Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 335 AI Swarm Drones

Late January, at a test site somewhere.

Several people from relevant agencies watched as several drones took off into the air, then flew automatically without any remote control, quickly shuttled between simulated buildings, flew through the woods, and then accurately detected simulated vehicle targets, and then threw a simulated small iron ball from the air to the ground.

The whole process actually looks rather clumsy. The drone continued searching for a long time after it was launched into the air, and the search route was a bit silly, but that’s not important. What’s important is that it still searched for the simulated vehicle target and successfully completed the bombing. After completing the bombing, it replanned the route to return.

During the return process, the aircraft will fly in circles and at low altitudes, shuttling between buildings and woods, instead of flying straight back stupidly.

More importantly, the entire process is unmanned and purely AI-powered.

And this is not something Xu Shenxue has demonstrated to some people before. It uses AI host control and still requires radio signals to remotely control the flight of the drone.

This is a purely autonomous flight, and all actions are completed by the intelligent control system on the drone, including path planning, real-time construction of terrain and environment maps along the way, collection of information along the way through photoelectric and infrared sensing, real-time processing and analysis of information, and then searching for the intended target.

Finally, after finding the target, execute the throwing and exploding command.

After throwing, it returns to the take-off point.

The entire process is controlled and implemented by the drone's AI.

And this is the most important and core technology.

The person in charge of the project explained to Xu Shenxue and others:

"Our drone is equipped with a large number of sensors, including ultra-high-resolution cameras, infrared detectors, lidar, micro radar, and acoustic sensors. It can also receive satellite navigation information from the GPS and Beidou satellite dual systems, and finally receive ultra-high-precision navigation information from the Zhiyun satellite low-orbit satellite system."

"There are enough information sensing devices to allow our drones to obtain enough information. The micro radar can widely detect the terrain and main targets within three kilometers to guide the drone's initial actions; the laser radar can build a precise three-dimensional map within 200 meters in real time to guide the drone to perform various maneuvers in complex environments and search for surprise targets at the same time."

"The ultra-high-precision camera can obtain precise images of the target, detect specific target information, and compare it with the database to find the exact device or specific target person."

"Sound wave sensors and infrared sensors are used as auxiliary sensing devices."

"In theory, our drones are capable of autonomous flight and mission execution in all weather conditions!"

"At the same time, this system can also be transplanted to fixed-wing drones or ground mobile terminal devices. It only needs to be modified adaptively. After all, what we are mainly doing is this AI task system, and the drone itself is just a carrier."

"Of course, different vehicles also require different action models. Currently, we rely on Xiaojiang's large quad-rotor drone as a platform."

"In addition, our system is not yet perfect. The computing power and algorithm are still insufficient, so it looks a bit clumsy."

"Especially in the search and confirmation of specific targets, the requirements for recognition algorithms are very high. Our current target recognition model is not accurate enough. If it is put into use now, it may have a certain probability of misjudgment, such as identifying civilians as armed personnel, and identifying our armed personnel as enemy armed personnel!"

"We still need to feed more data to continue training the recognition model."

"The path planning system still has some major problems. The main problem is that although the system's sensing equipment is sufficient, the onboard computing power is insufficient. It is difficult to process such a large amount of data instantly, which eventually causes the system to make misjudgments!"

"Even though we have proactively limited the accuracy of the sensing data to reduce the amount of data, it still doesn't work!"

As he was speaking, he happened to see a flying drone that crashed directly into a building while flying in a narrow space.

"Just like now, in an overly complex environment, instantaneous data will surge, directly leading to chip overload and untimely processing, which in turn leads to path planning errors."

Xu Shenxue looked at the drone that stupidly crashed into the wall, and then said: "This is because there is too much information, and it has burned its brain!"

"It seems that the performance of the current chip is still not good enough!"

The R&D manager next to him said, "It is indeed not enough. The computing chip we use is the EYQ2 chip, which is also the computing chip on the Hailan car. This computing chip is enough for the autonomous driving of civilian vehicles, but it is still far from enough for our drone system."

The EYQ2 chip is an automotive-grade computing chip jointly developed by Zhiyun Semiconductor and Hailan Automobile. It uses Zhiyun Microelectronics' 22nm process, which is similar to Intel's 40nm process. It is a comprehensive computing chip that combines CPU and GPU, with a single chip capable of TOPS.

This type of chip is already considered the most advanced automotive-grade computing chip currently available, but it is still not enough.

At this time, the head of R&D said: "After our testing, the entire system needs at least 1000TOPS of computing power to have preliminary practical performance. Considering the power consumption problem, the chip process may have to reach nanometers or even nanometers to achieve this."

Xu Shenxue thought for a moment and said, "Zhiyun Semiconductor is developing the EYQ3 chip. The design goal of this chip is to have a single chip computing power of 80TOPS. It uses a -nanometer process and is expected to produce samples by the end of the year. You can take some to test and see if it can be used!"

"If it doesn't work, then we can only wait for the EYQ4 chip, which is based on the -nanometer process and will further improve the computing power!"

"Perhaps you can consider non-automotive-grade chips. If you don't consider automotive-grade chips, then the computing power can be improved even more. After all, drones are consumables, and there is no need to consider stability too much. It's enough to use them a few times."

The head of R&D said: "We are also considering this. In the future, we may adopt it in small disposable drones, but now we are mainly engaged in large quad-rotor drones, which are very expensive and it would be a waste to use them once."

Xu Shenxue looked at the large four-rotor drone in front of him. The aircraft itself was actually not expensive, only a few tens of thousands of yuan, but the series of sensing equipment carried on it was expensive.

A high-performance laser radar costs more than 100,000 yuan. It has much higher specifications and is much more expensive than the laser radar used in Hailan cars.

Then various other sensors can easily cost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands.

This type of drone is destined not to be a consumable... The hardware cost alone is hundreds of thousands, not to mention the R&D cost, especially the software cost, which is even more expensive... The training of various data models is very expensive.

This is the limitation of the times. If you want to make an AI drone now, it will cost a lot.

But even if it is not mature yet, it cannot be used on small drones... The battery capacity of small drones is limited and cannot supply the energy consumption of the system.

But it can still be used on large drones.

Therefore, Xu Shenxue was quite satisfied with this.

Compared to Xu Shenxue who was relatively satisfied, the representatives of several related institutions were stunned from beginning to end.

It feels like... watching a science fiction presentation. It doesn't feel real.

Everyone knows about drones. Ever since Xiaojiang Technology developed this thing, people soon discovered the special uses of Xiaojiang's drones in the military field.

Xinjiang drones can be seen in many war-torn areas, but they are generally used as reconnaissance platforms or simply for dropping bombs. However, since they are all minor conflicts in small countries, although they have attracted attention, they have not attracted much attention.

Because they are big countries, they have better drones, such as long-flight reconnaissance and strike drones, high-altitude drones, and so on.

However, these integrated reconnaissance and strike drones are still essentially remote-controlled drones, and require remote control and command from operators in the rear through large radio equipment or simply satellite communications.

However, what they saw before them were drones that performed missions purely autonomously. To put it in a broader sense, there seemed to be no essential difference between these things and loyal wingmen.

However, there is more than one relevant organization. At least the people in front of them don’t know that there is already an organization cooperating with the secret project team under Zhiyun Group to develop "AI combat drones". This project can also be said to be the loyal wingman rumored by the outside world. It is somewhat similar, but the difference is huge!
Because this project does not actually require the command of manned aircraft, it can perform a series of combat missions on its own... Of course, it can also cooperate with manned aircraft.

How to use it specifically depends on the situation.

The AI ​​combat drone project is a top-secret project. There are not many people in the country who know the full picture of the project. The secret project team under Zhiyun Group is responsible for the core of the entire system, that is, the research and development of AI algorithms and the design and supply of AI chips.

In addition, the loyal wingman is used for air combat and precision ground strikes. It is a strategic-level equipment, which is very different from small drones that can operate at low altitudes, small ranges, and complex environments, and even in cities.

Relatively speaking, this kind of small AI drone technology is not that sensitive, unlike the loyal wingman project. From the perspective of today's people, it is heading towards a science fiction fighter, and can even be regarded as a sixth-generation fighter.

The technology is extremely sensitive, and the outside world doesn't even know the slightest information about it.

However, even a small, low-end AI drone still gave the representatives of relevant institutions a great shock.

After watching for a long time, one of them murmured: "If this kind of equipment is used in the future, then what is the point of our current training? It's completely useless!"

All training nowadays is based on past experience, and the scenarios set are also from the past and present.

But facing this kind of drone, all existing training and tactics are no longer applicable... because the existing tactics and confrontations are almost unable to fight against this ultra-low altitude, and it can maneuver flexibly in complex environments, and it also has a lot of sensor equipment to search for equipment targets and living targets, and then launch a precision strike.

He thought about the existing equipment and could hardly find any device that could effectively resist this kind of AI drone.

Jammer?
At most it can interfere with the communication of the equipment, but this broken AI drone doesn't need communication. It flies by itself, searches for targets by itself, and drops bombs by itself.

If high-power electromagnetic interference is used to violently destroy hardware, it is easy to say but very difficult to do. The interference equipment that can achieve this level is basically large and costs thousands or even tens of millions of dollars. On the battlefield, it is a big piece of fat meat. The stealth fighters and satellites flying in the sky are all staring at you. If you dare to show up, you will be hit by a missile in no time.

Putting all that aside, you have to find the drone first before you can destroy it.

However, the flying altitude of this drone ranges from more than ten meters to several meters... and it can also make turns and fly around. The target is very small, and by the time you discover it, it has basically flown over your head.

Even if we can search and discover it in time, the cost doesn't seem worth it.

This kind of AI drone costs only a few hundred thousand, while the jamming equipment that causes violent killings costs tens of millions or even hundreds of millions... They dare to let their small drones go and you can't shoot them all!
Then he took a step back and thought, if it wasn't this kind of sci-fi AI drone, even if it was just a small remote-controlled drone, it would not be easy to deal with!
Nowadays, many companies, including themselves, are developing this type of remote-controlled small drone.

Although it is possible to interfere with communications, it is impossible to spread the jammers all over the battlefield. The battlefield is so large, and the small drones are basically infantry equipment, spread across every corner of the battlefield... This would be very troublesome.

In the original time and space, even by 2024, there is still no effective way to fight against remote-controlled small drones... It's not that there is no corresponding equipment, but it's not cost-effective.

Under existing technical conditions, equipment that can detect, respond and shoot down small drones in a timely manner, especially disposable small high-speed drones... are extremely expensive and are limited in quantity.

Their targets, small drones, cost only a few thousand or even a few hundred yuan each... They are all over the battlefield, and drones are flying everywhere...

This remote-controlled small drone is difficult enough to deal with.

Now the project team under Xu Shenxue has even developed an AI drone, which is even more difficult to fight against.

Even though it is not mature yet, even though it is still relatively large and expensive, considering the continuous development of technology, it is estimated that it will not be long before it can be popularized on small drones.

If the miniaturized AI drones of the future can be networked internally and share information, then a swarm of AI drones can be formed, enabling coordinated operations of dozens or even hundreds of AI drones.

By then, the battlefield ecology may be completely changed.

However, what makes him quite relieved is that whether it is Zhiyun Group or Xiaojiang Technology, they are all Chinese companies, and the remote-controlled drones and AI drones they have developed are all Chinese products.

In this field, China is far ahead of other countries.

In the future, we will have to worry about drone threats not from our own people but from potential enemy countries!
Thinking of this, he became happy again.

"This AI drone is great. Let's try a small fixed-wing AI drone later. This way it can fly farther, expand its range, and be faster to increase its survival rate."

“Then we can also consider networking these AI drones to achieve coordinated actions of more AI drones!”

When Xu Shenxue heard this, he couldn't help but look up to this man. Of course, Xu Shenxue was very familiar with what this man was talking about. That was a swarm of drones, and it was an AI swarm of drones.

Sure enough, when technology develops to a certain level, you don’t have to worry about it yourself, as a group of people will come up with various ideas and then realize a large number of applications.

Just like the AI ​​combat drone project, it was not Xu Shenxue who first proposed it. Instead, people from related institutions saw Zhiyun Group's AI technology and wondered whether this AI could be used on fighter jets... Then they asked Xu Shenxue, and after getting a positive answer from Xu Shenxue, they finally started the corresponding project.

The progress of the times has inertia. Once the basic technology reaches a certain level, many things will appear naturally without the need for Xu Shenxue to promote them.

This also made Xu Shenxue pay more attention to the development of basic technology.

After all, whether it is the secret project AI combat drone or I swarm drone, the underlying core technology is actually AI.

The support for AI technology lies in the field of semiconductor design and manufacturing, and more deeply in the field of semiconductor equipment and consumables.

This is why Xu Shenxue spent such a huge amount of money to set up Fairy Mountain Holdings.

It's for semiconductor equipment and consumables.

Otherwise, while you are happily playing with AI here, others will block your AI chips and refuse to provide you with foundry services, and finally directly block your lithography machines... then you are doomed.

After finishing his review of the AI ​​drone project, Xu Shenxue turned his attention back to the many companies under his control.

The AI ​​drone project has already attracted relevant attention. How to proceed with it is already their business. All Xu Shenxue has to do is provide hardware equipment.

Or more simply, it is an AI chip.

As for the AI ​​chips, they can do whatever they want, such as AI drones, AI robot dogs, AI tanks, AI unmanned boats, etc.

When Xu Shenxue returned home and was having dinner with Lin Yaxian, he happened to meet his sister who was also coming over after get off work.

Her sister did not live at home, but lived with her mother in a villa next door. Now she has graduated. Xu Weiwei looks different from when she was in college. She has become a working woman.

After graduation, she played around for a while and is currently working in Zhiyun Group. However, she has not disclosed her identity and has concealed it. She is currently working in the strategic investment department of Zhiyun Group. Only a few senior executives in the investment department know her identity.

What status?
She is not only Xu Shenxue's sister, she is also the second largest individual shareholder in Zhiyun Group after Xu Shenxue.

Currently, Xu Weiwei holds 1.6% of Zhiyun Group's shares. Based on Zhiyun Group's current market value of US$760 billion, this part of the shares is worth more than US$12 billion.

In addition, she also holds shares in some companies such as Wecoo Electronics, Wecoo Industrial and Wecoo Trading.

Total net worth exceeds 15 billion US dollars.

Even though she is only in her twenties, not much is known about her, and her name is not even on any of the rich lists.

But she is one of the top female billionaires in the country, second only to several female entrepreneurs of famous large domestic companies.

Of course, this is all about apparent wealth. In fact, there are many people like her who do not appear on the wealth rankings.

No matter what, Xu Weiwei is one of the richest women in the country. She is also the second largest individual shareholder in Zhiyun Group. The third largest individual shareholder is Xu's mother, who currently holds 0.9% of Zhiyun Group's shares, which is not a small amount.

Of course...the above-mentioned shares are not held directly by the individuals themselves, but are held by trust funds under their names, so they are not actually counted as individual shareholders.

Xu Weiwei studied finance in college, and now working in the strategic investment department of Zhiyun Group is a good match for her major.

When they sat down to eat, Xu Shenxue also asked her: "How is your work recently? Are you able to adapt?"

Xu Weiwei said: "Work is fine. I've been following an investment project recently and learned a lot!"

Xu Shenxue said: "That's good. The work in the Investment Department is quite important and there are many capable people there. Follow them and learn from them!"

Xu Weiwei said: "Brother, after I finish this project, I want to go to the investment department of Liuhe Holdings. The investment department of Zhiyun only serves the group strategy. Although they are all large projects, they are still quite limited. I still want to get in touch with some investment cases in more industries and learn more about industry cases."

Xu Shenxue said: "No problem, the investment department of Liuhe Holdings is also very good. Its business covers a wider range, including the Internet and investments in other emerging fields. When you finish your current project, let me know and I will transfer you over!"

Lin Yaxian on the side said: "Alas, little sister, you have changed now. What's the point of dealing with finance every day!"

Lin Yaxian still misses Xu Weiwei when she was in school. At that time, Xu Weiwei was full of personality and lived an enviable life.

But now... everyone has gradually become a workaholic.

Xu Wei smiled and said, "Sister-in-law, do you think I am willing? I am under a lot of pressure!"

As he said this, he glanced at his brother.

Her brother's achievements in his career are so dazzling that this has brought great pressure to Xu Weiwei.

Many people who are familiar with their family, such as some senior executives of Zhiyun, would unconsciously compare her with her brother after she joined the company... and then they would sigh, and some even shook their heads slightly without any tact.

Damn, look down on people...

Alas, not everyone is as evil as my brother Xu Shenxue. I am just an ordinary person.

There was no other way, she could only work and study harder.

After all, she has self-esteem and doesn't want to live under the shadow of her brother all her life. She has to make some achievements of her own.

She has made her own plans. She will first study and train in the strategic investment department of Zhiyun and Liuhe Holdings for a few years. Once she has accumulated enough experience and is familiar with the industry, she will jump out and start her own business.

After all, she has a lot of money. She can set up her own investment company to engage in venture capital, or start a business to enter a new field.

As for existing large companies such as Zhiyun and Weiku, to be honest, she doesn't want to go there... These companies are full of Xu Shenxue's influence from top to bottom.

If she went, no matter how well she did, she would only have one identity: Xu Shenxue's sister!

She still has some self-respect and is a little proud, and wants to achieve some results to prove herself... This is also a problem of many rich second-generations, always wanting to prove themselves!

And most of them failed.

After all, we are not afraid of the second generation of rich people eating, drinking and having fun, but we are afraid of the second generation of rich people starting businesses...

Lin Yaxian’s eldest brother is a typical example. He is in charge of the Lin family’s pharmaceutical company and wants to develop original drugs. In the end, Lin’s father couldn’t persuade him and agreed with the mentality of paying tuition fees.

As a result, after investing 700 to 800 million yuan in research and development, not a penny was earned, which directly led to the Lin family's pharmaceutical company's operation falling into crisis. In the end, it was Lin Yaxian who stepped in and provided financial support to help the pharmaceutical company overcome the difficulties.

Then Lin Yaxian's elder brother was ordered by Lin's father to go home and reflect on the past. Now he reflects and summarizes every day... He looks a lot older.

The tuition fee of 700 to 800 million is also very painful.

If this happens a few more times, even though the Lin family is now wealthy and powerful, they can't withstand the turmoil caused by the eldest brother of the Lin family!
Thinking of the sister-in-law in front of me, and then thinking about the tragic experience of my eldest brother, and my second brother who is now working in the entertainment industry but is also doing poorly.

Then I thought of several other familiar families where my peers were all trying their best, but basically all failed.

Lin Yaxian was also speechless. Why did all the peers around her like to mess around with the so-called career... It would be fine if they just messed around, but I haven't seen any of you succeed.

We have enough money, so why not live a good life?

Even if you are doing business, you can just invest some money, put your name on it, and let the management team handle things. Isn't it better for you to just be a major shareholder? Why do you have to do it yourself?

Her own cosmetics company is like this, and it is doing pretty well now, bringing in more than 1 billion in profits a year.

She even goes to the company only a few times a year. She takes care of the children at home every day, draws, or accompanies her mother-in-law and mother to auctions, charity dinners, etc.

Life is pretty good!

She didn't understand Xu Weiwei. Why did her two brothers insist on doing it themselves... After all the trouble, it was still not as good as letting go if she did it herself.

Thinking of this, Lin Yaxian smiled again... When it comes to running a business, I'm still better than you!

Of course, at this time she directly ignored the fact that the elite team of the cosmetics company under her was composed of people transferred by Xu Shenxue from Zhiyun Group or Liuhe Holdings.

These elites took up their positions in the past with the goal of making achievements, and then they were able to make further progress in the corporate system under Xu Shenxue's name, and each of them worked very hard.

After all, this kind of work experience is actually a kind of experience accumulation and even a test!

If you can't do well in this cosmetics company with annual revenue of several billion and annual profit of over ten billion, then don't expect to hold an important position in large enterprises such as Zhiyun, Weiku Electronics, and Hailan Automobile.

The ability cannot keep up!
To be honest...it's a waste for the management team sent by Xu Shenxue to be used in a cosmetics company with annual revenue of several billion and annual profit of more than one billion!

But Lin Yaxian doesn't care about these things. She thinks the current situation is good enough anyway.

After the family had dinner, Xu Shenxue returned to his study to handle work matters as usual. He had too many companies under his management and a lot of messy things, many of which needed to be handled personally. There were a pile of work emails waiting for him to deal with in his mailbox every day.

Lin Yaxian and Xu Weiwei were chatting and watching TV series downstairs.

The eldest son was running around in the living room at first, but soon felt sleepy and was taken back to his room by his aunt to sleep.

After Xu Shenxue dealt with some work emails and read a few reports, he returned downstairs. Xu Weiwei had already gone home. She lived in the villa next door, which was very close.

Lin Yaxian had already lay down in the room.

After Xu Shenxue took a shower and changed into pajamas, he also lay down beside him and fell asleep.

Nothing happened that night, and Xu Shenxue went out again early the next morning.

Instead of going directly to the company, he went directly to the airport and then took a Zhiyun Airlines business jet to Tongcheng, the headquarters of Zhiyun Microelectronics.

Previously, Zhiyun Microelectronics reported that the 14N+ process has completed technical verification and is preparing for mass production.

This 14N+ process is the -nanometer process currently promoted by Zhiyun Microelectronics.

Strictly speaking, it belongs to the second generation 14-nanometer process, but Zhiyun has always liked to exaggerate the process numbers for better publicity.

This 703-nanometer process is related to the mass production of this year's S16 chip and the mass production of this year's S series of mobile phones. Its importance is self-evident, and Xu Shenxue is naturally paying close attention to it.

After hearing the news that the technical verification was completed, I took some time to go and take a look today.

The plane arrived in Tongcheng very quickly, and then Xu Shenxue took a bulletproof sea-blue SLC sedan and went to the Zhiyun Microelectronics Tongcheng Base accompanied by other people.

And he went straight to Factory No. 2.

Factory No. 2 is the first 12-inch wafer factory invested and established by Zhiyun Microelectronics after it acquired Tongcheng Semiconductor and entered the semiconductor manufacturing industry.

At the beginning, only a 28-nanometer production line was built, which was relatively small in scale. Later, the production line was upgraded to the level of -nanometer process.

Later, the second phase of the project was expanded to build an 18-nanometer production line.

It is worth mentioning that many of Zhiyun Microelectronics’ wafer fabs actually have the production capabilities of different processes at the same time and often have multiple production lines.

It is more appropriate to call a wafer fab a production base. It is not simply a chip production line with a specific process.

The second factory belongs to this category. The first production line can mass produce 28-45 nanometer process. It adopts DUV immersion lithography machine with overlay accuracy of 28nm. It can produce 32 nanometers with single exposure. It also has the ability to produce 40 nanometers, 45 nanometers and nanometers!
This mainly depends on customer needs and will be adjusted based on customer needs. Currently, this production line mainly produces 28NLLP process in consideration of cost and market issues.

The second production line was built through subsequent expansion. It uses a DUV immersion lithography machine with an overlay accuracy of 10 nanometers, which can achieve double exposure. Its core equipment such as the lithography machine can theoretically produce 22- nanometer process nodes. Of course, the current technology has only advanced to the second-generation -nanometer process, that is, the -nanometer process.

As for the 10-nanometer process, Zhiyun Microelectronics’ process department has not yet solved it, and the technical certification will not be completed until the end of the year at the earliest.

At the end of last year, Zhiyun Microelectronics upgraded some of the equipment on the second production line of its first factory, enabling it to reach the level of mass production using the 14-nanometer process.

Because the technology upgrade had just been completed and there were no other heavy production tasks, it was regarded as the technical verification work of the second-generation 14-nanometer process, which is the 12-nanometer process in publicity.

Later, the plant will also serve as the first wafer fab to mass-produce 12-nanometer process wafers.

In addition, the 9th and 18th factories, which are currently mass-producing the first-generation 14-nanometer process, actually also have the hardware conditions for producing the 12-nanometer process. No additional equipment technology upgrades are required. Only some adjustments need to be made on the production line. Then, they will be able to produce the second-generation 14-nanometer process, that is, the 12-nanometer process.

Therefore, this year's 16-nanometer process will have sufficient production capacity, and the subsequent S series of mobile phones will not encounter chip shortages.

After Xu Shenxue arrived at the second factory, he went straight to the second production line and saw the S703 chip that had just been successfully taped out.

The S703 chip is actually not very different from last year's S603 chip. It is still a quad-core design with two large cores and two small cores, but the process level has been improved and the number of transistors is larger, so the main frequency is higher, the cache is larger, and the internal integrated GPU performance is also better.

Other communication baseband modules, as well as security core, AI core, power management core, and smart camera core, have not changed much from the previous generation, because the architecture of these auxiliary cores has not changed.

The entire S703 chip is actually a highly integrated and complex comprehensive SOC. It has a large number of functional cores inside and is not simply a combination of a CPU and a GPU.

Many of its special function cores, such as AI core and security core, are specially configured for S series mobile phones. If used for other mobile phones, they will not be compatible.

If an Android phone uses this chip, many of its features cannot be brought into play, resulting in poor results.

The S series chips are custom chips designed specifically for the Yun OS system and the S series mobile phones. All design purposes are to make the S series mobile phones better to use.

Therefore, the compatibility is actually very poor.

After seeing the chip, Xu Shenxue was in a good mood: "It looks like the performance of our mobile phones will be greatly improved this year. The performance improvement of more than 40% is already very good!"

Fu Zhengyang at the side also said with a smile: "Fruit has been trying its best to catch up, but in the end it still continues to use TSMC's 16nm process. Although their 16nm process has been improved this year and the number of transistors has been increased, they are still behind us!"

Xu Shenxue said: "Keep it up. We still need to maintain our advantage in mobile phone performance this year. We can't let our competitors catch up!"

Xie Jianyong, who accompanied the inspection, said: "It's not a big problem. Our new generation S16 mobile phone will, as always, use the latest top-level chips, as well as matching memory and flash memory. In addition, we will use 6GB of LPDDR4 running memory and fourth-generation flash memory in the MAX version. The performance is definitely in the leading position at the moment!"

"At the same time, we are also planning to use 16D face recognition and full-screen design on the S16 and S3 Pro, which will definitely give a crushing blow to other manufacturers."

Xu Shenxue said: "That's good, but if the S16 standard version and Pro also use full screen, I heard that you will continue to use LCD screens?"

Xie Jianyong said: "Yes, the main problem is the cost of OLED screens. Especially the OLED screens that can meet our technical requirements are too expensive. As for inferior OLEDs, there are also acceptable costs, but the display performance is too poor, which we cannot accept."

"Therefore, we have adopted some differentiation strategies this year. The S16MAX and the newly launched S16MAX Pro continue to use top-level OLED screens."

"The S16 and S16 Pro versions will use Huaxing Technology's new top-level LCD notch screen. When it is manufactured, except for the larger border, other impacts will not be significant, and the actual display effect will be better than those slightly inferior OLED screens."

"In fact, many colleagues in our R&D department think that the new top-level LCD screens of the standard version and Pro look better and are more comfortable than the OLED screen of last year's S15MAX."

Xu Shenxue didn't have much objection to this.

He is also very clear about the screen research and development situation at Huaxing Technology. Due to the current limitations of OLED technology, it is extremely expensive to produce an OLED screen that meets the S series.

And it is impossible for Zhiyun's S series mobile phones to be installed simply for the sake of an OLED screen, just like other brands of high-end mobile phones, where an ordinary OLED screen is installed.

In addition, Huaxing Technology's LCD screen technology is actually very good, and it can even be said to be one of the top LCD screens at present. It has been the main supplier of S series screens for several consecutive years, and LG is the secondary supplier.

Its newly developed new generation LCD screen has better display effect than last year, so there will be no problem in continuing to use it this year.

Not only Zhiyun continues to use LCD screens, but even its competitor Apple will most likely use LCD screens this year... Again, the OLED screens that can meet the standards of these two top flagship phones are too expensive... Unless you learn from Zhiyun and sell the screens at a starting price of 8,000, there will be no profit.

The internal purchase price of Zhiyun Group is more than 700 yuan for a six-inch OLED screen. This cost is still very expensive, and it is the most expensive component in the MAX series of mobile phones.

In addition to material costs, mobile phones also require a lot of costs such as R&D costs, administrative costs, marketing costs, after-sales costs, tax costs, etc. It is impossible to increase the material costs too high, otherwise there will be little profit.

Zhiyun’s S series of mobile phones have always been known for their high gross profit margins!

In order to ensure gross profit margin, S16 and S16Pro can only continue to use LCD screens.

However, this situation is expected to be resolved next year. After all, technology is advancing and the cost of top-level OLED screens continues to decline with large-scale shipments. By next year, the cost of Huaxing Technology's top-level OLED screens will drop to a more reasonable range.

By then, next year's S17 series will be able to use holographic OLED screens.

Now, it’s still a little early!
(End of this chapter)