Chapter 232: Skyrocketing Share Prices

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

“Fake news?”

“One has to bear the criminal penalty of creating fake rumors.”

“Is today April Fool’s Day?”

The initial reactions by netizens were along the lines of “fake news,””fake rumors,” or “April Fool’s joke.” Only some idiots who were unfamiliar with the chip industry were offering their congratulations.

“Congratulations on your breakthrough!”

“Zhongxin is awesome!”

“Fight for the glory in the name of the nation!”

The netizens who had a deeper understanding of the chip manufacturing industry felt that they had no choice but to give them a crash course on the scientific workings of the topic.

“Our chip manufacturing standard is more than 10 years behind those of the most advanced companies. Our manufacturing techniques and processes are lagging by about 2 to 3 generations. It is impossible to catch up to the most advanced standard within a few short months, much less surpass the current mainstream production of the 7-nanometer chip.”

“Even with the most ideal conditions, the earliest we can catch up to the 7-nanometer chip manufacturing technology is around 20X5. It’s impossible to reach and even surpass that milestone so early!”

“It might be believable if this kind of leap in technological advancement happened in other sectors, but when it comes to high-end manufacturing sectors like chip production, it’s absolutely impossible! It is a tree that is the hardest to climb; it’s the holy grail of all the industrial sectors. Just like our motors, it can only be achieved step by step in a concrete manner. There is no possibility of skipping past the necessary stages through shortcuts or cheap tricks!”

“Don’t believe this! This kind of breakthrough is impossible unless the manufacturer has mastered the zenith of chip-making technologies or received help from aliens.”

Indeed, the disbelieving voices of the skeptics dominated the internet. However, these doubts were normal. They were common sense and logical conclusions. Most of these opinions contained no personal bias. Would they not like this news to be real? Would they not hope that Zhongxin International had achieved a breakthrough in advanced manufacturing techniques? But, to conquer the 7-nanometer chip in 8 months and to finish the given commands 2 months in advance… It was too unrealistic, like something from a fantasy novel.

They had immediately thought of it as meaningless pomp and decided that the announcement by Zhongxin International’s upper management was only to increase their share prices. It must be a mere show. They even employed what they thought was a critical move by claiming that they had skipped over the development of the 10-nanometer chip and produced the 7-nanometer directly. They were spoiling things with their excessive enthusiasm and exaggeration. They were courting their death.

They persuaded Zhongxin International with good intentions. The company should maintain a stable and patient attitude, and at the same time restrain themselves from making unnecessary shockwaves. Then, the future would belong to Zhongxin International. But their words fell on deaf ears. The company still continued to do as they pleased. Many people gave up on persuading them.

Now that 8 months had passed and Zhongxin International had announced the good news that they had “conquered the 7-nanometer chip,” many found that they could not be happy about it. Instead, the vast majority of citizens shook their head in disbelief. This must be a joke that has gone wrong. If Zhongxin International continued to display their happiness, their reputation would be facing a downward slide.

The news of Zhongxin International “conquering the 7-nanometer chip” was drowned beneath the doubts of the skeptics. The company did not receive any cheers for their thrilling and happy news. Nobody wanted to spread this piece of good news either.

Chen Jin called Zhang Wei Jin to discuss the matter. They decided to change their story to gain the trust of the netizens.

Zhang Wei Jin declared his apology on his personal Weibo as well as Zhongxin International’s official Weibo. “My apologies to everyone for this deception. I did not explain the matter clearly. In actual fact, the command we gave to ourselves to ‘conquer the 7-nanometer chip in ten months’ did not mean that we started researching the 7-nanometer chip production techniques from scratch. After we received the first EUV in 2018, we started the development of both the 10 and 7-nanometer chips simultaneously. Then, we achieved the tape-out of the 10-nanometer production techniques two years later and created our first 10-nanometer chip. With this milestone, we obtained the technologies relevant to the production of the 10-nanometer chip. But what was really shocking was that our development team for the 7-nanometer chip also achieved the tape-out process for the 7-nanometer production less than a month after the 10-nanometer development team produced the first 10-nanometer chip. In other words, the 7-nanometer chip development team had advanced so far ahead of the 10-nanometer development team with their amazing speed. Taking into consideration that Mossy Electrics was in the midst of the trial production phase for the 5-nanometer chip, we felt a sense of urgency, and therefore we made a risky decision to invest all our resources and time into the development of the 7-nanometer production techniques! We were forced by circumstances to make the promise to conquer the 7-nanometer in 10 months in front of the media. Zhongxin International faced tremendous financial pressure. If the shareholders were not optimistic about our projects, we would lose the source of our funding. We would lose this critical battle not because of any incompetence or mistakes by the R&D personnel, but because of the lack of funds. I hope that we can have everyone’s understanding in this matter. It was lucky that our gamble paid off! We’ve only used a total of three years to conquer the 7-nanometer chip which would typically require 5 years! Although the yield is less than 20%, we have successfully produced the 7-nanometer chip for real! I would like to thank all the R&D personnel for this. It’s because of all your hard work and determination that we can finally taste the fruits of our labor. Zhongxin International will keep working diligently; we will not disappoint the support and anticipation of everyone!”

After this “declaration of apology” was posted online, the netizens were finally feeling impassioned!

“When I saw the word ‘deception’ in the title, I thought that the 7-nanometer chip was only fake news.”

“This finally explained how they used only three years to conquer the 7-nanometer chip.”

“We’re just keyboard warriors; we’re not occupying the positions of Zhongxin International’s upper management, of course we can’t understand their difficulties or the pressure that they were under. The command that they gave to themselves in front of the media was because they were forced by circumstances.”

“Cheers to the 7-nanometer development team; they are unbelievably good!”

“Don’t underestimate the abilities of the EUV lithography machine. The wavelength the machine is 13 nanometers. There’s no big difference when applying the machine in the production of the 10 and 7-nanometer chip. It’s entirely possible to achieve simultaneous breakthroughs for the two projects. This only means that Zhongxin International has a brilliant R&D strategy. They started both projects at the same time and also achieved breakthroughs in both projects at about the same time. But, they chose to stake everything on one project when it became necessary. By doing so, they were choosing the route that’s fraught with much more difficulties but would present them with huge rewards in the end. Much courage is needed to make this decision.”

“Then, it’s true that Zhongxin International conquered the 7-nanometer chip?”

“Seems like it’s real.”

At that moment, Chen Jin posted another piece of news on his personal Weibo account. Its contents were a line of words and an image. “The SX-1000 by Zhongxin International OEM has a running benchmark of 453,831.” The image was a photo of the running benchmark points on a trial version of the SX-1000.

This Weibo post created great excitement in the netizens!

“I’m so amazed by the 7-nanometer chip!”

“Only the 7-nanometer chip can produce a running benchmark like that!”

“Xing Hai Technologies has handed all their OEM orders for chips to Zhongxin. Due to the isolationist strategies by Samsin and Google, they can only depend on themselves to develop and manufacture the high-end chip. With a running benchmark of 450,000 points, it proves that Zhongxin has really succeeded.”

“Zhongxin International has created a miracle!”

“This happy news is too sudden. I still can’t believe that it’s real, yet, I really want this to be real.”

“Chen Jin has replied to a netizen. He said that the first batch of SX-1000 is in the trial production process now. The first high-end flagship mobile with the Star Cloud system will be launched within two months. All your doubts will disappear when you buy one!”

“Ok! Even if it’s selling for more than $10,000, I’ll still buy it when it comes out!”

Suddenly, a netizen shouted, “Do you guys want to speculate on their share prices? Any of you bought Zhongxin’s shares? Everyone, quickly buy their shares!”

The public had basically believed and confirmed amongst themselves that Zhongxin International had conquered the 7-nanometer production techniques.

The stock market opened on the morning of July 9th. In less than 2 minutes, the share prices of Zhongxin International were rising straight up to the daily limits. It was similar on the 10th and 11th. For three days straight, Zhongxin’s stock prices increased until they reached their daily limits. The market value of Zhongxin International shot straight up to 150 billion.

Since the early days, Chen Jin’s Xing Hai Investments had used all its idle cash of more than 20 billion to purchase the shares of Zhongxin International. Thus, Xing Hai Investments now held 45.7% of Zhongxin International. After reaching the daily increase limits for three days straight, Xing Hai Investments saw at least 30% return in their investment in Zhongxin International.

Zhongxin International’s stock prices increased to their daily limit again on the 12th of July. Many investors who could not buy Zhongxin’s stock were cursing Xing Hai Technologies. “Stop hoarding your meal, Xing Hai Technologies,””Leave a little something for others,””Zhongxin International, hurry and release another batch of shares,””We want to show our support for our domestic chips!”

Faced with the pressure exerted by countless investors, Chen Jin let the head of Xing Hai Investments sell off about 20 billion of the shares that were purchased using deposit funds (that was, the investment capital given by his little aunt and others). Those shares were quickly scooped up by the majority of investors.

Xing Hai Investments earned nearly 1 billion in profits by cashing out their shares in Zhongxin International. The investors who worked with Xing Hai Investments saw more than 50% returns on their principal!

His little aunt, He Jia, made a special call to express her thanks. “Little Chen, your company is too awesome! It was right to put my money into your investment company. How about this, I won’t be withdrawing my original principal or the profits made from it, I’ll give you another 1 billion to invest. I hope that you can replicate this excellent result again.”

Chen Jin nodded. “Ok, ok.”

After which, he received another call from his second eldest uncle and Wang Zeyu, amongst many others who wanted to invest. He had not even distributed the investment’s profits for the current investors and yet he had attracted another wave of investment capital worth more than 10 billion. The current cash flow of Xing Hai Investments had swelled to more than 40 billion.

Chen Jin could only shake his helplessly in response to this matter. “This is snowballing. Investment capital is a terrible beast. It won’t stop until it has taken every last penny.”

It was good that Xing Hai Technologies could make use of this beast.

…

On another side of the world, the news of Zhongxin International conquering the 7-nanometer chip was creating huge waves outside of Z country.

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