SMIC, the leading wafer foundry in mainland China, was recently disclosed by the media that despite the strong US sanctions, it still successfully mass-produced 7nm chips and shipped them to customers with “mining” needs, even if the outside world questioned SMIC’s mass production The number of them is very small and the yield rate is not high, but SMIC has broken through the technical limitations, but it is also a fact. Foreign media believe that Liang Mengsong, who is from Taiwan and once held an important position in TSMC, is the biggest contributor behind the scenes.
The Wall Street Journal reported on “70-year-old Taiwanese chip magician is promoting the ambitions of the mainland’s semiconductor industry”, and praised two major events in the semiconductor industry in the past decade, Samsung’s entry into the ranks of advanced manufacturing processes and SMIC’s mass production of 7nm It’s all about him, with the magic of letting the laggards catch up to the leaders.
The report quoted a source who had worked with Liang Mengsong and pointed out that Liang Mengsong firmly believed that only by producing high-efficiency chips with smaller dimensions can we make a breakthrough in the future, and mentioned that Liang Mengsong believed that TSMC would distribute development resources in the future. Some unimportant areas, differences in ideas are the reasons for the two sides to finally break up.
In addition, it has been revealed that Liang Mengsong is very serious in his work and is desperate. Sometimes he works overtime on holidays and takes his young son to the company. Richard Thurston, the former legal director of TSMC, also praised Liang Mengsong as a gifted scientist and engineer. Therefore, in 2011 Samsung announced that When poaching Liang Mengsong, TSMC was disappointed and surprised.
After Liang Mengsong left TSMC, TSMC believed that Liang Mengsong stole TSMC’s technology and leaked it to Samsung. At the same time, it accused Liang Mengsong of violating the non-compete clause and switching to Samsung. In 2015, the Supreme Court announced that TSMC won the case and banned Liang Mengsong from working for Samsung. At the same time, SMIC reached out to Samsung. Engaging, Liang Mengsong also took advantage of the trend to move westward.
During Liang Mengsong’s tenure as CEO of SMIC, he assisted the company in improving the yield rate of mature processes and advancing the process technology. After the mass production of 28nm and 14nm was completed, it was rumored that Liang Mengsong aimed at 7nm, and the production equipment Under limited circumstances, the wafers shipped to Canadian mining companies through reverse engineering by Canadian company TechInsights were still dismantled this year and found to be using 7-nanometer technology, thus confirming that SMIC has the ability to mass-produce 7-nanometers.
Liang Mengsong is currently the co-CEO of SMIC, but at the end of last year, it was reported that he left the SMIC board of directors on the same day as Jiang Shangyi and Yang Guanglei. Liang Mengsong resigned as an executive director, and there were no Taiwanese on the SMIC board.