54: Ren's Invitation to Heroes

Shenzhen.

At Huawei's headquarters in Longgang,

President Ren's face was full of fatigue. In truth, he had long known the importance of processors—not just processor chips, but baseband chips as well.

In 2009, he began investing massive amounts of capital and engineering resources into researching the corresponding technologies. However, technology isn't something built overnight. After several years, they had achieved some successes, but compared to companies like Qualcomm, it was still far too little.

President Ren's expression was weary, and it seemed as though the hair on his head had turned a few shades whiter.

Yu Chengbei stood behind him. In front of them, a middle-aged man in a white lab coat, also looking haggard, held a document.

"President Ren, the design of a 4G baseband is extremely complex, and the workload is unimaginable. At the same time, the EDA software we use doesn't have similar circuit modules. I'm afraid we need a top-tier team of baseband chip design experts to accelerate the design and R&D."

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"Otherwise, I'm afraid..."

"I'm afraid that in the 4G era, we'll either have to use Qualcomm's solutions or MediaTek's. We won't be able to produce a 4G baseband in the short term."

President Ren looked silently at the Huawei Engineer before him.

He knew very well that Qualcomm's price hike this time was aimed directly at Huawei's chip department.

Qualcomm's current sales method was bundled sales: if you purchased their chips, the patent fees were lower. Conversely, if you didn't use their chip solutions and only used their patents, the price was higher than the cost of buying the chips themselves.

This round of price testing was a trap. If Huawei accepted it, continuous price hikes in the future would likely force Huawei to abandon its own chip research, allowing Qualcomm to dominate the entire Chinese chip market.

Red Star had already taken a stand, expressing resolute opposition. This made President Ren feel quite gratified.

Looking at this Chen Chen, he wasn't very old, but he was unexpectedly fierce, possessing the same demeanor his father had back in the day.

His own old bones certainly couldn't fall behind.

They must refuse!

Resolutely refuse!

President Ren turned around and, quite rarely, lit a cigarette to relieve the pressure. Then he asked:

"How can we speed up the progress? What are we missing?"

"I'm afraid we need baseband experts or teams. After all, we're currently crossing the river by feeling the stones. We lack experts of all types. We can only speed up progress by using multiple design teams."

The middle-aged man answered steadily.

President Ren understood. Currently, Huawei had no baseband experts. They either had to recruit a baseband chip team or use 'human wave tactics' to pile on resources!

"We have some reserves in the patent department ourselves. At the same time, we can obtain certain patents from Red Star and MediaTek through cross-licensing. Basically, we won't be too passive regarding 4G patents."

"Red Star? Red Star has 4G patents too?"

Hearing the Engineer say this, President Ren was somewhat surprised. Back then, his relationship with Chen Yunlong wasn't bad, and the man's vision wasn't poor either; otherwise, he wouldn't have poured heavy funds into establishing Red Star's chip department.

"Yes, Lu Weiqi represented Red Star yesterday and came to Huawei for talks. We have already reached an agreement regarding patent licensing. I was also very surprised that they would have 4G patents."

Yu Chengbei, standing behind him, said to President Ren.

"Yes, Chairman Ren. I checked their patents; they were successfully applied for only recently. There are also some relatively key technologies involved."

After the Engineer finished his supplement, President Ren nodded and said no more. As a man who could lead a private enterprise to this level, he was naturally not indecisive and immediately called a board meeting.

Actually, it wasn't just baseband chips; the processor chip department also needed more hands. Yu Chengbei had the most to say about this. The K2V3 processor they were currently using had screwed him over miserably—overheating, frequency throttling, and lagging. The recalls abroad had cost a lot of money.

But things that could be solved with money weren't really an issue for Huawei. What they feared most were things money couldn't solve—the damage to the brand, which was immense.

Early the next morning, the entire chip industry received the news.

President Ren directly issued a wide-reaching 'Heroic Invitation'.

As long as you were a talent in the chip field and joined Huawei's chip department, the benefits would be pushed to the limit. Whether it was salary or bonuses, everything would be at the industry's peak.

What kind of concept was this!

Before, you might have had a monthly salary of only 10,000 in a Chinese lab. Come to Huawei, and it would double instantly. Not enough?

Add more!

If 20,000 didn't move you, then 30,000!

Who wouldn't be moved by such treatment?

"Uncle Lu, President Ren has issued a Heroic Invitation. We at Red Star can't be so passive. You go and issue a notice too. Any talent in the chip field who comes to Red Star will also get top-tier treatment!"

President Ren truly lived up to his name. Chen Chen had only thought about targeted headhunting; why hadn't he thought of issuing a Heroic Invitation?

However, with Chen Chen's reputation and prestige in the industry, if he had issued a Heroic Invitation, people would probably just treat it as a joke.

Who do you think you are, issuing a Heroic Invitation?

Now, with President Ren leading the way, he certainly had to take this opportunity to absorb as much talent as possible.

One must know that in China currently, the salaries and benefits of researchers in some institutes were not high compared to those abroad. Because the overall industry started late, and such was the national situation, costs were controlled for those frontline researchers, keeping salaries as low as possible.

As a result, many talents, despite holding titles from various laboratories and research institutes, didn't actually receive very high salaries. They were just barely crossing the subsistence line, waiting through rankings and seniority for the day they would finally make it.

Now that Huawei and Red Star were directly recruiting with industry-topping salaries, who wouldn't be dazed by the offer?

As the saying goes, under a heavy reward, there must be brave men.

Several heavyweight semiconductor big shots also extended olive branches to Huawei.

While Red Star followed Huawei in headhunting with top salaries, Dr. Lu also flew to Taiwan with Chen Chen's commission.

He was prepared to discuss future 4G patents and the chip procurement business.

Red Star was now considered a major customer for MediaTek. The sales of the shining 2 alone had already exceeded 6 million units. After the price cut, there was a surge in sales. Experts predicted that sales over the entire life cycle would be between 15 million and 20 million.

Xiaomi's hongmi 1 and the shining 2 used the same chip. To avoid a chip supply shortage, Chen Chen decided to negotiate procurement matters with MediaTek.

The new product line had been set, and Chen Chen decided to play a bit 'bigger'.

A single shining 2 for the low-end product line was certainly not enough. He planned to start another shining plus series at the 999 price point. In the second half of the year, he would also launch the Shining note series with upgraded configurations to compete with Xiaomi's mi 2 youth edition.

The Red Star series would continue to increase in price in the future, reaching 1999 to 2999. In this way, a total of two brands and three series could cover the entire price range from 699 to 3999.