Chapter 210 The All-Purpose Su Yuanshan
The afternoon sun slanted down, casting light across Chen Jianguo's face, making him look full of a spirit that said: Even if a thousand men block my path, I will still charge forward.
"Good! That's exactly the spirit we need," Su Yuanshan said with a hearty laugh. "When Senior Brother Wenjie returns, the two of you will complement each other perfectly. Then we'll push the new process forward together!"
Chen Jianguo took a few deep breaths and nodded with a smile. "Yeah, I heard from Old Tang that he's made some progress too. Is that true?"
"It is," Su Yuanshan nodded. "One reason I came here was to see how things are going. The other is to stay with Li Mingliu for a few days and help them align with Senior Brother Wenjie's ideas."
"Didn't expect Old Tang to move so quickly. Guess that foreign education did some good," Chen Jianguo joked.
"Heh, you wanna go study abroad too?"
Chen Jianguo laughed and shook his head. "Maybe exchange ideas sometime, but no need for full study abroad. Besides, if Old Tang already drank the Western ink, we can just sponge off him when he gets back—going abroad for a PhD takes five or seven years. Who's got time for that?"
"True," Su Yuanshan smiled, hands in his pockets. "Theory isn't that complicated—unless you're hopelessly slow, you can pick it up quickly. The real value of a mentor is guidance and providing resources—and Yuanxin has no shortage of those."
"Yeah..." Chen Jianguo suddenly stopped walking and stared at Su Yuanshan. "Sometimes we really think you're like a mentor, arranging everything for us so clearly."
"Uh..." After so many years, Su Yuanshan's skin was thick enough not to mind such praise. He blinked and said with a grin, "Well, that's what being a genius is about, right?"
"Pfft..." Zhou Xiaohui couldn't help but cover her mouth and giggle from the side, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably.
Chen Jianguo helplessly shook his head and gave Su Yuanshan a friendly slap on the back.
...
Waving goodbye to Chen Jianguo, Su Yuanshan and Zhou Xiaohui climbed into their car.
Since the driver wasn't someone familiar, Su Yuanshan behaved and sat quietly in the back seat.
As the car turned onto the main road, Zhou Xiaohui, seeing Chen Jianguo still waving, rolled down the window and waved back for Su Yuanshan. Then she turned and asked, "Is Dr. Chen really going to do a PhD?"
"Depends on him. It's still relatively easy to get a doctorate domestically," Su Yuanshan said, buckling his seatbelt and resting his hands behind his head. "Oh, well, it's easier if you study under my dad—since Senior Brother Jianguo has always worked with him. But now his research is shifting more toward physics, and my dad's guidance will be limited."
"Ah... I thought Professor Su was omnipotent," Zhou Xiaohui said innocently.
"Haha, who's omnipotent?"
"You are, aren't you?" Zhou Xiaohui said seriously, without the slightest hint of flattery.
"Me, omnipotent..." Su Yuanshan stopped himself, chuckled, and shook his head. "I'm just a jack-of-all-trades, master of none... Well, okay, I'm pretty good at integrated circuit design."
Zhou Xiaohui covered her mouth and giggled again. After a moment, she blinked and asked, "But why did you say seven years? That's the longest R&D cycle I've heard of."
"Because predictions in technology are different from those in economics," Su Yuanshan explained with a smile. "In economics, forecasts tend to be conservative to avoid uncontrolled risks. But in tech development, forecasts must lean toward optimism. Seven years—that's about how long it will take foreign competitors to crack this technology. Since we're starting behind, we have to act early."
Zhou Xiaohui nodded, half-understanding. "But your economic predictions don't seem very conservative either."
"Hahaha..."
The next day, Su Yuanshan visited Yuanzhong Microelectronics.
After the New Year's meetings, Li Mingliu had quickly formed a new team here dedicated to breaking through in flash memory. The team was led by Zhu Chunrong, a veteran who had once helped support Chengguang Institute and who had joined Yuanxin three years earlier, also a Tsinghua graduate.
What was gratifying was that the group who had joined Yuanxin three years ago to work on EDA—except for a handful who left for various reasons—had mostly stayed on. They had steadily risen through the ranks to lead teams of their own.
Among them were big names like Li Mingliu and Jiang Wanchao, who had shown stunning potential early on in EDA, as well as those like Gao Xiaodi, Jiang Tao, Qu Hui, Zhu Jianting, and Xiao Shouping, who developed their strengths more gradually.
Of course, not to mention the original core members like Qin Weimin and Tian Yaoming.
Excluding the now-separated EDA division, these people formed Yuanxin's most critical middle layer.
From the early days when Li Mingliu had led a small, almost "squatting" team, to today—after continuous recruitment—the cache team now had nearly two hundred members.
Especially with Li Mingliu using his Tsinghua alumni network to recruit a flood of graduates and even bring back some overseas returnees.
The only regret was that they hadn't been able to recruit any top-tier legends.
Given the size of the cache team and the fact that they would soon split into two, Li Mingliu felt it was time to stop "squatting" under someone else's roof.
"Notify Senior Brother Jiang Tao. Let's have a quick meeting," Su Yuanshan said as he entered the design center on the 16th floor of Zhongxin and greeted everyone before heading straight to a small conference room.
"He just replied—he's coming down now," Li Mingliu said, half-closing the door. He took out a cigarette pack but quickly hid it again when he spotted Zhou Xiaohui, laughing awkwardly.
"I don't mind," Zhou Xiaohui said politely.
"No worries, my craving isn't that bad," Li Mingliu chuckled.
"I don't believe that for a second..." Su Yuanshan glanced at him sideways. "Nicotine affects you know what."
Li Mingliu froze. "Seriously?"
"Why would I lie?" Su Yuanshan was about to add "You'll notice it in the mornings" but caught Zhou Xiaohui lightly clearing her throat and realized there was a young lady present. So he just grinned. "Believe it or not."
"Then I really gotta quit," said Zhu Chunrong, who rarely spoke but joined in: "I got hooked because of Old Li."
"Hey! You started by bumming smokes off me!" Li Mingliu protested.
As they bantered, the conference room door was knocked, and Jiang Tao appeared.
...
Now, Jiang Tao was the manager and legal representative of Yuanzhong Microelectronics.
Back when Jiang Tao had led a support team at Zhongxin, Wang Chaoxin had "treasured" him—saying that keeping this "revolutionary seed" would lead to growth. Over time, Yuanzhong had indeed blossomed into a company with several hundred employees.
Though still a wholly owned subsidiary, Wang Chaoxin had shown deep commitment to investing in it, even at great financial cost.
When Yuanxin later dissolved its commercial IC division, Jiang Tao realized that there would likely be no serious domestic competitors left standing against Yuanzhong.
So he swiftly expanded: recruiting talents, taking orders, and today, Yuanzhong Microelectronics had become the undisputed leader in commercial IC design in China.
"Senior Brother Jiang," Su Yuanshan stood to greet him warmly.
Jiang Tao hurried over to shake his hand, then turned to Zhou Xiaohui: "Xiaohui, long time no see."
"Two years already," Zhou Xiaohui said, smiling sweetly. "Engineer Jiang."
After they sat down, Su Yuanshan looked at Jiang Tao seriously. "Senior Brother, there are two main things I want to discuss."
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