Chapter 49: Arrangement
“Brother Tang!”
“General Manager Fan, please sit down.”
Tang Lifai quickly welcomed Fan Ren and had him sit down.
Regarding this form of address, he had already subtly reminded Fan Ren several times to call him Old Tang or just by name, as being called this way made him very uncomfortable.
But Fan Ren didn’t care about these things. Tang Lifai had proactively come to help when the company was just established and still under decoration, and to this day he was still diligently working for Xinghai.
Moreover, Fan Ren saw the stack of books behind him and knew that this big brother was even more dedicated to improving his business level, never falling behind in learning.
Fan Ren pressed his hand to signal him to sit down quickly, then stated his purpose.
Since he had decided to transfer the battery department to Xingyun Manufacturing, in terms of personnel configuration, Fan Ren also planned to transfer these research and development personnel who were more proficient in battery business together.
And Tang Lifai had a good level in this aspect, so transferring him to serve as the department supervisor would save Yun Yin a lot of trouble.
After he explained these, Tang Lifai suddenly became a bit uneasy.
“General Manager Fan, have I done something wrong recently…”
“Brother Tang, don’t overthink it. Xingyun Manufacturing will fully take charge of the production and manufacturing of battery business afterward, and the produced batteries will no longer be owned by Xinghai, but will be independently responsible for sales, profit, and so on.
Your team’s capabilities in battery business are obvious to everyone, really don’t overthink it. To be honest, after cooperating for so long, I really can’t bear to let you go.”
With him saying this, Tang Lifai’s hanging heart finally settled. As long as it wasn’t a demotion, it was fine.
As for where to work, it didn’t matter. Although he didn’t know the specific equity structure of Xingyun Manufacturing, he at least knew that Xinghai initially held 80% of the shares and had been continuously adding investments, so the shares were almost entirely held. In the end, it was still his Fan Ren’s company.
He immediately nodded and said: “General Manager Fan, I’ll do whatever you say. Please rest assured, I definitely won’t neglect the battery business. After going over, I will definitely cooperate well with General Manager Yun’s work.”
Fan Ren then answered some of his questions about battery technology, then walked out.
“Boss Fan, here.”
He didn’t even need to turn around; in the entire company, only one person dared to address him in such a gangster-like way.
A’dai came to his side in two steps instead of three, looking at the black hair already growing on Fan Ren’s head, couldn’t help but shake his head with a hint of regret.
“Speak!”
Fan Ren was terse with words, afraid that saying too much would lead this guy to misunderstand something.
Upon hearing this, A’dai touched his bald head somewhat dissatisfied and said: “Boss, what next? I’ve been pondering these days, and it seems like we’ve reached the end with this battery thing?”
Fan Ren turned his head upon hearing this and glanced at A’dai beside him, who was half a head taller than him.
This guy was stubborn sometimes and stuck to his principles.
But his performance in technology research and development made even Fan Ren feel somewhat inferior. If not for Fan Ren having the system, he really couldn’t compare to this genius.
After thinking for a moment, Fan Ren didn’t say much, tilted his head to signal A’dai to go to the office with him.
After the two entered the office, Fan Ren took a bunch of semiconductor-related books from the bookshelf that he had already finished studying and threw them to him.
A’dai glanced at the book titles, and his thick eyebrows visibly lit up.
“Boss, this is the next…”
Fan Ren nodded and interrupted: “Spend this time pondering the semiconductor-related information. You’ll know the rest when the time comes. Remember secrecy.”
A’dai nodded, hugged the pile of books, and excitedly ran out.
This was only him; if it were someone else, Fan Ren would definitely put on the boss’s demeanor and teach them a lesson.
Thinking about it, he couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
Only someone so single-minded could have talent in the technology domain far surpassing others.
“Boss, I forgot—I came to borrow money from you.”
Fan Ren’s smile froze on his face as he watched the door being pushed open again by A’dai, his expression turning to confusion.
According to his estimation, the bonus A’dai received while researching solid-state batteries should be the highest in the company. It was truly a figure of millions.
And this guy was a pure tech nerd not very interested in spending money.
So why did he suddenly come to borrow money from him?
“How much? What’s the reason?”
Fan Ren couldn’t help but voice his doubts.
A’dai closed the door. Hearing Fan Ren ask about the reason, he suddenly became a bit embarrassed.
“Well, Boss. Recently, I met a girl online…”
As A’dai explained in detail, Fan Ren gradually went from shocked to speechless.
The reason was very cliché: A’dai met a girl online and even met her in person. As their relationship deepened, a relative in the girl’s family fell ill, needing a large sum for organ transplant and subsequent recovery costs.
A’dai didn’t think twice and transferred all his money to the girl.
The outcome was no surprise to Fan Ren: after getting the money, the girl had been out of contact for a week.
Because there were still half a month until payday, A’dai really couldn’t hold on and came to Fan Ren to borrow money.
Speechlessly looking at the big bald head in front of him, A’dai had a silly smile on his face, as if unconcerned about the scammed money. If he didn’t speak up, no one would guess such a big thing had happened to him.
Fan Ren took out his mobile phone and transferred a month’s salary to A’dai.
“Thanks, Boss. I’ll pay you back when payday comes.”
Saying this, A’dai hugged the books tightly and excitedly ran out the door again.
The office quieted down. Fan Ren lit a cigarette for himself, thought for a long time, and finally decided to let A’dai handle this matter himself.
A’dai was just stubborn, not stupid. He just didn’t want to think too much about human relationships. Whoever really treated him as a fool would be the real fool.
After putting these matters aside, he immediately opened the text, and all the information on graphene chip technology in his mind surged out one by one.
As traditional silicon-based chips further approached physical limits, in terms of materials alone, the silicon-based chip path had basically reached its end.
For this, the system’s answer was to replace it with graphene.
Due to material properties, this material had excellent optical, mechanical, electrical, and other characteristics.
And it showed good performance in high thermal conductivity, high electron mobility, and low resistance.
After purification, using equipment to curl high-purity graphene layers into tubular structures completed the basic material processing to obtain carbon nanotubes for chip use.
Having the material was just the beginning.
The structure of carbon nanotubes was extremely tiny, and designing and etching logic circuits on them was even more difficult than with traditional lithography machines.
Fortunately, the system provided solutions for these.
As for subsequent packaging, testing, and other issues, with current technological level, solving them was not difficult.
Fan Ren’s fingers kept tapping, and lines of text appeared in the document.
The technology was already available; the difficulty lay in the many extremely hard-to-manufacture equipment.
For example, purification equipment—if using current mature technology, the produced chips would be extremely expensive, unaffordable for ordinary people.
In that case, even successful chip production would be meaningless.
Conversely, if the graphene purification problem could be solved, Xinghai could make a fortune just with this technology.
Although this was not his ultimate purpose.
Fan Ren highlighted the key point: this was the primary problem to be solved.
Next were equipment needed for carbon nanotube production process, high-precision etching equipment, exposure equipment, ion implantation equipment, and so on.
The cigarette in Fan Ren’s hand burned out, and the document also came to an end.
Looking at these professional terms that seemed extremely distant from him, Fan Ren subconsciously felt a desire to retreat.
He shook his head with self-mockery, cast these thoughts out of his mind, and then began listing the procurement list for the first batch.
His laboratory could already be put on the agenda.
If proceeding step by step, for example, starting with purification equipment research and development, with Xinghai’s current money-making ability, the pressure wasn’t too high.
The real big spending would be in the subsequent chip production process.
While thinking, Fan Ren sent the list he had compiled, along with requirements for the laboratory and so on, to Jin Qiaoying’s email in the form of an internal email.
After finishing these, he turned around, took a semiconductor book from the bookshelf, and slowly immersed himself in it.
Basic Science: Level 1 (229/1000)
Electronics: Level 1 (290/1000)
Mechanics: Level 1 (297/1000)
Materials Science: Level 1 (280/1000)
Space Science: Level 1 (11/1000)
On the data panel in his mind marked with ‘Seed of Civilization’, as Fan Ren absorbed more and more knowledge, the experience points of related disciplines began to slowly increase.
