Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 172 H20 Mobile Phone and Memory Flash Layout
"Mr. Xu, look, this is the new phone we designed. Our marketing department has designed a new series for this self-developed chip, the Sky Blue series under the Xiaolan brand, codenamed T, and this phone is codenamed T20."

"It is mainly aimed at the younger business market, and the overall design of the phone is relatively stable!"

"This is our Little Blue brand's first attempt to enter the business market. It is also to expand the diversity of our Little Blue brand and avoid being limited to the scope of young fashion!"

Xu Shenxue picked up the phone and took a look. It was a black phone. The body was made of plastic as usual, but the texture was good and the body was not thick. It was thinner and lighter than some previous mid- and low-end phones, and it already had the texture of the C series.

Of course, it still can't be compared with the S series!

The S series uses a unique aluminum alloy back cover body, which has a very unique texture and is extremely light and thin, so the overall feel is very good.

On the front of the body, as always in the Zhiyun system, the front full glass cover plus three capacitive touch button design, the screen should be a four-inch screen, the entire front looks pretty good.

The design on the back of the phone is not the rounded design commonly seen in many mobile phones, but a design that tends to be angular and appears more masculine.

It feels a bit like the S series.

In terms of the overall appearance design, Xu Shenxue thought it was pretty good, and could even say that it had its own merits over the latest model of the C series, the C3.

At this time, Bai Qiwen said: "Considering the young business route, we have done a good job in the configuration of the T20 mobile phone. The mobile phone SOC uses our S100 chip with a main frequency of 800MHZ, and the running memory uses 2MB of DDR512 memory. The storage space starts at 4GB, but it also supports expandable storage!"

"For the screen, this time we used a new high-end LCD screen provided by BOE, which has a resolution of 854x480. The overall color performance is much better than the old four-inch screen we used on the Bluemax before. Of course, the cost is also slightly higher!"

"The other various parts are basically all mid-to-high-end parts among domestic parts. The touch IC uses the 65 series touch IC of Qianding Technology, which is at the same level as Zhiyun's C series."

"The battery also uses the same cell series used in the C series, with a relatively good lithium battery, a capacity of 1,500 mAh, and a detachable design."

“In terms of overall hardware cost, although it is not as good as the C3 series, the difference is not that big!”

"But in terms of price, we plan to go for a certain price-performance ratio. The initial price of the low-end 4GB version is expected to be 1999 yuan!"

Xu Shenxue said: "The performance configuration is OK, and the price is moderate. Nowadays, the competition in the price range of more than 2,000 yuan is very fierce. Xiaolan's brand value is still a little bit lacking. It is necessary to take appropriate cost-effective measures!"

Bai Qiwen said: "We think so too. Anyway, we use self-developed chips and aim to test them. We don't expect to make much money. We will first promote this series and gain some business market share, and then turn around and slowly increase it!"

Bai Qiwen felt somewhat helpless when he said this!

As a mobile phone maker, Bai Qiwen naturally has some ambitions to make high-end mobile phones. Unfortunately, the company he is in charge of, Weiku Electronics, is not able to support high-end mobile phones.

However, he has never stopped his ambition to make Weiku Electronics impact the mid-to-high-end market.

Although he held the title of vice president of Zhiyun Technology and was nominally assigned to Weiku Electronics as general manager, he knew that his career was not with Zhiyun Technology... The reason why he held the title of vice president of Zhiyun Technology was more to solve the option issue at the beginning.

As a senior company manager, Xu Shenxue would not treat Bai Qiwen unfairly, but what if Xu Shenxue wanted him to take on the responsibility of developing Wecoo Electronics?

At the same time, we also consider that the financing and listing procedures of Weiku Electronics will be relatively slow.

Therefore, Xu Shenxue originally let Bai Qiwen register with Zhiyun Technology, and then gave him some options of Zhiyun Technology. Now that he has the options and the company has gone public, Bai Qiwen resigned from his position as vice president of Zhiyun Technology in the past two days and only retained the position of general manager of Wecoo Electronics.

Of course, he also has options from WeCool Electronics, and even more.

I took options from both sides.

Xu Shenxue generally does not treat the management who have followed him all the way unfairly. As long as they do their job well and achieve results, Xu Shenxue will never be stingy with his options.

Bai Qiwen also knows that the focus of his career is on Wecoo Electronics, so he is very concerned about the development of Wecoo Electronics.

In order to enhance the brand and increase revenue and profits, he has also been trying to make the mobile phones under Weiku Electronics reach the high-end mid-range position.

I don’t dare to think about the price range of three to four thousand yuan, nor can I afford it for the time being.

But before that, he launched the Little Blue MAX series. On the MAX2 model, he successfully raised the price to yuan by using a -inch screen that is rare in contemporary times... During this period, he took advantage of the hot large-screen market and made a name for himself.

But sales are still not high!
Nowadays, among Weiku Electronics, whether it is the Xiaolan brand or the Weiku brand, the models that sell well are concentrated on those priced below 1,500 yuan.

Not to mention 2,800 yuan, even the sales of mobile phones priced at 1,800 yuan are not very good.

The competition in the market around 2,000 yuan is extremely fierce. Weiku Electronics not only has to compete with a group of domestic mobile phone manufacturers, but also with a group of international mobile phone manufacturers who have lowered their standards and directly priced their products at around 2,000 yuan.

A lot of four-star, Motorola, Nokia, LG and other models are competing for the 2,000 yuan price range.

In such fierce competition, it is not easy for Weiku Electronics to gain a foothold at this price point, but it is even more difficult to defeat other mobile phone manufacturers.

Well, Bai Qiwen plans to take advantage of the opportunity to get the SOC chip at cost price this time, and start a price-performance battle, creating a bloody storm at the 2,000 yuan price range.

Bai Qiwen also has certain ambitions!
After listening to Bai Qiwen's introduction, Xu Shenxue said: "First, gain a firm foothold, and then slowly plan. Don't be too anxious. By next year, the situation will be improved. Next year, many of our independent chips will be available, and the upgraded SOC models should also be able to integrate communication basebands. By then, the design and R&D costs will be even lower!" Bai Qiwen said: "We also learned that Zhiyun Semiconductor's R&D progress is relatively fast. When we communicated with their SOC project before, they said that the baseband problem would be solved in the fall of this year. The company also acquired several companies that make communication basebands, and the technology, experience, and patents brought by them still brought them a lot of benefits!"

"At the same time, their single-core chip with integrated communication baseband will probably be released in February or March next year. If our new mobile phone can use it by then, the cost will be even lower, and it will be easier to adapt and optimize all aspects of the mobile phone using our own chip!"

Xu Shenxue said: "So there is no need to be too anxious. We should stabilize this year and firmly grasp the market below 2,000 yuan. When Zhiyun Semiconductor's new chip comes out next year, we can rush into the market above 2,000 yuan!"

You can't be in a hurry when it comes to marketing, especially for a mobile phone company like Weiku Electronics, which doesn't have any special competitive advantages and relies entirely on the YUN OS system authorized by Zhiyun Technology.

To be honest, the reason why Wecoo Electronics can maintain its position in the mid-to-low-end market and ship millions of units a month in today's fierce competition in the smartphone market is not because of cost-effectiveness or unique performance configuration. The reason is actually very simple: the LAN OS system they use is a customized version based on the YUN OS system.

Through this system, relatively good system fluency can be achieved.

This system gives them a significant advantage when facing other Android or other system smartphones.

But the overall competitiveness is still a bit lacking.

Therefore, for WeCool Electronics, Xu Shenxue's advice is to proceed step by step, first establish a solid foundation in the mid- and low-end markets, and then find ways to impact the mid- and high-end markets.

Now everyone is assembling products, and there is not much hardware advantage to speak of, but things will be different next year.

As for Zhiyun Semiconductor, the initial design and architecture stage was relatively slow, but after completing the core architecture design of Zhixin 1.0, the subsequent chip development speed was actually very fast.

In just a few months, we advanced from S100 to S101 chip... Although the S101 chip has not yet been taped out, the design is already very complete, and it is still a standard SOC product that can integrate a communication baseband.

As for the communication baseband, although it did not do well at the beginning, Zhiyun Technology has money... It directly spent money to acquire two communication baseband design companies. In addition to VMware, it also acquired Icera. In addition, it poached people from everywhere, and now the progress in the communication baseband field is relatively smooth.

In addition to making single-hanging basebands, we have also begun to integrate communication basebands into S100 and S101, and launched baseband version of SOC chips.

In addition to this aspect, Zhiyun Semiconductor has also been engaged in a buying spree in the memory and flash memory fields, and the progress is very good.

Zhiyun Technology is engaged in memory and flash memory... It is naturally not easy to start from scratch.

Therefore, Zhiyun Technology still follows the old rules of spending money to acquire the market first, in order to obtain patents and basic technical experience, and then conduct in-depth research.

In recent years, the memory field has been in dire straits, which is the so-called counter-cyclical period, and a large number of DRAM manufacturers are in a loss-making situation.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Zhiyun Technology acquired the assets of the main European R&D center of Qimonda, a bankrupt German DRAM manufacturer, and obtained a series of DRAM patents and a mature R&D team.

Then in September of this year, it acquired some patents and a research and development center of Japanese DRAM manufacturer Elpida. This company has also fallen into an extremely dangerous operating predicament and is only one step away from bankruptcy... In fact, Zhiyun Technology has been thinking about completely acquiring and swallowing up this company.

But the Japanese side is unwilling to give up... This is the only DRAM manufacturer left in Japan, representing the last face of Japan's semiconductor industry, and they will not give up easily unless they have no other choice.

So they could accept Zhiyun Technology purchasing some patents, technical assets and even R&D teams, but they could not emotionally accept taking the whole thing away.

But if they don't want to sell it, then don't sell it. Anyway, after successively acquiring the R&D teams of major manufacturers in the industry and obtaining a large number of patents, Zhiyun Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Technology, has obtained a large number of DRAM patents and two relatively mature R&D teams.

On this basis, Zhiyun Semiconductor is designing and developing its own DRAM chips, that is, memory... to meet its own needs and supply other domestic manufacturers.

As for flash memory, or solid-state drives, Zhiyun Technology directly acquired the entire startup company SandForce, and later acquired Numonyx. Without having to start from scratch, it directly had a flash memory business and did quite well.

SandForce, a subsidiary, is preparing to release its second-generation solid-state drive...

The solid-state drive field is the easiest part of the business for Zhiyun Technology to run after the acquisition. There is no need to worry too much because the acquired subsidiary already has this business and is doing quite well. New products can be produced in no time.

As Zhiyun Technology gradually integrates these newly acquired companies, by next year, Zhiyun Semiconductor's layout will actually be quite complete.

From CPU to GPU, communication baseband chips, to memory, solid-state drives, and a bunch of low-process auxiliary chips and other chips used in smart terminal products, basically all types are available.

Although most of them are purchased licenses or directly acquired businesses from overseas companies, the whole thing is a large patchwork.

But it has everything it needs, and some of it is pretty good.

In the field of chip design, the effect of Zhiyun Technology's investment is still very obvious.

Today, what Zhiyun Technology lacks is the field of chip manufacturing!

Zhiyun Microelectronics is still stuck at the 100-nanometer process technology and is unable to manufacture its own advanced chips. For example, the core mobile phone SOC 'S' chip uses a -nanometer process... Zhiyun Microelectronics cannot manufacture it!

This is a bit embarrassing!

(End of this chapter)