But what's the solution?

They are not the party that took the initiative to sue. TSMC sued them for infringing intellectual property rights. In fact, everyone had reached a settlement before. SMIC paid TSMC $175 million and reached a patent exchange agreement between the two parties within 10 years. Unexpectedly, TSMC turned against others so quickly, and filed a new lawsuit this year to sue SMIC for infringement, which made Zhang Rujing very anxious.

The grudges and entanglement between TSMC and SMIC have been around for a long time, mainly because Zhang Rujing's qualifications and connections in the semiconductor industry made TSMC very afraid. At the same time, Zhang Rujing mastered many of TSMC's mature production technologies, and when he went to the mainland to create SMIC, he took away a group of core teams from TSMC.

So basically, if Zhang Rujing doesn't leave SMIC, TSMC will not give up.

The first lawsuit against SMIC was in December 2003, more than three years after SMIC was established.

TSMC, TSMC North American subsidiary and WaferTech jointly announced that on the afternoon of the 19th local time in the Northern California Federal District Court, they filed a number of patent infringement lawsuits against SMIC and SMIC US subsidiaries.

In the complaint, TSMC alleged that SMIC obtained TSMC's business secrets and infringed TSMC's patents through various improper methods, such as having recruited more than 100 TSMC employees and requiring some personnel to provide them with TSMC's business secrets.

At the same time, TSMC also said that a SMIC manager asked a former TSMC manager to obtain semiconductor process technical information for him, which seriously infringed on the company's business secrets.

Less than two years after the lawsuit, in February 2005, TSMC reached a settlement with SMIC, which TSMC said it had reached an out-of-court settlement agreement with SMIC on patent infringement and related disputes.

According to the agreement, SMIC will pay approximately US$175 million to TSMC to settle the alleged patent and trade secret litigation.

However, one year after the settlement, TSMC filed a lawsuit against SMIC again, saying that SMIC violated the settlement agreement reached with TSMC and used illegal means to steal the company's trade secrets.

TSMC requested the court to rule that SMIC immediately stops the infringement and compensates TSMC for related losses.

However, in the last settlement agreement, TSMC and SMIC had already clarified the exchange of interests between the two parties and the content of mutual patent authorization. At this time, they were still clenched. Except for some of the grudges of TSMC against Zhang Rujing, there was no black hand behind the scenes to control it, and Cao Yang did not believe it.

Because for the semiconductor industry, chips are the top priority, and many high-end and sophisticated products rely on chips.

Some countries do not want China's chips to rise, so they must suppress them at all costs.

In my previous life, it was precisely because of this lawsuit in 2006 that lasted for more than three years, and it was not until 2009 that the settlement was reached again.

According to the settlement agreement, SMIC will pay US$200 million in cash to TSMC for four years and issue 1.789 billion new shares to TSMC, accounting for approximately 8% of SMIC’s issued share capital on October 31, and grant TSMC the subscription warrant that 695 million shares of SMIC (adjustable) can be subscribed to TSMC at a subscription price of HK$1.3 per share, which can be exercised within three years from the issuance.

After the share issuance takes effect, TSMC will acquire a total of approximately 10% of the issued shares of SMIC.

After Zhang Rujing completely left SMIC and was appointed as CEO, SMIC only improved slightly.

This war has brought a lot of blows to SMIC.

Originally, production was tight, and the annual income was relatively limited under the squeeze of TSMC. Coupled with various compensation and lawsuits, SMIC was deeply trapped in a quagmire and could not extricate itself, resulting in increasingly backwardness.

Cao Yang didn't want this life to end like this, so he wanted to pull Zhang Rujing.

"Do you know?" Cao Yang said with a wicked smile, "Sometimes, you have to rely on what you should rely on. Since SMIC is in Shanghai, China, I don't quite understand one thing. Why do we have to go to the United States for a lawsuit?"

Isn’t SMIC a stable loss when a TSMC, which is controlled by the United States, fights an infringement lawsuit in the United States?

If SMIC has a national entry behind it, then if you fight this lawsuit from the national level, you may still have hope of winning.

Even if Zhang Rujing really wants to retreat in the future, the country will try every means to ensure the stable development of SMIC.

"Huh?" Zhang Rujing's eyes lit up when he heard Cao Yang's words.
Chapter completed!