Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 277 Full Screen and nm
From the perspective of ordinary people outside, many of Xu Shenxue's companies are large in scale, well-funded, and have very strong R&D capabilities.

In fact, this is true. Even without the help of the scientific research system, the scientific research capabilities of Xu Shenxue's companies, especially Zhiyun Group, are very strong.

However, such R&D capabilities alone are not enough to make Zhiyun Group's products sell well around the world, gradually break through core component technologies, and control the entire industry chain.

The reason why Zhiyun Group and other companies under Xu Shenxue have achieved so many achievements is inseparable from the strong auxiliary capabilities of the scientific research system.

A photolithography machine, even a DUV dry photolithography machine, cannot be developed without cheating given the current domestic basic technical level.

Not to mention DUV immersion lithography machines or even EUV lithography machines.

The requirements for basic industries are getting higher and higher.

Without the strong support of the scientific research system, these things would be impossible to do.

But on the other hand, with the assistance of the scientific research system, Xu Shenxue can improve the all-round capabilities of scientific researchers on a large scale, thus making it possible to engage in high-end and cutting-edge scientific research technologies.

Scientific research, to put it bluntly, is all about using your brain...

If you let a group of ordinary people look at and work on the same problem, they will never be able to figure it out in their entire lifetime... But if you let a group of talented scientists work on it, they may be able to figure it out in just two or three days.

Xu Shenxue's scientific research system is a system that can mass-produce talented scientists.

Talents with the same basic skills can play completely different roles in other companies and in companies under Xu Shenxue.

Even if it is just the lowest level D-level subject quota, it can bring very obvious changes to scientific researchers.

All-around brain enhancement, this is no joke.

Some top scientists, if given S-level scientific research quotas, their scientific research level will directly reach the world's top level.

Xu Shenxue has dozens of such enhanced world-class scientists under his command, and hundreds of the next-level world-class scientists.

When it comes to talent, there are actually no companies in the world that can compare with the company controlled by Xu Shenxue.

Last year, the National Academy of Sciences elected more than a dozen people from Xu Shenxue's companies as academicians, all of whom are top scientists in their respective fields.

These are just the new entries this year!

As for some scientific research awards, the research teams under Xu Shenxue almost always win all the awards for important projects.

Last year, the reusable rocket research and development team led by Deng Feiyue won the highest level scientific award.

However...Xu Shenxue believes that the current talent pool, especially the number of top talents, is still insufficient.

So after leaving Gulf Technology, Xu Shenxue once again conducted a survey of the technology and related core R&D personnel in the field of semiconductor equipment and materials.

Find out some projects that require key technical research, and then award the core scientists in these projects S-level scientific research places, and then match them with several A-level places and more B- and C-level scientific research places.

Allow these R&D teams to unleash greater R&D efficiency.

In the past year, Xu Shenxue has used most of his newly gained achievement points in the fields of semiconductor equipment and consumables.

There is no way, because the semiconductor field is a key field at the bottom level. If semiconductors are not successful, many other aspects will not be feasible.

Not to mention anything else, just talk about the smart terminal business with the next-generation S14 mobile phone as the core, which is the core business of Zhiyun and Weiku, and the leader of the entire consumer electronics industry chain and the semiconductor industry chain!

This chip has not been found yet.

"According to reliable information, TSMC has already finalized the 8-nanometer process. If nothing unexpected happens, Apple's new generation A chip and Qualcomm's new generation chip are expected to use TSMC's process for foundry!"

"The new generation flagship chips from these two companies will be the main competitors for our new generation S500 series chips next year."

"But we haven't solved the next-generation process yet, so it's useless even if we have great chip design capabilities."

Fu Zhengyang, senior vice president of Zhiyun Group, CEO of Zhiyun Semiconductor, who is also personally responsible for the group's core chip project, namely the S series chip research and development project, has a worried look on his face.

Xu Shenxue comforted him, "Don't worry, we still have some time. Microelectronics will probably be able to come up with a new process in this period of time!"

"It won't delay the tape-out of our new chip too much!"

After pacifying Zhiyun Semiconductor, Xu Shenxue rushed to Tongcheng a few days later to inspect the local new technology, namely the research and development progress of the 3-nanometer D transistor technology.

The advancement of Zhiyun Microelectronics' manufacturing process has been rather bumpy and complicated in recent years.

Because we entered the market relatively late, we could only play with some low-process technology in the first one or two years. Later, we finally followed up with the 45-nanometer process, but before we had time to catch our breath, neighboring manufacturers such as TSMC, Samsung, Intel and other manufacturers came up with 32-nanometer or even 28-nanometer technology.

There is no other choice but Zhiyun Microelectronics to keep working and spending money on the 32-nanometer process.

After successfully developing the 32-nanometer process, the technology was still a little behind, so we continued to work on the 28-nanometer process.

Last year, we successfully developed the 28-nanometer industry.

In Tongcheng, Ding Chengjun said: "Our 28-nanometer process has some latecomer advantages. The overall technical performance is still good, and the power consumption is better controlled. The power consumption of the chips produced is slightly lower than that of the same process. In addition, our process technology is more mature, the foundry price is slightly lower, and the cost performance is relatively high."

"This process node is currently the main source of our company's chip foundry revenue, accounting for about 27%. In addition to manufacturing various advanced chips for the group company, we also manufacture chips for domestic and foreign chip design companies. The overall market competitiveness is quite good. Influenced by our low-power mature process, manufacturers such as TSMC and UMC have started the research and development of low-power 28-nanometer process, trying to strengthen the advantages of their 28-nanometer mature process."

"And according to our judgment, even ten years later, our 28-nanometer process node will still have a considerable market share. After all, the chips made at the 28-nanometer process node can already meet most application needs. Except for special fields, such as PCs, smart terminals, and AI, more advanced processes will not be needed in ten years."

"However, we are not just a chip foundry company, so we did not stop at the 28-nanometer process, but continued to advance the process development!"

Xu Shenxue said: "It's great that you have this idea!"

"Our Zhiyun Group is not just a chip foundry company, it is also a chip design company and a smart terminal product company!"

"Our company also has a large number of chip products, whether it is mobile phone SOC, PC CPU, GPU, AI chip, or memory and flash memory."

"Each of these chips has extremely stringent requirements for process technology, and we need to constantly pursue more advanced technology."

"At the same time, these chips also support a large number of terminal products of our group. Without these advanced chips, how can our Zhiyun S series compete with Apple?"

"Why do you think the four-star Galaxy series is inferior to you?"

“Therefore, we must always remember that we, Zhiyun Microelectronics, cannot be profit-oriented like ordinary chip foundries. Instead, we must be oriented to meet the group’s high-performance chip manufacturing needs and continuously advance to more advanced technologies. As for the huge investment in the research and development of more advanced process technology, as well as the revenue and profit of the chip factory, you don’t have to worry about these!”

"All you need to know is that as long as you develop the technology, the group's orders alone will be enough to support you!"

TSMC and Samsung are fighting fiercely for chip orders from Apple and Qualcomm, but Zhiyun Microelectronics does not need to worry about this. It only needs to develop advanced technology, and the group headquarters will pay for it.

Ding Chengjun said: "We are aware of this, so after we developed the 3-nanometer process last year, we did not stop or relax at all, and directly started the research and development of the -nanometer D transistor process seamlessly."

“We will further increase transistor density and strive to increase the two spacing data to 90 nanometers and 80 nanometers.”

Transistors have sizes, and there is also a distance between them. Controlling the size of transistors and the distance between them has become an important technical indicator for measuring transistor density, that is, the level of process nodes.

Two of the key data are the gate spacing of the transistor and the minimum spacing of the internal interconnections.

These two data can very intuitively reflect the process level. Within Zhiyun Microelectronics, these two data indicators are used as important reference indicators for measuring process nodes and are called "two spacings".

Zhiyun Microelectronics currently has several major process technologies, such as:
The 160 nanometer process is 160 nanometers* nanometers.

The 113nm process is 113nm*nm.

It can be seen that these two data have very obvious data reduction at different process nodes.

According to technical requirements, Zhiyun Microelectronics' next-generation 22-nanometer process requires the length and width to be 90 nanometers * 80 nanometers, which is roughly the same technical level as Intel's 22-nanometer process.

The above two core data represent the actual reduction in transistor size and the increase in transistor density.

At this time, Xu Shenxue said: "The reduction of the two-dimensional data alone still cannot well reflect the huge improvement in computing power brought by our 3D transistor technology!"

"And if we continue to use the name 22-nanometer process, there won't be much room for commercial promotion."

"Think about it, the fruit industry uses TSMC's 500-nanometer process, while your S series chips are only -nanometer. Aren't you weaker than the fruit industry's chips?"

"This will have a negative impact on the sales of our subsequent flagship phones. I've seen that we have to change the name of the process!"

"Let's use 18 nanometers. It's smaller than TSMC's 20 nanometers, and it looks more advanced!"

Ding Chengjun didn't expect Xu Shenxue to say such a thing, and was speechless for a moment.

Ji Chenghe on the side said: "Yes, just like what Mr. Xu said, after all, ordinary people, especially our large number of ordinary customers, don't care about planar transistors or 3D transistors!"

"Not only do they not pay attention, they don't understand it either. They just compare the data size simply and intuitively. The smaller the process number, the more advanced the technology."

"So don't use the term 22 nanometer technology anymore. Let's just go straight to the 18 nanometer technology!"

Ding Chengjun said: "But our technical specifications are similar to Intel's 22-nanometer process. If this is exposed..."

Ji Chenghe smiled and said, "You have been working on technology for a long time. In fact, it is not important whether our process node is really 18 nanometers. What is important is that it is smaller than the 20 nanometers advertised by TSMC and looks more advanced."

Ji Chenghe continued, "However, we still need a more appropriate reason to change the process node. We can't just say that we are now working on the 18-nanometer process. So, we will announce to the public that we will skip the 22-nanometer and 20-nanometer nodes and directly advance to the 18-nanometer process."

"In this way, the 18-nanometer process will be a natural progression. It can also confuse our competitors, making them think that we have given up on the 22-nanometer and 20-nanometer processes. The 18-nanometer process is definitely more difficult, and they might even misjudge that we will have to delay it for a few years before we can produce it!"

“Who would have thought that our 18-nanometer process is actually a 22-nanometer process!”

Xu Shenxue looked at Ji Chenghe. This was one of the reasons why he admired Ji Chenghe: shameless!

However, the false labeling of the process was a common practice among chip foundries in the original time and space.
After the 28-nanometer process in the original time and space, because the original unified standard was no longer effective, each chip manufacturer began to create its own set of process node rules. For the purpose of commercial promotion, they would make all kinds of boasts, and their standards were different.

As a result, various equivalent process nodes such as 14 nanometers, 10 nanometers, 7 nanometers, 5 nanometers, 3 nanometers, 2 nanometers, and even 1 nanometer have come out... confusing ordinary people.

Regardless of whether ordinary people are confused or not, when the new technology is launched next year and the new mobile phones are launched on the market, the flagship chip equipped in Zhiyun's new generation of mobile phones must be produced with the most advanced technology... Even if it is not actually, it must be made to look like it.

Therefore, Zhiyun Microelectronics' new generation of technology will not be the 3-nanometer 3D transistor technology, but the -nanometer technology... No reason, just to make it look smaller than TSMC's -nanometer technology and look more advanced. At this time, Ding Chengjun continued: "Since we started research and development of our -nanometer, no, -nanometer technology last year, we have been advancing on two technical routes at the same time. On the one hand, we continue to push the reduction of physical limits, and on the other hand, we vigorously promote the D transistor technology led by Professor Liang Song, that is, the FinFET process."

"Finally, the combination of these two projects evolved into our 18-nanometer process node."

"Its overall technology route actually follows Intel's technology route, with mature technology and clear route."

"At the same time, because the vertical 3D transistors have a much higher transistor density than the flat 2D transistors, our -nanometer process is stronger than TSMC's -nanometer process, which means higher transistor density, higher computing power, and lower power consumption!"

“It’s just that the corresponding cost is also higher.”

"For comparison, our 18-nanometer process is comparable to TSMC's 20-nanometer process and the 20-nanometer process that Four Star is developing. Apart from being more expensive, everything else is advantageous!"

This is also the reason why 3D transistor technology, or FinFET technology, can become the mainstream core technology of advanced process technology...

Apart from being expensive, there are no disadvantages.

"We have already completed the basic technical verification of this 18-nanometer process technology. We will also conduct a lot of adjustments and tests in the future. Because the core technology has been developed under the leadership of Professor Liang Song, there will not be many problems in the future. It will only take some time to improve the yield rate and reduce costs!"

"If everything goes well, we expect to be able to tape out our flagship chip around April next year."

Xu Shenxue said: "It's a little late. You still have to keep working hard and try to push the time forward. Even if it can be advanced by a month, it will be great."

The new process node is related to the launch time of next year’s flagship phone. Even if you have already estimated that the launch of next year’s flagship phone will be postponed, you should still try to launch it earlier if possible.

After returning from Tongcheng, Xu Shenxue convened a special strategic meeting to address the issue of postponement of the new generation of process nodes, mainly to coordinate the chip issues of the company's various smart terminal products and semiconductor products for next year!

As in the past, Xu Shenxue rarely spoke himself at such strategic meetings, and it was mainly his senior executives who spoke.

Fu Zhengyang, senior vice president of the group, said: "Because the 500-nanometer process of microelectronics is delayed than expected, our new generation S series chips are expected to be taped out in April at the earliest, and entering mass production may be in June."

"This is the best-case scenario. If there are any problems in the actual process, the delivery time will be further delayed. Therefore, it may take until July for the supply of S500 chips to be stable!"

"Therefore, I suggest that the release plan of the flagship phone should be postponed to mid-July next year at the earliest, preferably after mid-August, so that there will be enough buffer time!"

Ji Chenghe said at this time: "Compared with the previous years' two-month delay in the release time, the outside world may react more strongly. Alas, but there is nothing we can do about it. Let's just follow this schedule!"

At this time, Gu Zhiming, the group's senior vice president and head of supply chain, also said: "It's better to postpone it appropriately. The 3D facial recognition technology scheduled to be used in next year's MAX flagship phone still has some problems. The cost has not been reduced. Our Wanjin Technology needs more time to solve the technical problems!"

Upon hearing this, Ji Chenghe showed a little concern and said, "We will launch 3D face recognition next year. This is a core function we have planned before. To exaggerate a little, the chip can be replaced, but this 3D face recognition cannot be replaced. After all, we are going to make a full-screen mobile phone next year. Without this 3D face recognition, how can we make a full-screen phone? We can't make a full-screen phone with a rear fingerprint. That is the project plan of Weiku Electronics. We can't compete with our little brother for the market!"

When Ji Chenghe said this, everyone felt a little embarrassed... If they made a full-screen mobile phone with a rear fingerprint, they would really be competing with Weiku Electronics for the market.

When the group held a meeting in the first half of the year, we already had some preliminary ideas about how mobile phones should develop next year and what technologies should be adopted.

That is to make a full-screen mobile phone!
Weiku Electronics is planning to develop a full-screen mobile phone with a rear fingerprint, while Zhiyun is preparing to develop a full-screen mobile phone that does not require fingerprints and uses 3D facial recognition technology in one go.

In simple terms, Zhiyun's full-screen mobile phone plan is a more advanced top-level chip, coupled with 3D face recognition technology, OLED from Huaxing Technology, and a notch screen made from a flexible screen. After combining these technologies, a notch full-screen mobile phone with 3D face recognition will be created.

This is a project that Zhiyun Group has been planning for several years. In order to do this, they started working on 3D facial recognition technology a long time ago. At the same time, the reason why Zhiyun Group established Huaxing Technology and vigorously promoted the research and development of OLED screen technology was also to pave the way for full-screen phones.

In terms of hard technology, Zhiyun Group already has the technical foundation to make full-screen mobile phones. Of course, the cost will definitely be very high and the selling price will inevitably be very expensive.

For this purpose, a new model, the S14 Max, has been specially developed. This will be a mobile phone with a higher price than the S14Pro.

Everyone thinks that if this phone can be successfully launched next year, it will definitely shock the world...

Just imagine, other mobile phone manufacturers, except Apple, haven’t even developed fingerprint recognition yet, but Zhiyun suddenly comes up with 3D face recognition... That’s simply a blast.

But at this time, facing Ji Chenghe's concerns, Gu Zhiming continued: "It's not just the 3D face recognition technology that has a gap. Our other new technologies, including fast charging technology and wireless charging technology, have also encountered some technical difficulties. In particular, the wireless charging technology may be delayed, and the fast charging technology will also be discounted."

Xu Shenxue was speechless when he heard this: "Fast charging technology hasn't been developed yet? It's been several years!"

Gu Zhiming said: "It is a bit difficult. At present, we have only solved the problem of 15W fast charging. The 40W fast charging technology originally planned to be used was rejected by the Technical Safety Committee because the safety performance could not meet the requirements!"

As he spoke, he also glanced at Ji Chenghe, the core member of the Technical Safety Committee, who was Ji Chenghe... It was he who personally vetoed the application of the 40-watt fast charging technology!
At this time, Ji Chenghe said: "The 40-watt safety test did not pass our standards, so it cannot be used for the time being. I don't want to deal with negative news about mobile phones exploding and catching fire in the future. Our products are top-level flagship phones for the global market, and the safety standards must be the most stringent, even far exceeding the standards set by various countries!"

"When it comes to security, we would rather use backward and conservative technology than take risks!"

Ji Chenghe, the senior vice president of the group and a core executive in charge of marketing, has said so, so naturally others have nothing to say.

Xu Shenxue said: "Safety is paramount. This is necessary. Since the 40-watt one cannot be used, then don't use it for now. Just use the 15-watt one. It is better than the current 5-watt one."

This year, Qualcomm released the QC fast charging technology, which supports 5V2A, or ten watts...leading Zhiyun and Fruit's unchanging five-watt charging technology.

So for next year's mobile phone charging technology, Zhiyun Group is preparing to launch fast charging, originally planned to be 40 watts. As a result, the 40-watt fast charging technology did not pass the rigorous safety review of the group's internal technical safety committee. In the end, it had to settle for the second best and use the more backward and more conservative 15-watt fast charging technology.

Gu Zhiming continued: "In terms of wireless charging technology, our technical accumulation is still relatively strong, but the problem of wireless charging heating is still a bit serious for the time being, and it will take time to solve it. It can't be done in a short time, and next year's project should not be launched!"

Then he talked about various other technical problems...

Xu Shenxue was listening at the top and felt overwhelmed.

When we held a strategic meeting in the first half of the year to prepare for the launch of a groundbreaking full-screen mobile phone next year, everyone was very confident and said that all technical standards had been met and that we would be able to make a big move next year and create a new benchmark for the smartphone industry.

As a result, half a year later, problems have emerged one after another.

The chip doesn’t work well, the 3D face recognition doesn’t work well, the fast charging isn’t very good, and the wireless charging generates heat…not many things go well.

However, compared to this epoch-making new flagship which has many technical problems, other smart terminal products do not have so many problems.

The pre-ordered S14 standard version and Pro version are simply upgraded versions of the S13, using better chips and a -watt fast charge. Minor adjustments to the details will not bring about major changes.

The new A series models are similar, the upgrades will not be too big, and the chips will not be new generation chips, but the S13 chip of S403.

At the same time, the C series is also preparing to adopt last year's old chip S401.

In other words, the A14 and C7 mobile phones expected to be released next year will continue to use -nanometer process chips instead of the latest -nanometer process.

This is mainly because the cost of design and tape-out of new process chips and even subsequent production has increased significantly, leading to further increase in the cost of the new generation of chips.

In addition, after the new chip goes into production next year, the production of early advanced processes will be relatively limited, and it will be difficult to supply an S series, and it will no longer be possible to supply other products at the same time.

Therefore, among Zhiyun’s series of smart terminal products next year, only the S14 series of mobile phones will use the new chip.

Other mobile phones will continue to use 28-nanometer process chips, either using older chips released this year or slightly modified chips released next year.

It's not just Zhiyun, it's also the case with Weiku. Next year's new phones will continue to use 28-nanometer chips.

Apart from the Zhiyun S series, in fact, among other mobile phone manufacturers, the only one that continues to pursue top-level technology is Zhiyun's old rival Apple... Although their A8 chip project is very secretive, it is no secret in the industry. They have made it very clear that they will use TSMC's -nanometer process.

But apart from Apple's A8 chip, no other chips will use this process for the time being: it's too expensive!

Qualcomm is drooling over the high cost of the 20-nanometer process.

As for the Four Stars, they themselves have not yet made a breakthrough in the 3-nanometer process technology and are still struggling with research and development just like Zhiyun. Therefore, they do not have a corresponding -nanometer process chip project. In addition, Liang Song was intercepted by Zhiyun Microelectronics, and their D transistor technology is also lagging behind in all aspects, and is not as good as Zhiyun Microelectronics.

Four Star Semiconductor is in a terrible situation right now.

Then there are the W series chips sold by Zhiyun Semiconductor. It is expected that next year's flagship chip will continue to use the 28nm process.

Therefore, by next year, it is estimated that only the top flagship phones of Apple and Zhiyun will continue to use SOC chips with top-level technology, while the chips used by other mobile phone manufacturers will still be only 28 nanometers.

In today's strategic meeting, the full-screen mobile phone project had many problems. Although other projects seemed to be going smoothly, such as the S14 standard version, Pro, A series mobile phones, and C series mobile phones, they seemed to be going smoothly, but there were no major innovations or selling points.

If we just push these things into the market, next year there will be a group of people criticizing Zhiyun for being flat and having no innovation!
In recent years, especially after the release of the S11 mobile phone, every year people have criticized Zhiyun for losing its sense of innovation.

Especially from the S11 mobile phone to the S12 mobile phone and this year's S13 mobile phone, Zhiyun has used the integrated aluminum alloy body for three years and the shape has hardly changed.

At the same time, there are no particularly unique and innovative features. The only thing worth mentioning is the dual camera... but this thing can't be called black technology.

This makes many people feel that Zhiyun’s innovation ability is no longer good...

At the same time, it also makes many people feel confused about the overall development of the smartphone industry: the development of smartphones to the S13 and Fruit 5S stage seems to have come to an end.

Many people have racked their brains but still cannot figure out what new features smartphones will be able to offer in the future.

Under this situation, if Zhiyun does not show some real ability and produce a full-screen mobile phone next year, I am afraid that consumers will lose interest in changing their phones to Zhiyun's S series phones.

Anyway, the new phone doesn't have any unique features, and the old phone's performance is still usable, so why change it? If not...

Zhiyun phones, especially the S series phones, have achieved this market scale. In fact, there are not many large-scale incremental markets, and the capacity of the high-end market has almost reached its limit.

Now that Zhiyun’s new generation of mobile phones has been released, quite a number of consumers are actually users of Zhiyun’s old generation of mobile phones, that is, users who are changing their phones.

How to stimulate old users to replace their phones with new ones has become an important issue for Zhiyun Group since the beginning of this year.

It’s just that… the new phone has many technical issues and it looks like it may be delayed. I’m afraid it will be difficult to significantly increase the sales of the phone next year.

This made Xu Shenxue a little annoyed.

However, things like technological progress cannot be rushed. Apart from providing funding, talent, and scientific research quotas, Xu Shenxue is powerless to do anything else and can only wait for the fruits of scientific research to mature.

Since there are no major innovations in hardware, we will focus on some small software functions next year to provide people with a better user experience.

By the way, we can also develop other smart terminal products to stimulate the consumer market, such as VR glasses.

At the same time, we are also carrying out some promotion and support in the content ecology to see if we can stimulate a wave of software value-added services, such as the explosion of the mobile game market.

Hold on for a year or two, and wait for full-screen mobile phones to come out, then go all-in on them!

(End of this chapter)