20 years of restarting life

Chapter 3623 The Problems Facing Zhao Chang'an
The chartered plane departed from Xingcheng the following morning and flew to Western Europe.

Currently, Pro is still in the process of designing and integrating elements for its first product. At the end of last year, after initial discussions with LG, it was basically confirmed that they would use their TFT color screen.

The mobile phone's RF processor and RF power amplifier, microphone, earpiece, speaker, external wired headphones, and other components are supplied by RIM's upstream suppliers.

The initial idea was to continue supplying baseband chips and processors to Texas Instruments, an upstream partner of RIM. However, after Mike saw RIM's stock price soar and its strength increase dramatically, he proposed to transform RIM into a comprehensive manufacturer of core components in the field of wireless mobile communications.

It is comparable to companies like Motorola and Nokia.

No longer satisfied with outsourcing almost all mobile phone hardware, RIM now only serves as a product design and assembly workshop.

Zhao Chang'an naturally welcomed this. RIM has already obtained a license from ARM for its proprietary chip design, and the Toronto factory will be officially built after spring arrives.

Mike is a naturally efficient, impatient, and quick-draw artist. According to the plan, BlackBerry's own baseband chip and power management chip manufacturing plant will be completed and put into production before September this year.

The upgraded RIM6230 will continue to use these components provided by Texas Instruments, while the next generation of models, including Pro and RIM, will use their own processor chips.

The camera and mobile phone motherboard substrate (double-sided half-glass fiberboard, copper-based copper clad laminate, printed circuit board, etc.) are manufactured by Pro's Zhengzhou factory itself.

Internal storage, batteries, and communication modules are sourced from upstream suppliers that utilize advanced technology.

The operating system is still being developed by the joint RIM and Pro team, and the North American version will use RIM's dedicated Push Mail email service channel and Push Mail processing center.

Ultimately, Mike signed a cooperation agreement with Razer for the trackball. Zhao Chang'an initially thought of working with Siemens, but Mike told Zhao Chang'an that it was such a small contract with such high requirements for various parameters that Siemens might not be able to negotiate it. Even if they could, Siemens would quote a very high price and require a minimum annual supply volume before they would be willing to conduct special research and development and build a manufacturing line.

The idea of ​​using a trackball for mobile phone positioning was proposed by Mike as a research and development element for the next generation of mobile phones. He originally planned to build a mouse factory that "puts the mouse into the mobile phone keyboard," but Zhao Chang'an rejected it. In fact, in his original timeline, in addition to the world-renowned QWERTY keyboard, the unique trackball of Blackberry mobile phone hardware was also a novel design highlight.

The only problem is the material of the trackball. After a period of use, it becomes dirty and unsightly, just like the buttons on many mobile phones nowadays. They look great when you first buy them, but after a while, the keyboard becomes worn out and unsightly.

The Blackberry trackball works on the same principle as a mechanical mouse, except that it shrinks the computer mouse into a small spherical sensor. The structure of the components, the sensing principle, and the material of the trackball are no different from those of a mechanical mouse.

Zhao Chang'an didn't believe that the trajectory ball that Mike had hastily created could overcome this problem in this time and space; professional tasks should be handled by professional and excellent companies.

After securing a partner for the trackball, Zhao Chang'an now needs to address the issues of wireless Bluetooth, mobile Wi-Fi internet access, and the MP3 module. Currently, the world's leading companies in audio wireless Bluetooth technology are Ericsson, Nokia, Toshiba, IBM, and Intel. Ericsson and Nokia primarily focus on the mobile phone industry, while Toshiba Group's mobile phone business is small and only sells on the island of Toshiba.

Ericsson is the only company that has applied wireless Bluetooth technology to mobile phones. The T39mc released last year uses wireless Bluetooth 1.2 technology, which allows for mobile phone calls within a range of ten meters. The phone is priced at over 5,000 RMB.

Although Ericsson and Sony each invested 50% to establish Sony Ericsson last October, specifically to merge their mobile phone businesses, the merger has not progressed smoothly so far, and they are basically still operating independently. Therefore, if Zhao Chang'an wants to discuss cooperation with Ericsson, he still needs to go to Europe.

This was also the main purpose of his trip.

Mike showed no interest in the color screen, wireless Bluetooth headphones, MP3 function, and WIFI module that Zhao Chang'an wanted to add to the Pro phone. Therefore, he had to solve these three elements himself under the name of the Pro.

Of these three elements, wireless Bluetooth headphones and MP3 players now have mature technologies and products, but there is still no truly commercially available mobile phone Wi-Fi module in the world.

On mobile devices, a small number of PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) and Windows Mobile devices have this feature, but due to their low transmission efficiency and poor anti-interference capabilities, they are basically just a flashy but impractical gimmick.

Even in PCs, although most branded computers in developed countries now come pre-installed with this component, even as a fixed device, its data transmission speed and anti-interference capabilities are still very weak, and most computers still use wired connections.

Therefore, Zhao Chang'an never imagined that the first-generation Pro phone would be able to use Wi-Fi technology. However, the fact that it is not available now does not mean that it will not be available in the future. In fact, there is no big difference in Wi-Fi transmission between mobile devices and stationary PCs. In fact, in terms of transmission efficiency and anti-interference, current mobile phones are mainly used for browsing web pages, reading news, stock information, and sending emails. The data transmission requirements are far less than those of PCs.

In other words, while current Wi-Fi technology is somewhat of a gimmick for computers, where a wired network connection would be preferable, it is more than sufficient for the data usage needs of mobile internet users.

The challenge is how to turn such a large Wi-Fi box into a very small module and fit it into a mobile phone.

Although Zhao Chang'an didn't know when the world's first mobile phone supporting Wi-Fi technology would appear, based on his intuition about the current development of mobile phones and seeing that these mobile phone giants were desperately pursuing technological innovation, he dared to say that within two years at most, mobile phone Wi-Fi technology would become a basic standard feature in future high-end mobile phones.

Zhao Chang'an guessed this correctly as well. In his previous life, nearly two years later, in February 2004, the Nokia 9500 was launched. This phone ran the Symbian 7.0 operating system and supported Wi-Fi connectivity, becoming the world's first smartphone with Wi-Fi functionality.

Moreover, this phone is a flip phone with a color screen, featuring a 4.5-inch internal screen and a 30-pixel camera, pre-installed Office components, Bluetooth 2.0 wireless technology, a QWERTY keyboard, 80MB of built-in dynamic memory, support for MMC card expansion (up to 2GB), and 802.11b WLAN (11Mbps transmission rate).

It can be said that it covers all the design parameters and elements required by Zhao Chang'an for the first-generation Pro phone, except for the trackball and MP3 player.

(End of this chapter)