Chapter 93 C2 Engineering Prototype

Chapter 93 C2 Engineering Prototype

Chapter 93 C2 Engineering Prototype
Whether it is mobile phone design or other industrial product design, it is actually a chain of links. When a problem occurs in one link, sacrifices need to be made in other aspects in order to cover up the problem, and finally a lot of messy problems will arise.

Xu Shenxue looked through the new engineering prototype, which had some changes in appearance but was similar to the C1 phone. After listening to Liu Huahao's words, he said, "So, the biggest problem now is power management?"

Xu Shenxue turned his head and looked at Xie Jianyong: "I didn't hear you say there was any problem with the power management of the flagship phone?"

Xie Jianyong said: "Because we did not use our own power management solution, but adopted the power management package solution provided by the foreign supplier Skyworks, including their best power management chip, so there is no problem in this regard!"

"As for our power management technology, it's still a bit limited and won't work on a flagship phone!"

Xu Shenxue said to Liu Huahao at this time: "Can't the C series use Skyworks' solution?"

Liu Huahao, the C2 project director, smiled bitterly: "We would like to use it, but it's too expensive and exceeds our cost budget!"

"Although our power management chips are also from foreign suppliers, the technology is still a little inferior, but the advantage is that they are cheap and can effectively reduce costs!"

Xu Shenxue said, "Sometimes we can't just control costs blindly. The premise of controlling costs is to make the phone good. Users spend around 3,000 yuan to buy a phone, you can't let them charge it only once every half a day. I remember that the power chip is not very expensive. Skyworks's is too expensive, so let's switch to another medium-sized manufacturer!"

“We need to be more flexible when doing things!”

Xu Shenxue sometimes feels somewhat helpless about the stubbornness of these scientific researchers... As soon as he tells them that C2 is a high-volume model and they need to control costs to maintain profits, they try their best to lower costs.

The power management problem was already exposed on the C1 mobile phone. Everything from the chip to the algorithm was not working well. Later, the power algorithm team spent a full two months on follow-up improvements, and finally optimized a barely usable algorithm. It also performed certain hardware management at the system level, thus solving this inherent defect on the C1 mobile phone.

But this set of things is useless on the C2 phone... because the overall energy consumption of the C2 phone is higher.

The problems at the system software level have been mostly solved, but as for the power management chip, it is a pure hardware problem. Although Zhiyun Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Technology, has launched a power chip project, it has not borne fruit so quickly.

Therefore, we can only continue to rely on suppliers.

The suppliers we use now are obviously not very good!
If Xu Shenxue had known about this problem earlier, he would have just changed the supplier without saying anything... But a pure R&D personnel like Liu Huahao, who is obsessed with cost, can only scratch his head and try to improve and solve the problem.

How else can you improve other people's chips? It's the best you can do to optimize the management algorithm at the system level, and don't expect anything else.

After hearing Xu Shenxue's suggestion to directly change the supplier, Liu Huahao was actually relieved... To be honest, their C2 project team has been troubled by this terrible power supply problem for a long time, and it has affected many other sub-projects. For example, in order to reduce power consumption and make the battery more durable, they all considered lowering the default brightness of the screen, so that the C2 prototype with the same settings looks slightly dimmer than the C1.

But it’s not that easy to replace the power management chip…

Xu Shenxue is the big boss, so it’s no big deal for him to just say a few words.

But if their project team wants to make a replacement, they will have to negotiate with the supply chain and the marketing department... because replacing the power management chip will lead to an increase in hardware costs and affect the supply chain plan.

For example, the supply chain hopes that the C2 project will continue to use the existing power management chip. If both C1 and C2 use the same power management chip, purchasing in larger quantities will help them lower prices and thus reduce the entire component procurement cost... and lowering procurement costs is the main core task of their supply chain.

The marketing department also has opinions... Your R&D department just said casually that the hardware cost has increased. What do you want the marketing department to do?

It's not just the power chip that's increasing in price, but also the SOC chip, battery, running memory, etc... This one has increased, that one has increased, and in the end you've made a mobile phone with high hardware costs. How do you want the people in the marketing department to sell it?
And today, Liu Huahao deliberately raised the problem, and finally made Xu Shenxue personally propose to replace the power chip!
After hearing Xu Shenxue say in person that he wanted to replace the power chip... Ji Chenghe on the side glanced at Liu Huahao in front of him with an unhappy expression!

This bald guy is so bold... He actually pretended to be building a plank road but secretly did something else. A few days ago, he vowed to me that he would control the hardware cost and work hard with the engineers to solve the power supply problem by ourselves. But now he turned around and complained, and then used Mr. Xu to increase the cost even more.

Ji Chenghe was naturally aware of the power problem, but he was the one who disagreed with replacing the power management chip...

Again, the hardware cost has been rising little by little. If everything is agreed, Ji Chenghe can easily guess that the engineers of the C2 project can raise the hardware cost to more than yuan...

That's a shitty money.

In addition to hardware costs, mobile phones also have patent costs as well as taxes, marketing, management and other costs.

After taking all these miscellaneous costs into account, this phone will still be a loss even if it is sold for 3,000 yuan.

If it doesn’t make money, what’s the point of having C2!
Why don't everyone just go for flagship phones... There aren't too many hardware cost restrictions for these things, so you can do whatever you want with them.

But since President Xu had already spoken, Ji Chenghe couldn't say anything. The cost increase of a small power management chip was still within his tolerance.

However, he still warned Liu Huahao with his eyes: "That's enough. If you make trouble again over the cost of spare parts, don't blame me for not respecting the friendship between colleagues!"

"It's easy for you to do research and development without worrying about the cost, but how can I sell the C2 with a huge increase in cost and ensure high profits?"

"If I can't sell it, I won't make any money. I won't get my options or my house. I'll kill you then..."

Liu Huahao naturally noticed Ji Chenghe's eyes, but he was too lazy to respond to him... He was just a liar who boasted every day outside the company and was stubborn inside the company, not allowing people to use this or that!

Trying to get him to make concessions on hardware costs is like asking for his life... He threatens me by slamming the table every other day!
To make a good mobile phone, you need to use good parts. It is normal that good parts are a little more expensive!

There are good power chips on the market, but you just won’t let me use them... Are you eating your rice, damn!

Of course, although he ignored him, Liu Huahao did not continue to provoke Ji Chenghe... Maybe in front of outsiders, Ji Chenghe was just a talkative braggart who criticized this and that every day, and always said that Zhiyun Technology was the best in the world and how awesome its technology was.

But in front of Mr. Xu, he likes to talk about all kinds of nonsense and brand strategies that sound like a scam.

However, in the eyes of several R&D directors in the R&D department, Ji Chenghe is a dead end... He always says that hardware costs must be controlled. This is too expensive, so don't use it. That is too expensive, so don't use it... Hey, why do you need 512 RAM for the standard version? Just use 256 RAM.

What about the 2-inch 275PPI screen on the C? That won’t work…it’s too expensive.

A 3.5-inch screen is fine, it is cheap and practical. If you insist on using a larger screen, you can only use a 960-inch screen on the Pro version at most, and you cannot use the extremely expensive 540x275 resolution, 854ppi screen. You can only use an 480x245, PPI screen.

After all the work, the four-inch C2 Pro prototype that Liu Huahao and his team made some time ago was criticized for being useless... In the end, it was because the cost was too high and there were many problems.

They forced Liu Huahao to abandon the original PRO model plan and come up with a low-profile four-inch Pro plan.

Therefore, Liu Huahao still has a lot of opinions about Ji Chenghe... He always feels that this guy, and even the people in the marketing department, are all stingy and obsessed with money.

Xu Shenxue had actually heard about some of the debates among his high-level subordinates, but he usually did not participate in person... Why?
If there was no pressure from the marketing department, the people in the R&D department could really make the C2 as a flagship phone...

At the same time, if the R&D department does not put some pressure on the marketing department, the marketing department will just muddle along and will not try hard to come up with various marketing plans.

Both parties have their own reasons and even interests, but Xu Shenxue doesn't care about anything else. He just needs to see a C2 phone that sells successfully and maintains high profits.

At this time, Xu Shenxue also pressed the power button of the C2 8GB standard version in his hand. The power-on interface still displayed the LOOG logo of the Zhiyun phone, a white cloud.

After turning on the machine, Xu Shenxue learned how to operate it simply.

Liu Huahao also explained: "This prototype is the 8GB version of China Unicom. The only difference from the 16GB version is the storage capacity. Everything else is the same!"

"The SOC chip is Qualcomm's 7227 chip, the running memory is 256MB, the storage capacity is 8GB, and the screen uses the 1-inch screen on the C3.5 phone, with a resolution of 800x480 and a pixel density of 267PPI."

“Because the screen and exterior design haven’t changed much, the overall appearance is similar to C1!”

"We changed the supplier of capacitive touch buttons, which are more sensitive and accurate!"

"As for the front camera, it has been upgraded from 30 pixels to 120 million pixels, and the rear camera is still million pixels!"

"The system currently used is the Yun OS 2.0 system that the system department is testing. I don't know much about the system, but recent tests show that it's pretty good!"

At this time, Song Haichang came out and began to explain the Yun OS 2.0 system!

(End of this chapter)