Abstract:    China′s chip industry has become one of the most prominent "strangleholding" areas in recent years. How Chinese chip enterprises break through the key core technology and establish an independent and controllable information technology industry system has become an important issue. The existing research on key core technologies (1) mainly discusses key core technologies′ connotation and development law from the technology perspective and (2) explores the key core technology breakthrough mechanism from the institutional perspective. However, they ignore the potential impact of systematic factors to a certain extent. The key core technology breakthrough is an extremely complex innovation activity, which requires cross-organizational and multi-dimensional coordination of technical and non-technical elements to form a virtuous circle.
    As an institutional arrangement formed in response to system innovation, enterprise innovation networks help enterprises integrate innovation resources and breakthrough technical barriers. Existing studies (1) mainly use resources as the intermediary to explore the impact of the characteristics of existing innovation networks on innovation results, and it believes that enterprises need to scan existing resources and opportunities to improve performance. (2) It defaults enterprises based on causal logic, by which decision-makers have rational goals, identify and find the most suitable partners, and plan the "effective" evolution of networks. However, suitable partners in the chip industry have a strong monopoly and exclusivity. It is difficult for latecomers to enter the existing network, with low knowledge acquisition and poor resource integration. In addition, key core technology breakthrough activities are long-term and uncertain, and future development is difficult to predict; the potential partners of enterprises are usually difficult to identify, which is difficult for enterprises to build networks only based on causal logic.
   The study of effectuation theory holds that in an uncertain environment, enterprises cannot make decisions based on rational goals but should follow the effectuation logic starting from a set of means as given and focusing on selecting between possible effects produced by using that set of means. This theory has more advantages in advocating value co-creation and effectively dealing with the impact of uncertainty than the causation logic characterized by "prediction and planning". Therefore, this paper attempts to introduce the effectuation theory and explore the internal law of phased breakthroughs in key core technologies of chip design based on a longitudinal case study of Loongson Technology Co., Ltd. with complete independent CPU design ability in China′s chip industry.
    The results show that: (1) breaking through the key core technology of "function-reliability-performance-compatibility", enterprises are facing a more complex and changeable network environment. Their resource stock and uncertain environment will affect their decision logic of networking and technological breakthrough. In this process, the decision logic evolves dynamically: in the early stage, it is mainly based on the effectuation logic, and in the later stage, it is based on the "causation-effectuation" comprehensive logic. (2) The construction and evolution of enterprise innovation networks go through a "leveraging-driving-linking" mechanism to integrate resources to break through the key core technology.
    The theoretical contribution lies in two aspects. Firstly, this paper introduces the effectuation theory, adapts the construction and evolution of enterprise networks to the antecedents of enterprise decision-making, summarizes the mechanism of enterprise to build innovation networks, and excavates the dynamic source of enterprise innovation network evolution. Secondly, based on the network perspective, this paper puts forward the mechanism model of enterprise innovation network construction in key core technology breakthroughs, provides a new interpretation framework for technology breakthroughs and promotes the relevant research.
    This paper has some practical managerial implications. (1) Enterprises should use the "leveraging-driving-linking" mechanism to build an innovation network, integrate the resources required for key core technology breakthroughs, take advantage of various opportunities brought by external uncertainty, and take technological innovation initiatives. (2) The government should also increase investment in industrial generic technological innovation activities and the construction of industrial network systems, strengthen policy support on the demand side, and provide enterprises with opportunities for trial-and-error iteration to improve their independent innovation capability.

Key words:  chip industry, key core technology, enterprise innovation network, effectuation theory, dynamic evolution