On 2/4/22 2:09 AM, David Lanzendörfer wrote:
The question is... how much do they wanna have for a process they're discontinuing? Didn't the process make them enough to make break-even by now? We should have some video conference with them, in which we discuss what Libresilicon is about, and maybe instead of buying the IP, we might even negotiate their longterm support out of it. But maybe I'm just an optimist because I'm used to Chinese culture... Haha...
Seriously. Introduce us. Lets have a meeting.
Well, this was kinda such a conference.
I got the appointment by surprise - after long time calling the (nearly retired?) "process owner".
After introducing Libresilicon, we talked about the current situation.My impression is, that he does not like to invest any money into the process anymore but wouldn't resist getting money out of them.
So I draw this ASCII-art here for the flow chart he might have in mind
+----------------+ .-------------> | process active | <------------. | +----------------+ | | | | | v | | ---------------- | | yes / \ | * <----------- ( expenses covered ) 0.75 Mill | | \ ??? / per year? | | ---------------- | | | no | | v | | ---------------- | | yes / profitable \ | '------------- ( costumer ahead ) | \ ??? / | ---------------- | | no | v | ---------------- | +---------------+ yes / any \ | | process sold | <--- ( buyer ahead ) | +---------------+ \ ??? / | ^ ---------------- | | | no | | v | | +----------------+ | | | process stalled| | | +----------------+ | | | | | v | | ---------------- | | / profitable \ yes | | ( costumer ahead ) ------------' | \ ??? / | ---------------- | | no | v | ---------------- | yes / any \ '------------- ( buyer ahead ) \ ??? / ---------------- | no v +----------------+ | process dead | +----------------+
The process is currently in the 'stalled' state.
Where do you see a win-win for him and us? I guess, the magic "red envelope" (Hong Bao) does not work here.. :-(
BTW, as I saw in papers from 2012, they already had an similar high-temperature CMOS SOI process on 1 micron (called H10) which is already gone. He was the manager in charge also this time.
Regards, Hagen.