is better to license the chip to other companies before that and earn the licensing fees first.
If the operation goes well, SIC may be able to make a lot of money from licensing fees in the future.
Otherwise, once the technology is lost, it will be difficult to negotiate authorization.
Neon suddenly has several more potential competitors. Can they just sit there and watch SIC make money?
Baichuan Feng expressed doubts about their moral integrity.
Of course, everything that is being done now is auxiliary work. In Japan, Shirakawa Feng is also planning to visit the two semiconductor giants, Hitachi and Toshiba.
He had some big business and wanted to talk to them.
We are all contributing to Japan's economy, so wouldn't it be a bad thing to make such a big fuss?
…
In addition to the shock brought by the TV watches in Japan in July, Shirakawa Electric also launched its new generation of audio-visual products at the end of this month.
For example, the improved portable CD player, as envisioned at the beginning of the year, has eliminated the previously cumbersome battery box.
Not only that, the thickness of the portable CD player is also less than 3cm, only 27mm.
At the same time, compared with the weight of 600g of the previous generation, the new generation D-02 is only about 500g.
It can be said that the second-generation D-02 has greatly improved in portability.
Its appearance already has the shadow of the ultra-thin Discman of later generations. At least girls can easily pick it up and walk around with it.
In addition to these appearance changes, D-02 also has a special design for shockproofing.
The clamp-type turntable originally envisioned has been officially put into use, and Shirakawa Electric has named it the VRDS (Vibration-Free Rigid Disc-Clamping System) clamp-type turntable.
Its function is to clamp the record, giving the entire mechanism a good shock-absorbing effect and basically achieving resonance-free data reading.
Compared with the first generation, the disc skipping and jamming phenomena have been greatly reduced, which is a very obvious improvement.
At the same time, Shirakawa Electric also applied this system on desktop computers. In order to resist earthquakes, aluminum sheets were used instead of clamp-shaped clips.
Its internal mechanism precision and laser head sensitivity are also higher, and the effect is much better than that of a portable CD player.
In terms of price, the portable D-02 still maintains the same pricing level as the previous one, 49,800 yen.
As for the desktop computer, Shirakawa Electric's price is 180,000 yen.
Yes, Shirakawa's desktop computers are more expensive than Sony's.
Since it is high-end, it is better to go all the way to the top. In terms of materials and design, Shirakawa Electric is confident that it is slightly better than Sony.
Those who are willing to spend money to buy high-end CD players are all music enthusiasts, and they don’t care about the price difference of tens of thousands of yen at all.
For them, effect and listening experience come first, and price is the second consideration.
Since the profit is not based on volume, then of course the profit of a single machine should be increased.
As for what ordinary people listen to, well, the brand new D-02 has made its debut.
Compared with the various defects of the first generation machine, its changes are quite significant.
The launch of D-02 was unsurprisingly welcomed by consumers, but it also brought considerable pressure to competitors.
