In the Ever-Soaring Northern Guangdong, They Keep Breaking Technical Bottlenecks | Southern In-Depth
When Wen Hongfu, the founder of the target company, sought an industrial undertaking with his dream of technological breakthrough, Shaoguan's service of "no trouble and responding to any request" made him feel at ease in the laboratory.
He said that the ringing of the bell for Omat Advanced Materialss proved that the mountainous areas of northern Guangdong can also breed "invisible champions" in the industrial chain.
When engineer Luo Xiangjun followed the team south to Shaoguan without hesitation, the local government used the promise of "the government covers everything outside the wall" to put the company into production quickly.
He said that in big cities you may only be one in ten thousand, but here you are the absolute focus.
When academic leader Wu Yuan chose to "go retrograde"-from coastal cities to mountainous areas in northern Guangdong, the People's Hospital of Northern Guangdong immediately fulfilled its promise of "fully developing cardiac surgery."
He said that there are more opportunities for talents to take on the lead here, and it is also a good place to live and work.
Their stories are intertwined into a vivid footnote to Shaoguan's "Millions of Talents Gathering in South Guangdong" action plan, which also reflects Shaoguan's gravity:Close to the cost depression of the Greater Bay Area, the meticulous business environment, and the livable city with beautiful mountains and clear waters.
Shaoguan Urban area. Photo by Li Yuqiang
At present, Shaoguan has the only national data center cluster in South China. Shaoguan's traditional advantageous industries such as steel, non-ferrous metals, and mechanical forging, and booming emerging industries such as big data, biomedicine, electronic information, advanced materials, and low-altitude economy provide a broad stage for young talents.
In order to attract and retain talents, Shaoguan launched the "Hundred Groups, Thousands of Talents and Thousands of Craftsmen" talent policy, established three major introduction projects,"Nanling Team","Danxia Talents" and "Shaozhou Craftsmen", and provided up to 10 million yuan in scientific research support and 100 million yuan personal subsidy. Talents holding the "Danxia Talent Card" can also enjoy 11 exclusive services such as talent apartments, children's enrollment, and medical green channels.
Shaoguan is throwing out "hydrangea balls" to talents across the country. On April 26, the "Millions of Talents Gathering in South Guangdong" N-city joint spring recruitment event will be held in Chengdu, Changsha and Nanjing. Shaoguan will bring 545 high-quality positions to the three cities, covering artificial intelligence, software and the Internet, biomedicine and health, etc. In the field of new productivity, million-year-salary positions are vacant.
From my first loan in my life
The listing bell to the Science and Technology Innovation Board
On May 9, 2024, when the bell of Oolai Xincai's landing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board echoed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Chairman Wen Hongfu's eyes traveled through time and space and saw the figure of the young man who had gone south to Guangdong in 1987.
Omat Advanced Materialss landed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board.
After graduating from a master's degree in materials science, Wen Hongfu entered China Minmetals to engage in the import and export business of targets. During this time, he saw the difficulties of the domestic sputtering target industry. "China's targets have long relied on overseas imports, and the domestic semiconductor chip and semiconductor display industries have developed very slowly." From then on, the seeds of getting rid of his dependence on target imports were planted in his heart.
In 2010, Wen Hongfu was looking for industrial transfer sites along the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Expressway and ran into government officials measuring land at the intersection of Shaoguan Expressway. "This dramatic beginning doomed our fate with the mountain city of northern Guangdong." Wen Hongfu recalled the process of industrial transfer with emotion. At that time, during the period of power shortage in the Pearl River Delta, companies embarked on a journey north to break through development bottlenecks, and finally laid a foundation in Shaoguan, an "industrial land" that had not yet been connected to high-speed rail at that time.
From the initially empty development zone to today's modern industrial park, from traditional infrastructure to the rise of new high-speed rail cities, the company's 15-year development trajectory resonates with the urban upgrading of Shaoguan. Wen Hongfu said,Shaoguan was chosen not to rely on special resources, but rather on its government ecology with "high efficiency and excellent business environment."
Wen Hongfu still remembers that his first loan in life was in Shaoguan.
At that time, when the "historical burden" of unclear land ownership became an obstacle to Omat's financing, the government department used a "bank-enterprise matchmaking meeting" to promote the deep integration of the innovation chain and the capital chain. Bank of China Shaoguan Branch finally granted it a credit loan of 10 million yuan based on its technical reserves of core patents, which not only solved the urgent need, but also allowed enterprises to see the local government's determination to cultivate hard technology.
In the two-way rush between cities and enterprises, Wen Hongfu survived an unforgettable battle of technological breakthroughs in Shaoguan. "Since taking root in Shaoguan, we have been determined to solve the 'stuck neck' problem of sputtering targets." In 2013, the company further took the research and development of large size sputtering targets for semiconductor displays as its main strategic direction, and was committed to overcoming market areas with high technical difficulty and large consumption.
Wen Hongfu (first from right).
"In the first few years of its establishment, the company had basically no revenue, and it had to invest tens of millions of yuan every year." As the helm of the technical route, Wen Hongfu was so anxious that his hair turned white. "During that time, I was still doing experiments in my dream. When I woke up, I found that the boiler was empty and the materials had evaporated. I was so anxious that I wanted to shed tears." When Wen Hongfu reviewed the difficulties in the research and development stage, he lamented that an experiment cost hundreds of thousands of yuan, equivalent to a suite in a small county.
After hundreds of experiments and tens of millions of yuan investment, Oolai New Materials successfully developed large size sputtering target samples for semiconductor displays in 2015, but the customer only gave Oolai New Materials one chance to test. "Failure is not allowed in this industry. It must be successful once." Wen Hongfu said that downstream manufacturers 'production lines often invest tens of billions of yuan. Every time they stop the production line to cooperate with testing samples, they need to bear a lot of economic pressure and risks.
Fortunately, Oolai New Materials 'target samples successfully passed product certification. Its flat copper targets have gradually passed product certification from the world's highest-generation production lines such as BOE, CSOT G10.5 and G11, covering almost all customers of the highest-generation production lines of domestic semiconductor display panels. Eventually,Oolai Xincai has grown into a national-level specialized and innovative "little giant" enterprise, and has become the first new A-share listed company in Shaoguan in 27 years. It has landed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board with a market value of more than 4 billion yuan.
"In the past 10 years, the price of a rotating ITO target and molybdenum target has reached 1 million yuan." Wen Hongfu said. However, when domestic high-performance sputtering targets were put into production, the "premium" of foreign companies no longer existed. Today, the price of molybdenum targets and ITO targets is only about one-tenth of the original price. This price decline has allowed once-expensive consumer electronics products such as flat-panel displays and flat-panel TVs to enter ordinary people's homes at more people-friendly prices.
Talking about the future, Wen Hongfu said that he must continue to serve the country's major needs and people's livelihood and well-being, and gradually surpass key technologies in the materials field. This confidence stems from the accumulation of independent innovation for more than ten years-as of its listing, the company has built a "moat" of 134 patents, and the autonomy rate of core technologies exceeds 90%.
Today, 60-year-old Wen Hongfu stands on the top floor of Shaoguan's R & D center. In front of him is not only a spark in the field of new materials in Shaoguan, but also the realization of an intellectual's dream of serving the country. "The battlefield of material people is upgrading, but the original intention of serving the country with knowledge has never changed."
"The transportation here is convenient. It only takes 50 minutes to get to the Guangzhou high-speed train. Here, the mountains and rivers are beautiful, the green vegetables are extremely sweet, and the happiness of life is very high! We will recruit 100 PhDs to Shaoguan in the future."Today, Wen Hongfu, a native of Henan, has become the "spokesperson" of Shaoguan. He has not only taken root in Shaoguan all year round, but also continuously recruited talents to Shaoguan.
At present, Omat Advanced Materialss has layouts in the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta. "In the materials field, you need to be close to customers. But Shaoguan is our most important production and R & D base." Wen Hongfu said that the Omat Mingyue Lake Semiconductor Materials Industrial Park project has been put on the agenda of the enterprise investment plan and construction is planned to start within this year. In the future, this will become Omat's core R & D base.
"Everything outside the fence is government's business."
Help him concentrate on achieving technological breakthroughs
In 1997, the fledgling electronics industry of China was still weak. High-end electrode foils relied on Japanese imports for 100% and sold at high prices. East Sunshine's predecessor, Hengdian Electromechanical Group, was determined to transform and fully convert to the electrode foil production technology developed by Xi'an Jiaotong University.
At this time, under the fluorescent lights of the laboratory of Xi'an Jiaotong University, 23-year-old Luo Xiangjun stared at the beaker, and his mentor's words echoed in his ears: "Go to Hengdian, where there is a achievement transformation project of our college, which requires technicians to stably generate and improve and optimize it. Domestic electrode foils rely on your generation to break the situation." The mentor's recommendation made him stand at a crossroads in his life: whether to seek stability within the system or to devote himself to the industrial wave.
Luo Xiangjun (left).
"At that time, the technology developed by Xi'an Jiaotong University to produce aluminum foil with chromic acid successfully filled the domestic gap, and the pilot production line invested by Hengdian Electromechanical Group was a great success." At the suggestion of his mentor, Luo Xiangjun finally went to Hengdian to start his career as an engineer in technical breakthrough. More than a year later, under the influence of the Southeast Asian financial crisis, production was in the off-season. Dongguang Company decided to take this opportunity to move south to Shaoguan, which is more suitable for electrode foil production.
While climbing all the way through mountains and mountains and passing through the fog of the mountains in northern Guangdong, Luo Xiangjun never imagined that this migration would rewrite the map of China's electronic materials industry-25 years later, Ruyuan became the world's largest chemical foil production base.
When the bus stopped at the edge of the Ruyuan factory, Luo Xiangjun thought it was the service area. "The sky is just dawn, and there are mountains all around. This is nowhere to be seen here." The mountainous environment did not affect the progress of the project.When the financial situation was quite difficult at that time, Ruyuan borrowed 15 million yuan to build a water and electricity pipe network. With the promise of "the government will cover everything outside the wall", the company could build a modern factory in just 8 months.
The remote environment did not make Luo Xiangjun retreat. He plunged into the production line to debug equipment. During the critical period of production, he often slept next to the equipment. "At that time, the boss and colleagues were always on the front line. Basically I work until the early hours of the morning."
In 1999, Dongguang's first domestically produced electrode foil production line was put into operation, and the price was only half of the price of imported products. The grand occasion of customers queuing outside the workshop with cash made Luo Xiangjun, who had just graduated, confident in the company's future development. "The scene in the factory at that time was like queuing up to buy popcorn when we were young."
This is also the first time that the small town of Yaoxiang has felt the shock wave of the "technological dividend". Although domestic electrode foils fill the gap, there is no end to the research and development of basic materials. Foreign companies still rely on the technical barriers of the sulfuric acid system to firmly control the high-end market. At the same time, the environmental pressure brought by the chromic acid process also requires companies to transform.
Luo Xiangjun.
"There are difficulties every year, and R & D is actually constantly breaking through bottlenecks." At that time, Luo Xiangjun led his team in the laboratory day and night to try thousands of formulas. In the end, they found an additive that greatly improved the etching uniformity of the sulfuric acid system.
One early morning in 2005, Luo Xiangjun rushed to check the experimental data as usual. When seeing that the data indicators in the experimental report had improved significantly, the team cheered and scared the birds in the mountains. "The breakfast that day was particularly fragrant." Luo Xiangjun recalled that this technology allows product performance to be comparable to that of foreign companies.
Over the past 20 years, the performance of aluminum electrode foils produced by Dongguang has changed dramatically compared to that of that year.Luo Xiangjun led the team to develop a comprehensive utilization technology for electrode foil corrosion waste liquid, achieving energy conservation and emission reduction benefits of 22 million yuan/year, making the company the only company in the electrode foil industry to completely solve environmental protection problems., laying the foundation for the company's stable production and sustained growth.
Ruyuan East Sunshine New Energy Materials Co., Ltd.
"We are now the world's largest chemical foil production base, and our products are exported to all parts of the world." Looking at the equipment that continued to roll in the factory, Luo Xiangjun looked proud. From the raw data of the Xi'an laboratory to the patent wall in the Ruyuan Mountains-this industrial development spanning 1500 kilometers of time and space has created an "invisible champion" in the field of electronic materials in China.
Today, Luo Xiangjun, who has lived in Ruyuan for more than 20 years, is accustomed to the local green waters and green mountains.
"You can drink tap water directly in Ruyuan, the air is even better, there is no smog all year round, and the commuting time to and from work is only 10 minutes. Now that I'm really in a big city, I feel depressed and suffocated, and I'm not used to it!" In the morning light of Ruyuan East Sunshine Park, a new group of engineers are still debugging and conducting experiments in the factory building.
Deep in the mountains, the story of China's intellectual creation is still being written.
The promise of attracting talents will be fulfilled immediately
He opened his "heart door" in northern Guangdong
The scalpel made the incision in the chest, and the operating light illuminated the beating heart. Under the shadowless lamp, Wu Yuan's forehead was sweating. He used aortic root enlargement to successfully unblock the severely stenotic heart "ostium".
This operation occurred in November 2023 and was the first Y-shaped aortic root enlargement in northern Guangdong. If the time is pushed forward for another half a year, the patient can only be referred to Guangzhou overnight.
This change was only due to the fact that in June of that year, Wu Yuan, a subject leader, was welcomed in the Department of Cardiology and Major Vascular Surgery of the People's Hospital of North Guangdong.In the "golden period" of his career, he chose to "retrograde"-from coastal cities to the mountainous areas of northern Guangdong.
In 2008, Wu Yuan finished his consecutive undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University. At that time, Xiamen's sea breeze was setting off a wave of medical development. Having never seen the sea and wanted to go to a seaside city, he chose to join the Heart Center of Xiamen City.
"Basic skills in cardiac surgery are very important and cannot be achieved quickly." Wu Yuan said that personal growth is like playing a game of passing through the game. Only by mastering all skills can we defeat the bottom BOSS."This is a process that requires gradual precipitation." In his 15 years in Xiamen, he laid a solid foundation and completed the growth from a medical student to an expert.
In 2017, at the age of 35, he was hired by the hospital as a deputy senior expert, becoming the youngest deputy senior expert and master's supervisor in the hospital. Behind the booming career, a life-changing choice is quietly brewing.
At the People's Hospital of North Guangdong, 600 kilometers away, cardiac surgery is in development difficulties. This century-old hospital carried out its first heart surgery as early as 1987. Such an achievement is early in the country. However, in recent years, the domestic cardiovascular surgery community has been developing rapidly in the fields of minimally invasive surgery and large blood vessels, and departments are still making progress in these aspects.
In early 2023, Wu Yuan's classmate and roommate, Li Dingyun, deputy director of the Gastroenterology Department of the People's Hospital of North Guangdong, passed Wu Yuan's resume to Dean Gong Xiaoqian.
Gong Xiaoqian recognized Wu Yuan at a glance and thought that this was the best candidate for the development of the department, and quickly threw him a "hydrangea".
"During that time, the dean called me many times, each time for more than half an hour." Wu Yuan recalled that the director introduced the hospital in detail and expressed his determination to fully develop cardiac surgery."She showed me Shaoguan's desire for talents."。
This invitation aroused Wu Yuan's deep ambition and also launched a half-year family "tug-of-war".
As a native of Shaoyang, Hunan, Wu Yuan understands the plight of people in northern Guangdong better:Every year, nearly a thousand patients with severe cardiac diseases travel to other places to seek medical treatment, and the cost is often unbearable.Wu Yuan, who has both children and children, came to Shaoguan to "abandon his wife and children." After many internal family meetings, his wife, who is also a doctor, also supported Wu Yuan's decision.
In June 2023, Wu Yuan, who first arrived in Shaoguan, faced an unsatisfactory instrument cabinet-traditional thoracotomy surgical instruments accounted for more than 80%, and the surgical instruments and consumables needed for minimally invasive surgery were still blank.
Fortunately, the director immediately fulfilled his promise of "fully developing cardiac surgery". When the surgical instruments are not suitable for use, the hospital carries out a complete replacement; when it is necessary to introduce endoscopic instruments and consumables, the hospital quickly starts the procurement process; as the volume of surgeries increases, the hospital is also preparing to set up a new operating room for cardiac surgery...
From Sun's surgery for aortic dissection to minimally invasive valve replacement, to Y-shaped aortic root enlargement, Wu Yuan led the team to "open up" all the way. So far, Wu Yuan has carried out more than ten first cardiac surgeries in northern Guangdong, filling many local technical gaps.
"I have been in Shaoguan for almost two years. The beautiful mountains and rivers here make me fall in love at first sight."Wu Yuan said that after work, he went to appreciate the beauty of Danxia Mountain and the clarity of Nanshui Reservoir.
Shaoguan is a livable city with beautiful mountains and clear waters.
The city's multi-cultural integration also made him feel more cordial."The food combines Guangdong, Hunan and Jiangxi flavors. The people are enthusiastic and tolerant, and the cost of living is low. It is indeed a good place to live and work."
After Wu Yuan came, the number of cardiac surgeries in 2024 will increase by 30% compared with two years ago.This year, the People's Hospital of North Guangdong has provided an annual salary of 1 million yuan, scientific research funding of more than 3 million yuan, and a full-chain talent cultivation platform to sincerely invite leading talents from trauma centers and medical research centers.
The policy dividend of "millions of talents gathering in South Guangdong" is being transformed into people's livelihood temperature among this green mountains and clear waters.
Interview and writing: Nanfang + Reporter Fan Yongjing Ye Zhiqiang
Picture: Photo provided by interviewees (except for signature)
Column coordinator: Wu Qing He Xuefeng
